Weird Science and the remembrance of fists past

http://www.flickr.com/photos/indytrendyskits/8014849719/

I'm just trying to remember why I want to punch you. The right and left halves of the brain are somewhat specialized. Perceptions and actions on the right side of the body are handled on the left, and various other functions are often handled by one side or the other. That's fairly common knowledge, but most people probably don't realize how tightly entwined these things are. Taking simple actions with the right side of the body—say, clenching your fist—can increase the activity across wide areas of the brain on the left. Doing so will increase the experience of things handled on the left side, which happens to include intense emotions like happiness and anger. So, clenching the left fist increases the experience of anxiety and sadness.

That's old news, but the findings prompted recent work that involves the specialization of the right and left sides of the brain for memory. The left side is more strongly involved in encoding memories, while the right does more work during retrieval. And, sure enough, clenching the left fist helped people with recall tasks, while clenching the right during memorization also helped boost performance. So, next time you're struggling with a test, remember to clench your left fist.

The healthy aroma of subway bacteria. Anybody who's stepped onto a subway platform during the heat of the summer would be forgiven for thinking that the air had been festering deep in the system for years and probably represents a threat to human life. Fortunately, that just isn't so. A team from the University of Colorado decided to sample the microbes in the subway, and found that it's actually a relatively simple environment. It doesn't even change much with the seasons.