New article in Nature out of Loren M. Frank’s lab here. But the CA2 population is really the tip of the iceberg. It’s a new hippocampal circuit triggered by a non-theta rhythmic activity termed N-Wave (less than 4Hz).
After a year and a half at NSF
So, right now this blog is private because I’m very much in the public eye. But one day, when I return to academia, it’ll go public again. So I’ve decided to start writing again today.
Yes, running BIO at NSF is the most challenging job I’ve ever had in my life. I find myself working at, our beyond the level of intensity of my years in grad school in Ann Arbor. The high points are incredible. The low points are devastating. I certainly didn’t expect this type of life for my sixties.
Writing is like exercising. I’m out of practice. So it’ll be slow. But I’m ready to go ahead again.
Limits on limits….
to computation that is…
Igor Markov’s seminal article in this week’s Nature, here.
How Ebola works to kill…
ScienceInsider has a great lay-language summary here. Interestingly, Ebola doesn’t infect the immune system cells. Rather it disrupts their communication network and then co-opts them. Pretty scary.
Bad aps and good ones….
From Alex Tabarrok, here. Mostly about the issues with health technology development here in the US. I’m ordering the book.
Standardizing neurophysiological data….
A new year long project called “Neurodata without Borders” is taking shape, story here. A necessary step for sure. I would argue that the Hippocampome and NeuroMorpho.org do something very similar, but in different domains.
The Baseline Study….from GoogleX
Framingham II (only on technological steroids)? The story from ScienceInsider is here.
Calcification in Changing Oceans: Special Issue of The Biological Bulletin….
I’m really proud of this one, press release from MBL here. Kudos to our two issue editors, Maria Byrne (University of Sydney) and Gretchen Hoffman (UCSB).
Mitch Waldrop’s latest news piece on fusion energy….
A really excellent news piece in Nature, here. My own take is that the development of controlled fusion energy is critical to the long term survival of humans. Apparently some venture capital folks agree….
Back from Prince Edward Island…
Where I was at a biotech conference and watched Mason’s own Professor Nadine Kabbani give a bang up excellent talk on her latest work with the alpha-7 nicotinic receptor (which happens to be G-protein linked).
I also got a good view of the progress (or lack of it) in the area of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer’s). It’s frustrating because so much money has been invested and there has been so very little produced for the pipeline (and the patients).
Tomorrow we dive back into building Krasnow’s third decade of success….
Discoverers and Discoveries 