My new column about the brain has just gone up on the Discover web site. In it, I take a look at what happens when our brains get stretched, smushed, and otherwise injured. Brains don’t break like bones or rip like skin. Their injuries lurk down in the realm of molecules. And perhaps that’s where scientists will find a way to treat brain injuries. Check it out.
Originally published August 18, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
Discover, August 18, 2010
Every spring the National Football League conducts that most cherished of American rituals, the college draft. A couple of months before the event, prospective players show off their abilities in an athletic audition known as the combine. Last winter’s combine was different from that of previous years, though. Along with the traditional 40-yard dashes and bench presses, the latest crop of aspirants also had to log time in front of a computer, trying to solve a series of brainteasers. In one test, Xs and Os were sprinkled across the computer screen as the athletes took a test that measured how well they could remember the position of each letter. In another, words like red and blue appeared on the screen in different colors. The football players had to press a key as quickly as possible if the word matched its color.
Thanks to Mandarb for posting this clip from Weeds I was wondering about yesterday. I should point out that it’s a very abridged version of my original piece on the radio. For example, it sounds as if I’m giving God my own personal forgiveness for parasitic wasps. I was actually talking about a letter written by Darwin in which the wasps figured in his musings about God.
And I have to say that I’m not much closer to figuring out what parasitic wasps have to do with the show’s plot. I guess I’ll have to watch the whole episode. But–for the record–here it is:
Originally published August 17, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
I have a strange job. A few weeks back I was wandering through the aisles of the local Walmart, searching for bug spray, when my phone rang. A very excited Robert Krulwich was calling. As I drifted past the potato chips and plasma-screen TVs, he declared to me with great excitement that I was going to be on the cable series Weeds.
Continue reading “I have it on good authority my voice makes its cable TV premiere tonight”