In the past, health experts warned us that the day would come in which it would become very difficult to provide medical care for even common problems, such as lung infection or severe sore throat.
After age 50, it's quite common to have trouble remembering the names of people, places, and things quickly, says Dr. Kirk Daffner of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
To illustrate these mindsets in action, I'm going to take you back to 19th-century France, where this innocuous-looking piece of paper launched one of the biggest political scandals in history.
This reference, and others, show us that earworms seem to be a basic psychological phenomenon, perhaps exacerbated by recording technology but not new to this century.
Like cats, babies appear to engage in what's called " preferential looking" — looking longer at things that are interesting or unusual than things they perceive as normal.