Human Brain

May 14, 1988
Mental illnesses could be treated routinely and successfully. Intelligence could be permanently increased. Creativity could be stimulated. Violent behavior could be moderated. Some of the devastations of old age could be prevented or postponed. The healing potential of the mind could be activated. Neurological processes of thinking could be studied and fostered. All of these marvelous possibilities now seem within the grasp of scientists who are amassing startling new information about the structure and functioning of the human brain with breathtaking speed, using scientific tools unknown even a decade ago. The revolution in neuroscience now underway will make significant changes in education, medicine, psychiatry, genetics and even the justice system, and it will have a profound effect on our ideas of what it means to be human.
By Courtney Crowder | February 8, 2013
The idea of impulses in a human brain controlling objects outside the body sounds like science fiction. To people who've lost a limb or become paralyzed, it sounds like a miracle. "The Electric Mind" by Jessica Benko dives into the complex world of brain impulse research - its past, present and potential for the future. Benko frames her narrative around Cathy Hutchinson, a woman who joined a radical scientific trial after a stroke rendered her mute and quadriplegic. In the first chapters, Benko sets up the catastrophic nature of Hutchinson's injuries.
By Quynh-Giang Tran. Quynh-Giang Tran is a Tribune staff reporter | August 26, 2001
If computer technology continues to advance at its current rate, David the robotic boy in the science fiction movie "A.I." will become a reality. "In 2030, computers will act like they have an awareness of self. They will have emotional intelligence and personalities with the complexity and subtleties of the human brain. They will appear to have motivations and claim to be conscious," says technology visionary Ray Kurzweil. How can this happen? Consider that German Konrad Zuse built the first programmable digital computer only 60 years ago. Thirty years ago, Intel introduced the first microprocessor, shrinking the sizes of computers.
By Kent Jones | September 4, 1996
Regarding the letter titled "Virtual illiteracy?" (Voice, Aug. 22): Functional illiteracy can't be blamed on the fact that children learn computer skills. The 19 percent illiteracy of the U.S. adult population got that way many years ago. The good old days when everybody learned to read and write properly are simply a dream. The problem is that written English is even more chaotic than the spoken form. The necessity to learn English for professional success imposes a tremendous learning burden on children, which adult educators smugly overlook.
Sharon Begley and Reuters | October 27, 2013
By Isaac Asimov | February 21, 1985
When I first began writing science fiction in the late 1930s, it was already a common plot to picture a future society in which "the Machine" ran everything and human beings decayed into effete dependents who could no longer do anything for themselves. It was so dreadful a nightmare, yet no one seemed to notice that it was already here. Once humanity learned how to use fire, perhaps half a million years ago, they began to spread out of the tropics where they had evolved. They learned to withstand the cold nights of chillier climates and the long winters.
By Julia Keller, the Tribune's cultural critic | April 22, 2007
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph From the Frontiers of Brain Science By Dr. Norman Doidge Viking, 427 pages, $24.95 Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality By Dr. Pauline W. Chen Knopf, 268 pages, $23.95 Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside By Dr. Katrina Firlik Random House, 271 pages, $24.95 The Three-Pound Enigma: The Human Brain...
Julie Deardorff and   | May 23, 2012
By Reviewed by Ron Grossman, a Tribune writer | January 9, 1991
The Ape That Spoke By John McCrone 288 pages, Morrow, $19.95 One of nature's most fascinating puzzles is the speed with which man became a worry-wart. Until 4 million years ago, our ancestors were not much different from other living forms. Like their chimp and gorilla relatives, these hominids, as anthropologists call our predecessors, had learned a few tricks about using simple tools and could walk on two legs, which gave them a certain perspective on things. Yet the tiny numbers and restricted geographic range, chiefly Africa, of these ape-men gave no hint they would one day prevail over other species.