Think fast

Can your brain turn on a dime?

My step-grandmother is Swedish and lives in Sweden. She is (I think) 85 years old. When she was 50, she moved to the United States and learned to speak English for the first time. She accomplished this by conversing with people and also by holding a Swedish Bible in one hand and an English Bible in the other and comparing the words from the same verses. No Berlitz language tapes apparently needed. About 10 years ago, when she was about 75, she moved back to Sweden, to a small town where not much English is spoken.

Earlier in the year I posted an entry that my oldest son was spending second semester studying in Europe. One of his goals while there was to visit his great-grandmother and so he did. He spent a weekend with her in which he feasted on her exemplary Scandinavian cooking and toured the scenic countryside near her town with her and a couple other relatives.

I recently called her (US to Sweden) to thank her for her hospitality to my son. My call to her was out of the blue. She certainly did not pick up the phone expecting to have an English-speaking caller on the other end. As I said, there is little English spoken in her community. She answered the phone in Swedish yet the minute she heard my voice she transitioned to near-perfect English.

To say that I find this mental agility--at her age or any age--enviable is an understatement. I sometimes have trouble transitioning from the language of my day's work to the language of my dinner table, and both are in English.

A psychologist friend of mine told me about a conference she went to given by David Perlmutter, MD, author of The Better Brain Book. Up front I offer the disclaimer that I haven’t read this book but from what she told me, it is one that I plan to read. Mental speed and agility should be a goal for all of us according to Perlmutter and in his book he offers strategies to help us develop that, no matter our age. He suggests fun quick things like card games and matching games, not necessarily hours of laborious brain building reading or study.

Other interesting reading about the brain and keeping it sharp has come out of the Nun study, which is a long-term study on aging and cognitive function. Among the many key findings is that mental work done long ago continues to benefit a person as he/she ages. Dr. David Snowdon, an epidemiologist trained at University of Minnesota but now from University of Kentucky, is the principal investigator. Over a period of more than 15 years, Dr. Snowdon and his team studied 678 nuns from 7 convents in 6 states (all from the School Sisters of Notre Dame). These nuns were great study subjects because of the archival records available that tracked their environment, activities, and health for many years. In addition, the participating nuns agreed to donate their brains for analysis upon their death. The study group has a website on which you can find much information, including abstracts from all their published papers: http://www.nunstudy.org. Dr. Snowdon has also written a book about the study called Aging with Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives.

I don’t think, however, that my step-grandmother has read any books specifically on maintaining a sharp brain while aging or on increasing mental agility through the use of card games. Perhaps she just has good genes. Perhaps she has simply kept her brain excercised without a book telling her to do it. Perhaps it is the long-lasting effect of bi-lingual brain development from years ago. Perhaps it is keeping the Bible in at least one hand. Perhaps it is the clean air and preserving cold temperatures of Northern Sweden. I, on the other hand, may need some help. A deck of cards? A Berlitz language tape or two? More frequent International calls?

Ideas, mice, and scary rides

The origin of ideas in general is an interesting topic. Finding out specifically how a certain talented individual courts and cultivates ideas is even more interesting.

Just last week I read an article about a brain biologist, Joe Tsien, who got an idea about testing the nature of memory in mice from a scary ride he was on at Disney World, The Tower of Terror. In "The Mouse that Remembered", Boston Globe staff writer Carey Goldberg reports the scientific findings of Tsien and then summarizes his idea-courting advice. "For now, Tsien said, one obvious lesson emerges from the inspiration he gained at Disney World: 'Go out and have fun,' he said. 'That's where your best ideas come from.'"

Postscript: It might need to be pointed out, however, that one person's evocative adventure is another person's moment of trauma. My last scary ride was decades ago but also at Disney World. Space Mountain on "Grad Night." (Anyone who graduated from high school in Florida will know what I'm referring to.) The only idea it gave me was to never go on it, or any other scary ride, ever again.:)

Listen up: A physicist/priest on science and religion

This week on Speaking of Faith ("Public radio's national conversation about belief, meaning, ethics, and ideas"), host Krista Tippett's guest is Sir Rev. John Polkinghorne. Polkinghorne is Canon Theologian of Liverpool Cathedral in England and author of many books, including Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity. He served as Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University, and is a Fellow of The Royal Society. I wrote about Polkinghorne a few weeks ago and his comparison of prayer to a laser (See, "Prayer like a laser".)

About Polkinghorne, Krista Tippett writes in her weekly essay,

"I first heard John Polkinghorne’s voice on the BBC in the late 1980s, at a time when I lived in England. Late one night, he presented a riveting radio essay. It couldn’t have lasted more than five or ten minutes, but it had a tremendous, lasting effect on me.

