The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2011 - Plot & Excerpts
An iMac streams a Pat Metheny version of an Ennio Morricone tune while Dr. Jacopo Annese, sitting in front of his ventilated biosafety cabinet, a small paintbrush in his hand, teases apart a crumpled slice of brain. The slice floats in saline solution in a shallow black plastic tray, and at first it looks exactly like a piece of ginger at a good sushi restaurant, one where they don't dye the ginger but leave it pale. Then Annese's brush, with its practiced dabs and tugs, gently unfurls it. The slice becomes a curlicued silhouette, recognizable for what it is, the organ it comes from, even if you are not, as Annese is, a neuroanatomist. He loves quiet nights like these, when his lab assistants set him up with everything he needs—the numbered twist-off specimen containers, the paintbrushes, the empty glass slides—and then leave him alone with his music and his work. Annese coaxes the slice into position above the glass slide that lies half submerged in the tray, cocking his head, peering at it from different angles, checking to see that he has the orientation right.
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