NYTimes Science Times: Slices, quivers, and interior fragments of brain and mind
By design or not during a holiday season where many people try to think positive thoughts and believers offer prayers of wonderment and hope, Science Times this week does its part to boost one’s opinion of humanity. There is not a single tale of us killing Earth’s familiar climate, or sociopathology, or drug-resistant diseases. Uplifting stories of life, of invention, of music, and of cleverness abound.
An ancient church pipe organ and a new, near-identical one are the stars of Guy Gugliotta‘s lead story. The tale is not a report on science – but rather on precision craftsmanship aided by modern technology and engineers’ understanding of acoustics. It relates the near-duplication, down to where the nails go and the florid ornamentation, of an enormous, 18th century Germano-Baltic organ that does not even work but is all there for copying. The Baroque dupe is in Rochester, New York. Again, one is unsure of any research angle. But it’s that time of year, and it fits the section as well as would, say, a detailed account of how fragile dinosaur bones are turned into gleaming and essentially artificial skeletons for a natural history museum – or, for that matter, as the basis for animatronic monsters. Plus, a pipe organ at full throat pierces the conscious brain, vibrating ventricles and cortices and altering one’s mental state.
That’s a transition, awkwardly done. Two other pieces on dissecting the contents of human skulls have a stunning correspondence, even though not twinned by layout or editor’s comment. Benedict Carey writes of a Search Engine Of the Brain. The news is of a neuroanatomy project to thin-slice cadaver brains and digitize their images at unprecedented detail. Well inside, by Jascha Hoffman, is a “Scientist at Work” profile of a psychologists doing his best to chart the landscape of fleeting thoughts that ordinary people have as they go through their days, musing in words, images, melodies, inchoate urges, and more. The project, as the story notes, has objectivity problems. It relies on people to describe the contents of their own mental snapshots. We are all such liars about what we’re really thinking. But nobody apparently has tried this at all until now.
Other headlines to note:
- Natalie Angier: Sorry, Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too ; A wonderful paean to the complex behaviors and strategies for survival that have evolved among plants. The Tracker, for one, is however baffled by its central theme – that the survival tactics of vegetation in any way make it, or consumption of it, an issue in the ethics of killing individuals usually reserved for sentient, perceptive, and volitional entities. That’s nuts.
- Henry Fountain ; Working as a Team, Bacteria Spin Gears ; A shorty from the Observatory roundup – one can understand it completely, with satisfaction.
- John Noble Wilford: Excavation sites Shows Distinct Living Areas Early in Stone Age; and by early, Wilford means before Homo sapiens. The site is in Israel. The news is an example of scientifically meaningful archeology – a contrast to the small media fuss this week over 2000-year-old dwelling remnants unearthed next to a church in Nazareth.
- Milt Freudenheim: Tool in Cystic Fibrosis Fight: A Registry ;
- Denise Grady : Very sick, and Now A Curiosity ; Marberg fever and a Colorado woman who somehow got through it.
- Kenneth Chang: Teachers Defying Gravity to Gain Students’ Interest ; Or, why to spend money giving science teachers unforgettable adventures.
As usual, lots more. Whole Section.
Elsewhere in this week’s NYTimes:
- Todd Woody: Desert Vistas vs. Solar Power ; On California, the Mojave National Monument, and the halt of plans by green energy investors to use some of the desert’s vast stretches to harness sunlight and wind. Woody writes that this may “complicate” alternative energy ambitions in the state. One wishes he’d indicated how badly it complicates them – there is lot of acreage out there that is not national monument or park. Ironic part is that this reports Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as among those unhappy with energy development limitations in the scenic desert (and an investor in solar farms) – isn’t he on the OTHER side of similar worries near scenic Cape Cod?
- Charlie Petit
