April 11, 1988

View Full Issue Table of Contents

COVER

Engineers Of The Mind

The shimmering image, glowing in sparkling reds, greens, blues and yellows on a computer screen, possesses the eerie beauty of an abstract painting. But what the shifting swirls of color depict is a human brain, the living machinery of the mind.

WORLD

The Jackson factor

It was, as one of the organizers described it, an "extraordinary event." In a stately dining room at Washington's Jefferson Hotel, 35 of the Democratic party's most distinguished elders had gathered for one of the capital's favorite institutions, a power breakfast. By MARCI McDONALD6 min

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

China buys a colony

On the surface, it was a startling admission for a Beijing official. In an interview published on March 22 in a Chinese political-theory journal, Xu Jiatun, Beijing’s senior official in Hong Kong, declared, “Capitalism is one of the great creations of human civilization.” By JOHN KEATING6 min

COVER

THE MYSTERIES OF MEMORY

An important early clue in the quest to solve one of the major mysteries of the human brain came almost by accident. Thirty-five years ago an American surgeon who was trying to treat a patient’s epileptic seizures turned to radical surgery—the removal of the curled bodies of brain tissue known as the hippocampus in the man’s temporal lobes.

COVER

‘A GLIMPSE OF LIGHT’

In a videotape made by his doctor in 1986, José Luis Mesa is shown trying to hold a glass of water. Mesa’s face is frozen in the expressionless mask characteristic of Parkinson’s disease patients, and his hand shakes so badly that the water spills.

S10

LETTER FROM HAITI

A nation in despair

Grace Children’s Hospital sits in the searing sunlight not far from the centre of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s crowded and dirty capital. The stuffy waiting room smells of sweat and desperation; parents, their black faces lined with worry, sit holding sons and daughters suffering from tuberculosis.

CANADA

Storm over Meech Lake

For the august Senate chamber, where debate usually occurs in near obscurity, it was a rare display of dramatic political theatre. Last week from a burgundy-topped desk on the Senate floor, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau made his latest foray into the sometimes arcane, sometimes caustic debate over the Meech Lake constitutional accord. By BRUCE WALLACE5 min

ENVIRONMENT

The growing alarm over ozone loss

Seven miles above the earth in an atmospheric region known as the stratosphere, a layer of slightly bluish gas called ozone—a form of oxygen —protects the planet from more than 90 per cent of the sun’s destructive ultraviolet rays. Scientists have known for more than a decade that the ozone layer is thinning—particularly over Antarctica, where there is a seasonal loss of up to 40 per cent in an area about twothirds the size of Canada.

CANADA

The new election cabinet

For weeks the Ottawa rumor mill had buzzed with speculation about a spring cabinet shuffle. But when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney finally tipped his hand last week, there were still some major surprises. Instead of merely tinkering with the second tier of ministers—as many observers had predicted— Mulroney shifted several key players on the Conservative front benches in an apparent effort to strengthen his embattled party for a fall election.

April 41988