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Related:
How brain scans work and what they tell us, from the Melbourne Age
The brain's blind spots, from the London Telegraph
Earlier:
The Vision Thing: Part One/Part Two
Neurotheology and its limits (more here and here)
Neuroscience and free will
What does the soul weigh?
Is Google a brain?

From the Christian Science Monitor:

DAMASCUS, SYRIA — It used to be that visitors to this ancient Arab city had limited options for fine dining: a buffet at the Sheraton, a French bistro at the Meridian, or a Chinese restaurant in the Cham Palace Hotel. Travelers looking for an authentic Syrian culinary adventure—exploding with cumin, thyme, and garlic—settled for one of thousands of shawarma stands (serving shaved beef and chicken wraps) or else hoped for a dinner invitation from a Syrian family. That's changed in the past few years, though, as Old City Damascus—the part that's been continuously inhabited for at least 4,000 years—has been overrun by eateries. Wealthy Syrian businessmen have bought some 40 traditional Arab homes—jewel boxes of friezes and frescos, marble and mosaic—and converted them into restaurants … This has been a boon for tourists, and it has saved some 300-year-old architectural gems from decades of neglect. But critics complain that the noise and traffic these businesses bring are fraying the city's delicate social fabric and upsetting a historic mode of life for those who dwell near the new restaurants.

From the New Yorker:

Cameron County, which has a population of three hundred and thirty-five thousand, sits at the southernmost tip of Texas and consists of a smattering of small towns and two cities, Harlingen and Brownsville. … Cameron County is full of geckos, free-tailed bats, twice-fried-food franchises, and audacious contradictions. A replica of the Statue of Liberty is attended not by the "Give me your tired, your poor" inscription but by a notice that the spot is under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Anglo sons of the Alamo wear cowboy hats with guayaberas made in China. The United States' richest diversity of birds shares the sky with the smoke trails of eight hundred thousand smoldering tires from a dump just over the Mexican border. And, while the rhythms of daily life often seem to have two speeds, slow and stop, the county has negotiated American economic history's two greatest transitions—from farming to manufacturing and, now, from manufacturing to service—in the space of forty years.

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Nathan Bierma is editorial assistant atBooks & Culture. He writes the weekly "On Language" column for the Chicago Tribune.

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