Discover, October 26, 2010

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In some of the world’s oldest medical texts­­ — papyrus scrolls from ancient Egypt, clay tablets from Assyria — people complain about noise in their ears. Some of them call it a buzzing. Others describe it as whispering or even singing. Today we call such conditions tinnitus. In the distant past, doctors offered all sorts of strange cures for it. The Assyrians poured rose extract into the ear through a bronze tube. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder suggested that earthworms boiled in goose grease be put in the ear. Medieval Welsh physicians in the town of Myddfai recommended that their patients take a freshly baked loaf of bread out of the oven, cut it in two, “and apply to both ears as hot as can be borne, bind and thus produce perspiration, and by the help of god you will be cured.”

Continue reading ““Ringing in the Ears” Actually Goes Much Deeper Than That” →

The Atlantic, October 14, 2010

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For about fifteen years now, writing books has been an essential part of my life. But this summer I started to rethink what it really means to publish a book.

This year well-established authors like John Edgar Wideman began to do something radical: they started working directly with eBook sellers like Kindle and Lulu. I was reminded of the early days of blogging. Blogging presented a new way to publish an article. A writer could get an idea, create a piece of whatever length the idea demanded, and publish it with the press of a button. I started blogging myself, and have done so ever since. But I didn’t give up writing those conventional articles; blogs simply opened up a niche that didn’t exist before.

Continue reading “How Writers Can Turn Their Archives into eBooks” →

Discover, September 21, 2010

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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.

The nonexistence of space may certainly be hard to imagine. But for some people it is part of everyday life. Strokes can rob us of space. So can brain injuries and tumors.

Continue reading “The Places in the Brain Where Space Lives” →

The New York Times, September 20, 2010

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The New York Times, August 30, 2010

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