As a physician, health plan admin, and screenwriter, Mensan Csaba Mera endeavors to let patients die on their terms. He co-wrote the film Here Awhile as part of his quest to bring choice and dignity to end-of-life planning.

Covid-19 has brought many new words and phrases front and center in the American lexicon: Zoom meeting, social distance, ventilator…. The pandemic has also forced millions of intubations. A respiratory therapist recalls his first — and the confusing command that followed.

Monkey Brain is the construct Mensan Kent Keith uses to describe the subconscious programming that runs our lives. Think of it as the amalgamation of our brain’s many autonomous programs that control all sorts of functions we’re not aware of at any given moment.

Journey to Royal: A WWII Rescue Mission, produced by Mensan Mariana Tosca, p.g.a. and written and directed by Christopher Johnson, seeks to preserve the legacy of the 4th Emergency Rescue Squadron, whose men saved 576 lives during the war.

There’s a new Special Interest Group in town, replete with wand-wielding maniacs and spacefaring adventures: the Dungeons M Dragons SIG. We formed to help gamers of all kinds find each other, form new groups, find new games, get advice on old ones, and simply have a good time.

Everyone knows that as we age, our metabolism slows down — we can’t eat the way we did when we were in our 20s. The same is true for alcohol metabolism. In inventing a product for my millennial daughter, I actually created a product for myself. How’s that for a happy accident?

Congratulations to Darius Stangu, who’s taking home two free tickets to the 2021 Mensa World Gathering including hotel accommodations and tickets to see Gala Dinner speaker LeVar Burton, courtesy of our friends at GEICO.

Award recipients include a statistical geneticist whose research identified hundreds of genes highly correlated to variations in intelligence, a lifelong pioneer of pedagogy and educational models, a Houston-based literacy and community-building nonprofit, and more.