What happens in your brain when you reach a meditative state? By using brain imaging on Buddhist monks, Dr. Andrew Newberg has discovered that meditation can lead to a decrease in activity in the part of the brain responsible for orientation and an increase in the area that is active when you focus on a specific task. This can certainly match the meditative experience of being outside of space and time. Dr. Newberg has been using research such as this to explain why humans continue to believe in the mystical and, indeed, in God. “Our brains may, in fact, be naturally calibrated to spirituality.” This trait may have been essential to our survival. Our reality of knowledge and emotions can be a scary place without faith, whether you place it in yourself or others. (This article reminded me of a Wired Magazine piece called “This Is Your Brain on God” which described Michael Persinger’s quest to invoke spiritual experiences by tickling people’s temporal lobes.)

My brother sent me an interesting article from Andante (a site I noted in September but promptly forgot to keep checking). It is about John Rockwell’s stepping down as editor of the NY Times’ Arts & Leisure section. Respected internationally as the definitive source for commentary on the performing arts, Arts & Leisure concentrated on an audience of both amateurs and professionals with “love and passion for the arts.” But Howell Raines, the new executive editor of the paper, apparently wants to appeal to more general audience. The section does cover pop culture along with what may be considered the more sophisticated arts, but culture editor John Darnton would like it to be more mainstream and provocative. Some are worried that the leadership shift will dumb the section down. I hope they realize that covering trends and being trendy are two different things.

From the vigilant NY Times, an update on the lack of TV reception in the Manhattan region. New York City is anticipating a hefty increase in franchise fees from the rise in cable subscribers following the loss of the World Trade Center antenna. With viewers signing up for cable instead, broadcast networks have felt less frantic about settling on replacement plans. But “in order to comply with federal mandates for over-the-air service and to house their digital transmitters” they will have to put a tower up somewhere, sometime.

Food writer Amanda Hesser is a recent favorite of mine, coming in for me on the heels of M.F.K. Fisher, with a refreshingly more modern bent. After noticing her NY Times Sunday Magazine “Food Diary” column, I poked around for every new Hesser article in the Food section and eagerly awaited her Sunday dispatches. I based our new coffeemaker purchase on her researched opinion and linked to her articles here at least twice. A couple weeks ago I had the epiphany that perhaps she had already written a book and discovered her lovely memoir/cookbook, “The Cook and the Gardener : A Year of Recipes and Writings for the French Countryside“, at the local library. I tried her asparagus risotto recipe. Yummy.

A man has been making frequent appearances in her “Food Diary” columns. She gave him a cute nickname at first, “Mr. Latte” (reminiscent of Fisher’s Chexbres). As the relationship progressed for the better, he became Tad (he’s actually New Yorker writer Tad Friend). And this past weekend, in a cleverly constructed column on the relationship between her cooking and her moods, she revealed that he was now her fiance. I shed happy tears.

More from and on Hesser:
Foodie to Watch
Finding Success (hard work and a little luck)
Corby Kummer on her cookbook
Hesser on Pilates

Hooray, here is a well-researched article on trans fats from the SF Chronicle. It includes newer information I had not yet heard about. Trans fat may be a large contributor to the oddly named “Syndrome X” which has been linked to a cell’s inability to process insulin. It is almost impossible to avoid trans fats in the American diet. Out of “140 varieties of crackers on a typical supermarket shelf, only three brands had no partially hydrogenated oil.” It is in “70 percent of cake mixes, 75 percent of chips and other salty snacks, 80 percent of frozen breakfast foods like waffles, and 95 percent of cookies.” Fifty percent of breakfast cereals have some. Keep reading those package side panels!

I did not realize that Sony owned a controlling interest in Aiwa. It is probably a lucky thing now, because they are not doing so well. Sony intends to buy out the remaining percentage it does not own and turn it into a subsidiary. This will probably mean more layoffs for Aiwa manufacturing, but the brand has a chance to live on.

The Charles Schulz Museum is scheduled to open this summer in Santa Rosa, CA. The website includes monthly photos of the construction which began in June 2000. One notable museum item will be an 8 x 12 foot wall from the Colorado Springs house Schulz lived in in 1951. He had decorated it with early Peanuts characters and the current homeowners carefully uncovered the painted over drawings and donated it to the museum. It was removed, packed up and transported by truck. A new wall was placed in the house, but it won’t have the same cachet.

Ever nipped a spoon or a napkin from a restaurant? You are not alone. According to the New York Times, almost anything worth taking in a restaurant has been pilfered by clever diners. From large lamps to bathroom sconces, tiny caviar spoons to oversized Italian silver, large paintings and a Murano glass decanter, all are apparently no problem for some patrons’ sticky hands. One place had an antique French faucet replaced with a cheap knockoff by a well-prepared thief. Another loses its $25 bathroom candles almost daily. Items with a restaurant’s name or logo are particularly enticing for collectors. Solutions to this petty thievery include nailing things down, making the waitstaff responsible for keeping an eye on items, and sometimes just not using the top of the line accoutrements anymore.

It’s Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee this year and The Royal Family website has published 50 royal facts. The Queen has sat for over 120 portraits. She did not perform her yearly role of opening Parliament on two occasions, when she was pregnant with Prince Andrew and then Prince Edward. Her first corgi was named Susan and she has owned more than 30 corgis since. There are also 50 facts about her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.

SkyScraperPage.com has an amazing feature: a searchable database of world’s tallest building diagrams. There are pre-sorted direct links to groupings of buildings by city, continent, and architect. The search parameters let you create your own unique groupings and sort them in various ways. The illustrations are exceptionally detailed. My own subtitles for a few: Vienna, “old versus new”. San Jose, “no upstaging”. Wuhan, “1997, year of the instant skyline”. and Miscellaneous, “The Titanic?”