As well as the obligatory fMRI-based neuroanatomy, all contemporary meditations on empathy contain earnest accounts of mirror neurons, described as “the most hyped concept in neuroscience”. These cells were first described in the 1990s by the Italian neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti, who studied macaque monkeys. He found that some motor cells (involved in the control of movement) are activated by the sight of the same movement in others (humans and monkeys). Since then, outlandish claims have been made for these neurons
Tag: 09.01.17
Why One Critic Hates ‘Macbeth’ (But Will Keep Seeing It Anyway)
“There is little in the way of a narrative arc – just a steadily growing pile of bodies. … There is no one to root for, but there is little to root against, and the play just gets subsumed in a not particularly interesting form of misery. … And yet however much I scorn Macbeth, I’ll keep going back.” Jane Howard explains why (and, in the process, gives a critic’s credo).
This Out-Of-The-Way Keith Haring Mural Wasn’t Meant To Last 30 Years, But It Has
Haring painted We the Youth on the side of a South Philadelphia row house in 1987 after his first plan – to paint a city garbage truck – didn’t pan out. The mural faced a vacant lot, and both Haring and his sponsors always expected another house to be built on it eventually. Then, of course, Haring became famous, and the mural is still there.
Underwater Ruins Of Lost Roman City Discovered Off Tunisian Coast
“Neapolis is believed to have been submerged after a tsunami in the 4th century AD destroyed most of it, as recorded by Roman soldier and historian Ammien Marcellin. The natural disaster also badly damaged Alexandria in modern Egypt and the Greek island of Crete.”
Movie About Democracy Movement Massacre Rocks South Korea
“Ten million people in South Korea, one-fifth of the population, have watched Jang Hoon’s movie A Taxi Driver (Taeksi Woonjunsa) since it was released on 2 August. … The film is set in May 1980, during the mass democratic uprising – and ensuing military crackdown – in the southwestern city of Gwangju.”
What It’s Like To Write A Book When You’ve Had A Traumatic Brain Injury
“In the back corner of the shed were two big X [Google: ‘the thing you bang on in a band to make the beat’ :::: drums] full of what looked like broken-up pieces of metal about the size of cheese snack X [Google: ‘cheese square snack’ :::: crackers].”
Big-Band Leader Larry Elgart Dead At 95
“He played alto sax in orchestras led by Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Red Norvo and Charlie Spivak, some of the biggest-name outfits of the day, and was an adventurous-minded player who also helped compose ballet scores and musical tone poems. … [He later] formed a popular big band with his older brother, Les, co-wrote the theme song to American Bandstand, and had his biggest hit album in 1982, a disco-pulsing medley of 1940s standards called Hooked on Swing.”
Billy – The Story Behind IKEA’s Ubiquitous Bookcase
“It’s the archetypal IKEA product. It was dreamed up in 1978 by an IKEA designer named Gillis Lundgren. He sketched it on the back of a napkin, worried that he’d forget it. Now there are sixty-odd million in the world, nearly one for every hundred people.”
The Art And Science Of Stage Blood
“Though all Shakespearean characters may bleed, at [DC’s] Shakespeare Theatre Company, they don’t all bleed the same blood – or at least, not the same fake blood. Chris Young, the theater’s properties director, mixes a unique version of the vital fluid for every gory scene in every show. No ketchup or red food dye here: Young’s complex recipes vary depending on the color and fabric of the actor’s clothes, the nature of the stage lighting and the type of theatrical injury at hand (or leg, or heart).”
Has The Berkshire Museum Overstated Its Financial Difficulties?
The Berkshire Museum wouldn’t need to sell some of its most prized works of art to remain operational if it grew its endowment by $4.5 million, according to an expert on nonprofits. “I continue to believe that they have overstated how much of an emergency they are in,” said Stephen C. Sheppard, “and I think there would exist a clear path to a sustainable, essentially status quo, outcome that would not require deaccession of the 40 artworks.”