Corina

The deep red hue of Corina's tumor is plain to see, even to a layperson leaning over the surgeon's shoulder.

In Caracas, opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado said Venezuelans do not want to see the county pushed further toward Communism.

Corina is very tired, but she must stay awake just a little longer.

Once the cut along the border is finished, Corina's consciousness is no longer needed, and she can rest.

Corina Alamillo is lying on her right side in an operating room in the UCLA Medical Center.

Three months before she was born, Corina possessed more brain cells than she ever would again: an overwrought jungle of connections.

If Corina had a sticker caught in her hair when she was three, she doesn't remember it.

Corina's lips move as she tries to answer through the clearing fog of anesthesia.

Certainly the pruning and shaping of Corina's brain during her early months as a learning machine were critical.

For the next 18 months, Corina was a learning machine.

Four weeks after conception, the embryo that would become Corina was producing half a million neurons every minute.

An anesthesiologist makes the required adjustment to the chemical mix trickling through Corina's IV.

i didn't know you were a vegetarian, Corina.

A special camera mounted on a boom is swung into position above Corina's frontal lobe.

"Corina, " I say, as her eyes begin to close, "you have a beautiful brain. "

What does the new science tell us about how Corina's 28-year-old brain produced Corina's 28-year-old mind?

That doesn't mean earlier memories don't exist in Corina's mind.

Even now, Corina's brain is still very much a work in progress.