The idea was novel. The need—certain. Millions are addicted to the New York Times crossword puzzle, some even doing it while driving or tending to our kids. I vowed to find a cure.
My crackpot team of neuroscientists and I spent seven years isolating the brain region responsible for this scourge. With rats inside fMRI machines, we flashed images of crosswords and mapped brain regions.
“This will never work,” said Igby, our lab tech. “Rats don’t know an adit from an epee.”
He was right, but I pushed on, believing the need for a cure outweighed all paradigms.
Because their brains mature later in life, ferrets were used by a German group. We copied their protocol, beginning slowly with Word Find and bar pressing. No progress; though, one outlier did press avidly for Sudoku. But that was another lab’s purview. We shared this knowledge, hoping to get on their grant, and moved on.
Our first breakthrough came when we inserted a viral vector containing names of European rivers and silent movie actresses (we used AAV) into the nucleus accumbens of Sprague-Dawleys.
“I’ve finished scoring the video,” said Igby, “and if we overlook all the data contrary to our hypothesis, it’s statistically significant.”
Sure enough, the post-surgery rats, when given a choice between their natural inclinations for a dark room and a lit room with a NY Times crossword, preferred the lit crossword, 12% more than controls. (However, controls preferred Sudoku; did I pick the wrong focus?)
On a whim, Igby tried the same conditioned place preference with cocaine and thinks he saw something worth pursuing in the future. Seems like a dead end to me, though.
Instead, I pushed exploring cognitive recovery by blocking the crossword receptors with a Scrabble competitive inhibitor, but the affect was merely temporary. We needed to up the dose.
“Bad day, boss,” said Igby. “One of the rats showed stereotypy.”
“What happened?”
“Well, I put in a Saturday NY Times Crossword … ”
“Are you insane?” “It’s way too early for that. You’re lucky you didn’t wipe out the entire colony!”
At the National Addiction Symposium, Igby presented our poster. A team at UC Davis had a model with fruit flies and Hangman that came dangerously close to our work. Fortunately, the scientists hadn’t figured out how to get the flies to guess the letter Y as the sole vowel. Time to publish.
I posted our preliminary data on Rex Parker’s blog, only to have commentators complain it was too easy for JAMA’s Thursday edition.
We conducted our first double-blind on humans; unfortunately, they missed all the boxes and wrote on the table top. Because the scientists were blindfolded as well, they didn’t notice the error until it was too late. Whoever invented this method is a blooming dolt.
I tried to jumpstart my mind by delving into the history of the crossword. In 1908, Arty Wentinagle invented the first black square; in 1929, he invented the second. In 1946, Mary Saperstein became the first female 200-meter breaststroker to solve a Friday puzzle. Of course, in 1982, Dan Quayle invented the rebus by forcing an o & e into the last box for the clue “Tater.” Was I using science to avoid larger moral issues?
My defenses were down. I awoke one Friday afternoon with a splitting headache and fourteen crossword carcasses scattered about before me. An open Bartlett’s was plastered to my forehead. I’ve hit bottom.
“I haven’t seen you in weeks,” said Igby. “I thought you’d abandoned the project.”
“Mea Culpa; I’m overwrought with compunction.”
“What?”
“It’s been a long week.” I hid my half folded Arts Section.
“Are you taking that one back into the lab?” he asked.
“What, this? Ha, no … this is the listing of show times for Final Destination 5.” Whew! Quick thinking.
It was true. I had been sneaking samples home with me. It began with Monday’s, but soon that wasn’t strong enough. Within a few weeks I was up to Wednesday’s. People noticed I was blanking out at work, staring off into some world inhabited by second-generation architects and Rubik’s cube inventors.
I stopped showing up at the lab after binging thirty hours straight on a Saturday puzzle. I haunted coffee shops looking for NY Times discards, stooping so low as to finish someone else’s half-solved castoffs. Once, I even picked a USA Today’s Life section off the floor.
My friends avoided me for fear I would hit them up for a pen. “Just to get me by, today. I’ll bring you two pens next week; please!” It was embarrassing.
Mine is a cautionary tale. What began as a promising career in cutting-edge science, ended as a fishmonger’s aide, hoping to snatch a carelessly overlooked crossword before wrapped around some Coho (4 letters).
I learned Igby moved into the private sector, working in forensic neuroscience for Hostess Twinkies, thwarting (9 letters) free will. If only I had that excuse. But I snack on Oreos (5 letters).
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Novelist Teaches Neuroscience
Imagine how it appeared to the medical students. Their Neuroscience and Human Behavior Lab Instructor was merely a novelist from off the street and without even the most basic of degrees, let alone a doctorate as held by the other teachers.
I had befriended a neuroscientist several years ago and would sit in on his classes, sneaking into the medical school. When the new Neuro section-head was assembling his staff for the year, word had gotten to him about my knowledge of neuroanatomy and function.
“You’re that guy who taught himself all about the brain?”
I laughed, knowing the hyperbole was apparent, but the sentiment accurate.
“How would you like to teach neuroscience?”
What luck to have an individual like this educator, willing to eschew convention and deciding to investigate me in hopes of cultivating new teaching talent. He challenged my knowledge for two months, as I presented to him a two-hour lecture twice a week. In the end, he decided to support my nomination.
“Who is this guy?” was the general sentiment of the committee.
“Why is his name a number?”
“Will the students respect him?”
Eventually, I was given a probationary period to prove my mettle. Day one of lab, I did my thing. Three students requested to be moved to another classroom for fear of not being taught the appropriate material.
“He wears shorts and a baseball cap,” they said. “And he pronounces amygdala like they do in New Jersey.”
