Update: Baroness Greenfield, a perspective by Susan Blackmore

I am a huge fan of Susan Blackmore. So although I wasn't going to post anything further on the firing of Baroness Greenfield from the Royal Institution, when I saw that she had written an opinion about the situation for the Guardian, I changed my mind. Those who do not harbor an irrational fondness for the blogs of various British Neuroscientists, might be unaware of the rocky relationship between Baroness Greenfield and the scientific community of the UK. Although Baroness Greenfield was a dynamic leader, she held rather unfortunate scientific beliefs that her position allowed her to air publicly.

As I have not been long acquainted with the Baroness, I wil allow Susan Blackmore, who has known her 40 years, to explain the situation.

I highly recommend reading the whole opinion piece,  but here are her ending paragraphs, where she gives an example of one of the instances where Baroness Greenfield loudly promoted scientifically unfounded opinions.

Then there are her dire warnings about the harms of playing computer games. This story would be funny if it were not so serious. I heard her speak last summer at the Cheltenham Science Festival, where the brochure described her "outspoken views. Praised and criticised in equal measure". There she claimed that our brains could be physically damaged by playing too many computer games. Ironically, she was simultaneously promoting her own commercial brand of brain-training device – "MindFit" – basically a simple computer game advertised as "based on scientific studies of the adaptability of the adult human brain" and "clinically proven to help you think faster, focus better and remember more". When I was recently asked to write about the evidence for brain-training games of this sort, I learned that there is no proper peer-reviewed evidence to suggest that any of them, including her own, actually improve brain function any more than playing Scrabble, chess or other computer games. And to cap it all, there is now evidence that playing fast-moving, first-person perspective computer games improves reaction times and some measures of intelligence. So she has been endorsing one unproven computer product while claiming that others do harm.

I applaud Susan for her dynamism and her many successes, but I wish she had behaved more like a real scientist.

Goodbye to a not-so-good-scientist. By Susan Blackmore

Did the Marsupial Lion Climb Trees?

What could be better than a lion-sized carnivorous marsupial? If said marsupial hunted by stalking, then dragging its prey into the trees.

This possibility is discussed in an article by one of the many, excellent, bloggers over at ScienceBlogs.

According to Brian Switek, owner of the Laelaps blog:

A close relative of living koalas, kangaroos, and wombats, the largest species of Thylacoleo were lion-sized carnivores that stalked the Australian continent between 2 million and 45 thousand years ago.

Due to anatomical features both curious and incomplete, a debate has been raging over whether  the hunting tactics of Thylacoleo were either similar to those used by leopards (who drag their prey into the trees) or to those used by lions (who don't). The evidence for either case would lie in the hind feet (if Thylacoleo climbed trees carrying heavy prey, the hind limbs would show obvious tree-climbing-facilitating specializations), of which, unfortunately, there were no complete examples.

Until now.

The article describes the discovery of a complete hind limb, which shows major differences from those of cats.

The paleontologist explains:

Cats are digitigrade, or they are standing up on their "tippy toes" all the time. The foot of Thylacoleo, though, is plantigrade, or like ours in that the metatarsal bones support part of the foot that touches the ground (to pick an example among carnivores, bears also have plantigrade feet). The feet also have a bit of a curve to them; in the restored foot the bones around the ankle articulation slant to the left while the metatarsal and toes slant to the right.

The paper reported by the article comes down in favor of the Like-A-Leopard hypothesis, as the toes, the curvature of the foot, and the presence of retractable claws on the ends of the toes would all have aided the Thylacoleo to grasp tree trunks. More research is promised by the authors, and so evidence does seem to be accumulating to add another animal to the special group ensuring the elimination of the "Climbing a Tree" monster-avoidance strategy.

Did the "Marsupial Lion" climb trees?

MDMA (Ecstasy) as Therapy

As a first year neuroscience graduate student, I am required to take a course in Neuroanatomy. Designed for medical students, this course mixes basic neuroscience ideas with clinically relevant facts. Amusingly the need to maintain some sort of clinical relevancy is often expressed by detailed explanations about how various recreational drugs modulated the brain. In light of today's explanation of how cocaine and MDMA (Ecstacy) affect domapinergic and serotonergic neurons, respectively, I was amused to run into an article about the use of Ecstasy to resolve psychiatric issues. The article makes for interesting reading, explaining the history of MDMA creation and use as a therapeutic tool.

MDMA (Ecstasy) as Therapy

UPDATE 1/13/2010: MDMA, aka Ecstasy, is in FDA-approved trials for use as a treatment for PTSD

U Penn's Neuroscience Boot Camp

For any non-neuroscientists out there who are interested in learning what all the fuss is about, the Center for Neuroscience and Society at the University of Pennsylvania is holding its Neuroscience Boot Camp from August 1-11th. The camp is "a summer institute on neuroscience for professionals and graduate students in law, ethics, education and other fields", and works to give attendees a basic foundation in cognitiva and affective neuroscience, allowing them to be "informed consumers of neuroscience research". I firmly believe that programs like U Penn's are extremely important undertakings, especially as neuroscience continues to receive increasing exposure non-scientific communities. With the powerful neuroscience technologies being developed, it will become critical that non-neuroscientists will be able to differentiate between bogus claims, and legitimate research.

U Penn Neuroscience Boot Camp. Unfortunately space is limited.

From the Twitter feeds...

