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New Yorker / Gastropod
Contributing writer at the New Yorker and cohost of Gastropod, a podcast about food
PROFILE
Nicola Twilley
Guest
FROM Nicola Twilley
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
The neuroscience behind how much pain we can handle Irene Tracey is known as the Queen of Pain, and she calls her lab the “torture chamber.” She runs the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Oxford University. She studies how people’s brains react to pain. New Yorker writer Nicola Twilley offered to be Tracey’s test subject. Researchers stuck needles in Twiley’s calf, burned the back of her hand with a laser, and applied a cream to her shin, which contained capsaicin, the chemical responsible for the burning sensation in chili peppers. What does the research tell us, how might it be used, and is it ethical to hurt people for research?
To the Point
In Scientific Milestone, Einstein's Gravitational Waves The world of astronomy is celebrating a discovery most of the rest of us will have trouble understanding. But it's said to provide a whole new way of looking at the universe -- and even listening to it. Image: Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory ( LIGO ) One astronomer says, "the skies will never be the same" after today's announcement that science has finally detected the gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago. We hear more from astrophysicist Ian O'Neill, a Space Science Producer for Discovery News , and Nickie Twilley, a contributing writer for the New Yorker and co-host of Gastropod, a podcast about food.
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