A stirring account of how important scientific research gets done.
Former Los Angeles Times national reporter McDermott (Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It, 2006) tells the story of the driven neuroscientist Gary Lynch and his ongoing quest to discover the biochemical workings of memory.
Scientists have long been searching for the explanation of how memories are produced in the human brain and how they are stored and recalled. As McDermott explains in 101 Theory Drive—named after the street address of Lynch’s lab—Lynch has obsessively been trying to answer those complex questions for decades. With a chemist, he has also been working on drugs called ampakines, which could theoretically help improve memory function and restore the brain’s cognitive abilities—a potential boon for sufferers of Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases. Starting in late 2004, McDermott spent nearly two years observing the work in the scientist’s lab. He chronicles the progress of Lynch’s research and provides an engaging portrait of the colorful but not-always-likable Lynch. The author ably explains highly technical concepts of neurology and breaks down complicated ideas in ways that general readers can easily understand. He’s equally at home describing the obsessive Lynch, who is portrayed as ambitious, brilliant and conversant on a dizzying array of subjects, but also impatient, full of self-regard and tough on his staff. The book opens with Lynch alone in his lab, annoyed that the rest of his team dared take a break between Christmas and New Year’s Day. McDermott also pays attention to key members of Lynch’s staff, such as neurophysiologist Eniko Kramar, whose workaholic devotion to Lynch’s work is described by her friends as “just short of self-destructive.”
A stirring account of how important scientific research gets done.Pub Date: April 6, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-375-42538-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
A fascinating tour of the sexual fringes of our society, an inside look at worlds into which most of us will never seek or gain entrÇe. Starting with the notion that activities at the margins of society eventually move into the mainstream, and her belief that our society is simultaneously sexually promiscuous and repressive (as in politically correct codes of sexual behavior), Eurydice plunges into various circles of sexual deviancy, only to be amazed by the ordinariness of the individuals engaging in bizarre erotic behavior. “What they did in private might quality as abnormal,” she writes, “but they did not.” What begins as a kind of highbrow voyeuristic tour of the fringes turns into a compelling portrait of contemporary anomie as we are guided through the worlds of cross-dressing, sexual addiction, sadomasochism, cybersex, and even necrophilia. What we see is disturbing—priests who can—t overcome their sexual addiction, women who choose to be sex slaves in a S/M relationship, vampires reveling orgiastically in each other’s blood—but equally disturbing is the inner deadness that drives them to seek extreme forms of sexual activity. Of women who cut themselves as part of the sexual act, the author writes, “for those who wear their scars as “badges of honor,” . . . What I do find utterly disquieting is that its scars are advertisements for the invisible scars of an increasingly violent and hollow society.” “All I really want is to feel alive,” says one sex addict who has slept with more than a thousand men. Eurydice’s ponderings about what she sees are not always convincing; in writing about sex in the military, she is irritatingly attracted to the idea that sex and violence must be linked in men who are being trained for war. But at her best, she offers insights into the pleasures and dangers offered by contemporary society. This study of our sexual mores is far from erotic. It is illuminating, provocative, unsettling, dark, and disturbing.
Pub Date: Feb. 14, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-83951-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
The prolific Highwater (The Language of Vision, 1994; Myth and Sexuality, 1990; etc.) once again explores the foundations of mythological structures, this time with the purpose of determining why homosexuality has been singled out as culturally deviant in contemporary Western society. The result is a rambling but occasionally insightful discussion of the intersections of homosexuality with religion, science, and culture, which unfortunately loses its spirit halfway through. Highwater's argument rests on a redefinition of ``transgression,'' which society has traditionally rendered as sinful or inherently dangerous behavior. What we have missed, he claims, is the notion of transgression as a courageous testing of boundaries, a creative and ``rebellious act that breaks conceptual barriers.'' Homosexuality, he says, can be seen as a metaphor for such boundary intrusion. Highwater offers some (but not enough) examples of the hero's role in myths of adventure to demonstrate that boundary testing can be celebrated, not demonized, for heroes always trespass the perimeters of their culture and do the forbidden thing. Highwater has obviously read widely, which contributes to the depth of his argument but might confuse readers who are unaccustomed to hearing from Erich Fromm in one paragraph and Alice in Wonderland in the next. Highwater draws freely from the work of cultural anthropologists, such as Mary Douglas, whose work she quite adroitly uses to elucidate the cultural taboos of the margins. However, Highwater can't decide if he is directing the book at a popular or an academic audience; it begins in a very personal way (he is himself gay, as well as Native American) and becomes progressively more scholarly and detached. But when he relies more heavily on the work of others, the lack of citations becomes quite irritating. And toward the end Highwater loses the focus, falling into inchoate discussions of the more questionable ``mythologies'' of sensibility and culture.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-19-510180-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1996
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