Think what you will of Twitter, but I firmly believe that in the right context, its a great way of sharing information. One prime example is in the growing numbers of neuroscientists who are taking advantage of the communal structure to share papers, news, and thoughts. Over the break, I expanded the list of those I follow to include some excellently prolific neuroscience tweeters. Below is a selection of links gleaned from some of my favorite postings from over the break. Why climate change does not equal less snow. (@bengoldacre)

If you make academic papers Open Access, more people will cite them. (@noahWG and @bengoldacre)

Ramachandran speaks about mirror neurons at TED, video at the link. He argues that mirror neurons built civilization. (@vaughanbell)

Thebeautifulbrain.com; a website exploring "the art and science of the human mind" (@mocost)

A twin study suggests that the specific cognitive ability of face perception is heritable , but which genes are involved is a complete mystery. (@mocost)

Baroness Greenfield, head of Britian's Royal Institution has just be let go. In response, she is suing for "sex discrimiation". If you have never heard of Baroness Greenfield, Ben Goldacre, who writes about "dodgy scientific claims" (his words) when he's not being a doctor, will explain her to you. (@mocost, @vaughanbell, @bengoldacre)

Happy New Year!

Belated wishes for a good New Year! Editors Note: With the start of Stanford's Winter Semester catapulting researchers and students back into full productivity, updates to the website were temporarily postponed. Normal service is expected to return following acclimation to new schedules.

Entrepreneurial Aspirations?

For anyone considering a more entrepreneurial focus for their scientific career, here are some helpful tips from David G. Jensen, brought to you by Science Careers. Not being a science-focused entrepreneur, I can't comment on the state of neuroscience entrepreneurial opportunities. But irrespective of the stated focus on how to presenting technological ideas to a wider audience, the advice presented sounds applicable for any presentation situation.

Science News

The last Monday morning of 2009 brings with it a bunch of science-themed news articles. Here's a round-up of some of my favorites. Over at the NY Times is a review of the book "The Department of Mad Scientists", written by Michael Belfiore. The "Department" in question is DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and group that recently brought the United States a crowd-sourced driven weather-ballon hunt. The review, and the book, explore examples of the research and technology being produced by the DARPA scientists.

The Body Electric by William Saletan; reviewing The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA is Remaking Our World, From the Internet to Artificial Limbs, by Michael Belfiore.

Also noted in the NY Times, and available over at PNAS, is news of current research that suggests that the birdlike dinosaur Sinornithosaurus was venomous. Re-examination of fossils by Enpu Gong of Northeastern University in Liaoning, David A. Burnham of the University of Kansas and colleagues, led to the theory that previously observed grooves in the teeth, a duct running along the base of the teeth, and a newly described skull cavity, are all part of a venom delivery system. This system would allow venom delivery as the dinosaur bit into its prey, allowing for a "Catch-and-Hold" method of hunting. This research joins the recent evidence that Velociraptor's used their claws to climb trees, pouncing on prey from above, in making dinosaurs even more terrifying, and the need for a Jurassic Park remake even greater.

Both Nature and Science are in a reflective mood, publishing lists of their Top 10 Science News, as well as all sorts of articles that will remind you about the major science-related events/discoveries of 2009.

NatureNews Top Stories of 2009

ScienceNOW Top Stories of 2009

Comparing these two Top 10 Lists, Nature presents a serious selection of the most important science related events, including H1N1, the LHC coming online (at last!), and the discovery of water on the Moon. Science seems to have picked between their most popular stories, with number 2 being the always-good-to-discuss-at-parties research showing that bats perform oral sex (And if you haven't read the paper, written Tan et al and published in PLoS ONE - its a classic. Especially the methods section. Also, the supplemental video comes with its own soundtrack.).

For those of you interested in the difference between men and women, ScienceNOW reports research showing that its the ratio between hand size and number of sensory touch cells (Merkel cells, for those of you who know all about sensory systems) that really determines how sensitive fingers are to different textures. Daniel Goldreich of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and his colleagues found that all their subjects had the same number of Merkel cells, but different sized hands: the smaller hands (generally those of the women) were spaced more densely, allowing greater differentiation between textures.

Lastly, NatureNOW has published its weekly news briefing (Science is closed until the new year), including video of the eruption of an ocean volcano, the news that a Swiss court has acquitted geologist Markus Häring of wrongdoing relating to the small earthquakes caused by the geothermal project he was heading in Basel, Switzerland.

That's all for now, more science-related news to come as I read it.

Astra

An Introduction

If you are reading this, congratulations. You've somehow managed to stumble into the newly-minted (as of Winter '09) Neuroblog of the Stanford University Neuroscience Program. Welcome.

Some introductions.

1) This blog was created in the belief that the members of Stanford Universities neuroscience community possess coherent and unique perspectives on Neuroscience, Science, and Popular Culture. Concomitant is my belief  that online publishing platforms present the perfect environment for airing these aforementioned thoughts/opinions for our fellow scientists, people considering scientific careers or education (particularly at Stanford University), and any member of the general public whose electronic wanderings have led them to our blog. Which is to say: everyone is welcome. Some of the posts will be geared towards the Stanford scientific community, some will address specific topics in Neuroscience, and many will (hopefully) be accessible to those who do not dedicate the majority of their waking hours to the study of the brain.

2) The authors will, for the most part, be students associated with Stanford Universities Neuroscience Program; a.k.a. Ph.D candidates in Neuroscience; a.k.a. those students most susceptible to bribery by the blogmaster.

3) The blogmaster (blogmistress?) is a Ph.D candidate who joined the Stanford Neuroscience Program in Fall '09. She can be reached at abryant@stanford.edu. A more descriptive biography will be written, eventually.

A conclusion:

This blog is a grand experiment in encouraging members of the diverse Stanford Neuroscience community to discuss science as a career, a lifestyle choice, and an increasingly common intruder into popular culture.

If you are a Neuroscientist, a student, a member of the general public or a vertebrate with typing skills and an opinion, please, contact the blog-mistress about contributing.

Enjoy,

Astra Bryant (blog-mistress)