Story from Nature here. This is the notion (now supported with good evidence) that in the fraction of a second following the Big Bang, the universe expanded exponentially (inflation). The evidence for that inflation comes from looking for perturbations in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background that themselves are evidence for gravitational waves. If it holds up, it’ll be an easy Nobel choice.
The neuroscience of art….
One of the many neuroX fields…all more or less dependent on fMRI data. Tom Bartlett’s piece in the Chronicle is here. Original article in New Atlantis by Roger Scruton is here. Scruton is a visiting professor at Oxford.
Money quote from Scruton:
But memetics possesses the very fault for which it purports to be a remedy: it is a spell with which the scientistic mind seeks to conjure away the things that pose a threat to it — which is also how we should view scientism in general. Scientism involves the use of scientific forms and categories in order to give the appearance of science to unscientific ways of thinking. It is a form of magic, a bid to reassemble the complex matter of human life, at the magician’s command, in a shape over which he can exert control. It is an attempt to subdue what it does not understand.
Faculty raises at publics larger than at privates….
Really good news for public universities like George Mason, story in the Chronicle is here. Median for publics was 2.2% versus 2.0% for privates (FY14 data).
Following the money….
The private money that is…going into science here in the US from very wealthy people, story here, thanks to Tyler Cowen for the link.
The question from my standpoint is–does that get us the best science? I’m not sure. My worry is that scientists taking big bucks from billionaires will tend to find they own the confirmation biases of their sponsors.
Making things or apps?
Liren Yu’s wonderful long piece on life in the Valley from today’s NYT Magazine is here. Personally, I’ve always gone long on companies that build things.
Robotics…
One of our new junior faculty pointed me towards this video. Pretty cool and speaks for itself:
Craig Venter redux….
His latest venture with Peter Diamandis is of course aimed at massive scale sequencing, story here. All in service of the larger goal: extended life.
I first met Craig in the late 1980’s and learned quickly to never underestimate his ability to deliver the goods, so we wish him well in the new enterprise.
What’s in the President’s Budget for science R&D?
The science advocacy groups aren’t too happy. Good summary here. The news for neuroscientists is a proposed increase in the Federal investment in the White House BRAIN project.
Realistically, I’m not terribly optimistic. This Congress and this President have had challenges coming together to adequately fund science.
Danniel C. Dennett: the cultural niche and the cognitive niche….
From John Brockman’s The Edge, here. Dennet served on the original Krasnow Scientific Advisory Board and also played a central role in the 1993 conference that set the Institute’s scientific program direction.
The evolution of human culture was about heterogenous responses to infectious disease….
Ethan Watters excellent long piece in Pacific Standard is here. The basic notion: our cultural mores result from different behavioral solutions to societal stress from infectious disease. The author of this idea is University of New Mexico’s Randy Thornhill who is an evolutionary biologist. Thornhill has a new book coming out soon: The Parasite-stress Theory of Values and Sociality: Infectious Disease, History and Human Values Worldwide New York, NY: Springer. It looks like it’ll be a good read.
Discoverers and Discoveries 