This is an article about the Mcgovern Institute up at MIT….and a proliferation of similar institutes funded by super-wealthy individuals. Money quote:

McGovern is not the only technology billionaire to dedicate a fortune to the brain. Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, donated $100m to establish the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. And Jeff Hawkins used his fortune from Palm Computing, creator of the Palm Pilot, to set up the Redwood Neurosciences Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jim

Money quote from Joel Achenbach….

Ten years and $4 billion: That’s a reasonable cost. The evolution of the human mind is arguably the most important biological event in the history of our planet since the origin of life itself.

Jim

Here’s a really interesting piece from Cnet News about a rather strange Russian Institute that claims to “manipulate the subconscious minds” of terrorists.

Money quote:

SSRM Tek is presented to a subject as an innocent computer game that flashes subliminal images across the screen — like pictures of Osama bin Laden or the World Trade Center. The “player” — a traveler at an airport screening line, for example — presses a button in response to the images, without consciously registering what he or she is looking at. The terrorist’s response to the scrambled image involuntarily differs from the innocent person’s, according to the theory.

My students know I have a dim view of meetings in academia. My colleague Tyler Cowen has a different view.

Money quote:

Meetings also confer a sense of control. Attendees feel like insiders who have a real voice in decisions. This boosts their motivation to implement ideas discussed as a group. For this reason it is especially important to listen to the blowhards and the obstructionists, who otherwise would pursue their own agendas rather than support a common plan.

Jim

First, I’ll have my news regarding Decade of the Mind up on Sunday.

Second, I’ll try to get my slides up from my recent talk on the next five years at Krasnow. Also probably over the weekend.

I’ll also link to a couple of faculty job opening advertisements, also probably over the weekend.

Jim

Stay tuned for some important Decade of the Mind updates here. I’ll be announcing some substantive next steps to the May meeting.

Jim

From the NY Times on-line:

But last week Alex, an African Grey parrot, died, apparently of natural causes, said Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a comparative psychologist at Brandeis University and Harvard who studied and worked with the parrot for most of its life and published reports of his progress in scientific journals. The parrot was 31.

We send our condolences to Irene, Alex was a remarkable animal.

Jim

From PLoS via today’s Financial Times: Craig Venter’s genome revealed.

Money quote:

The study, carried out at his J. Craig Venter Institute in Maryland, shows that Dr Venter carries genes that may predispose him to Alzheimer’s and heart disease, novelty seeking behaviour and a preference for evening rather than morning activity. Never before has anyone revealed so much personal information in a scientific paper.

A reader from Washington State read my entry regarding Orcas at Lime Kiln Park on San Juan Island and reminded me of how amazing the Pacific Northwest really is. I was reminded by the reader, that the Hoh rainforest (another place I’ve visited) is another piece of the natural jig saw puzzle that makes that part of North America both unique and very much worth protecting.

Which brings up the notion of human brains acting in a stewardship role with regards to the rest of the natural biosphere while at the same time being an integral part. Sounds pretty difficult to me–and that may be at the nub of our current environmental challenges.

As I look out from my mountain top, north up the vast Shenandoah Valley, watching the bald eagles fly by, I keep coming back to the question of how an intelligent brain that has, over the course of time, developed the means to effect vast changes on the planet’s complex and dynamical systems, might get “too smart” for its own good. It’s worrisome, especially for a scientist, where the basic idea is to acquire new knowledge about nature.

Jim

I’m blogging from the Great Apes Trust of Iowa. This morning, I got to watch Kanzi, a bonobo, demonstrate really quite incredible language skills, using symbolic touch screens. But for me, far more arresting is eye-to-eye contact with an ape. It’s very hard to put into the written word just what that feeling is like–my sense is that for a brain scientist that contact is qualitatively different: you have two intelligent creatures with different brains reaching out across the species divide. It reminds me of another time, long ago, when I had the experience of meeting up with a wild male orca (killer whale) on a rocky outcropping of San Juan Island near Friday Harbor Labs. Big big intelligent eye, small very vulnerable human not wanting to be dinner.

Jim