Ira Hyman

It’s been said there is more to discover about the human brain than in the entire universe.

The brain is certainly astonishing. Its nerve cells process sensory information, reason, learn, decide, emote, regulate functions, force sleep. People are their brains.

Why do annoying songs get stuck in my head?

Because you’re unfamiliar with the lyrics. People can recall the first verse of a song, but after the chorus, they might stumble over the words. The song becomes incomplete, which transforms into an intrusive thought, according to Ira Hyman Jr.…

May I check my mobile device during a meeting?

No.

But what if I'm expecting an important call?

No.

What makes snippets of popular songs go round and round in our heads? Which songs are likely to be earworms or 'sticky songs' and what sort of person is most susceptible to them? If an earworm is driving you mad, how do you get rid of it? And what might the wider mental health benefits…

I hate to sound all hard-core, fundamentalist, evangelical religious, but it just may be true that music is the instrument of the devil.

And if that’s the case, the music website Pandora.com is the devil’s stomping grounds, and the earworm — aka the song stuck in your head — is his…

You must not remember this. Indeed, it may be key to having a healthy brain. Our gray matter evolved to forget things; otherwise we’d have the images of every face we saw on the subway rattling around our head all day long. Yet we’re building computers with the capacity to remember everything.…

While smartphones have been used as a civilian tool for reporting crime, recent footage from a San Francisco murder scene has safety officials more concerned that handheld technology is making people oblivious to their surroundings.

The San Francisco Police Department says that security…

Addiction is a powerful word that gets thrown around a lot these days. There's drug addiction and alcohol addiction – we're all familiar with that. There's also sex addiction and gambling addiction.

But can we be addicted to our smartphones?…

We all do it: Texting while walking, sending emails during meetings, chatting on the phone while cooking dinner. In today’s society, doing just one thing at a time seems downright luxurious, even wasteful.

But chances are, you’re not doing yourself (or your boss, or your friends and…