Pebble collection: Med anthropology and other wonders

A couple of the shinier stones I've come across on the web lately:

Somatosphere is a new blog about medical anthropology (think sociology and politics of medicine, only with a bit more critical distance; it's about how culture shapes medicine) written by McGill University post-doc Eugene Raikhel and others. They're just getting started but already have some nice posts on a 1966 ad for Ritalin as a Mother's-little-helper antidepressant, a "Critical Neuroscience" workshop at McGill, and some gleanings from the web that included some stuff I didn't run across elsewhere -- an increasing rarity, it seems, in the echo-chamberlike science blogdom. Medical anthropology is a rich but overlooked field. Perhaps this will raise its profile a bit. (Conflict-of-interest disclosure: I know Raikhel because he use to fact-check my pieces when he freelanced in that role for Scientific American, and he has aided me with research now and then on articles about things like brains and roller coasters. So, knowing he's a very sharp cookie, I must confess I'm inclined to think well of him and his efforts.)

Pablo Casals

On an Overgrown Path is a wonderful blog about music that has recently put up great posts about (among others) searching for Pablo Casals, composer Ernest Bloch, the death and transfiguration of the music journalist, pianist Bill Evans, the amplifcation of classical music, and a mess of beautiful music, including a Bach-Coltrane merger, from French saxophonist Raphael Imbert. Hat tip to the New Yorker's Alex Ross, who keeps his own fine blog at The Rest is Noise, for his link to this splendid site.

Tags: music, Eugene Raikhel, Pablo Casals, Raphael Imbert, Alex Ross, medical anthropology