In late February I received an e-mail message from a reader named Kim Forbes. Her six-year-old son Ben had asked her a math question she couldn’t answer, and she was hoping I could help: Today is the 100th day of school. He was very excited and told me everything he knows about the number 100, [...]
Archive for May, 2010
The Hilbert Hotel
Posted in Mathematics on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Ptolemaic statue and temple gate discovered at Taposiris Magna
Posted in History on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
The large granite statue discovered at Taposiris Magna. It possibly represents Ptolemy IV. Archaeologists excavating at Taposiris Magna, a site west of Alexandria, have discovered a huge headless granite statue of a Ptolemaic king, and the original gate to a temple dedicated to the god Osiris. In a statement issued by the SCA, Dr Zahi [...]
Class difference
Posted in Living on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Poor neighborhoods around the world embrace a surprising idea: incredibly low-priced private schools The computer lab at New Little Scholars school in the outskirts of Hyderabad. The end-of-day bell has just gone off at MA Ideal High School, and a Grade 4 classroom on the first floor explodes into a rush of activity. Pig-tailed girls [...]
“I am much more self-censoring,” said Sam Jackson, a student. Min Liu, a 21-year-old liberal arts student at the New School in New York City, got a Facebook account at 17 and chronicled her college life in detail, from rooftop drinks with friends to dancing at a downtown club. Recently, though, she has had second [...]
Wash your hands – and free your mind
Posted in Other on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Pontius Pilate may have been on to something when he decided to wash his hands before allowing Jesus Christ to be crucified. Scientists have found that washing your hands frees you of taking the blame for any unhappy outcome of a difficult decision. Spike Lee, a researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, [...]
The magic cure
Posted in Health on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Startled by the power of placebos, doctors consider how to use them as real treatment You’re not likely to hear about this from your doctor, but fake medical treatment can work amazingly well. For a range of ailments, from pain and nausea to depression and Parkinson’s disease, placebos–whether sugar pills, saline injections, or sham surgery–have [...]
Exercise can counter effects of age on brain
Posted in Health on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Physical exercise may help to rebuild parts of the brain that are lost with age, a study suggests. Epileptic seizures might also trigger brain cell regeneration, according to research in animals. Scientists believe the discovery may lead to new ways of tackling age-related memory loss or the effects of brain injuries and Alzheimer’s disease. It [...]
The Estrogen Dilemma
Posted in Health on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Here we are, two fast-talking women on estrogen, staring at a wall of live mitochondria from the brain of a rat. Mitochondria are cellular energy generators of unfathomably tiny size, but these are vivid and big because they were hit with dye in a petri dish and enlarged for projection purposes. They’re winking and zooming, [...]
Future Vatican
Posted in Religion on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
An eternal-seeming institution is poised for major change, says John L. Allen Jr. John Allen, the leading American authority on the Vatican, has written a new book on the future of the Catholic church. The Catholic Church is among the most enduring institutions in human history, holding fast through centuries of war, social upheaval and [...]
Talented and Gifted: In one year, she taught her students to see the wonders of their talents — then and forever
Posted in Living on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
His mother was teaching a new program that would change her students’ lives forever. A lifetime later, they helped teach him how she did it. The last time the musical “Spamalot” came to town, my phone rang. Sir Bedevere was on the line. “Is this the Steve Hendrix who grew up in Americus, Georgia?” began [...]
My Mother, Her Secrets
Posted in Living on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
SOME years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I found a photograph of my mother as a bride. That the man beside her was not my father, that she’d kept this marriage a secret from me, that she had been disturbingly young — none of this unsettled me as much as her expression. [...]
How to change your life in five minutes a day. Go outside
Posted in Living on May 9, 2010 | Comments Off
Our writer takes a walk, smells the flowers, and feels better. Green exercise works – and anything blue, it seems, is a bonus Wisteria in full bloom: blue flowers, or the prospect of blue water, may be particularly soothing, says environmental scientist Jules Pretty The first week of May, the gardening bibles intone, is when [...]
Has your man got a one-track mind? Just proves he’s normal
Posted in Living on May 9, 2010 | Comments Off
The “man trace”, depicted here in a scene from Mad Men, is down to brain wiring, according to a new book We’ve all seen it, the “man trance”. An unsuspecting male is temporarily transfixed by the sight of a woman’s breasts, parading by in a low-cut, too-tight sweater. His eyes glaze over. Seconds later the [...]
Modern nemesis
Posted in The Word, tagged May 9 2010 on May 9, 2010 | Comments Off
How a fickle goddess became your enemy Language questions don’t usually arrive in my inbox recast as comic-book faceoffs, but Mark Lussky’s recent query was an entertaining exception. ”I nearly got into a bar brawl at the Superheroes’ Tavern the other night when someone referred to Lex Luthor as Superman’s nemesis,” he wrote. ”I was [...]
The quest to sort out competing and comparable religions
Posted in Religion on May 9, 2010 | Comments Off
As thousands prayed across the nation Thursday in celebration of the National Day of Prayer, the Rev. Franklin Graham held his own vigil in the Pentagon parking lot. Oh well, it doesn’t matter where one prays, right? All prayers lead to heaven. Or do they? Not if you’re Graham, who lost his place at the [...]
