Memory feels like a recording — press play and there's the past. But the science tells a stranger story: remembering is an act of reconstruction, assembled fresh each time and quietly rewritten in the process. This episode explores how the brain encodes, stores and retrieves the moments that make up a life.

You'll come away understanding the difference between short-term and long-term memory, the role of a seahorse-shaped structure called the hippocampus, why sleep helps memories stick, and why even vivid memories can be wrong.

Talking Science is sponsored by Kinsoft. Visit www.kinsoft.com.au

Further reading: Eric Kandel, In Search of Memory; Nature Reviews Neuroscience – "Memory consolidation"; Queensland Brain Institute – "How are memories formed?" ...