Not having a television makes it easier to live outside the idiot broadcast and cable news culture populated by loudmouths like Sean Hannity, who looks like the equipment manager of a lacrosse team that’s been suspended for hazing, and Chuck Fucking Todd, who announced that the President’s administration was “over” when there were still three full years to go. The important work continues apace despite what that sputtering Van Dyke says. The opening of “Obama’s Moonshot Probes the Space Inside Our Skulls,” Anjana Ahuja’s Financial Times piece:

“Every president needs a blockbuster science project to crown his time in the White House. While John Kennedy reached for the stars, Barack Obama decided to reach for the synapses. A year on from his pledge to unravel the secrets of the human brain, researchers are beginning to spell out how they will tackle this challenge.

The breathtaking implications of the research are also becoming clear; within a generation science may acquire the power to predict a person’s future capacities and possibly determine their life chances. The central idea of Mr Obama’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative is to understand how the human brain choreographs all the astonishing feats it pulls off. It is the seat of learning and the organ of memory. It generates our character and identity, and influences our behaviour. It is our brains, more than anything else, that make us who we are today – and shape who we will become.

But that neural versatility acts as a veil. How does the squidgy, three-pound lump between your ears – filled with nerve cells (neurons) firing tiny impulses of electricity across junctions called synapses – accomplish such a wide array of functions? Research grants announced this month shed light on how Mr Obama’s vaunted cerebral exploration will proceed. One avenue will be to catalogue the differences between healthy neurons and diseased ones. This will spur research into neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, which cast a shadow over ageing societies.”