The Ghosts of Gandamak
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Afghanistan on May 9, 2010 | Comments Off
THE name Gandamak means little in the West today. Yet this small Afghan village was once famous for the catastrophe that took place there during the First Anglo-Afghan War in January 1842, arguably the greatest humiliation ever suffered by a Western army in the East. The course of that distant Victorian war followed a trajectory [...]
Charting Creativity: Signposts of a Hazy Territory
Posted in Other on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Images from brain research conducted by the Mind Research Network. While intelligence and skill are associated with the fast and efficient firing of neurons in the brain, subjects who tested high in creativity had thinner white matter and connecting axons that slow nerve traffic. In these images, the green tracks show the white matter being [...]
Five Best Books on Soldiers at War
Posted in Literature on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
These books excel in describing war as soldiers know it, says Stephen Hunter 1. The Face of Battle By John Keegan Viking, 1976 John Keegan is by no means the first historian to contemplate combat from eyeball range, but he has been the most eloquent to propose that battle accounts should involve more than describing [...]
Five Best Memoirs
Posted in Literature on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Norris Church Mailer remembers her favorite memoirs 1: Losing Mum and Pup, By Christopher Buckley, Twelve, 2009 An only child gets all the toys—and all the responsibilities. Maybe it’s a fair trade-off when you also get all the love and attention of two powerful personalities like Bill and Pat Buckley. In “Losing Mum and Pup,” [...]
The Moral Life of Babies
Posted in Living on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Not long ago, a team of researchers watched a 1-year-old boy take justice into his own hands. The boy had just seen a puppet show in which one puppet played with a ball while interacting with two other puppets. The center puppet would slide the ball to the puppet on the right, who would pass [...]
The Plural of E-Mail
Posted in Language, tagged May 9 2010 on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Ashley Mergen asks: “What is the proper plural of e-mail? When referring to snail mail, you would not say, ‘I received a hundred mails,’ but rather, ‘I received a hundred pieces of mail’ or ‘I received a hundred mailings.’ However, when referring to e-mail, one would say, ‘I received a hundred e-mails.’ Correct?” The plural [...]
Nietzsche: A Philosophy in Context
Posted in Other on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Friedrich Nietzsche circa 1890. One of the pitfalls of writing a biography of a great philosopher is the temptation to reduce important ideas to mere psychology, an outgrowth of some fluke in the philosopher’s personal development. Julian Young, a professor at the University of Auckland and Wake Forest University, has for the most part avoided [...]
Martin Heidegger
Posted in Other on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
It may seem surprising that so many books continue to be written debating Martin Heidegger’s Nazi affiliations, since the fact that Heidegger was a Nazi has never been in dispute. How could it be, when the great philosopher took office as rector of Freiburg University in April 1933 specifically in order to carry out the [...]
British Anti-Semitism
Posted in Politics on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Anthony Julius has written a strong, somber book on an appalling subject: the long squalor of Jew-hatred in a supposedly enlightened, humane, liberal society. My first, personal, reflection is to give thanks that my own father, who migrated from Odessa, Russia, to London, had the sense, after sojourning there, to continue on to New York [...]
‘The Kentucky Bourbon Cookbook’
Posted in Living on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Let’s not get carried away. First and foremost, bourbon is a drink. Indeed, if apple pie is the quintessential American dessert, bourbon has to be the ultimate American booze, invented here—in 18th-century Bourbon County, Ky.—and still subject to strict purity laws. The liquor’s only permitted ingredients are pure water and a base of at least [...]
Lady Liberty’s Path to America
Posted in History on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
The cold rains of Oct. 28, 1886, did little to dampen the ardor of the tens of thousands of giddy New Yorkers who crowded onto the southern tip of Manhattan that afternoon to watch the festivities on Bedloe’s Island, a patch of land in New York Harbor. On cue, an enormous veil dropped, and the [...]
Not Their Finest Hour
Posted in Politics on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Britain’s elections ended in an anti-climax, revealing a crisis of governance. “Chairing the Member” by William Hogarth, depicting a victorious candidate being carried by supporters in 1754. One of the rarer pleasures of British general elections is the opportunity they present to watch a particular species of buttoned-up Brits releasing their inner extroverts. Up and [...]
Five Best Baseball Books
Posted in Arts and Entertainment on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
These baseball books belong in your reading lineup, says Peter Morris 1. The Glory of Their Times By Lawrence S. Ritter Macmillan, 1966 Spurred by the death of baseball legend Ty Cobb in 1961, Lawrence Ritter, an economics professor, made it his mission to tape-record the memories of other players from Cobb’s generation before these [...]
Picking the Best of Spring’s New Style Books
Posted in Living on May 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Summer books are what you read when you’re lolling about on vacation. Spring books expect you to do a little work. Around this time each year, publishers send out a flood of books that seek to refresh their readers’ style. A veritable library has arrived on my desk, and among the predictable offerings on the [...]
Martin Amis Writes Off Scrutiny
Posted in Literature on May 7, 2010 | Comments Off
A literary star says he is not chronicling his experiences—except when he is Martin Amis has never been one to shy away from controversy, but he gets a bit defensive about claims that he’s rehashing his youthful exploits in his new novel, “The Pregnant Widow.” Several years ago, Mr. Amis, 60, began describing the novel-in-progress [...]
