“Writing an essay is like catching a wave,” posits guest editor Ariel Levy. “To catch a wave, you need skill and nerve, not just moving water.” This year’s writers are certainly full of nerve, and have crafted a wide range of pieces awash in a diversity of moods, voices, and stances. Leaving an abusive marriage, parting with a younger self, losing your sanity to Fitbit, and even saying goodbye to a beloved pair of pants imbued with meaning are all unified by the daring of their creation. As Levy notes, “Writing around an idea you think is worthwhile—an idea you suspect is an insight—requires real audacity.”
"Most of us would like to be smarter," asserts Restak (The Brain, companion to PBS's series by the same name), neuropsychiatrist and clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University Medical Center. Restak claims that improving cognition is the answer. In accessible science-teacher style, Restak delineates the brain's attributes, from its weight (three pounds) to the number of nerve cells (100 billion) and its infinity of synapses, explaining what aids communication, informs memory and so forth.
Mysterious accidents start happening to jockeys, one man is found shot dead, while another is found with a broken leg. When Robb Finn begins investigating, he finds himself caught up in a world of violence and twisted envy.
Everyone knows the Moomins sleep through the winter. But this year, Moomintroll has woken up early. So while the rest of the family slumber, he decides to visit his favorite summer haunts. But all he finds is this strange white stuff. Even the sun is gone! Moomintroll is angry: whoever Winter is, she has some nerve. Determined to discover the truth about this most mysterious of all seasons, Moomintroll goes where no Moomin has gone before.
Written with undergraduate students in mind, the new edition of this classic textbook provides a compact introduction to the physiology of nerve and muscle. It gives a straightforward account of the fundamentals accompanied by some of the experimental evidence upon which this understanding is based. It first explores the nature of nerve impulses, clarifying their mechanisms in terms of ion flow through molecular channels in cell membranes. There then follows an account of the synaptic transmission processes by which one excitable cell influences activity in another.
