Rats and Long Term Memory
American scientists came up (and demonstrated) with an interesting theory to explain why some events are remembered and some others are not. To keep it simple, when a gene is triggered repeatedly with enough strength, chemical reactions occur and permanent links are created. Depending on the intensity, the duration of the neuron link varies. The article is very detailed, but should still be understandable by most.
The goal of the experiments were to understand the relations between short-term and long-term memory and see how memory passed from short-term to the other. As always, the tests have been made on lab rats brain cells. They actually made it to trigger the gene enough times to observe very strong links being formed. Is this a step towards cyber implants to improve children performence in school?