Jonah Lehrer
Jonah Lehrer is an editor at large for Seed Magazine. His first book, Proust Was A Neuroscientist, will be published by Houghton-Mifflin in 2007.
cortex
Posts by this author
November 2, 2006
Apparently, a little gridlock is a good thing: the United States has never gotten involved in a conflict involving more than a week of ground combat when the branches of government are controlled by different parties. Economist William Niskanen explains:
From the dawn of the Cold War until today,…
November 1, 2006
Yourdiseaserisk.com is still a little slow - a recent WSJ article overwhelmed it with traffic - but I had great fun altering my lifestyle choices to see how they affected my risk for various catastrophic illnesses, such as stroke, heart disease, diabetes, etc. (It's like working for a life…
November 1, 2006
Clifford Geertz, the founder of interpretative anthropology, passed away yesterday. To commemorate his body of work - The Interpretation of Cultures is a true masterpiece - I thought I'd offer up two of my favorite Geertz quotes:
"Believing with Max Weber that man is an animal suspended in webs of…
November 1, 2006
TV on DVD - the opiate of the 21st century - has ruined movies for me. No matter what movie I watch, I can't help but be disappointed when the entertainment ends after just two hours. (And for this I spent $10?) The characters always feel underdeveloped, the plot too superficial. On the other hand…
November 1, 2006
In honor of the start of basketball season, and to commemorate the surprising victory of my Kobe-less Lakers over the Suns, I thought I'd discuss my favorite science paper on basketball. (I did a similar thing to celebrate the beginning of the football season.)
The paper is by Amos Tversky (of…
October 31, 2006
So much for the body-brain duality. Researchers in the new PNAS claim that the sympathetic nervous system in depressed rodents causes a loss of bone mass. Treatment with anti-depressants rescues the situation.
These results define a linkage among depression, excessive adrenergic activity, and…
October 31, 2006
This survey gives me hope: 78 percent of Americans support medical marijuana:
When Californians approved one of the first medical marijuana laws, in 1996, drug warriors were so convinced it would lead to a catastrophic spike in illegal use by teenagers that they sponsored a study to document the…
October 31, 2006
Last week, I mentioned that the Royal Institution in London had come up with short list of the best science books of all time. After some excellent feedback from readers, and because I love making lists of my favorite things (just in case I'm ever stranded on a desert island), I'd thought I'd offer…
October 31, 2006
There's an odd article in the NY Times today on Marc Hauser's hypothesis that the human mind contains a "moral grammar," somewhat akin to a Chomskyan linguistic grammar. The article is odd because, while it acknowledges that Hauser's idea is supported by almost no direct evidence, it never mentions…
October 31, 2006
Sometimes, it seems as if science reporters just decide to make something a big story, even if there's no new news to report. In the last week, the link between calorie reduction and increased lifespan has been everywhere. New York Magazine was first, with an account of a dinner party eaten with…
October 30, 2006
Men are getting less manly: our testosterone levels continue to decline. Given the Hobbesian state of the world, that might not be a bad thing. (Unfortunately, falling testosterone levels have negative medical consequences. So world peace might require a reduction in the male life span.) Over at…
October 30, 2006
I'm like a broken record, but if I could implement one policy change right away it would be to raise the gas tax:
See the full image over at Foreign Policy.
The latest people to support a phased increase in the gas tax are George Schultz (Reagan's Secretary of State) and Tony Lake (Clinton's…
October 30, 2006
If the polls are accurate, Senator Rick Santorum is about to lose his re-election bid. That's a good thing. Santorum is a bad cliche of the culture wars, a powerful politician who actually believes that the earth is 6,000 years old, that abortion is tantamount to murder and the Catholic church…
October 27, 2006
What would happen if you combined Bob Dylan's greatest hits with the choreography of Twyla Tharp? It turns out that you get something truly awful, an alchemical concotion that is both surreal and boring. Here's Ben Brantley:
And now for the latest heart-rending episode in Broadway's own reality…
October 27, 2006
Richard Dawkins has been everywhere lately. Dawkins is even keeping an online journal while on his book tour. It's full of amusing, if slightly mean-spirited, vignettes like this:
The large hall at Randolph Macon Woman's College was packed. I gave a fairly short program of readings from The God…
October 27, 2006
Only when it comes to alien life forms can the absence of decent data - the 1976 Viking mission did not not detect any organic molecules - seem so exciting. Here's Sharon Begley, from behind the WSJ firewall:
When scientists announced Monday that the search for life on Mars 30 years ago may not…
October 26, 2006
Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, at least according to the Royal Institution in London.
