The New 'Mad' Scientists

Belgian neuroscientists studied what happened when test subjects stayed up all night after playing Duke Nukem. The answer: Sleep deprivation made it harder to remember the layout of the game. Annalee Newitz has the scoop.

AlterNet: MediaCulture: The New 'Mad' Scientists: "It turns out that sleeping allows the brain to reorganize our spatial memories, moving them from the short-term memory zone of the hippocampus to the long-term memory zone of the striatum (an area of the brain also associated with body movement). So, if you stay up all night killing aliens and go to work or school the next day, you won't remember very well the layout of the game you played."

More details from the BBC: Duke Nukem sheds light on brain