This is the day when America seems to collectively travel in preparation for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal. We’re no exception: we head for the house at Wintergreen inside of the next hour, hopefully missing at least some of the traffic that will surely clog the interstate highways later this afternoon.

Among the things I give thanks for is the opportunity to lead an amazing institute for advanced study, where collegiality, an open mind and excellent research are in abundance. To all of my colleagues and readers, I wish all a very happy holiday.

Jim

There is a common notion that among academics that serving on a search committee is a whole lot less satisfying that say, giving a talk in Aspen or making a new discovery at the laboratory bench. But this isn’t always true. Yesterday our search committee got together to make some key decisions in one of our faculty searches and–even though the meeting was 2 hours long–it was an absolute pleasure. Why?

For one thing, most of us have been colleagues for years. There is an easy going professional friendship that allows for humor, yet at the same time manifests a group open-mindedness.

Secondly, we have an incredible set of candidates. There are folks who, among themselves, have published in the likes of Cell, Nature, Neuron and the like, who come with existing NIH grants in hand, and whose research statements are both well-written and frankly intriguing. Growing your faculty becomes enjoyable when the prospects are for great new colleagues.

Finally, with a computer plugged into a powerpoint projector, we were able to call up CV’s, letters and the like and read them together, with ease.

Jim

Yes, it’s that time of year: the Society for Neuroscience’s meeting this year is in San Diego. On cue, Nature and Science usually devote their cover to the field. This year Nature has a spectacular cover on the Brainbow project at Harvard.

As usual Science Magazine follows suit. Neuroscience is a field in full.

This year I’ll be staying in Washington. However, the Institute will have a very significant presence at the convention. I’ll look for some guest contributions on the meeting when our folks return.

Jim

The built in camera in a macbook saves a mirror image, so left and right are reversed in this image taken from my fifth floor hotel room at the U.S. Military Academy’s Hotel Thayer. It really is quite the view though of the Hudson, looking southeast, about an hour’s drive from New York. The interesting interference pattern is caused by the insect screening in the window.

The meeting here is on Network science. I’m very interested in a talk this afternoon on the effect of listening to music on EEG by Paolo Grigolini, who is Scientific Director of the Center for Non-Linear Science at the University of North Texas. I’ll be out of here around 3PM for a hopefully uneventful drive down the I95 corridor back to Washington.

Jim

I am off tomorrow to drive to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to give a talk about neocortical networks during human development (in particular, the first six years of life). This is work that I’ve been conducting with my graduate student, David Cooper–we’ve been using a massive data set built up from the 1930’s until the 1960’s by J. Conel, who was a pediatric neurosurgeon in Boston. The notion has been to use very advanced statistical techniques on the Conel data to reveal coordinated cortical neurodevelopment during the first six years of life. In particular, we’re interested in the idea of a “hidden” clock which paces development in much the same way as a coxain paces the oarsman of a crew team. For some cortical areas development is very much paced by this clock (we surmise these are cortical areas where selection pressure is very much against “innovation”. In other areas, development proceeds completely independently of the clock (as if driven by external environmental stimulation).

The interesting driver here is that the pacing or coordination can manifest as either neurogenesis/migration or pruning. In other words, the direction of the change doesn’t matter, it’s the timing of the changes.

Jim

We had a very productive advisory board meeting yesterday. There was a very extensive discussion of branding, and how crucial it the notion of “institute for advanced study” is to our identity–most folks intuitively have a feel for what that phrase means. And of course it ties us to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton–the one that hosted the likes of Einstein. Additionally there was discussion of the “Decade of the Mind”, both within the context of brand, but also from the standpoint of what it will take to persuade decision-makers to move forward with the proposed federal investment.

The best part of the meeting however, was when three of our new PI’s gave short talks on their work and responded to Q&A. The enthusiasm of our board was very palpable. We have very very talented scientists here.

Jim

Sat in on the search for a new faculty position in Molecular Neuroscience today. The pool is really both large and excellent. It was very difficult to even think about making a first cut! On Thursday, at the Institute’s Advisory Board meeting, I’ll be working to secure the resources to ensure future robust faculty growth at Krasnow both in the neuroscience area, but also in our newly formed department of social complexity.

Jim

On the subject of neuroarchitecture…

According to [Jim] Olds, [a neuroscientist at George Mason University], not every design firm is sold on the idea that architecture affects people on a neurological level. Still, he notes that what he calls ‘neuromarketting’ is a growing and well funded field that could well expand into mainstream architecture.

“Well, neuromarketting is a big field and it’s highly funded… And brain scanning is now replacing the focus group as a way to do marketing and certainly product placement in a retail space is an extremely important component of marketing,” said Olds.

Hmmm….I don’t agree with Andrew on everything, but this is good to see.

Jim

I had the pleasure and honor yesterday evening to attend and speak at the “Coating Ceremony” at Loudoun County’s Academy of Science High School. Loudoun County, home to Washington’s Dulles Airport and the Janelia Farm complex of Howard Hughes Medical Institute is one of the fastest growing places in the US. The academy of science idea for a high school is a variation of the magnet school concept but one that I think can be particularly powerful. In particular, the school’s director George Wolf, seeks to have high school students designing their own experiments and subsequently carrying them out, as distinct from the more common concept of “farming” science high school students out to mentor laboratories. I really think this is an excellent idea. The Academy is also conducting a very interesting collaboration exercise with a high school in Singapore. The research, into high school science education, is supported by the National Science Foundation. As I understand it, students at the Academy of Science will be paired up with students in Singapore and collaborate over the net to do their science.

Jim

Financial Times columnist John Kay has a column in today’s paper that really clearly states the difference between science and scientific consensus (often used to generate science based policy decisions). It’s a good read, if a bit controversial.

Taken out of the climate change debate and placed instead in the field of neuroscience, I think it’s pretty spot on. Fifty years ago there was a consensus that each neuron had one single neurotransmitter. That’s one example of many, where consensus was scientifically wrong.

Jim