Oh, you skeptics and naysayers, you timorous, trembling deniers of controversy, you lovers of the status quo.. How you mocked my bold theories about the The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Zombies. You couldn’t accept my perhaps unpalatable conclusions about the zombie sensorium. But it seems there is converging evidence for at least part of my theory. My claim that the zombies sense of smell will probably be better preserved than his other senses. Geriatric research in Austrialia suggests this more generally true in cases of neurodegeneration through old age:
Smell May Outlast Other Senses
While eyesight and hearing deteriorate markedly during the normal aging process, new research suggests the sense of smell may actually last longer in otherwise healthy individuals…
[Science Daily]
personally, I’m a bit more concerned by this..
Vasectomy may put men at risk for type of dementia
CHICAGO — Northwestern University researchers have discovered men with an unusual form of dementia have a higher rate of vasectomy than men the same age who are cognitively normal.
The dementia is Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), a neurological disease in which people have trouble recalling and understanding words. In PPA, people lose the ability to express themselves and understand speech. It differs from typical Alzheimer’s disease in which a person’s memory becomes impaired.
I already have a mild anomia.. My mind just doesn’t think in words. Often it gets frozen when hunting for many common or garden words. I regularly make moderately gross semantic substitution errors (e.g. saying goat when I mean donkey – you can imagine how embarrassing that could get.) Thinking geometrically, in numbers, or in abstract terms is never effected, So I am fairly pessimistic that I’m going to get some kind of semantic / linguistic dementia eventually. Then I discover that a vasectomy would make it a hell of a lot more likely and well.. i am lost for words.
