All posts by She Seeks Serene
Brain Science Podcasts: MRI Scans Now Reveal “Thoughts And Feelings” (60 Minutes)
Who among us hasn’t wished we could read someone else’s mind, know exactly what they’re thinking? Well that’s impossible, of course, since our thoughts are, more than anything else, our own. Private, personal, unreachable. Or at least that’s what we’ve always, well, thought.
Advances in neuroscience have shown that, on a physical level, our thoughts are actually a vast network of neurons firing all across our brains. So if that brain activity could be identified and analyzed, could our thoughts be decoded? Could our minds be read? Well, a team of scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has spent more than a decade trying to do just that. We started our reporting on their work 10 years ago, and what they’ve discovered since, has drawn us back.
To read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging-computer-analysis-read-thoughts-60-minutes-2019-11-24/
Top Art Exhibitions: “Drape” Featuring Degas, Dürer At The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon
From the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon:
How is a drapery put in place? For what reasons does this motive persist until today? How to explain its power of fascination? These are the questions that this exhibition intends to pose, in order to enter the “factory” of the drapery and to get closer to the artistic gesture. By showing the stages of making a drapery, the visitor will discover the singular practices of artists from the Renaissance to the second half of the 20th century.
November 30, 2019 – March 8, 2020, Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon
Albrecht Dürer, Drapery Study, 1508, Brush and Indian Ink, heightened white on dark green paperThe Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon retains an exceptional drawing by Albrecht Dürer studying a piece of drapery. This meticulous study reveals how the flexibility of a fabric lends itself to an infinity of folds, underlined by shadows and lights.
To read more: http://www.mba-lyon.fr/mba/sections/fr/expositions-musee/le-drape/exposition-le-drape
New Poetry & Art: “Giorgio De Chirico – Geometry Of Shadows” Translated By Stefania Heim
From a Hyperallergic.com online review:
“Everywhere is the wait and the gathering,” concludes “Resort.” A kind of soporific haze has seeped into de Chirico’s imagination, asserted through evocations of sleeping and dreaming. Even the violence and ambiguous sexual imagery of “The Mysterious Night” yield to a final note of definitive somnolence: “Everything sleeps; even the owls and the bats who also in the dream dream of sleeping.”
“My room,” he writes, “is a beautiful vessel,” and from there he propels his imagination outward across space and time, geography and history. Indeed, “faraway” (lontani, lontano) is one of his favorite adjectives. 
He daydreams of Mexico or Alaska and invokes a future-oriented “avant-city” and a distant day where he is immortalized, albeit in an old-fashioned mode as a “man of marble.”
The paintings of Giorgio de Chirico invariably call to mind a cluster of adjectives: haunting, enigmatic, evocative, poetic. But unlike many artists whose poetry remains wordless and confined to the canvas, de Chirico was also a writer whose texts have been praised and even translated by such art-world luminaries as Louise Bourgeois and John Ashbery. A new collection provides us with more of de Chirico’s writings. Translated into English by Stefania Heim, Geometry of Shadows presents the relatively compact totality of the artist’s extant poems and poetic fragments written in Italian, complementing his memoirs and the novel Hebdomeros (in French), which have been available in English for some time.
To read more: https://hyperallergic.com/520898/geometry-of-shadows-by-giorgio-de-chirico/
Book Review Podcasts: “Margaret Thatcher – Herself Alone” By Charles Moore (New York Times)
“I don’t think you can think about British politics or British history without thinking about her a very great deal,” Charles Moore, the authorized biographer of Margaret Thatcher, says of his subject on this week’s podcast. “And to some extent, you can’t think about the history of the modern West without thinking about her a very great deal.”
The third and concluding volume of Moore’s 2,700-page biography is titled “Herself Alone.”
Adrienne Brodeur visits the podcast this week to discuss her new book, “Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me.” When Brodeur was 14, her mother confided in her about an extramarital affair she was conducting. “The temptation is to view a mother like this in sort of the ‘monster mother’ perspective, and the fact is, the most important thing for me in writing this book was to present a very nuanced portrayal of both her and of our relationship,” Brodeur says.
Also on this week’s episode, Alexandra Alter discusses the winners of this year’s National Book Awards; and Susan Dominus, A.O. Scott and John Williams talk about what people are reading. Pamela Paul is the host.