The shortlist
Primo Levi The Periodic Table
Konrad Lorenz King Solomon's Ring
Tom Stoppard Arcadia
Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene
Other nominations
James Watson The Double Helix
Bertolt Brecht The Life of…
October 26, 2006
I've always been impressed by America's lack of interest in class issues. Having spent a bit of time in England - a country where class is transposed onto every little social interaction - it was a shock to return to America, a place where disparities in income are both more tangible and more…
October 26, 2006
Another fiscal quarter, another record profit: Exxon-Mobil reported earnings of $10.49 billion today. These earnings are eclipsed only by the $10.71 billion profit posted by Exxon in last year's fourth quarter, which saw oil prices spike because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Now I like corporate…
October 25, 2006
Nylon hosiery and surgical masks? While I always assumed that the flu virus spread mainly through dirty door knobs and friendly handshakes, I was wrong. According to Lawrence Wein, "the dominant mode of virus transmission for influenza is aerosol -- implying that hand washing will make little…
October 25, 2006
It is a shame more American cities with mass transportation aren't emulating London, and charging drivers who use their cars in the central city during the day. (The London "congestion charge" is about $10). After all, the London scheme has been astonishingly successful. Six months after the system…
October 25, 2006
Here's an uplifting story of neural plasticity, a sweet reminder that our brain is always capable of changing itself. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, lost his voice more than a year ago due to spasmodic dysphonia, a mysterious neurological condition that involves involuntary spasms of the…
October 25, 2006
I never would have guessed that a few extra pounds of flesh can have such a strong effect on fuel economy:
A new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that 938 million more gallons of gasoline go into vehicles annually because drivers and passengers are considerably…
October 25, 2006
A few days ago, I linked to an article documenting a connection between reduced crime and increased exposure to violent movies. Now it appears that porn has a similar effect, and that the increased availability of porn has led to a significant decrease in rape and attempted rapes by young men:
The…
October 24, 2006
Why, you ask, did the dog suck on toads? Because the amphibians secrete a hallucinogenic toxin. Lady, a seemingly staid cocker spaniel, was actually a closet stoner. I'd love to see The Dog Whisperer fix this one:
"We noticed Lady spending an awful lot of time down by the pond in our backyard,"…
October 24, 2006
When cars are stocked with airbags in every possible direction - are there ceiling airbags yet? - drivers become more aggressive:
A Purdue University research team that studied five years of motor vehicle accidents in Washington State concludes antilock brakes and airbags don't minimize accidents…
October 24, 2006
George Eliot famously declared that "If Art does not enlarge men's sympathies, then it does nothing." Eliot would be glad to know that she was right: reading novels really does make us nicer. As the British Psychological Society Digest notes:
The more fiction a person reads, the more empathy they…
October 24, 2006
Jimmy Wales has a question for you:
Imagine there existed a budget of $100 million to purchase copyrights to be made available under a free license. What would you like to see purchased and released under a free license?
Hmmm...I'd start with a good newspaper archive, like The New York Times. I'd…
October 24, 2006
I've got a serious man-crush on Obama. I swooned during his Meet the Press interview - my girlfriend was getting jealous - and couldn't help but yelp when he announced that he is considering a run for president. (Given his candid non-denial, I'd be surprised if he didn't run. You don't flirt with…
October 24, 2006
With so many dead and dying in Iraq, it seems crass to complain about the financial cost of the war. But the price tag is enormous, and will burden us for decades to come. Here's Nick Kristof (Times $elect):
For every additional second we stay in Iraq, we taxpayers will end up paying an additional…