M.J. Rose

What’s cooler than a secret compartment in a Leonardo da Vinci statue? — Maybe the secret apartments inside the New York Public Library?

The back bedroom of Fort Washington Library’s secret apartment. (Sarah Laskow for Atlas Obscura)

From Atlas Obscura,

11 Secret Spaces Hiding in Famous Places
Thousands of people pass through these destinations each day unaware there’s a hidden gem tucked inside.
by Meg Neal

“When planning a trip, it’s easy to feel torn between wanting to experience a city’s must-see iconic landmarks and discovering something unknown to the most passersby. As it happens, there’s a third category that checks off both of these things at once: unknown spaces hiding in extremely well-known places.

These secret gems can add an extra layer of exploration to checklist destinations like Times Square or the Eiffel Tower—if you know where to find them. We combed through the Atlas to pull out 11 of the least obvious spaces lurking in the most obvious places…”

For the list, click here. It’s fantastic!

From NPR, something truly incredible. The human brain and body are mysteries that we have only just started to unravel…and with a name like BrainGate2 — well, you’ll see…

Bill Kochevar received an implanted brain-recording and muscle-stimulating system that allowed him to move limbs he hadn’t been able to move in eight years.
Cleveland FES Center

“A paralyzed man has regained the use of his arm and hand using a system that decodes his thoughts and controls his muscles.

“I thought about moving my arm and I could move it,” says Bill Kochevar, 56. “I ate a pretzel, I drank water,” he says in a video produced by Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Kochevar was paralyzed in a bicycle accident when he was in his 40s. And for the next eight years, he was unable to move any part of his body below his shoulders.

The damage to his spine meant signals from his brain had no way to reach those distant muscles.

Then researchers offered Kochevar a chance to try an experimental system called BrainGate2. The effort to restore movement to his arm and hand is described in The Lancet. It involved Case Western, the Cleveland VA Medical Center and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.

The idea was to create a new connection between Kochevar’s brain and his right arm and hand…”

For a video and more, click here.

When artists are supported, there’s more art for everyone to enjoy.

Artsy Editorial via Artsy.net,

What We Can Learn from the Brief Period When the Government Employed Artists

By Tess Thackara

“Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko are best-known as pioneers of Abstract Expressionism. But all four were also among thousands of artists and other creatives employed by the government through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) between the years of 1935 and 1943. That the arts would be funded significantly by the federal government—never mind that it would actively employ artists—may well raise an eyebrow today. But working under a subdivision of the WPA known as the Federal Art Project, these artists got to work to help the country recover from the Great Depression, as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Evidence of impoverishment and a portfolio showcasing one’s skills and commitment to the arts were all that was needed to qualify for the WPA initiative. This and the Federal Art Project’s non-discrimination clause meant that it attracted, and hired, not just white men but also artists of color and women who received little attention in the mainstream art world of the day. These artists created posters, murals, paintings, and sculptures to adorn public buildings.

Hospitals, post offices, schools, and airports were decorated with some of the roughly 200,000 artworks created through the program. Yet no accompanying agency was established to preserve the works. So following the dissolution of the WPA in the lead-up to World War II, many were destroyed, sold as scrap, or hastily auctioned off with little record—save a small portion that were discovered at a Long Island salvage dealer, bought by a Lower West Side curio shop owner, and repurchased by their artists for three to five dollars a pop, as Christopher DeNoon notes in the book Posters of the WPA…”

For the rest and an incredible gallery of images, click here.