“We found statistically significant drops in vocabulary, and increases in repeated phrases and indefinite nouns in 15 detective novels from The Mysterious Affair at Styles to Postern of Fate, These language effects are recognised as symptoms of memory difficulties associated with Alzheimer’s disease.”
Tag: 04.03.09
Orlando Makes A Plan To Proceed With Performing Arts Center
“Architects will proceed with detailed construction blueprints for the project, which has been threatened with a long delay because of the recession. It will take about a year to finish the blueprints, and city officials say that’s when they’ll decide whether to start construction, scale back the $425 million center or keep waiting until the economy improves.”
Writing After Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez
“The most popular Nobel literature laureate, Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, has reportedly laid down his pen. We’ve been here before: in 1974, the year after the Chilean coup, he vowed not to pick up his writing tools until General Pinochet fell, though thankfully, by the 1980s he was back at his desk. Yet the octogenarian writer, whose One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) has sold more than 30m copies, has long been at pains to pass on his mantle.”
Stimulus: Toronto Increases Culture Spending Support
“Surprisingly, at a time of global uncertainty and local anxiety, no one on council raised any major objections to spending more than $64 million to ensure the city’s cultural infrastructure remains alive and well.”
Employees Fight Back Against Publisher Layoffs
“Employees at the University of New Mexico Press learned yesterday that three of their colleagues would be let go at the end of April and that nine more positions — in order fulfillment and customer service — might soon be outsourced. That kind of news is all too common these days. More unusual is what happened next.”
Screen Actors Make Deal With Producers Of Commercials
“The proposed three-year agreement, which was widely anticipated, provides a 5% pay increase, contains about $21 million in increased contributions to union health and pension plans and, for the first time, establishes a pay structure for work made for the Internet and other new media, according to the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.”
TV Networks Fret About Internet Distribution
“Allowing free viewing of marquee prime-time shows on the Internet is causing anxiety among some in the media industry, who worry that the practice mirrors the potentially fatal error newspapers made of losing subscribers by not charging for online editions.”
Portrait Of Leonardo Discovered
“The 60-by-45 cm painting shows Leonardo wearing dark robes and a black, feathered hat, but is damaged by scratches to the paint. Alessandro Vezzosi, the director of a museum dedicated to Leonardo in his hometown of Vinci, said the image is consistent with a depiction of the artist found in a 17th-18th century portrait kept at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.”
Bollywood Going On Strike
“Producers are demanding a 50% share in the revenues generated by the cinemas. Owners say the share should be lower if a film performs poorly. India’s film industry, the world’s largest, has already been badly affected by the global economic crisis. The indefinite strike is expected to begin on Saturday.”
Two New Baseball Stadia – Mets & Yankees Compete To The Bottom
“The Yankees have replaced the supermax prison look of its old home with pompously self-regarding limestone, monumental archways, carved eagles, and the team name incised in gold leaf.”