Ever get the urge to learn something new? Well you aren’t going to become a genius by sitting around watching TV. You could, however, boost your brain power by sitting around playing with your mobile device. Download some of these apps to take your brain one step closer to genius level.   10. Atavist: Taking Books Into the Future Image via DownloadAtoZ While many of us mourn the slow passing of books, apps like Atavist will provide some level of comfort. If the book dies, at least something as refreshing and unique as Atavist will take its place. Atavist offers several advantages for boosting…

We take our brains for granted. If you’re reading this, you’re using your brain. If you stop using this, you’re still using your brain. In fact, there’s not a moment in your life that goes by when you’re not using your brain even if you try to “clear your head” and let the thinking stop. It won’t. It’s constant. What many may not know consciously is that there are two types of thinking happening at all times. It manifests more clearly when we’re presented with certain types of problems that force our brains to go into full action mode. This video by AsapSCIENCE gives us some food for thought about… thoughts….

The brain is a wonderful creation and the internet is often used to enhance or complement the capacity and recall within our most important organ. Unfortunately, technology has made it possible for us to actually overload our brains through the speed and volume through which we’re able to multitask online. How many tabs are open on your computer right now? How many screens are you using? Is your iPad or smartphone close and do they have other things happening on them at the same time that you’re reading this? We live in a multitasking world where productivity and enjoyment are often gauged by how…

The manner by which humans retain and retrieve information is an area widely explored and as of yet not completely understood. The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillian connections. This amounts to quite a large storage capacity. Our friends at Mindflash examine how the brain retains all this information and displays it visually – after all, visuals are the easiest media to retain for most. Click to enlarge. …

Silk is being used to make electronics that stick to the brain. A far cry from fabric but doctors are hoping that using silk will help them explore parts of the brain that they weren’t previously able to. “This development heralds a new class of implantable devices, not just for the brain, but for many other tissues,” said neurologist Brian Litt of the University of Pennsylvania, in an interview with Wired.com. Engineers chose to use silk because it’s easily stretched and the material is super thin, making it easy to mould and work with, making for better brain-computer interfaces. BCI’s…

Looking for a cool way to spend your life’s savings? For around $100,000 you can do just that by purchasing Hitachi’s encephalometer, a device that enables the user to monitor their own brain activity (making sense of the data, however, might be a bit more challenging). The scanner works by shining red light at your brain, and it is then reflected back towards the sensors (something about pointing lasers at your brain doesn’t sound right), and it then measures hemoglobin activity. That’s all medical jargon for simply seeing what goes on inside that big head of yours. We will all have an opportunity…