Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Scientists have long hunted for a pattern of brain activity that signals consciousness, but a reliable marker has proved elusive. For many years theorists have argued that the answer lies in the prefrontal cortex, a region of high-level processing located behind the forehead; neural signals that reach this area were thought to emerge from unconscious obscurity into our awareness. Recent research, however, supports the idea that consciousness is a conversation rather than a revelation, with no single brain structure leading the dialogue.

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It (University of California Press, April 4, 2011). Elena Githeko was normally energetic and chatty. But on a Tuesday morning in 2003, Elena's mother, Anne Mwangi, found her daughter quiet and listless, her forehead warm with fever