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This is the experience of someone suffering from a Capgras delusion, a rare medical disorder in which a person becomes convinced that a loved one has been replaced by someone pretending to be that loved one. The unsettling condition is the topic of this week's episode of Radiolab, entitled "Do I Know You?", and the producers invited Dr. Carol Berman and Dr. V.S. Ramachandran on the program to talk about it.

No one knows exactly what causes Capgras delusions. The doctors cite one example in which the delusions started after a coma and another in which they came in the midst of general dementia. But they can also start out of the blue, which is a terrifying prospect.

Dr. Berman, a psychologist, hypothesizes that Capgras delusions are an individual's way of dissociating a loved one from some perceived flaw—some sort of psychotic denial. This woman is being cruel, and I know my mother to be kind, so this must be an imposter.

Dr. Ramachandran, luxuriously rolling his "r's," suggests that the delusions are caused by faulty circuity in the brain. We identify our loved ones, he says, by their familiar faces but also by the familiar emotions they evoke. If our brain no longer registers those emotions, we deem them an imposter. This woman looks like my mother, but she doesn't make me feel the way my mother makes me feel, so this must be an imposter.

Often times, the individuals subject to the delusions are perfectly normal otherwise. And the conditions that trigger the episodes are oddly narrow. If a person subject to Capgras delusions talks to the loved one on the phone, he recognizes her instantly and converses as normal. It's only in seeing her that the break occurs.

Over the course of the week we've looked at many ways in which memory—human and otherwise—is fallible. But hearing about Capgras delusions and the individuals who suffer from them serves to remind that some memories are more essential than others. [RadioLab]

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Memory [Forever] is our week-long consideration of what it really means when our memories, encoded in bits, flow in a million directions, and might truly live forever.

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Chyr, who has degrees in economics and physics, learned the art of balloon-twisting at Le Vorris & Vox Circus. His most recent project is Balluminescence, a collection of huge balloon sculptures modeled on creatures that generated their own light through bioluminescence.

The project's pièce de résistance was a giant jellyfish, constructed from over a 1000 balloons. A friend recorded this time lapse video of Chyr and his cohorts installing the creature in Chicago's Millenium Park last Fall:

The Millenium Park event, entitled Balluminescence - Lights, Balloons, Jellyfish!, was commissioned by Science Chicago and taught kids about jellyfish biology, as well as how to make some balloon animals of their own. Undoubtedly, some kids had trouble with the tricky process, and were told, "there, there, say 'please,' and I'm sure the nice man will make you a zooplankton." [Willy Chyr via It's Nice That]

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For nearly a decade, police have regularly visited Martin's home in Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband, Watler. She never has any information on the criminals in question, but police continue to be dispatched to her address nonetheless.

Prompted by an investigation by the NY Daily News, the New York Police Department traced the problem to a test of their computer system in 2002 in which the Martins' residence in Brooklyn was used as a test address (they couldn't say why). NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne promised that the address had been eradicated from the database and that the law-abiding Martins would be left alone.

But just when you thought the case was closed, the NY Daily News offers a compelling twist. The home's previous owner, who sold it to the Martins in 1997 (five years before the alleged test), moved for the very same reason. Back then, too, cops were continually visiting the home, reportedly in response to several bogus reports from a "still-unknown tormentor." Sometimes a house is just destined to be a hide-out. [NY Daily News]

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