A brilliant op ed in today’s FT, here from Gary Marcus at NYU. Money quote:
At present, the Human Brain Project seems too tilted towards physical understanding, with too little weight given to functional understanding. Truly understanding the brain will require bridging between the two.
At least for the Metro Area, here. Can we claim the Ravens also?
Just a reminder for local folks, that our Spring semester series kicks off today with a talk by Claudio Cioffi, who heads up the Institute’s Center for Social Complexity. Please join us if you are in the area.
Great summary of Ted Kaptchuk’s work in Harvard Magazine, here. Hat tip to Arts&Sciences Daily.
In Science Magazine here. Bottom-line: governments seem to be running scared and there’s little financial incentive for the big chip makers.
On mind and cosmos–surely the center of our own Krasnow Institute’s scientific program, here in the NY Review of Books. Somehow I feel certain that there will be an enjoyable Institute Brown Bag lunch on this book.
Obama’s second term actually began yesterday with his first second swearing in, but today is inauguration day here in Washington. We’ll see about how his second term plays out, but what I’m really excited about is the beginning of the Spring semester here at Mason, which begins tomorrow.
There are about 50 undergraduate neuroscience majors registered for my cellular neuroscience class–we’ll meet in person for the first time tomorrow, although the class blog and Facebook page are already active.
And in the meantime, the exciting research program of the Krasnow Institute goes forward. The Institute is now in its twenty-third year! Sometimes I’m shocked to think of how far its progressed over these two plus decades. We are now in the process of beginning to prepare grants for a second MRI, and planning for the process which will bring all of our research efforts into the facility–under one roof.
Lots of different theories, story here. I’m fond of the notion that the frequency of diverse episodes is greater during out twenties and that this increased frequency of episodic memories enhances the overall memory for that decade.
Curious about what life’s like on the ISS? I was. Hat tip Andrew Sullivan.
From John Brockman’s The Edge, it’s here. Dan was one of the initial intellectual founders of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies. Here is a long-piece interview with him on the very subject that is central to our research program: the human mind.
One idea that I agree with him about: the notion that our early notions of neurons as simple switching devices was vastly over-simplified. Dennett here calls them “little agents with an agenda”.
Read it all.
Discoverers and Discoveries 