We're getting one of the mid-Atlantic's typical weather events today: a combination of various winter precipitation mixtures that is a result of having an ambient temperature of right around freezing. Worst case and everything turns to ice, the power goes out for several days and cars spin like pin-wheels. Best case, it stays all rain, albeit the very cold miserable variety. Middle case, we get several inches of snow. Impossible to tell right now, but I'll be working from home today.

Which will give me time to read some articles and necessary time to work on a very complicated budget for next academic year.

Jim

It’s behind their subscription wall, but you can just go out and pick up a copy of The New Yorker at your local newsstand: Larissa MacFarquhar’s wonderful profile of Patricia and Paul Churchland (a marriage devoted to the mind-body problem).

In the meantime, a reminder that Patricia will be at Krasnow in May for the “Decade of the Mind” symposium.

Jim

Just a heads up that I’ll have some major positive announcements over the next four weeks or so. Official word will go out by email, but I’ll be commenting extensively here.

Jim

This is a photo of my beagle: I spend a lot of down time trying to figure out whether he has higher cognition.

I’ve always been quite interested in Einstein’s biography. Some new primary material is now available (click on the link): letters from 1915 when he was working on the general theory of relativity.

Jim

Former Harvard President Lawrence Summers has a very interesting Op-Ed in today’s Financial Times. It’s a link that’s open to subscribers only, but here’s the money quote:

If the 20th century was defined by developments in the physical sciences, the 21st century will be defined by developments in the life sciences….Life science approaches will lead to everything from further agricultural revolutions to profound changes in energy technology and the development of new materials. The “drugs that help you study” that are now pervasive on college campuses are just a precursor of developments that will make it possible to alter human capacities and human natures in profound ways.

Summers may have lost his job at Harvard, but he sure hasn’t lost his intellectual edge. I think he’s spot on here.

Jim

In this week’s SCIENCE–researchers at Iowa and USC find that individuals with focal stroke injuries to the insula suddenly lose all interest in their smoking addictions. I haven’t seen the actual article yet, just the news reports (I link to the NY Times article), but I’m always cautious about such discoveries which purport to link a part of the brain to some salient aspect of human mental experience (e.g. the pleasure center). Nora Volkow, director of NIDA at NIH calls the discovery “mind-boggling”.

Jim

I commend to you the very interesting debate going on in the blogosphere between neuroscience doctoral student Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith) and Andrew Sullivan (famed of The New Republic). Click on the link at the top for the latest from Sullivan.

Jim

I had the pleasure of walking through the new Krasnow expansion today on a tour with one of our faculty-position finalists. It was incredible to see all the wonderful new space for research!

And our finalists themselves so far are so very impressive! Three new PI’s will join Krasnow in the Fall!

Jim

This afternoon, snow is finally falling here in Washington. Tomorrow the Spring semester officially begins at George Mason University where I work. It’ll be nice to see the students back, although I must say the traffic situation around campus this past month has been delightful. As the new term begins, I am reminded of how as an undergrad at Amherst College, I loved flying from Los Angeles, back across the United States into the snowy winter of western Massachusetts because of the promise of a new beginning and the excitement of learning new things.

Here at Krasnow, we’re looking forward to the new term and the promise of learning new things also.

Jim