The prestigious science journal Nature surveyed its readers to find out how many were using cognitive-enhancing drugs, and found one in five have boosted their brain power with compounds such as Ritalin.
"Poll results: look who's doping," says the headline in today's edition of the British journal. The informal Internet survey involved 1,400 people from 60 countries. Most were from the United States, but 78, or 5.5 per cent, were from Canada.
About 20 per cent of respondents said they had tried to improve their memory, concentration and focus by taking drugs for non-medical reasons.
They were asked about three drugs in particular: Ritalin, a stimulant used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; Modafinil, prescribed by doctors to treat sleep disorders but also used "off-label" to fight fatigue and jet lag, and beta blockers, which are usually prescribed to treat irregular heartbeats but can reduce anxiety.
The readers of the journal are mainly academics and scientists, but include people in other professions as well.
Neuroaesthetics is wrong about our experience of literature – and it is wrong about humanity Raymond Tallis
Not long ago A. S. Byatt published a TLS Commentary (“Observe the Neurones”, September 22, 2006) in which she purported to explain why, since she discovered John Donne’s poetry as a schoolgirl in the 1950s, she had found him “so very exciting”. She discussed some of his most compelling love poems and in places showed the kind of sensitive attention to the writer’s language and intention that we look for in a good, that is to say helpful, critic. This made it puzzling, indeed exasperating, that the primary concern of her piece was to explain the poems and their effect on her by appealing to contemporary neurophysiology. She took up this theme again in a shorter piece, on the novel, last year (November 30). The literary critic as neuroscience groupie is part of a growing trend.
We have become accustomed over the past half-century to critics sending out to other disciplines for “theoretical frameworks” in which to place their engagement with works of literature. The results have often been dire, the work or author in question disappearing in a sea of half-comprehended or uncritically incorporated linguistics, mathematics, psychiatry, political theory, history, or whatever. Why do critics do this?
"Everything appears to be ready - are you ready?. . . is everybody ready?. . . I think I better fasten up my trousers so they don't fall down - you don't want my trousers to fall down now do ya?. . . . . . paint it black..paint it black....paint it black you Devil. . . . . . Charlie's good tonight innit he? . . . . . . We're gonna do one more, and we gotta go. . . The Greatest Rock n Roll Band in the World -- The Rolling Stones -- The Rolling Stones !"
By the time I was 12 years old, I was a full-on believer in Rock n Roll, and I had my first guitar -- a little acoustic number that my Dad had found for sale somewhere. I don't remember the make or the model - I think it was a fairly no-name type of affair. A school friend of mine had gotten one about the same time, and we started hanging out on the weekends, trying to teach ourselves how to play. He figured out a thing here and showed me, and I figured out a thing there and showed him. We both know older kids who played and we got tips and lessons that way. In retrospect, a lot of what we thought we had "figured out" was way off in terms of melody, but we had a good sense of relative pitch and good rhythm -- I have always had a good sense of rhythm.
Mostly how we learned was to do what most every other self-taught musician does - play along with records. We each had our favorites. He was fond of Black Sabbath as I recall, and I tried to cop a lot of AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, the Who, the Beatles, and whatever was on the radio. For a period of about 2 years, the majority of my lessons came from my turntable in the form of "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out - The Rolling Stones in Concert."
Released in the fall of 1970, GYYYO has long been considered one of the best live albums ever - certainly the best live album by the Rolling Stones. It is drenched in Rhythm and Blues, features the excellent lead guitar playing of Mick Taylor, some of Jagger's best singing, and nary a beat is dropped by the duo of Watts and Wyman. This live recording represents the Stones at their absolute peak of potency -- they were coming off the "Beggar's Banquet" and "Let it Bleed" albums, and a few days after these concerts, they entered the studio at Muscle Shoals and put down the first tracks of "Sticky Fingers."
For a kid learning to play guitar, "Ya-Ya's" is a blues-inspired garden of earthly delights. Heavy riffs in the lower registers on Jumpin' Jack Flash and Live With Me. Two shots at working out "that Chuck Berry thing," on Carol and Little Queenie. A very soulful lesson in arpeggiation on the Robert Johnson classic, Love in Vain. Bo Diddley lessons from Keith himself on Sympathy for the Devil, as well as monster chord mashing on Street Fighting Man. And the creme de la creme of rhythm workouts -- the ultimate live version of Midnight Rambler. After the breakdown section in Rambler, the band locks into a 6/8 triplet groove that builds in intensity on a slow grind, until finally busting out -- up-shifting the tempo into the original riff in 4/4 meter. I didn't know how to describe that moment when I was 12, but it knocked my socks off! It still does.
And if you were lucky enough to have had an older kid teach you the magic "blues scale," then GYYYO gave you an entire album to work out your solo technique. Remember - above all else, and throughout all of their various permutations - the Stones have always been about the blues. When I got older, I arrived at the source of this - "discovering" Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and many other blues men. The Rolling Stones got this great music from America, ingested it, made it their own, and then brought it back to us. "Get Yer Ya Ya's Out" bears the finest fruits of that endeavor.
Title: Get Yer Ya Ya's Out - The Rolling Stones in Concert Release: September, 1970
Track Listing - Side One: 1. Jumpin' Jack Flash (3:13) 2. Carol (3:35) 3. Stray Cat Blues (3:35) 4. Love in Vain (4:50) 5. Midnight Rambler (8:32)
Side Two: 1. Sympathy for the Devil (5:45) 2. Live With Me (2:58) 3. Little Queenie (4:10) 4. Honky Tonk Women (3:00) 5. Street Fighting Man (3:47)
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
First off - a small article concerning the regeneration of spinal cord fibers.
