A few weeks ago, I went with Hels to our local private hospital so that she could have a brain scan. She had been referred for the scan as she has a hearing problem, and the doctor wanted to check that there was nothing untoward going on inside her skull. Yesterday, we went back to get the results.
The interesting part is that you get to look at a big sheet of acetate showing about three dozen "slices" through the head, a bit like looking at slices through an enormous ham. Each slice is a fraction of a millimetre thick, and each sheet of acetate shows the ham being sliced at a different angle. It provides a unique opportunity to look at something you would never otherwise see – the inside of your own head (or, for me, the inside of my fiancée’s head). It is something that you can not reach with any of your senses, yet it is there and has been carried around by Hels for all her life.
The most shocking thing to discover, though, was that in spite of Hels agreeing to marry me, her brain is "normal".
Category: science
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Slices of brain
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Showers moving west
Goodbye to magnetic clouds, and all that. I think this is rather sad, as I’ve grown up with the familiar three-lobed cloud shapes. It’s possible to look at a BBC weather chart and instantly discern the prevailing conditions, without having to read the accompanying text or listen to the forecaster (although one should always listen to Rob McElwee as he is a minor deity after all – "There’s a deep depression moving in from the Atlantic, and we ALL know what that means, don’t we?"). I also wonder if this will mean the end of the traditional opening of the forecast (well, in days of old at least, and occasionally still today) with a North Atlantic synoptic chart – which, for anyone with even a basic A-level grounding in meteorology, provides enough information to get the general gist of how the weather will be.
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Benny on the loose
I’m currently reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History Of Nearly Everything. (I know it doesn’t say that in the sidebar. I know I’m bad at updating. Bear with me.)
Today, Scaryduck thoughtfully provides the missing chapter. -
More from the BBC
More news stories:
- Hubble finds around 100 new extra-solar planets, yet more evidence of the pressing need to try and find some way to keep Hubble working.
- Lord Ashdown takes action over failuire to arrest Karadzic – not before time, and it remains to be seen if it will be effective.
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News from the BBC
A few links to today’s news – presented for your own thoughts:
- No charges to be brought over "that" Robert Kilroy-Silk article. Not a great surprise, and in all possibility a victory for freedom of speech, even if his comments were utterly offensive and loathsome.
- Cassini probe sends back pictures of Saturn’s rings. Stunning. I hope people do not become jaundiced by all this – there is an absolute shedload of really exciting stuff coming from man’s exploration of space at the moment, and we must be careful not to under-rate it.
- Some people have said that the young Russian tennis player, Maria Sharapova, is the new Kournikova. There’s one major difference though. Sharapova can actually play.
- Richard May, RIP. If only there was a Richard May to deal with this trial.
- Irish Republic completes its presidency of the EU, described by many as possibly the most successful presidency in the Union’s history. Much credit must go to Bertie Ahern, who comes across as remarkably disarming. Many might be surprised to know that the Taoiseach offers frequent punditry on the main Irish Saturday-night football TV show, something that would seem alien to citizens of nations where the leader is remote from the people.
- The postal service watchdog has sent letters to MPs seeking their support for the campaign to cut the amount of lost and mis-delivered mail. Unfortunately, they got lost in the post. Coincidence or conspiracy?
- Why Sir Peter had to go. From a marketing standpoint, Sainsburys’ offering is not clear – are they trying to be a value leader, taking on Asda and Tesco, or are they trying to be a quality leader, taking on Waitrose and Marks and Spencer? It’s hard to do both at the same time without eroding margins.
- Teacher’s job shortage warning.
"But the mystery is how the primary teacher market became over-supplied at all. The government has had years to prepare for the fall in the number of primary school children. The government and the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) regulate the number of trainees. Yet with 60,000 fewer primary school children expected, last year they increased the target for primary trainees."
Do the words "astonishingly incompetent" spring to mind, hmm?
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Deadly sins
Happiness is buying the latest marketing book.
Happiness is also having a successful meeting with the bank manager, a successful meeting with a client and actually achieving quite a bit today.
Happiness also comes in the form of wasting time on silly games and actually seeing the transit of Venus (with the aid of a welding visor). -
He’s a very nice young man…
Spirit breaks down. Do NASA know a man who can?
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Venus as a photo
Is it me, or do the newly enhanced images of the surface of Venus actually show a half-finished Ground Force project? Seriously, they’re very good.
Related: Don Mitchell’s Venus site.
Aside: for years, my dentist was a man named Don Mitchell. -
Science news
From the BBC (as usual):
President Bush to announce plans to send astronauts to Mars and the Moon. No surprise there – this has been flagged up for some time. Not sure that Congress will stomach the cost of these projects though.
Steve Fossett unveils aircraft for round-the-world solo attempt.