I was browsing online a couple of months ago when I came across the headline, “Petula Clark Turns 80.” What? That’s not possible. I remember when she was part of the British invasion, an icon of Swinging London, a mainstay of the Top Forty. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearing “Downtown” or “Don’t Sleep in the Subway” […]
Mind/Brain
When Rosemary Pryde was four years old, 63 years ago, she lost her hearing. No one knows exactly why: maybe the high fever, maybe the medications, maybe genetic – her father and his mother lost their hearing as adults. She didn’t lose her hearing completely; she had some residual in both ears. When she was […]
To the layman, the website for BabyPlus might seem plausible. The company sells devices that supposedly make babies smarter by playing sounds to them while still in the womb. The site claims that by strapping a speaker playing loud rhythmic sounds to her belly, an expectant mother ensures her child will be more relaxed, nurse […]
In early January, the sidewalks in my neighborhood are lined with discarded Christmas trees. It’s the collective holiday hangover trash, and quite frankly it makes me sad; the trees mark the moment of winter where all that is left are several cheerless months of cold and drudgery. My dog, however, goes apeshit over them. He […]
I’m not in the habit of feeling sorry for members of the British royal family. But last month, when the press reported that a pregnant Kate Middleton had been hospitalized with hyperemesis gravidarum, my stomach lurched in sympathy. Pregnancy-related hyperemesis is usually described as “severe morning sickness,” but that doesn’t capture the suffering it involves. […]
“Well, you know we only use about 10 per cent of our brain.” I don’t like when people tell me this. Someday, I hope to acquire the guts to issue the following rejoinder: “Which 10 per cent do you use?” But because I don’t like confrontation, I usually just make a face of mute disappointment […]
Anna Sumner’s craving for sleep began when she was an 18-year-old high school senior. She thought nothing of it. When it followed her to college, she blamed it on stress. She was working so hard, she told herself, her body just needed the extra rest. But it was more than that. She would choose naps […]
I should never argue about anything whatever with someone who understands math, especially someone who understands it as well as our boy, AG, here. But I wonder whether “disproportionate” isn’t confusing statistics with neuroscience. Let’s say AG is 30 years old, meaning he’s lived for 10,800 days, so finding the spider one day out of […]