By the second lecture, they retracted their request; and word got around that I was the guy to have in lab. Students began sneaking into my lab, recording my lectures, passing around my material. The student union perfunctorily voiced their opposition to my standing until the union’s president had me as a substitute, and he too, retracted the complaint. My teaching had eclipsed most concerns.
When Thomas Jefferson created the University of Virginia, In addition to designing an architectural landmark—an Academic Village that wouldn’t shy away from the sciences—he did so with the idea that matriculation was irrelevant. He intended UVA to be a place to attend for learning sake. While in beautiful Charlottesville, I was swept away by the historic sentiment of the founding fathers. Though quite educated men—many with advanced degrees—it was their advanced abilities that helped them to excel. Their ignoble family credentials would have hampered their ascent in England. Even Washington would not have risen above the rank of captain. American circumstances made credentials second to ability.
Current trends often have students prioritizing the degrees nearly to the exclusion of command of the information. As such, fallacious credentials abound. Institutions pandering to the paper over the information litter the internet, watering down the achievements of those with hard-earned degrees truly reflecting acquired skills.
Granted, to pursue the Jeffersonian concept of education means one must have the financial recourse to be a person of leisure and learn for learning’s sake. But I imagine, in the future, Human Resources will rely less on the applicant’s credentials and develop interviews that truly distinguish the abilities of the candidates.
Gone will be questions: “So what are your shortcomings?”
“Well, gee; sometimes I just don’t know when to stop working and call it a day. I warn you: hire me and my tennis game may suffer.”
Just as with those who excel in any field, the best educators love to teach. Though, clearly, one can have a degree and a desire to learn, the desire is what drives excellence. Great teachers love the information, they love to impart the concepts, they love having intellectual soldiers bringing new approaches to the material edifying the teachers themselves.
As a writer, I balance the teacher-student duality. I, too, am greatly inquisitive. I do my homework prior to creating my characters and scenes. I researched specifics of law and military to create authentic moments in Drawers & Booths, even when the scenarios are couched in humor. (I’m sure my diligence is a reason the book has been added to some New York AP curriculum.)
My first year as a walk-on Neuroscience and Human Behavior teacher certainly has provided me with great fodder for my next novel. Most importantly, it has given me the pride felt by competent teachers. I salute those who aspire to be competent as an ends. May all our rewards be byproducts of quality endeavors; and may quality endeavors bring us great rewards.
I had befriended a neuroscientist several years ago and would sit in on his classes, sneaking into the medical school. When the new Neuro section-head was assembling his staff for the year, word had gotten to him about my knowledge of neuroanatomy and function.
“You’re that guy who taught himself all about the brain?”
I laughed, knowing the hyperbole was apparent, but the sentiment accurate.
“How would you like to teach neuroscience?”
What luck to have an individual like this educator, willing to eschew convention and deciding to investigate me in hopes of cultivating new teaching talent. He challenged my knowledge for two months, as I presented to him a two-hour lecture twice a week. In the end, he decided to support my nomination.
“Who is this guy?” was the general sentiment of the committee.
“Why is his name a number?”
“Will the students respect him?”
Eventually, I was given a probationary period to prove my mettle. Day one of lab, I did my thing. Three students requested to be moved to another classroom for fear of not being taught the appropriate material.
“He wears shorts and a baseball cap,” they said. “And he pronounces amygdala like they do in New Jersey.”
By the second lecture, they retracted their request; and word got around that I was the guy to have in lab. Students began sneaking into my lab, recording my lectures, passing around my material. The student union perfunctorily voiced their opposition to my standing until the union’s president had me as a substitute, and he too, retracted the complaint. My teaching had eclipsed most concerns.
When Thomas Jefferson created the University of Virginia, In addition to designing an architectural landmark—an Academic Village that wouldn’t shy away from the sciences—he did so with the idea that matriculation was irrelevant. He intended UVA to be a place to attend for learning sake. While in beautiful Charlottesville, I was swept away by the historic sentiment of the founding fathers. Though quite educated men—many with advanced degrees—it was their advanced abilities that helped them to excel. Their ignoble family credentials would have hampered their ascent in England. Even Washington would not have risen above the rank of captain. American circumstances made credentials second to ability.
Current trends often have students prioritizing the degrees nearly to the exclusion of command of the information. As such, fallacious credentials abound. Institutions pandering to the paper over the information litter the internet, watering down the achievements of those with hard-earned degrees truly reflecting acquired skills.
Granted, to pursue the Jeffersonian concept of education means one must have the financial recourse to be a person of leisure and learn for learning’s sake. But I imagine, in the future, Human Resources will rely less on the applicant’s credentials and develop interviews that truly distinguish the abilities of the candidates.
Gone will be questions: “So what are your shortcomings?”
“Well, gee; sometimes I just don’t know when to stop working and call it a day. I warn you: hire me and my tennis game may suffer.”
Just as with those who excel in any field, the best educators love to teach. Though, clearly, one can have a degree and a desire to learn, the desire is what drives excellence. Great teachers love the information, they love to impart the concepts, they love having intellectual soldiers bringing new approaches to the material edifying the teachers themselves.
As a writer, I balance the teacher-student duality. I, too, am greatly inquisitive. I do my homework prior to creating my characters and scenes. I researched specifics of law and military to create authentic moments in Drawers & Booths, even when the scenarios are couched in humor. (I’m sure my diligence is a reason the book has been added to some New York AP curriculum.)
My first year as a walk-on Neuroscience and Human Behavior teacher certainly has provided me with great fodder for my next novel. Most importantly, it has given me the pride felt by competent teachers. I salute those who aspire to be competent as an ends. May all our rewards be byproducts of quality endeavors; and may quality endeavors bring us great rewards.
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