The Places in the Brain Where Space Lives

Posted on September 21, 2010May 28, 2020 by admin

Discover, September 21, 2010

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.

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Sizing Up Consciousness by Its Bits

Posted on September 20, 2010May 28, 2020 by admin

The New York Times, September 20, 2010

Link

One day in 2007, Dr. Giulio Tononi lay on a hospital stretcher as an anesthesiologist prepared him for surgery. For Dr. Tononi, it was a moment of intellectual exhilaration. He is a distinguished chair in consciousness science at the University of Wisconsin, and for much of his life he has been developing a theory of consciousness. Lying in the hospital, Dr. Tononi finally had a chance to become his own experiment.

The anesthesiologist was preparing to give Dr. Tononi one drug to render him unconscious, and another one to block muscle movements.

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In Praise of Mistakes [Science tattoo]

Posted on September 18, 2010July 18, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

Andrew, a medical student, writes,

“I recently got a tattoo of Penicillin G on my arm. As someone who stumbled into medical school as a non-traditional student after a few career missteps, I appreciate a good mistake. There are few mistakes that were as amazing and important to medicine as the ‘discovery’ of Penicillin. Had Alexander Fleming remembered to close his laboratory’s window, who knows where we would be in the fight against infectious disease?”

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Science blog networks now officially kudzu-esque

Posted on September 15, 2010July 18, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

This is one of those meta stories that just won’t quit. Over the summer, scienceblogs.com lost a bunch of bloggers thanks to a certain bubbly beverage. A lot of the bloggers moved off to set up their own blogs elsewhere, which I tried to track in this post.

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Richard Preston speaking next Monday at Yale

Posted on September 13, 2010July 18, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

One of the pleasures of teaching a writing class at Yale is that I can rope in some excellent writers to give talks there. Next Monday, Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone, The Wild Trees, and many other books and New Yorker articles, will be coming to New Haven to give a public lecture. Please join us!

When: September 20, 2010, 5:30 p.m.

Where:
Burke Auditorium, Kroon Hall
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
195 Prospect St.
New Haven, CT