The Other Half of the Brain

The recent book Driving Mr. Albert tells the true story of pathologist Thomas Harvey, who performed the autopsy of Albert Einstein in 1955. After finishing his task, Harvey irreverently took Einstein's brain home, where he kept it floating in a plastic container for the next 40 years. From time to time Harvey doled out small brain slices to scientists and

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pseudoscientists around the world who probed the tissue for clues to Einstein's genius. But when Harvey reached his 80s, he placed what was left of the brain in the trunk of his Buick Skylark and embarked on a road trip across the country to return it to Einstein's granddaughter.

One of the respected scientists who examined sections of the prized brain was Martin C. Diamond of the University of California at Berkeley. She found nothing unusual about the number or size of its neurons (nerve cells). But in the association cortex, responsible for high-level cognition, she did discover a surprisingly large number of nonneuronal cells known as glia - a much greater concentration than that found in the average Albert's head.

An odd curiosity? Perhaps not. A growing body of evidence suggests that glial cells play a far more important role than historically presumed. For decades, physiologists focused on neurons as the brain's prime communicators. Glia. even though they outnumber nerve cells nine to one. were thought to have only a maintenance role: bringing nutrients from blood vessels to neurons, maintaining a healthy balance of ions in the brain, and warding off pathogens that evaded the immune system. Propped up by glia. neurons were free to communicate across tiny contact points called synapses and to establish a web of connections that allow us to think, remember and jump for joy.

That long-held model of brain function could change dramatically if new findings about glia pan out. In the past several years, sensitive imaging tests have shown that neurons and glia engage in a two-way dialogue from embryonic development through old age. Glia influence the formation of synapses and help to determine which neural connections get stronger or weaker over time: such changes are essential to learning and to storing long-term memories. And the most recent work shows that glia also communicate among themselves, in a separate but parallel network to the neural network, influencing how well the brain performs. Neuroscientists are cautious about assigning new prominence to glia too quickly, yet they are excited by the prospect that more than half the brain has gone largely unexplored and may contain a trove of information about how the mind works.

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A Confederacy of Smarts

Can a Microsoft's assemblage of all-star researchers transform computing?

Thousands of Microsoft product developers - a sea of tieless (1) shirts, dress pants and jeans - have descended (2) on a nondescript building on the company's main campus in Redmond. Wash., one drizzly day in early March. Inside, rows of booths display the latest intellectual output from many of the 700 scientists who make up the software maker s research division. (3) At one booth, there is (4) a microphone that eliminates background noise. (3) At another is software that converts a video image of a face into a graphic animation. Moving along, the visitor comes across a digital camera worn on the body of an exhibitor that snaps a frame every time the camera senses a change in temperature or light. creating a comprehensive record of a person's entire waking life. (6) The annual event, called TechFest, is a means of ensuring that product developers stay aw are of what the research side is doing.

1, 2 - лексические соответствия; 3. - атрибутивная группа: 4 -конкретизация: 5 - объединение высказываний: 6 - смысловое развитие (причина-следствие)

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The displays demonstrate а На дисплеях можно увидеть

mix of ingenuity and cuteness всевозможные хитроумные

typical of academic computer новшества, как это обычно

science departments. The Media бывает в научных компью-

терных отделах, например, сразу вспоминается Медиа Лэб в Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Еще более уди­вительными, чем дисплеи, кажутся некоторые люди, гуляющие по выставке. Среди

engineers, mathematicians and programmers, some of whose ponytails are now graying, who would be shoo-ins for a Computer Science Hall of Fame. Meet C. Gordon Bell, an inventor of the minicomputer. Or James Kajiya, creator of some of the mathematics underlying computer graphics rendering and winner of an Academy Award for technical achievement. Then there is James Gray, a giant in database. These legendary figures have not come for a casual visit. During the past 13 years, using its enormous cash stockpiles. Microsoft has hired scores of these techno-vvizards from universities and competitors to create one of the largest concentrations of talent the field has ever seen.

них можно увидеть инженеров,
математиков и программистов,
некоторые из них, с
завязанными в «конский
хвост» уже седеющими воло­
сами - возможные претенденты
на место в Галерее Славы
компьютерной науки. Позна­
комьтесь с Гордоном Беллом,
изобретателем мини ком-

пьютера. Или с Джеймсом
Каджийа. который матема­
тически обосновал компью­
терную график) и получил
Оскара за технические
достижения. Здесь можно
встретить Джеймса Грея -
непревзойденного знатока

базы данных. Эти легендарные фигуры здесь не случайно. В течение последних 13 лет, используя огромные денежные средства. Майкрософт нани­мает десятки специалистов из разных университетов и переманивает их у конку­рентов, чтобы создать самую большую концентрацию та­лантов, невиданную до сих пор в этой области.