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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
Digital Media Tree this blog's archive OVVLvverk Lorna Mills: Artworks / Persona Volare / contact Sally McKay: GIFS / cv and contact |
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Ahhh, the 70s...the brain isn't a machine, it's a blue-eyed, blond-haired, fetal baby boy buffered from the harsh cold world by a hard mother, cobwebs, and a gentle mother. Go science writers, go!
The brain is extraordinarily delicate, and is provided with extraordinary protection. ... It is swaddled in three distinct protective layers — more than any other organ of the body. Like the fetus, it swims in a surrounding fluid that absorbs shocks. Jellylike tissue, blood vessels and fluid are all encased in a tough membrane . Finally, the whole is surrounded by the bone of the skull. (p.20)
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The outer layer is the cranial bone. Underneath it is the dura mater (Latin for "hard mother"), a tough membrane which enfolds both hemispheres. Next comes the arachnoid (Greek for "cobweb"), an elastic membrane that encloses the subarachnoid space. This space is filled with filaments, blood vessels and cerebrospinal fluid...The final layer is a thin membrane, the pia mater ("gentle mother"), that hugs the cortex in all its convolutions. (p.21)