Here’s some good news for 2008. Today’s Chronicle of Higher Education on-line reports that SCIENCE has rejoined JSTOR. I reported on their withdrawal here back in July.
Jim
Author: jlolds
Native Angeleno, professor of Neuroscience and Public Policy at George Mason University
Single action potential, single vesicle released
In PNAS, Balaji and Ryan use imaging to show that a single action potential usually results in the release of a single vesicle’s worth of neurotransmitter molecules.
Pretty amazing what can be done with optical imaging these days. The microscope is the new telescope (as in “brown is the new black”).
Happy New Year!
Jim
Putting 2007 to bed
Today marks the last day of what has been a very eventful calendar year for the Institute. It began with a new MRI brain imaging center and ends with plans for a Decade of the Mind. At the same time, it marked the beginning of my second term as institute director and the opening of a new chapter as a full academic unit of George Mason University with two new departments: Social Complexity and Molecular Neuroscience.
None of these achievements would be possible without the folks who do the science here, our faculty. So, to all of our faculty–those who have just joined us, and those who have been here since the beginning back in 1990, I wish you the best of luck in 2008 and heartfelt thanks for your creative efforts in 2007.
I would also like to thank our support staff–your dedication, loyalty and hard work act to enable our scientists. Happy New Year.
Jim
Decade of the Mind: Wikipedia
I’ve been working today on the Wikipedia entry for the Decade of the Mind project. Turns out to be more complicated than writing a blog entry. The key trick was to link it appropriately into the category tree, provide the citations and un-orphan it (from the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study entry).
And yes, I confess to using Wikipedia extensively when reading scientific articles outside my own field.
Jim
Physics takes a big hit in the latest federal budget
The omnibus federal spending bill really gives experimental physics the raw end of the deal. This is a large cut for the fiscal year already under way. It’s going to only hurt this country’s competitiveness over the long haul.
Jim
The compact between States and Public Research Universities
Stanley Fish writing in the NYTimes on-line about the withering of the social contract that used to exist between States and their public research universities (with SUNY as an exemplar and Michigan as an exception).
What was the contract? It was simply a stable share of the state revenues in return for low tuition and broad access.
Jim
Big Business and Research Universities
The link is to a NYTimes.com piece by G. Pascal Zachary….
Successful research universities are increasingly allowing corporate privileged access to their latest findings in science and technology. I know there are positives and negatives to this…those arguments have been back and forth for years. What’s interesting are the perspectives from the players and what this all means, not that it’s happening.
Money quote:
The appeal of these arrangements is that “we get broad engagement with universities,” says Andrew Chien, Intel’s director of research. “Their researchers work on frontiers, in unexplored territory. We want explorers.”
Intel hopes to learn more about scientific and technical developments that might influence its business, even decades from now. The company says it benefits from having its own employees rub shoulders with professors, while gaining the chance to observe younger talent in Ph.D. programs.
“You can view this as a pure pipeline,” says Chien, himself a former professor.
This is a perspective that I think has particular resonance for the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study and its various stakeholders and friends–particularly those in the private sector. One of the strategic directions that we’ll be heading in the next year will be towards building relationships like the ones Intel has with Berkeley, University of Washington and CMU.
Strategic thoughts–on holiday
I’m off to the mountains for the next two weeks. I hope to be thinking very strategically about the Institute as it heads into 2008 and the election cycle. From my standpoint, the key is aligning ourselves (from the standpoint of our scientific and educational activities) to the larger “weather” of the economy and government funding without compromising our scientific excellence. Not an easy task when that environment is as unstable as it appears to be right now.
As I’ve said before on this blog, ultimately we have to decide what not to do, given our finite size. Difficult, but tractable.
Jim
Neuroecology–The Biological Bulletin
Kudos to our two virtual symposium editors, Dick Zimmer and Charles Derby. If you want to go beyond the press release visit us here.
Jim
Krasnow growth
As we gathered for the annual holiday party and group photo earlier this week, I was struck by how much the Institute has grown over the past decade–there are so many Institute scientists, students and staff now, one faculty member pointed out that it’s no longer possible to even recognize everyone. That growth has manifested not only in people, but also in a host of other ways ranging from space, shared instrumentation, grants and published peer-review reports. Not to mention programs: it’s a true pleasure to interact with doctoral students from two programs–social complexity and neuroscience–as I walk around the Institute’s spaces.
Yes this growth brings with it real challenges. How do we manage the increased administrative work-load with an already over-worked staff? If budget permits, of course, we add folks, but those new individuals must be trained and that takes time–time that is already in short supply. At the same time, we are faced with the challenges of providing the shared instrumentation that is absolutely crucial to asking the scientific questions relevant to “mind sciences”. Finally, there is the critical task of building upon the critical mass of institute faculty with new faculty lines and (this is crucial) adequately resourcing those lines to be both market competitive and scientifically viable.
All of this brings me to the real challenge: developing an endowment for the Institute’s core activities (as distinct from those supported by research grants). An endowment which can supplement the state funds which we are generously provided by Mason and ultimately the Virginia tax-payer. To build that endowment will require a combination of support from individuals and foundations at least an order of magnitude beyond what we have been able to achieve since Mr. Krasnow’s founding bequest in 1990.
Building that endowment will require a compelling narrative. Part of the purpose of this blog has been to help me frame that narrative (over time) and I have found the comments from loyal readers to be of great usefulness in that process. Certainly our centrality within the new “Decade of the Mind” project should telegraph something about that nascent “elevator speech”. Stay tuned.
Jim
