Podcast summary

How does your mind know where your body ends and the outside world begins? Two acclaimed science writers discuss the largely unconscious ways that your brain builds maps of your body parts, your movements, the space around your body, the actions of others, and the sensations that lead to human emotions, health and disease.

Made possible by a generous contribution from K&L Gates

Participant(s) Bio

Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee, mother and son, are the third and fourth generation of science writers in the Blakeslee family. Sandra's grandfather Howard worked for the Associated Press starting in the 1920s and was one of the pioneers of American science writing. Howard's son Alton - Sandra's father, Matthew's grandfather - took over as AP science editor until retiring in 1985.

Sandra is a veteran science writer who contributes regularly to the New York Times. Her specialty is neuroscience. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she continues to work for the Times and write books. With Dr. Judith Wallerstein she co-authored Second Chances, The Good Marriage, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorse, and What About the Kids. She co-authored Phantoms of the Brain with Dr. V.S. Ramachandran and wrote On Intelligence with Jeff Hawkins.

Matthew Blakeslee trained in cognitive science but in the end decided not to become a neuroscientist. In 1999 he switched tracks and took up science writing, almost by accident. He lives in Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles, California, and divides his time between freelance and book writing. This is his first credited book.

sandrablakeslee.com

Margaret Wertheim is a science writer and the author of books on the cultural history of physics, including Pythagoras' Trousers, a history of the relationship between physics and religion in Western culture, and The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet. From 2001-2005 Wertheim wrote the Quark Soup column for the LA Weekly and is currently a contributor to the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, as well as a contributing editor to Cabinet magazine, and Cosmos, the Australian-based literary science magazine. In 2006 her writing was awarded the print journalism prize from the American Institute of Biological Sciences and in 2004 she was the national Science Foundation visiting journalist to Antarctica. In 2003, she and her twin sister Christine Wertheim founded the Institute for Figuring, an organization based in Los Angeles that promotes the public understanding of the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science and mathematics.

www.theiff.org

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