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Comment by plq | Hacker News Reader

I remember the Jill Price case. Turned out she was obsessively going over all her memories, non-stop, all the time. So hers was a normal brain, just trained very well to retain memories by unending repetition.

I just skimmed the article, but findings seem no different -- only more people are found to have this condition, and it actually has a sciencey name now: HSAM.

I wonder why BBC is running a story about this again?

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> I wonder why BBC is running a story about this again?

The BBC's science reporting is just shitty. They will repeat essentially any claim that is told to them. Off the top of my head, I can recall:

* They ran an article about a "three-headed frog" discovered by some schoolchildren, when in reality it was obviously three frogs engaged in amplexus. [0]

* They ran an article about an entirely forgettable mathematical crackpot who claimed to have "solved" division by zero. [1]

* They ran an article about blondes going extinct. [2]

* They ran an article that was essentially the plot of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine. [3]

[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/3534361....

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/content/articles/2006/12/06/d...

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2284783.stm

[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/6057734.stm

I thought you were exaggerating, but dear God.

I know content is king... But seriously this is just sad.

Because it's fantastical to think that some people have superpowers even though that's not the case. As an anecdote, I've met a couple of people who have claimed to have eidetic memories. All have turned out to be full of s++t :)

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