Nanotechnology may help spinal cord injury
EVANSTON, Ill., April 7 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they have created a nano-engineered gel that can enable severed spinal cord fibers to regenerate and grow.
Spinal cord injuries often lead to permanent paralysis and loss of sensation because the damaged nerve fibers can't regenerate, Northwestern University scientists said. Although nerve fibers or axons have the capacity to re-grow, they don't because they're blocked by scar tissue that develops around the injury.
The nanogel developed at the university's Feinberg School of Medicine inhibits formation of scar tissue and enables the severed spinal cord fibers to regenerate and grow, the scientists said.
The gel is injected as a liquid into the spinal cord and self-assembles into a scaffold that supports new nerve fibers. When the gel was injected into mice with a spinal cord injury, after six weeks the animals had a greatly enhanced ability to use their hind legs and walk.
"It's important to understand that something that works in mice will not necessarily work in human beings," said study leader Dr. John Kessler, who noted that if the gel is eventually approved for humans, a clinical trial could begin within several years. The research is reported in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Now, that is a wonderful breakthrough in treating spinal cord injuries, but I want to go back and point out an easily glossed-over passage: "When the gel was injected into mice with a spinal cord injury, after six weeks the animals had a greatly enhanced ability to use their hind legs and walk."
According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the leading causes of spinal cord injuries are falls, and motor vehicle crashes . How did the researchers at Northwestern U manage to find so many car-crash-surviving mice? Had the mice failed to wear their seat belts? Or had the mice merely fallen?
"What happened to your mice?" "Oh, they uh. . . er uh. . they fell down the stairs."
Anyway, thanks to this research, the mice will be on their feet and back on their little motorcycles in no time.
Or -- Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They're Not Out to Get You.
A few notes on "Nova Express" by William S. Burroughs.
A full-blown literary analysis of this book could take years -- especially in conjunction with its companion works, "The Soft Machine," and "The Ticket That Exploded." So I'm not going to try. The amount of reference and sub-reference contained between the covers of this book make "The Waste Land" look like the Sunday Funnies. Perhaps an annotated version could avail us. Let me just jot that down as a possible future project for when I run out of other things to do.
What I will tell you is that "Nova Express" may be the most in-depth exploration of paranoia in the English language -- in Techni-Color Scatological detail. This is Franz Kafka gone sideways. Mechanized Death. Mind Control. Human Tools. Meat Puppets. The World is a Vampire.
The first section, fittingly titled, "Last Words," is an indictment of all who have sold the future of the world for power and material gain.
Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth deals consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever-- "Don't let them see us. Don't tell them what we are doing--" . . . . . . . . Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of liars cowards collaborators traitors. Liars who want time for more lies. Cowards who can not face your "dogs" your "gooks" your "errand boys" your "human animals" with the truth. Collaborators with Insect People with Vegetable People. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever.
On the other hand, we know that truth is always stranger and more horrible than any fiction. Nothing is created in a vacuum. "Nova Express" seems - even now - like something new and strange, something very 'modern.' But it is really concerned with a story as old as time: man's inability to come to grips with himself -- with his history, with his present predicament, and with his possible future.
Burroughs cuts and splices the symbols representing thought (words) and rearranges them into a new language -- exposing in the process the socializing aspects of words and syntax. He thwarts our expectations of setting, mood, language, and style. He is trying to get us out of our ingrained patterns of thinking. He sees language as a limiting trap.
Plan D called for Total Exposure. Wise up all the marks everywhere. Show them the rigged wheel of Life-Time-Fortune. Storm The Reality Studio. And retake the universe. The Plan shifted and reformed as reports came in from his electric patrols sniffing quivering down streets and mind screens of the earth. "Area mined--Guards everywhere--Can't quite get through--" "Order total weapons--Release Silence Virus--" "Board Books taken--Heavy losses--" "Photo falling--Word falling--Break Through in Grey Room--Use Partisans of all nations--Towers, open fire--"
In most places, this employment of cut-up language induces a cinematic effect, much like the "newsreel" sections of Dos Passos's "42nd Parallel." With Burroughs, the scenery changes rapidly and abruptly and sometimes the reader has to fight to stay with it. There is a lot here to process.
To keep this short - yes, I recommend "Nova Express" as essential American Literature. Discovering Burroughs for the first time often opens up whole new worlds of thought for most people - and this I always advocate.
I'm petitioning for a moratorium on all cell phone usage in public places. Second-hand radiation from your call, notifying your friend of your whereabouts for THIS 5 minutes, could have adverse affects on my brain. Perhaps we should shove that thing into your sinus.
Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking'
Brain expert warns of huge rise in tumours and calls on industry to take immediate steps to reduce radiation
By Geoffrey Lean Sunday, 30 March 2008
Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.
The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.
It draws on growing evidence – exclusively reported in the IoS in October – that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.
Your Operator holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, from Michigan State University, and an Associate of Arts in Music Theory and Performance, including three years of study in Guitar, Piano, Jazz, Music History, Voice, Counterpoint and Composition.
He has worked as a land surveyor, a line cook, a legal assistant, a copywriter, a digital print technician, and a stacker of canned goods.
