LAST night I put an oyster on my Seder plate.

While I didn’t particularly want to put something traif atop that most kosher of dishes, this Passover falls on the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. And since BP, the leaseholder of the failed well, seems intent with its new television ads on making us forget about the spill, I felt that something drastic was in order to help us remember. Combining the memorial powers of the Seder plate with the canary-in-the-coal-mine nature of the oyster seemed a good way to keep the disaster — and BP’s promises to clean up its mess — in mind.

At Passover, Paul Greneberg makes startling and effective use (effective because it is startling?) of a metaphor in an op-ed about the BP oil spill at The Times. At the end of the piece he suggests another effective shocker—placing a bowl of oil at the table along with the water for finger washing.

“The stopping of sounds and rhythms,” he added, “it’s really important, because, you know, how can I miss you unless you’re gone? If you just keep the thing going like a loop, eventually it loses its power.”

An insight like this may seem purely subjective, far removed from anything a scientist could measure. But now some scientists are aiming to do just that, trying to understand and quantify what makes music expressive — what specific aspects make one version of, say, a Beethoven sonata convey more emotion than another.

The results are contributing to a greater understanding of how the brain works and of the importance of music in human development, communication and cognition, and even as a potential therapeutic tool.

Fascinating reading at The New York Times—the article quotes Paul Simon, Roseanne Cash, Yo Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, and Daniel Levitin (This is Your Brain on Music). Conversations about synesthesia and stuff like this took over many a piano lesson when I was actually playing. When I think about this, I have to admit that I'd like to be able to understand and explain what makes one piece of music or one performance great, but I'd really just rather appreciate the genius of Mozart or Schubert and enjoy the gift that's been given us.

What's the Most Recent Development?

Renowned scientist and professor of neurology at Brown University, John Donoghue has made incredible advances in interfacing the human brain with computers, allowing paralyzed people to move objects by simply using their imagination. A small chip implanted in the brain picks up the right neural signals and beams them into a computer where they are translated into moving a cursor or controlling a computer keyboard. "By this means, paralysed people can move a robot arm or drive their own wheelchair, just by thinking about it."

What's the Big Idea?

The implications of a brain-computer interface are formidable, from transferring human consciousness onto a computer—in other words, immortality—to using the technology to read people's minds. Military establishments are interested in Dr. Donoghue's research in order to enhance interrogations methods. Were interrogators able to interface the mind of a prisoner with a computer, perhaps information could be extracted they could use to prevent criminal acts and save lives. It seems the next phase of evolution will be synthetic, rather than purely biological. 

Read it at The Guardian

I am so thankful for ideas like this. So much is available to us now that patients could not take advantage of ten years ago or so. What ideas like this will become commonplace in another ten years? Bioness is unbelievably helpful to me, and in a short time it will probably be outdated, just old technology.

 

Author Diane Ackerman

Toshi Otsuki

Diane Ackerman: "One Hundred Names for Love"

Writer Diane Ackerman's husband was a novelist, a poet and a lover of language before he suffered a massive stroke. It left him able to utter only a single syllable. The story of how his wife helped him rediscover language and how their love changed.

When writer Diane Ackerman's husband of 35 years suffered a massive stroke, he lost his command of language. In the beginning, he could only utter one syllable, "mem." And for Paul West, a writer, poet, and professor, that was a devastating blow. Over the next six years, his wife refused to give up hope. She saturated him with language and never left his side. Now Diane Ackerman has written about the experience in a new memoir titled "One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing." In it, she shares the touching story of their marriage and explores the role of becoming a caregiver.

A rare treat this morning—the opportunity to listen to Diane Ackerman tell the story of her husband's stroke and his recovery, including the loss and recovery of language. I appreciate the insights into stroke, the love and concern for her husband, and the support that was recounted, and I especially need to be more sensitive to understanding the caregiver's life after the stroke of a spouse. In the story that was told  It was good to hear the way Ackerman debunked the belief that functions not recovered during the first three months after a stroke would not be recovered at all, and I loved the repeated message of maintaining hope for and confidence in the patient's recovery and the pet names that Paul developed for Diane. Though I have regained my speech, I envy the way Ackerman encouraged her husband to write the story of his stroke experience. I still have a desire to capture my stroke experience in writing, and I am intrigued by this effort, by Jill Taylor's book, and by The Diving Bell and  and the Butterfly.

I've already been to the Kindle Store to get this new book.