Every week I look back at what caught my eye in the neuro world. This is for those of you who hate/are scared of/don’t understand/can’t be bothered by/had a bad experience with/never heard of/simply avoid reading my feed (please circle only one) on Twitter, because these stories were all listed there. If you are coming from Twitter, consider this a refresher on the tweets that got away. (cont.) ... Read more

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N.G.- The good Doctor is back again this month with his latest work in a field that is quite different from the last major break-through. You must have quite a diverse lab? Dr.O.- Quite. N.G.- Well, the new study, which is so new that it is appearing in the May, 2009 issue of Journal of Affective Disorders (despite coming out online last October…), aimed to potentially explore the influence of age and the frequency of “stressful life events” on depression.... Read more

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Neurobeat is a music series on Nothing’s Shocking that comes out late on Tuesday nights. Every week a new song is featured to complement my mood or experiences of the previous week. If you’re wondering why in the hell I’m doing this, please read the original Neurobeat for my reasons. Today was Ada Lovelace Day, as many a blogger (including me!) was celebrating his/her favorite woman impacting technology (and science). With this as a backdrop for the second edition of... Read more

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Ada Lovelace never got a chance to see Babbage’s machine implement her programs or codes. In fact, she never even saw the proposed Turing-complete machine built, just like the rest of humanity [it took another 75 years or so to have something conceptually relevant]. Nevertheless, this gifted mathematician discussed concepts of computer science that were many decades before her time and is thus recognized as truly a wonderful standard-bearer for women in technology (and science). Like my colleague Dr. Gee,... Read more

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Every week I look back at what caught my eye. This is for those of you who hate/are scared of/don’t understand/can’t be bothered by/had a bad experience with/never heard of/simply avoid reading my feed (please circle only one) on Twitter, because these stories were all listed there. If you are coming from Twitter, consider this a refresher on the tweets that got away. (cont.) ... Read more

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The United States legislative branch operates with 435 representatives, with numbers divvied up based on state size and with 100 senators, 2 for every state. But not this year. In 2009, we are operating with 99 senators. The unlucky state to not have a full complement? Minnesota. A state known for making headlines in politics: Minnesota, remember your governor from 1999-2003, Mr. Ventura?? (cont.) ... Read more

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Optogenetic tools have already changed the face of neuroscience research. From its humble beginnings as a cation-selective algal channel, channelrhodopsin and its variants have been employed to do many things: Drive neuronal firing in a dish Drive perceptual learning in the rodent and influence decisions Demonstrate the role for nociceptive neurons in larvae escape behavior from parisitoid wasps Initiate sleep state transitions when expressed and activated in orexin-producing neurons Assist in identifying the circuit responsible for zebrafish escape behavior Assist... Read more

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This recent decision to spin-off from Nature Network got me thinking about a great many things regarding my own blog. I’m not going to pretend to understand why Dr. Gee has decided to split his blogging duties in this way, but it sounds like it has a lot to do with separating work and home blog life. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. So what does all of this have to do with me? Well, I have neglected this blog for... Read more

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Archive alert. For those that have not been bitten by the Twitter bug (or the friend feed bug, for that matter. After all, FF can be used to follow those on Twitter w/o having to actually sign up at Twitter. FYI). Below are my musings from the Keystone Conference on the Molecular basis of Schizophrenia, with a few updates from the parallel meeting “Epigenetic Basis of Neurodevelopmental Disorders”. Feel free to contact me to expand upon any of the points... Read more

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Was JAMA editor-in-chief Catherine DeAngelis even thinking when she deliberately berated a concerned scientist to the WSJ? In response to a letter published by Dr. Jonathan Leo in BMJ questioning the conflict of interest by authors of a recent JAMA study, Dr. DeAngelis called Dr. Leo a “nobody” and a “nothing”. Of course, the authors of said study subsequently apologized for not disclosing the potential conflicts. The funny part is that both Dr. DeAngelis and JAMA have typically held very... Read more

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