links for 2007-10-16

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We all know about Proust and his madeleine. One whiff of that buttery cookie, shaped like a seashell, and Proust suddenly remembered his long forgotten childhood in Combray. Proust makes it clear that his sense of smell was the trigger for his memory.
A new paper by scientists at the Weizmann Institute documents the primal connection between whiffs of smell and episodic memory.
I'm quickly learning that these webmagazines really don't like my book. This review, however, is actually rather thoughtful. Daniel Engber of Slate begins by pointing out that neuroscientists are constantly quoting Proust:
My book got a very nice little spread in the new Wired. There's a picture of me at an uncomfortable zoom and a short Q&A: