The Apollo 8 metaphor for planet earth--rebutted

Hat tip Marginal Revolution. Here's a really interesting take on just how habitable our blue planet really is.

Very interesting reading for our origin of life scientists at the Institute.

Jim

Statins used for H1N1

As usual, Revere has an excellent post here. Bottom line: statins may reduce the intensity of a flu-induced cytokine storm.

An explanation for all those bad drivers on the beltway

Suggestions of a genetic linkage to awful driving. Hmmm. I wonder if there are interactions with environmental factors?

Abstract is here.

Money quote from the UC Irvine press release:

People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it - and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant.

Public to private...

The Chronicle's Paul Fain has a brilliant analysis of what's happening to the large public universities here (hat tip my wife).

Best part of the article for me was about Ann Arbor in the early 1980's when President Harold Shapiro (later Princeton's President) made some very tough but intelligent decisions about how to restructure Michigan's budget to be less dependent on state funding. I was there.

Jim

Still using chicken eggs....

This is pretty funny and quite germane to our current H1N1 pandemic...

Your brain after staying-up all night

From Science, Science-Signalling--your brain without sleep. Abstract is here. Shorter version: looks like PKA dependent LTP is diminished in mice forced to pull all-nighters.

Putting together a hippocampal function course

The current project is preparing a course for both undergraduates and doctoral students in neuroscience for next semester on the function of the hippocampus. For many in the field, this is an already answered question--the hippocampus is the biological substrate for human episodic memory. Others see it still as the neuronal seat of the so-called cognitive map. I'm not so sure. For all the experimental data collected on this beautiful brain structure over the years, the problem of biological function remains tantalizingly unclear.

Phenomena such as place cells, adult neurogenesis, theta phase precision, sequence learning and London Taxi Driver hypersized-hippocampi all are clues, but the detective story remains just that....a story.

Obama and Marine Biology

From Politico--Obama visits MIT.

Money quote from the President:

Goodness, this is remarkable stuff

Augustine Commission Report

Well the Augustine Commission Report on manned space flight is out and initial reports suggest a change in course for NASA may be in the offing. Specifically, the Shuttle may not retire as per schedule and the planned Ares launcher program may be in trouble.

Read about it here.

Along the GW Parkway in the Fall

I drove home this evening along the George Washington Parkway which parallels the Potomac River opposite the city's monumental core. The maple trees have achieved peak Fall color (as we say on the East U.S. coast referring to the change from green to orange/red) and were actually reflected in the River. I had the top down on the car and it was simply beautiful.

I worry that those of us who are lucky enough to live in beautiful places often become so focused on the task at hand, the local crisis, getting ahead, that we neglect that sensory festival that some people travel thousands of miles to see as tourists. That's a shame. It's a splendid way to engage one's nervous system.

I stopped in the local fish store to purchase some fresh trout fillets and some calamari salad. The owner, wearing his trademark vintage Detroit Tiger baseball cap, instructed me carefully on how to prepare my fish--he always does. I always follow his directions and it, to date, has worked out pretty well.

Jim

Fresh from Chicago

I just ran into my colleague Giorgio Ascoli who has just returned to the Institute from the Society for Neuroscience meetings. He had one instruction for me: go and google "whole brain catalog, all one word"

Here is the result. Enjoy!

The Problems with European Union Science Support

From ScienceInsider, an excellent look at proposed changes to the way the European Research Council administers research grants here.

Money quote:

A key target in the panel's harshly worded review, published in July, was the managerial dichotomy at the ERC. A Scientific Council, made up of volunteers and chaired by Imperial College London biologist Fotis Kafatos, sets the ERC's scientific agenda. But day-to-day-management is in the hands of civil servants at the Executive Agency in Brussels, which is controlled by the European Commission. The two clash frequently.