"Lost in Math," Alan Alda, A Radical Brain Surgery, New Jersey Floods. August 3, 2018. Part 1

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🗓️ 3 August 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

For decades, physicists trying to uncover the large and small structures of the universe have been coming up empty—no evidence of supersymmetry at the Large Hadron Collider, no dark matter particles, no new evidence explaining dark energy. That’s the main conundrum in theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder’s book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray. She talks with Ira about the problems facing physics, and where new ideas could come from. This week, Alan Alda spoke publicly about living with Parkinson’s Disease for the first time since his diagnosis three and a half years ago. He’s known for his work as an actor, author, and science communicator. He joins Ira to discuss his life since his diagnosis. A six-year old Pittsburgh area boy underwent radical surgery in an attempt to treat a seizure-causing brain tumor. The boy’s entire occipital lobe and and much of his temporal lobe were removed—material that added up to about one-sixth of his total brain matter. Now, researchers report that the boy is living a surprisingly normal life despite the missing brain matter. It’s a common tale. Homeowners affected by flooding receive insurance money and rebuild their homes, only to have yet another flood strike and damage the property again. In recent years, however, New Jersey has modified an open-space program to allow the state to offer buyouts to some homeowners in flood-stricken areas, offering the pre-flood assessed value of the property.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. Four years ago, a six-year-old Pittsburgh area boy
0:05.9	underwent radical surgery in an attempt to treat a brain tumor that was causing severe seizures.
0:12.7	Doctors removed the boy's entire occipital lobe and much of his temporal lobe material that added up to
0:19.6	about a third of the right hemisphere of his brain.
0:23.3	And this week, scientists reported on how the boy is doing without all that brain matter,
0:28.3	and it's really good news and very surprising news.
0:31.0	And here to talk about that and other selected short subjects in science is Annalie Newitz,
0:35.4	a science journalist based in San Francisco. She
0:38.3	joins us from KQED in San Francisco. Welcome back. Hi, thanks for having me back.
0:43.0	This is really an interesting story. Tell us about the boy and what has happened to him.
0:47.4	So this is basically a victory for neuroplasticity, which is a term for how easily the nerves in our brain can regrow. And after
0:58.4	he had this radical surgery, within about three years, the right side of the left side of his
1:05.7	brain started taking over for a lot of the functionality that was lost in the right side. So the main
1:14.5	thing doctors were concerned about was he had lost a part of the brain that does image recognition.
1:20.3	So recognizing objects, recognizing faces, taking basically data from our eyes and turning it
1:26.6	into something that we understand.
1:28.6	And as I say, within three years, the left hemisphere of his brain was helping him do object
1:34.7	and face recognition.
1:35.8	So he recovered that ability.
1:38.0	So he's almost like a normal kid again?
1:41.4	He is performing, they say, at age-appropriate levels. He's never going to be
1:46.6	able to see completely out of the left side of his left eye, but he is able to just turn his head
	...

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