Timothy Leary's papers purchased by New York Public Library

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The New York Times reports that the New York Public Library have purchased 335 boxes of papers, videotapes, photographs and more from Timothy Leary's estate.

"Robert Greenfield, who combed through the archive when it was kept in California, for his 2007 biography of Leary, said: “It is a unique firsthand archive of the 1960s. Leary was at the epicenter of what was going on back then, and some of the stuff in there is extraordinary.”

Some good events coming up at The Idler Academy

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These are my own particular favourites, but you can find the full programme of events here.

30 March 2011 - Gavin Pretor-Pinney: The Art of Cloud Collecting
6 April 2011 - Will Self: Philosophers’ Forum
20 April  2011 - John Nicholson on John Michell
30 April 2011 - How to Escape the Nine to Five with Tom Hodgkinson and Graham Burnett
11 May 2011 - Louis Theroux
14 May 2011 - Edible London: Learn to Forage and Feast in the City with Robin Harford
18 May 2011 - Bill Drummond: IMAJINE
7 June 2011- A Symposium with Oliver James: What Is Sanity?
8 June 2011 - Prof Ronald Hutton: The Battle for Merry England
29 June 2011 - Anarchist Question Time with Penny Rimbaud, Ian Bone and Peter Good
 

Brain handles memories differently when asleep

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Wired reports the findings of a new study by researchers in Germany and Switzerland that shows that the brain handles memories differently during sleep than while awake:

"Replaying memories while people are awake leaves their memories subject to tinkering. But reactivating memories during sleep protects them from interference, researchers in Germany and Switzerland report online January 23 in Nature Neuroscience."

Mindfulness meditation can change brain structure in eight weeks

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"Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter."

Read the full article at PhysOrg.com.

Timothy Leary on the Culture of Secrecy

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"Secrecy is the original sin. The fig leaf in the Garden of Eden. The basic crime against love. The issue is fundamental."

In the current climate of leaking secrets by the likes of WikiLeaks and Aljazeera, Truthout have reprinted a prescient extract from Neuropolitics written by Timothy Leary in May 1973 while he was in Folsom Prison. Read the full article here.