The Neuroimaging Core of the Krasnow Institute (NICKI) elected Raja Parasuraman as its chair Friday for a two year term. I’m really looking forward to working with him and the rest of NICKI to get the maximum scientific productivity from our 3T MRI. I’d also like to thank outgoing co-chairs Layne Kalbfleisch and Kevin McCabe for their hard work in getting the center going and especially to Layne for staying on as Chief Magnet Safety Officer in addition to her role as the head of KIDLAB.
Jim
Of course that moniker usually is reserved for the one in Princeton where Einstein was. Recently I saw the term used on its own for another institute at Los Alamos. That got me thinking about the usefulness of the term in communicating to stakeholders what we do at Krasnow. This week, I reported to Mason’s Board of Visitors on the past academic year and started out my remarks by referring to the successful year of the institute for advanced study–the one at George Mason.
Jim
It felt good to drive onto Campus this morning and walk into my office here at Krasnow. Today is crammed with meetings, but I do hope there is time to savor a quiet walk through the new wing of the Institute.
Jim
Money quote from CNet News:
DARPA also said that the qualifying and final events will be held at a military training facility in Victorville, Calif., home of the Route 66 Museum, the San Bernardino County Fair and a state penitentiary. The Urban Grand Challenge is the third in DARPA’s series of robot car races and it’s the first one the agency has pre-announced the location for months in advance of the final race. It typically keeps the location under wraps to prevent competitive advantage, but programming a car to navigate city streets by itself will presumably be hard enough.
Tonight’s Friday evening lecture by MIT’s Robert Langer will be my last event here for this visit. Langer is really one of this country’s great bio-engineers. That’s a growth area for George Mason and it will be interesting to see what’s going on at the top of the field.
I’ve noticed that the “chatter” (administratively important emails from my university) has picked up in the last 24 hours. That either means the semester is getting ever closer, or my colleagues are beginning to actively anticipate my return. Probably both.
Meanwhile, in the spirit of the Overheard in New York blog that I read every once in a while, I leave you with this conversation from the local convenience store in the village:
20-something shop clerk (female) to 20-something customer (male) on life in New York City:
“it’s so ironically invasive”
What does that mean?
Jim
Looks like Yale is pulling out because of costs.
Jim
It’s rainy and cool outside here in Woods Hole this morning. In homage to Andrew Sullivan’s blog feature “the view out your window“, I’m posting the view out my window this morning. This was taken with my macbook’s built in i-sight camera which I’m finally learning how to use to take photos.
Yesterday Lynn Margulis gave a spectacular talk about the evolution of eukariotic cells. You can read a bit about her theory here. She also was in town for a book signing and reading from her fiction book, “Luminous Fish”, at the local book store.
I had dinner yesterday evening with Dr. Sonia Gasparini, who is here this summer as a Grass Faculty Fellow. She is working on Layer V entorhinal cortex cells–their dendrites are very different from the pyramids of CA3 and CA1 hippocampus. Of course the whole story of “grid cells” has made entorhinal cortex a very interesting area of the brain.
Jim
Summer is now winding down at Krasnow, and the usual “early-onset” George Mason University semester is only a few weeks away. With the end of summer, and the promise of cooler and less humid weather in the Washington DC area, the faculty and students begin to return from their summer travels and the lights in the Institute will begin to burn late late into the night again as experiments are run, brains are scanned and manuscripts are prepared for publication.
This new academic year marks the formal beginning of the Institute’s George Mason role as a full academic unit. This in addition to continuing as an institute for advanced study. It will be interesting and challenging to see how both of those missions blend. Most important will be the need to keep focusing on advanced science–science the challenges the paradigm.
Jim
If you want to know where the best steamers are…go to Westport. Just off I 195 west of New Bedford. It’s a portion of the South Coast of Massachusetts that I haven’t ever explored before today. My host took us to a great place called The Back Eddy–really wonderful, both for sushi and bluefish, but also just plain boiled lobster.
This small vignette is so typical of thirty years of memories in this place. I had been working on a book project this afternoon and needed a break. I walked out the grated fire-escape from my ancient building (Homestead) and walked into the Village. I heard a bit of music coming from a restaurant called Phusion just proximal to the Woods Hole draw bridge. It must have been the end of the Sunday brunch festivities. Looking in the door, I notices that it was just the acoustic band and the wait staff. The bartender suddenly called out and said, “let JJ sing.” JJ is one of cook staff at Phusion. He demured. But the entire staff and the band started clapping and cheering for him to come out and sing.
So he did. And as he banged out the best Bob Marley reggae that I’ve heard in years, the entire staff (no customers) started dancing and singing along–owner included. It was so good that it sent shivers down my back.
Why does such a small scientific village have such incredible music talent?
Why does live music have the power over the human mind that is so clearly evident?
Jim
