A sweet deal

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today. Google warns users of phishing scam tied to calendar invites; how some people are able to remember every detail of their lives; and why we imagine ghosts as apparitions wrapped in bedsheets.

Let’s get into it!

Do you know anyone who can seemingly recall the exact details of any date you throw at them—where they were, what day of the week it was, or what they were wearing?

This is called highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), and though its existence was confirmed 20 years ago, scientists have struggled to understand how it’s possible and what exactly gives some people the ability to remember practically anything.

According to Colorado State University cognitive psychology professor Anne M. Cleary, most research up until this point has found no neuropsychological advantages in those who have HSAM, and most of that research has been based on theories surrounding voluntarily retrieval—or the act of intentionally recalling a past experience.

Cleary and a team of researchers published a new study in Neurocase based on a hypothesis involving involuntary autobiographical memory—the spontaneous recalling of past experiences.

The team found those with HSAM experience the recall of random experiences significantly more often than those without it, helping to fortify and permanently store otherwise innocuous memories.

In other words, if you consistently repeated a thought in your head in order to remember it (like a password or address), you’d likely remember it if asked to recall it shortly after thinking it. Those with HSAM experience this involuntarily at a possibly overwhelming rate, creating the conditions for the super power they possess.

A type of scam called calendar phishing saw a massive increase in attempts between July and August according to Sublime Security, a cybersecurity firm based in Washington, D.C.

Fraudsters attempt to bait users into clicking malicious links or calling malicious phone numbers leveraging the credibility of Google’s office suite features, including Gmail and Calendar.

Most accounts have their invitation settings set to “From everyone,” which allows anyone to put an event on their calendar as long as they have the person’s email address.

The invitation itself will usually contain a phishing link, but the calendar event will also contain information like “you just paid [an exorbitant amount of money] to renew your service.”

This is designed to bait users into clicking the provided link or calling the provided phone number, opening a line of communication with the malicious actors, who then attempt to collect banking details or convince the user to install malware disguised as a fix for the “mistaken billing.”

Google advises users to limit who can send them and add calendar invites/events, instructions for which you can find here.

Some research has suggested that listening to Mozart’s Sonata KV448 can relieve pain, and a new study suggests that’s not only true, but that listening to one’s own favourite music can have similar effects.

The study recruited 204 patients undergoing procedures that required the insertion of a cannula needle (which can be quite painful). A control group was played no music, while another listened to Mozart, and a third listened to music they identified as their own favourite.

"From the four conditions we examined, only favourite music and Mozart showed a positive effect," said Dr. Meritxell Garcia Alzamora of University Hospital Zürich, senior author of the article.

"Favourite music manifested a significant pain reduction effect both in patients with and without baseline pain—i.e., with preexisting pain before needle puncture. Mozart only showed significant pain relief in patients with preexisting pain."

The observations weren’t necessarily conclusive or exhaustive, but showed encouraging correlative effects between pain reduction and listening to one’s favourite music.

"I would recommend listening to music to patients, especially patients who like music in general," said Dr. Garcia Alzamora.

Spirits from beyond the grave could be present among the living, but it’s probably safe to say at this point that if they are, they aren’t donning white bedsheets.

Yet for centuries, this stereotype was prevalent among people of countless cultures, regions, religions, etc.

The history of the bedsheet-wearing ghost is rooted in the simple fact that for hundreds of years prior to the 1800s, people often wrapped their dead in burial shrouds rather than placing them in caskets. For those with the means, specifically-designed sheets would be used, but for the majority, the sheets of necessity came right off the deathbed.

As far back as the 1300s, stories were told of apparitions making themselves known to the living through bedsheets, including in The Psalter of Robert de Lisle’s “The Three Living and the Three Dead,” in which ghosts warned the living of their own mortality while wearing white bedsheets.

By the Victorian era, audiences understood the bedsheet as a theatrical device more so than a vector through which the departed would haunt the living, and by the 20th century, the bedsheet had completely transitioned from haunting to amusing.

Multi taskers

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