Why, why, does everyone go on so about the brain? Each Tuesday, the New York Times does its section on science, to which I am addicted. I like best the astrophysical stuff on pulsars and quasars and black holes and how old and far away everything is; there's a pleasantly vertiginous aftertaste that sometimes lasts until 'Arts and Entertainment' comes out on Saturday. But I'm quite prepared to settle for the breaking news on whether birds are dinosaurs, or when Africa was last attached to Brazil, or which kind of cholesterol is good for you after all. It's all grist for the same mill: how odd it is how odd the world turns out to be.

LRB 30 September 1999 | PDF Download