Cortically Magnified

During a trip to Tokyo in 2013, I found an opportunity to visit the Akihabara district. This area is world famous for its high concentration of shops selling the latest models of computers, game consoles, gadgets, and other geeky items.

“Once I had a girl, or should I say, she once had me” sang John Lennon in Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), the second track of the classic Beatles album Rubber Soul. Released in 1965, this innovative composition, widely considered a Rock and Roll canon heralding the maturation of the relatively young art form, immortalized John Lennon’s extramarital affair with an unidentified woman, popularized the use of the sitar in Western music, and unintentionally led to the creation of one of the most clichéd imageries in Asia.

You don’t have to be a New York Jew to be neurotic. Being a Japanese little girl will do. Chibi Maruko-Chan is a popular Japanese cartoon for children. It is about the life of a Japanese girl in elementary school. On the surface it’s a typical saccharine sweet Japanese show about growing up. Maruko is as adorable as can be. Her nickname Maruko means “chubby” and her last name means “cherry”.

There is a desert quandong tree (Santalum acuminatum), a native Australian plant, on campus. I walked past it for months without paying any attention to it until it started to bear fruits. Its bell-like fruits look like decorations of the Christmas tree.

A recent paper shows that our vision is so sensitive to light that human subjects can detect the presence of one single photon shot into their retinas. While scientists have been trying to establish the lower limit of visual sensitivity for a very long time, and it is generally accepted that a small number of photons are sufficient for detection since the 40’s, new advances in quantum optics finally allow us to manipulate light at single photon precision, and it is the first time that direct evidence for single photon sensitivity is demonstrated in a psychological experiment.