My father in his last years was tentatively diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s. I never believed it. Now, new research on the human genome and, among other things, how canaries learn new songs brings us a little closer to understanding how memory works, and why it doesn’t.

Why so stressed? Tom Ridge’s Homeland Insecurity alerts certainly hadn’t helped. Premonitions of what Bush’s bombing was going to do to neighborhoods full of people in Iraq made it worse. But then there was my particular, personal situation…(2003/03/07)