Jerome and Rosella Goddard Pen Scientific Thriller Novel

STARKVILLE, Miss. — Jerome Goddard, a research scientist at Mississippi State University, and wife Rosella, have authord a new book titled “Living Memories.” It’s a thriller based on the premise that memory can function as a virus, spread from person to person, and (in an “Inception”-like twist) be manipulated by outsiders to spread paranoia and fear.

Goddard is an entomologist, but he wrote a theoretical paper about viral dreams in 2005 that was published by the journal Medical Hypotheses, based on his own fascination with the way mad cow disease works through proteins. Goddard began looking into memory research and the idea that traumatic memories function like viruses (infecting the nervous system, going latent only to re-emerge later, even propagating themselves). His novel was well under way when UC-Berkeley scientists announced, in September 2011, that they could capture the brain’s visual activity on video – something very similar to Goddard’s premise that traumatic memories could be captured and spread like a virus.

The University of West Alabama ’s Livingston Press has released the book. Visit http://livingstonpress.uwa.edu/htm%20(web%20pages)/living_memories.htm.