Healthcare: Geriatric Assessment Helps Select Proper Treatments For Cancer In Elderly Patients
From an NPR online article:
More than 60% of cancers in the U.S. occur in people older than 65. As the population grows older, so will the rate of cancer among seniors. The cancer incidence in the elderly is expected to rise 67% from 2010 to 2030, according to a 2017 study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Yet many oncologists don’t have geriatric training.
“When the doctor saw how physically active and mentally sharp my father was at 89 years of age, but that he had several chronic, serious medical problems, including end stage kidney disease, she didn’t advise him to have aggressive treatment like the first time around,” says Griggs, who lives in Rochester, N.Y.
Geriatric assessment is an approach that clinicians use to evaluate their elderly patients’ overall health status and to help them choose treatment appropriate to their age and condition. The assessment includes questionnaires and tests to gauge the patients’ physical, mental and functional capacity, taking into account their social lives, daily activities and goals.
Health: “Feather Duvet Lung” Left Undiagnosed Risks Irreversible Lung Fibrosis (BMJ Case Reports)
From a British Medical Journal (BMJ) online release:
Although he had no pet birds, on closer questioning he had recently acquired a duvet and pillows containing feathers. His symptoms, chest radiograph and lung function tests improved after removal of all feather bedding, and he was also started on oral corticosteroid therapy. Our case reinforces the importance of taking a meticulous exposure history and asking about domestic bedding in patients with unexplained breathlessness. Prompt recognition and cessation of antigen exposure may prevent the development of irreversible lung fibrosis.
A 43-year-old non-smoker was referred with a 3-month history of malaise, fatigue and breathlessness. Blood avian precipitins were strongly positive. Lung function testing confirmed a restrictive pattern with impaired gas transfer. A ‘ground glass’ mosaic pattern was seen on CT imaging, suggestive of hypersensitivity pneumonitis.
Feather duvet lung (FDL), is an immunologically mediated form of hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP), also sometimes called extrinsic allergic alveolitis. FDL is caused by inhalation of organic dust from duck or goose feathers found in duvets and pillows. Antigen inhalation triggers an immunological cascade, resulting in lung parenchymal inflammation. Repeated exposure may result in irreversible lung fibrosis.
To read more: https://casereports.bmj.com/content/12/11/e231237
Top New Travel Videos: “The Waters Of Slovenia” (National Geographic)
Slovenia is a country defined by water, with more than 60 rivers and streams, 300 artificial and natural lakes, and 7,500 freshwater springs – each of which is packed with minerals and nutrients.
Website: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
Top Animated Films: “Le Mans 1955” Directed By Quentin Baillieux
Director – Quentin Baillieux
Producers – Nicolas de Rosanbo and Carole Lambert
Scriptwriter – Julien Lilti
Editer – Benjamin Massoubre and Vincent Tricon
Sound designer – Xavier Dreyfuss
Line Producer – Céline Vanlint
Original score by Ali Helnwein
With the voices of :
John Fitch – Nathan Willcocks
Alfred Neubauer – Joe Sheridan
Pierre Levegh – Nicholas Mead
This film was inspired by a 1950s racing car exhibition I visited at the Louvre. I was struck by the beauty of the exhibited sports cars, especially a Jaguar which had competed in 1955 at Le Mans. I began researching the that event and two very contradictory photos appeared next to one another on my screen.
On one side, the image of a tragedy : people in a panic, a blazing inferno behind them. Bodies were sprawled across the stadium. The photo beside it depicted delighted drivers celebrating their victory with champagne.
Website: http://www.lemans1955.com/
Housing Market: A “Silver Tsunami” Of 20+ Million Homes Owned By Baby Boomers Will Flood The Market In Next 20 Years
From a Zillow.com online article:
Currently, 33.9 percent of owner-occupied U.S. homes are owned by residents aged 60 or older, and 55.2 percent by residents aged 50 or older. As these households age and begin vacating housing, that could represent upwards of 20 million homes hitting the market through the mid-2030s.
The massive Baby Boomer generation has already begun aging into retirement, and will begin passing away in large numbers in coming decades – releasing a flood of currently owner-occupied homes that could hit the market. That could help end the last few years’ inventory drought, as well as a more fundamental shortage of homes in certain places.
This Silver Tsunami of homes coming to market could be a good substitute for new home construction, which has been in short supply for the past decade in large part because of difficult-to-overcome challenges faced by builders.
To read more: https://www.zillow.com/research/silver-tsunami-inventory-boomers-24933/
Boomers Daily 