Hong Kong
tsmith | July 6, 2011While "flesh-eating infections" caused by the group A streptococcus (Streptococcus pyogenes) may grab more headlines today, one hundred and fifty years ago, the best known and most dreaded form of streptococcal infection was scarlet fever. Simply hearing the name of this disease, and knowing that it was present in the community, was enough to strike fear into the hearts of those living in Victorian-era United States and Europe. This disease, even when not deadly, caused large amounts of suffering to those infected. In the worst cases, all of a family's children were killed in a matter of a…
ddobbs | July 9, 2009Both Mind Hacks and Jonah Lehrer took interesting note -- Jonah's the longer, and a pretty nice summary itself -- of the fascinating NY Times piece on ultramarathoner Diane Van Deren, who began running long distances after brain surgery removed much of her right temporal lobe. This gave her a great advantage: the lack of memory of the run behind her, and thus of any dread of the punishment still to come. Downside: significant memory problems, and she can't read a map.
Speaking of memory ...
Newsweek has a good piece on unconscious plagiarism -- that is, how genuine lapses in "source memory…