Openings

Dr Rodolfo Llinas, a neuroscientist, was once asked for his opinion on eternal love and replied: "That is the preserve of geniuses alone". Outrageous as it may be, this statement nevertheless contains a grain of truth and offers a useful insight into how we assess romantic relationships. Llinas suggests that we should never take the success of our romantic relationships for granted. To envisage the highest form of intelligence at work in a couple’s future is to recognise ju

According to the basic text of Narcotics Anonymous, a person is an addict when their life is controlled by drugs: “Our whole life and thinking was centered in drugs in one form or another—the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more. We lived to use and used to live. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death”. In the paragraph cited, the scientific-medical status of Narcotic

We know of an organism which, before becoming a plant, possesses a nervous system with a vestibular organ crowned by an eye, which in turn is mounted on a peduncle [Llinás, 2002]. Its entire life consists of filtering water and reproducing by budding. In its larval stage, it is equipped with a ganglion comprising three hundred cells which, like a central nervous system, guides it for a day, or even less, until it has finally found a comfortable spot where it can settle: “The