The sample comes from a hole about 2.5 inches deep drilled on Feb. 8 in a flat plate of sedimentary bedrock that the space agency managers have named "John Klein" in memory of a Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011.
Twenty years ago, Dr Ericsson tried to prove it by training some ordinary laboratory volunteers up to prodigy-level performance in a number-memory task.
These observations cover laboratory demonstrations, new uses for external interfaces, interface developments as well as flash memory and solid state drives.
His ten-person team of researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has battled Kandel to a draw by producing, in a dramatic series of experiments, fruit flies with photographic memory.