Movement and Sleep in Parkinsonians The idea that our bodies and minds are totally separate in their functioning and existence is a rather simplistic and erroneous view. The two are connected in several uncanny ways and influence the functioning of each other very profoundly. The object of this ...
I've loved Oliver Sacks for a long time, but up until now I'd only read and re-read The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars. The Island of the Colorblind seemed like a natural next choice for me, because it combines my interest in neuropsychology with my interest in i...
Francis Crick—the "Crick" half of the famous "Watson and Crick" duo that discovered the structure of DNA—coined a term (and used it as the title for his book on the subject) called The Astonishing Hypothesis, which represents the idea that all human cognition and perception—every emotion, belief,...
Two weeks ago, I read a fascinating article in The New Yorker by Oliver Sacks, the author of "Awakenings," "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat," and "Musicophilia." The article was about the seemingly simple act of reading, which Sacks demonstrated is anything but simple. He included case his...
[English / Arabic review]الريفيو العربي بعد الريفيو الإنجليزي " Is there any 'place' in the world for a man who is like an island, who cannot be accultured, made part of the main? Can 'the main' accommodate, make room for, the singular? "That was the main inquiry of this insightful, compassionat...
This book contains an extended, very sympathetic case-study of Temple Grandin, the world's most famous autistic person. I read it when my older son, Jonathan, was diagnosed autistic at age about 10. Obviously, given that it took so long to figure out why he was odd, he isn't that much like Grandi...
The story that the Oliver Sacks begins in the 1930’s, before World War II. He tell us about his childhood and his curiosity in science, specifically, chemicals. He explains how since he was a child he was interested in, metals and their properties. For example, when he was little he would ask hi...
Famed neurologist and author Oliver Sacks once again provides great insight into a world most people people with the ability to hear probably take for granted. A lot of ground is covered once again by the great Dr. Sacks as he puts the existence of those who are deaf at the forefront of this boo...
Originally posted at http://olduvaireads.wordpress.com/201...This is the fourth book in the National Geographic Directions series that I’ve read. If you haven’t seen any of these yet you’re in for a treat. Jamaica Kincaid writes about Nepal, Jan Morris about Wales, Louise Erdrich about books and ...
Have you ever experienced an “ear worm” – i.e., a melody “stuck” in your head? Have you ever found yourself humming or whistling a tune for no reason, then thought back to the lyrics or theme of that song and realized it had something to do with what’s on your mind? Have you ever tried to remembe...
El hombre que confundió a su mujer con un sombrero, una extraordinaria revelación, se convirtió inmediatamente en un clásico y consagró a Oliver Sacks como "uno de los grandes escritores clínicos del siglo". En este libro el autor narra veinte historiales médicos de pacientes perdidos en el mundo...
Prodigies The Fayetteville Observer of May 19, 1862, contained an unusual letter from its correspondent Long Grabs, stationed in Camp Mangum: The blind negro Tom has been performing here to a crowded house. He is certainly a wonder—He resembles any ordinary negro boy 13 years old and is per...
In particular, I was haunted by descriptions of isolated deaf people who had failed to acquire any language whatever: their evident intellectual disabilities and, equally seriously, the mishaps in emotional and social development to which they might fall prey in the absence of any authentic langu...
Once lofty volcanic islands like Pohnpei, they are geologically much older and have eroded and subsided over millions of years, leaving only rings of coral surrounding lagoons, so that the combined area of all the atolls—Ant, Pakin, Nukuoro, Oroluk, Kapingamarangi, Mwoakil, Sapwuahfik, and Pingel...
Dalton’s Round Bits of Wood Experimenting in my lab brought home to me that chemical mixtures were completely unlike chemical compounds. One could mix salt and sugar, say, in any proportion. One could mix salt and water – the salt would dissolve, but then one could evaporate...
Christina did find herself very unsteady on her feet, with awkward flailing movements, and dropping things from her hands. The psychiatrist was again called-he seemed vexed at the call, hut also, momentarily, uncertain and bewildered. 'Anxiety hysteria,' he now snapped,...
Once lofty volcanic islands like Pohnpei, they are geologically much older and have eroded and subsided over millions of years, leaving only rings of coral surrounding lagoons, so that the combined area of all the atolls – Ant, Pakin, Nukuoro, Oroluk, Kapingamarangi, Mwoakil, Sap-...
Christina did find herself very unsteady on her feet, with awkward flailing movements, and dropping things from her hands. The psychiatrist was again called-he seemed vexed at the call, hut also, momentarily, uncertain and bewildered. 'Anxiety hysteria,' he now snapped,...
By the time he came to Gélineau, he was having as many as two hundred a day. He sometimes fell asleep in the middle of a meal, the knife and fork slipping from his fingers; he might drop off in the middle of a sentence or as soon as he had been seated in a theater. Intense emotions, sad or happy,...