The Problems with European Union Science Support

From ScienceInsider, an excellent look at proposed changes to the way the European Research Council administers research grants here.

Money quote:

A key target in the panel’s harshly worded review, published in July, was the managerial dichotomy at the ERC. A Scientific Council, made up of volunteers and chaired by Imperial College London biologist Fotis Kafatos, sets the ERC’s scientific agenda. But day-to-day-management is in the hands of civil servants at the Executive Agency in Brussels, which is controlled by the European Commission. The two clash frequently.

Cellular imaging at Krasnow


I’m pleased to report that we’ve taken delivery of our Nikon C1 confocal microscope and that very shortly we’ll be opening a cellular imaging core at the Institute to complement our MRI facility.

So what’s the deal with confocal microscopy? The short version goes like this: biological specimens, especially living tissue ones, are thick. Classical microscopes have a problem with this and internal organelles get blurred out. With confocal microscopy, we can get around that problem and look into the sample with all the detail of the cell’s three-dimensional structure preserved. Used in consort with our ability to molecularly engineer biological components of the cell to fluoresce, this becomes an incredibly powerful tool for our neuroscientists who work at the neuronal or cellular level.

Fish are smart!

From today’s NY Times (and with good timing with the on-going Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago)–this piece by Sean Carroll.

My thesis advisor, Bernard Agranoff, became famous studying the goldfish brain. Now I know why.

Here’s the money quote:

A series of studies has recently revealed that reef fish are surprisingly adaptable. Freshly caught wild fish quickly learn new tasks and can learn to discriminate among colors, patterns and shapes, including those they have never encountered. These studies suggest that learning and interpreting new stimuli play important roles in the lives of reef fish.

Disciplinary Walls: Physics compared with Economics

Hat tip to Marginal Revolution. Here is a very interesting blog entry from orgtheory.net on how two disciplines handle their own publishing outside the normal boundaries of the field. Read all the comments–they are excellent.

Here at Krasnow we have three very excellent physicists who work on neural dynamics. We also have an economist working cognitive neuroscience and another economist (also affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute) who does agent-based models of social complexity.

Jim