Polkinghorne spoke about reason and faith, science and prayer — subjects I was pondering deeply at that point, after a good decade in which I had dismissed religion and religious sentiments out of hand. He described connections between quantum physics and theology in inviting, commonsense terms. He applied chaos theory to make prayer sound intellectually intriguing. This week, I was able to talk with John Polkinghorne about the ideas he inspired in me 15 years ago and about many related questions I have accumulated since."

She concludes her essay by saying that Polinghorne's "scientific notions give me new, creative ways to imagine the credibility of religious modes of thought. They underscore John Polkinghorne’s personable and passionate message that we need the insights of science and religion together to 'interpret and understand the rich, varied, and surprising way the world actually is.'"

You can listen to this week's show, Quarks and Creation, on your local affiliate of American Public Media or online. Go to the Speaking of Faith home page to find a station in your area or to listen at anytime via free streaming audio using RealPlayer. You can also read a complete description of the program, including some quotes and book excerpts from Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity, at the program's page.

"A scientist can pray. We can take with absolute seriousness all that science can tell us and still believe that there is room left over for our action in the world, and for God's action, too. Of course, this does not mean that prayer is just filling in a series of blank cheques given us by a heavenly Father Christmas. This is why I could not expect all those patients I prayed for simply to recover, much as I hoped they would. Prayer is not magic. It is something much more personal, for it is an interaction between humanity and God." Sir John Polkinghorne, from "Can a Scientist Pray" in Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity

Hidden in the stacks

A few too many stacks of papers have been piling up in my office. My filing is way behind. To the rescue has come my niece, who has put in some hours over the last couple weeks making folder labels, alphabetizing, and filing. The stacks are going down and I can practically feel a fresh breeze coming through my office door. One of the benefits of getting caught up on filing is the discovery of interesting items that have been lurking, forgotten, in the stacks.

Consider this sampling of what I found:

–A print-out of a "Key Lime Pie" recipe from Brad Boydston's blog. I've not tried this recipe yet, but good key lime pie is perhaps my favorite dessert.

–A list of cold and cough  remedies. Here's one: 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/4 tsp powdered ginger, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1 tbsp honey (or to taste), 2 tbsp water. I've not tried this and offer a disclaimer to try at your own risk.

–A quote from Thomas Merton (from, Seeds of Contemplation): "The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet, interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility."

–A couple pages of ideas for journaling that I downloaded some time ago from Catherine deCuir's website. One of the ideas is to think back to times in your life that you wish you had written about at the time, but never did. It's not too late, encourages deCuir. Write about them now in your journal. She calls this a "Retroactive Journal". Another idea is what she refers to as a "Word Snapshot," for which she provides a printable form. "Print the form, seize the day," she writes. On the form is a list of prompts to write down what you are listening to, watching, wearing, learning, working on, etc, on any given day.

–A nutritional study conducted at Cornell University and published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry about the benefits of hot cocoa–which I think I'll get up and make right now. The study found that the antioxidants in hot cocoa are almost two times stronger than red wine, two to three times stronger than green tea, and four to five times stronger than black tea. Apparently, the key is in the heat. More antioxidants are released when the cocoa is hot than when it is cold.

–And finally–and I saved the best for last–an article entitled, "The Importance of a Well-Groomed Child" by Robert M. Sapolsky. The article begins, "It is a rare parent of a newborn who does not feel a panic built around the consequences that her or his actions now have. Developmental studies have indicated that the quality, quantity, and timing of infant stimulation can have long-lasting effects–and soon the anxious parent is convinced that one lullaby song off-key ensures that a child will not only one day be a sociopath, but will also never use dental floss." Every parent reading this can relate to the anxiety. This article confirms that such anxiety is well founded. In Science, Sapolsky writes about a study conducted by Liu and colleagues in which baby rats who were well licked and groomed by their mommy rats had life-long positive effect in their brain and nervous systems compared to the baby rats who were not well licked and groomed. In his concluding paragraph, Sapolsky writes, "Although the specifics of licking and grooming do not extend to humans, the broader point emphasizing the importance of early experience certainly does."

Here is my suggestion: If you have a child at home, run your fingers through his or her hair (ie, grooming), put your arm around him or her (a hug will be an adequate replacement for a lick), and then make some hot cocoa and sit down and drink it together. When your well-groomed and antioxidized child is tucked in bed, get out some paper and write about how pleasurable it was to boost the trajectory of your child's (and your) life.

