“Memory Loss Reversed in Lab Test on Mice”–no sooner had the Fox News headline hit my screen on the Google News page than I picked up my phone and dialed my mad scientist friend Atom Weishaupt.
“Atom!” I screamed breathlessly. “Have you seen the news?”
“News?”
“Listen to this!” I read from my screen:
Symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease occur when brain nerve cells that process information and memory degenerate and die. Abnormalities such as amyloid plaque accumulate on nerve cells and tangles of proteins — called tau — form in nerve cells.
Tau protein is thought to be responsible for nerve cell death and dementia.
When tau protein production was “turned off,” the mice’s memory didn’t just stop getting worse. It improved.
“Interesting…” Atom said, in his typical noncommittal way. Noncommittal from Atom was good. Very good. Sneering dismissal was standard in 90.7 percent of all interactions with him.
“There’s more!” I continued, on the flip…
It’s too soon to know if the same could be possible for humans. If so, it might be possible to recover mental function in the early stages of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, write Karen Ashe, MD, PhD and colleagues in Science.
Since the findings are based on mice, the clinical implications should be viewed “with caution,” they write.
“Most Alzheimer’s disease treatments focus on slowing the symptoms or preventing the disease from progressing,” says Ashe in a news release.
“But our research suggests that in the future, we may be able to reverse the effects of memory loss, even in patients who have lost brain or neural tissue,” she continues.
“So you want to try this on journalists, no?” Weishaupt interrupted, his keen intuition cutting off the entire three-paragraph buildup I had imagined myself delivering as soon as I finished reading from the screen.
“Well, yeah, sure,” I muttered sheepishly. “Who wouldn’t?”
“So, if you can turn off tau protein production in journalists they will be able to remember that on September 30, 2003, Bush said:
“I welcome the investigation…. I have told our administration, people in my administration to be fully cooperative. I want to know the truth…. If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it, and we’ll take the appropriate action…. there’s all kinds of allegations. You’ve heard much of the allegations. And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it. And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources, or people outside the information – outside the administration. And we can clarify this thing very quickly if people who have got solid evidence would come forward and speak out. And I would hope they would…. leaks of classified information are a bad thing….. I’ve spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are.”
thereby making it clear that Rove deliberately did not do what Bush pretended to ask him to do?”
“Yes!” I said, excitedly, almost imperceptibly starting to hop.
“And with their memory loss reversed, they’d remember that on September 16, 2003, White House spokesman Scotty McLellan said:
“The president has set high standards, the highest of standards, for people in his administration. He’s made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it [the exposure of Valerie Plame], they would no longer be in this administration.”
“Yes! Yes!” I was hopping openly with excitement. In the apartment below, plaster was beginning to fall from the ceiling.
“And with the flood of once-forgotten memories, they will surely remember that when Bush was asked on June 10, 2004, if he stood by his pledge to fire anyone found to have leaked Plame’s name, he said ‘Yes.'”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” My hopping had metamorphosed into stomping, and was now matched by a thumping from below. A chandelier had fallen from their ceiling.
“And,” Atom continued methodically, “You think, even, that the brain-rejuvenated media will remember that, at the dedication ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence, on April 26, 1999, George H. W. Bush said:
“Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, narco-trafficking, people killing each other, fundamentalists killing each other in the name of God. These and more. Many more. As our analysts know, as our collectors of intelligence know – these are our enemies. To combat them we need more intelligence, not less. We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country.
Even though I’m a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.”
You think they will remember that, as well?”
I was beside myself with visions of righteous justice. Atom had put it perfectly. I scarcely noticed the pounding on my door.
“It will never happen,” Atom said, sternly. My heart plummeted like a proverbial stone. Hell! It was worse than that…. Like a meteor from Mars onto a swiftly dwindling Antarctic ice shelf.
“But why not?” I beseeched him. “The researchers feed the mice some food that turned off the tau protein production, and they re-remembered forgotten information.”
“Never happen,” he repeated, as the pounding on my door intensified.
“Police! Open up!”
“You’re assuming the media’s memory loss is due to an organic condition. That’s absurd!” Atom’s voice grew sharp for the first time in our conversation.
“They can remember the most obscure and irrelevant information at the drop of a hat. They have computers, too, you know.” Here came the sneering contempt, if not outright dismissal. “You should be reading Orwell, not Fox News–even if they are reporting on something in Science magazine,” he said, wearily. “It’s doublethink, not memory loss we’re dealing with, dumkopf!”
The door smashed in, and the police grabbed me. “You’re under arrest! Disturbing the peace and destruction of property!” they growled at me.
I could sure use some of that tau protein about now.
