Welcome to Quantum Magazine's podcast.

Each episode we bring you stories about developments in science and mathematics.

I'm Susan Vallett.

We often think of memory as a rerun of the past, a mental duplication of events and sensations that we've experienced. In the brain,

that would be like the same patterns of neural activity getting expressed again. For instance,

remembering a person's face might activate the same neural patterns as the ones foreseeing their face.

In some memory processes, something like this does occur.

But in recent years, researchers have repeatedly found subtle yet significant differences

between visual and memory representations.

The latter showed up consistently in slightly different locations in the brain.

Scientists weren't sure what to make of this transformation.

What function did it serve?

And what did it mean for the nature of memory itself?

Now they might have an answer.

That's next.

Imagine you're in a lab where you've synthesized ancient DNA sequences and spliced them into modern bacteria just to see how they'd react. They needed each other, but they didn't want each other.

So, you know, it was like a very complicated relationship unfolding in front of me.

This isn't Jurassic Park or some sci-fi movie.

I'm Steve Strogetz, and this is The Joy of Why.

A new podcast from Quantum Magazine that takes you into some of the biggest unanswered mysteries

in science and math today.

Join me on The Joy of Why as we explore these questions.

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