Prayer like a laser

Next weekend I'm giving a couple talks. In preparation, I've been weaving together new thoughts and notes and old thoughts and notes. One of the sets of notes that I've pulled from the archives are notes I took when I heard Sir Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne speak a number of years ago at a local university. Polkinghorne is from England and is a physicist turned Anglican priest. You can read more about him and peruse his extensive bibliography at this website. His topic was "Can Scientists Pray?" Many times in the years since this lecture, his ideas about prayer have come back to me.

Polkinghorne compared prayer to a laser. Laser light is powerful because it is coherent. The troughs and peaks of its waves line up and are, therefore, added together for maximum intensity. In the same way, prayer is a vehicle by which our will is added to God’s will and the will of others of the same mind and prayer for maximum effect. All together, we are offering our power of agency to God for the accomplishment of his will. This is not an abstract semantic excercise, but rather a contribution of actual energy and power. The alignment of our will with God’s matters, not simply as a measure of our love or devotion to him, but as an aide to him to get his work in the world accomplished. Being neither an educated theologian or physicist, my summary is not a complete capture of the thoughts he conveyed. Nonetheless, to think of prayer in this way is very exciting.

Notes from a Boston-bound DC-9

This morning I flew to Boston for a work project. I usually like to have a new novel reserved for a plane ride. I'm not wild about flying and like to have a mystery or compelling drama I can immerse myself in (ie, distract myself with). I found myself yesterday without such a book and so put a couple of magazines into my bag instead. Actually I had intended to get to the bookstore and buy a book by Lisa Samson. I recently discovered her blog (see my blogroll for the link to Author Intrusion) and have happily become a regular visitor. Admittedly, however, I've not read any of her books. My intention was to change that and make one of her books my plane reading for this trip. Unfortunately, bad weather and car-use conflicts yesterday prevented me from getting to the bookstore as I had planned. Thus, the magazines in my bag instead of her book. It still was a fruitful reading period. I was mostly distracted from the turbulence, little that there was, plus I learned a thing or two. Here are some items of note from my magazine reading:

The New Yorker, October 25, 2004

A new play by Michele Lowe has opened called String of Pearls. The premise of the play is that a woman finds a pearl necklace that she lost thirty years prior. The review says the premise "seems clichéd, but the charm and nuance of the writing make the fable believable and fresh." I think the premise sounds intriguing. What personal item may have been lost thirty years ago that would be fun or exciting or even life changing to now find?

An ad by United Technologies asked, "What makes cities possible?" The ad answers its own question by proposing that air conditioning, jets, and elevators are what make cities possible. I think it's a bit more complex than that.

Malcolm Gladwell is a contributing writer in this issue. A note about him says that he has a book coming out in January called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Great title!

Tiffany & Co is featuring a gold heart bracelet for a mere $4,700.

Philip Obayda, an architecture student in London, has demonstrated that Murphy's Law (anything that can go wrong will) is a legitimate and measurable phenomenon. Factors in the mathematical equation include numerical levels of Urgency, Complexity, Importance, Skill, and Frequency for any given circumstance. I didn't understand how the equation worked out but that means nothing.

Despite the upset over the high price of prescription drugs in the U.S. compared to other countries, economists Patricia Danzon and Michael Furukawa point out that while drugs still under patent protection cost 25% to 40% more in the U.S. than in other countries such as Canada and England, generic drugs and over-the-counter drugs are much cheaper. In other words, we pay a lot at the beginning of a drug's lifespan and less as the drug gets older. In contrast, other countries pay less at the beginning, but they pay much more than we do for generics and over-the-counter drugs.

U. S. News and World Report, November 1, 2004
According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who spend "loads of time" (the brief article didn't quantify this term) in traffic triple their odds of suffering a heart attack within an hour of traffic. Potential reasons: stress? polutants?

Coke appears to activate a part of the brain that handles memory and exerts control over thinking. (I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a good thing or not??) This finding was determined by studying the brain activity of people after drinking the beverage. The study published in Neuron pointed out that the competing brand did not activate this part of the brain.

Wilkins and the structure of DNA

Maurice Wilkins died on October 6, 2004 at the age of 87. Wilkins shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA's structure with James Watson and Frances Crick. Although Crick and Watson received more attention over the years for this discovery, Wilkins pioneered the means by which the discovery could be made, a technique called X-ray fibre diffraction. He also worked to verify the findings. Another member of the team was Rosalind Franklin. She took the X-ray photographs from which Crick and Watson derived their conclusions about DNA's structure.

You might find it interesting to read the actual published paper by Watson and Crick in which their discovery was publicly reported: A Structure for DNA from Nature, 1953. It's a surprisingly short paper for such a landmark discovery.