How We Know Space

Posted on December 4, 2014July 13, 2020 by Lori Jia

Discover, December 4, 2014

The great philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that nothing matters more to our existence than space. Every experience we have—from the thoughts in our heads to the stars we see wheeling through the sky—makes sense only if we can assign it a location. “We never can imagine or make a representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space,” he wrote in 1781.

Try it yourself: A world without space just does not seem to make sense. But for some people it is everyday life. Strokes can rob us of space. So can brain injuries and tumors.

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Making Time

Posted on December 4, 2014July 13, 2020 by Lori Jia

Discover, December 4, 2014

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Whenever I lose my watch, I take my sweet time to get a new one. I savor the freedom from my compulsion to carve my days into minute-size fragments. But my liberty has its limits. Even if I get rid of the clock strapped to my wrist, I cannot escape the one in my head. The human brain keeps time, from the flicker of milliseconds to the languorous unfurling of hours and days and years. It is the product of hundreds of millions of years of relentless evolution.

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The Evolution of Sleep: 700 Million Years of Melatonin

Posted on October 2, 2014May 24, 2020 by Lori Jia

The New York Times, October 2, 2014

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As much as we may try to deny it, Earth’s cycle of day and night rules our lives.

When the sun sets, the encroaching darkness sets off a chain of molecular events spreading from our eyes to our pineal gland, which oozes a hormone called melatonin into the brain. When the melatonin latches onto neurons, it alters their electrical rhythm, nudging the brain into the realm of sleep.

At dawn, sunlight snuffs out the melatonin, forcing the brain back to its wakeful pattern again.

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A Tiny Emissary From the Ancient Past

Posted on September 25, 2014May 28, 2020 by Lori Jia

The New York Times, September 25, 2014

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In the early 1920s, farmers in New Jersey noticed their potatoes were shriveling, their leaves becoming deformed. The plants were sick with an illness that came to be known as potato spindle tuber disease. But it took almost five decades for someone to find the cause.

In 1971, Theodor O. Diener, a plant pathologist at the Department of Agriculture, discovered that the culprit is an inconceivably tiny pathogen — one-80th the size of a virus. Dr. Diener called it a viroid.

Since Dr. Diener’s initial discovery, scientists have identified nearly three dozen species of viroids that attack crops from tomatoes to coconuts, as well as flowers such as dahlias and chrysanthemums.

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The Genius of the Jock

Posted on August 19, 2014July 13, 2020 by Lori Jia

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The qualities that set a great athlete apart from the rest of us lie not just in the muscles and the lungs but also between the ears. That’s because athletes need to make complicated decisions in a flash. One of the most spectacular examples of the athletic brain operating at top speed came in 2001, when the Yankees were in an American League playoff game with the Oakland Athletics. Shortstop Derek Jeter managed to grab an errant throw coming in from right field and then gently tossed the ball to catcher Jorge Posada, who tagged the base runner at home plate. Jeter’s quick decision saved the game—and the series—for the Yankees.

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