Bird memorized phone number 

A lost budgerigar puzzled a family who found it by persistently repeating “223723”. Then Mrs Gloria Froggatt, of Minver Crescent, Aspley, Nottingham dialled the figures on her telephone, and the bird's owner answered. 
Mrs Muriel Hydes, a widow, of Blandford Road, Chilwell Nottingham, had taught her pet to repeat the number. Appeals had been made on local radio for the missing bird. 
Wednesday May 18 1977 — Archives, The Times, 1977, UK, English
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Weakening synapses to cull memories...
From correct answers on a school exam to a loved one's birthday, we have all forgotten things we wish we had not. The ability to forget, however, is a feature rather than a flaw of how our brains work. As the celebrated author Jorge Luis Borges wrote about a man incapable of forgetting, Funes the Memorious, “I suspect, however, that he was not very capable of thought. To think is to forget differences, generalize, make abstractions.” Although Funes's example is literary, it contains a grain of truth. 
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"Funes the Memorious"—original Spanish title "Funes el memorioso"[1]—is a fantasy short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986). First published in La Nación of June 1942, it appeared in the 1944 anthology Ficciones, part two (Artifices). The first English translation appeared in 1954.

"Funes the Memorious" is the tale of one Ireneo Funes, who, after falling off his horse and receiving a bad head injury, acquired the amazing talent—or curse—of remembering absolutely everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funes_the_Memorious
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Back to the synapses
Neuroscientists have traditionally paid more attention to how the brain remembers than how it forgets, but there is increasing clarity about mechanisms and roles of forgetting. By forgetting, we prioritize and separate the useful from the irrelevant and more easily reorganize information to learn. On page 44 of this issue (Science 4 January 2019), Awasthi et al. show that the Ca2+-sensing protein synaptotagmin-3 (SYT3) is essential for synaptic weakening and link this molecular process to beneficial forgetting in mice.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6422/31

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Gus:

We learn to forget, we learn to remember… Either way, the brain’s Ca2+-sensing protein synaptotagmin-3 (SYT3) in synapses help us to think by manipulating what we remember, I would suggest our brain naturally “forgets" in order to create/absorb/reject new ideas and become adventurous or not. This mechanism could also be helping us in the management of pain.

Memory management is not unique to humans. 

Birds seem to go along with change, by adapting to relative change. The leaders of the flock and/or the individuals remember where the flowers are, where the flowers are not and where they will be. They have to be “flexible” on memorising their feeding sites — as well as trying pot luck. Pot luck isn't an option in many cases, though spiders take a punt that, on average, they will catch something. This is not assured.

A hunting spider will go places it never has gone to before.

A web-making spider will make a web suitable for the “chosen” spacial environment. Length of stays and reinforcement of footings will be adjusted to the location. The spider is not doing the same web again and again should the location be disturbed. Often garden spiders will let a strand of silk be taken by the breeze to catch onto “something” From there, the spider will make a choice as whether this new “something” (a leaf, a branch, a piece of furniture) is suitable as a (solid) anchor point — or a mid-status anchor from where to drop to a lower level. Often a web-making spider will mark the chosen middle point of the web with a few loops of silk. I have seen spiders strands across four metres (picture at top: "Fred Stripey" did a web that went across five metres) and cunningly enough, the middle point is not far off two metres on either side as if measured by a ruler. I guess it could be measured by the spider in regard to the number of strides it made on the “wire” then it finds the midway point. It’s far cleverer than it looks. By end of web making, the spider will "eat" the mid-point and stay put there, often extending one leg only, like an angler with a finger on the fishing line. 

Should there be several possibility of anchor points around the web, it seems the spider will use them as much as possible but in the case of not many (such spiders always need a minimum of three anchor points), it will use stronger strands of silk (often done by doubling or tripling the strands) to anchor cross strands on which to stick the final spiralling web. Spiders have a memory of purpose, using innate instinct and learnt experiences, of building and of adaptation and willpower — as well as the "reserve of silk". A starved spider will build a much smaller web. A big web can be built in less than 30 minutes.


I have ventured many times to say that we never forget. I could be wrong but. What we really do is reclassify the importance of what we know. From time to time, as we get older, there will be a bubble popping out from the sedimental mud of our memory, where stuff we though we had forgotten comes back to mind. By the sheer fact of thinking “we had forgotten” means we actually “did not forget” but that we could not recall. 

This is where the various imprint of memory comes it: short term, mid term and long term. The intensity of the emotional shift in relation to memory often dictate how we are going to remember. 

With dementia, the mud of our memory is slowly erased. Our memory’s ability to recall is vanishing and the capacity to learn new tricks is disappearing. Not only we cannot recall, we are loosing the sense of self as well.

Memory and the delta shifts of memory are what create our consciousness. Loosing our memory base, we loose our consciousness. We become unself.

Then the well-fed spider, having caught enough insects will use silk to build a strong "nest", often looking like a cocoon attached to the underside of a leaf, for its eggs. When the time is right, the eggs will hatch and the little spiders will feed on the silk, possibly attack each other and build a “communal” web — a conglomeration of many small individual webs. See below. (pictures by Gus Leonisky)