Best American Science & Nature Writing

A quick update from The Zaleski Minute on some news I’d like to share:

In February 2019, I wrote a story about 12-year-old Tanner Collins, a boy from Pittsburgh who was missing one-sixth of his brain. When he was 6 years old, a benign tumor the size of a golf ball formed in his head. It pressed against regions of his right brain, and the result was always the same: serious seizures that disrupted his life and could stunt his future intellectual development. His parents made the grave decision to have the tumor surgically removed. Whether Tanner would ever see again or recognize his parents faces again was completely unknown.

But then something unexpected happened. The left side of Tanner’s brain took over all the functions that would have been the purview of the resected regions of his brain’s right hemisphere. In other words, he was perfectly fine.

You can read the story right now at Elemental. And in the fall, you’ll see it published in the 2020 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing. Entries in this latest, forthcoming edition were selected by world-renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.

If you’re interested, here’s the pre-order link. The book publishes in October.

And during these times of pandemic, remember to be like T. rex: Don’t touch your face.