http://www.neuroscience-forum.net Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:45:11 +0100 en 60 http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/berlin_brain_days_2008-t130.0.html

The Berlin Brain Days 2008 is jointly organized by the seven Phd-programs in Berlin to foster exchange and interaction between neuroscience faculty and students across Berlin. On this symposium PhD students will present their research in lectures and poster presentations.
Prof. Dr. Helmut Kettenmann – Chair
 This year's invited keynot speakers are:

Ranulfo Romo (opening lecture) Professor of Neuroscience Institute of Cellular Physiology National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Moses Chao Professor of Cell Biology, Physiology and Neuroscience and Psychiatry Departments of Cell Biology (Skirball) and Physiology and Neuroscience and Psychiatry New York University

Ray Dolan Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging University College London

Jutta Engel Cellular and molecular physiology – Hair cell physiology University of Tübingen

Magdalena Goetz Professor of Physiological Genomics Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

David McAlpine Professor of Auditory Neuroscience and Director of the Ear Institute University College London

Registration is open on the BBD 2008 website.]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/berlin_brain_days_2008-t130.0.html Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:44:40 +0100 Thi http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/berlin_brain_days_2008-t130.0.html cell brain student research university neuro science neuroscience http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/19th_european_students_conference_berlin_esc-t120.0.html

The "European Students' Conference (ESC)" is one of the largest biomedical conferences worldwide and has been one of the main events at Charité Berlin for many years. Every year the ESC takes place at Charité, the Medical School of Freie Universitaet and Humboldt Universitaet in Berlin, Germany. This year's conference will be from 29th September - 3rd October 2008. The ESC is a platform for the promotion of the scientific offspring in the fields of biomedical research.

Young scientists from over 40 countries, mainly from Eastern and Western Europe, are invited to present the findings of their research projects to an international audience and to discuss their results with an interdisciplinary approach.

Topic: Since this year's motto is "Head forward: The Head – Physical Aspects and Psyche of the Human Being" neuroscience will be one of the main topics. Internationally distinguished neuroscientists will be invited to hold lectures in the fields of behavioural, cognitive, computational and medical neuroscience.

Scientific Contest: A jury of renowned senior scientists selects 350 out of approximately 1000 applicants to give an oral or a poster presentation of their scientific research. Each session features, on average, eight presenting participants who compete with one another in front of the student audience and a jury of senior scientists of the Charité and guests from abroad. The session winners will then compete with one another. We provide a prize purse of €10,000 which will be divided between all session winners. Furthermore, all accepted applicants have the opportunity to apply for a completely financed research award at the Charité Berlin. Application is done online on the ESC website. Submission deadline for abstracts is the 15th of June.

Vision: We aim to contribute to a good education of promising young scientists and future doctors. Hereby we wish to strengthen the international network. Furthermore we hope that the participants take the opportunity to broaden their minds.
 
Mission: To put our vision into practice we offer discussions about topics of biomedical research as well as social and ethical discourses.

The 5-days program consists of interactive sessions, workshops and lectures. These events will be chaired by distinguished professors, Nobel Price Winners, Ambassadors and nonprofit organizations.

In addition we plan cultural events and activities like Berlin Sightseeing Tour, a trip to Potsdam, a Welcome Dinner and a great Farewell Party to encourage the participants to get in contact for an intercultural and personal exchange of views and personally explore the history and culture of Berlin.

Please visit the ESC website for detailed information.
 ]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/19th_european_students_conference_berlin_esc-t120.0.html Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:10:18 +0100 Thi http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/19th_european_students_conference_berlin_esc-t120.0.html event meeting conference humans student research neuro science neuroscience http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/science_20-t85.0.html "Science 2.0" about the use of "wikis, blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies as a potentially transformative way of doing science".

Scientists are quite slow in embracing blogging, but other tools like open access science publishing PLoS ONE or wiki OpenWetWare are gaining popularity.

The article is also an experiment on "networked journalism", meaning that the readers are invited to contribute by commenting on its content and reporting before it gets forwarded to the press.]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/science_20-t85.0.html Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:00:59 +0100 Tatiana http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/science_20-t85.0.html journal science http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/art_project_organized_by_students_of_the_cortexprogram-t55.0.html Cortexprogram:
REQUEST for Photos of Cells, Cell Processes, and Tissues

We are currently requesting photographs of the Central Nervous System (CNS) for an international photo exhibition that will begin in the Spring of 2008.  The exhibition is being organized by the Marie Curie funded Early Stage Training CORTEX (www.cortex-training.net). It will tour 8 international European cities (London, Berlin, Zurich, Stockholm, Prague, Oslo, Helsinki, Bochum) and is supported by the European Union through Marie Curie Funding.

The purpose of the exhibition is to raise public awareness of the biological sciences, especially the neurosciences, by showing them the beauty that lies within. Therefore, it will be featured as part of the world wide public outreach project “Brain Awareness Week”.

Those entries that are chosen will be blown up (the final size will be determined by restraints that are due to the initial resolution) and featured in a gallery exhibition complemented by an exhibition catalog, they will also appear on an accompanying website: www.enception.org .  The selected entries will credit the individual responsible for the picture along with his/her Institution.

Submissions should have the following characteristics:
•   CNS cells, groups of cells, cellular processes, or tissues (normal and diseased)
•   Fluorescent immuno-histological and histological photos are preferred but all techniques will be considered
•   Short description of the image (250 words or less)
•   Name of author or person responsible for the work and his/her Institution
•   As high of resolution as possible


Both scientists and students are requested to submit pictures, and they are free to submit as many entries as they desire.  They are also encouraged to distribute this email to other Institutions and students or scientists that may have not received the initial email request.  Both digital and analog are permissible.  All submissions from interested groups or institutions are welcome and encouraged. 

Pictures can either be uploaded on the www.enception.org website or they can be sent via email to pics@enception.org.
Moreover, you can upload your pictures here on the forum, together with a brief description of what it shows and how it was done.

Finally, this is a non-exclusive exhibition. This means that if your work is chosen that will not preclude you from using the same picture in the original scientific work that it was intended or for any other purpose that you deem fit. 

If you have any additional questions or comments please send them to info@enception.org

Deadline for entries is February 1, 2008.

]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/art_project_organized_by_students_of_the_cortexprogram-t55.0.html Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:01:00 +0100 Thi http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/art_project_organized_by_students_of_the_cortexprogram-t55.0.html cell brain student neuro science neuroscience http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/ten_simple_rules_for_doing_your_best_research_according_to_hamming-t52.0.html
Here is the original link.

Rule 1: Drop Modesty

To quote Hamming: “Say to yourself: ‘Yes, I would like to do first-class work.' Our society frowns on people who set out to do really good work. But you should say to yourself: ‘Yes, I would like to do something significant.'”
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Rule 2: Prepare Your Mind

Many think that great science is the result of good luck, but luck is nothing but the marriage of opportunity and preparation. Hamming cites Pasteur's adage that “luck favours the prepared mind.”
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Rule 3: Age Is Important

Einstein did things very early, and all the “quantum mechanic fellows,” as well as most mathematicians and astrophysicists, were, as Hamming notes, “disgustingly young” when they did their best work. On the other hand, in the fields of music, politics, and literature, the protagonists often produce what we consider their best work late in life.
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Rule 4: Brains Are Not Enough, You Also Need Courage

Great scientists have more than just brainpower. To again cite Hamming: “Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important things, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to. Great scientists will go forward under incredible circumstances; they think and continue to think.”
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Rule 5: Make the Best of Your Working Conditions

To paraphrase Hamming, what most people think are the best working conditions clearly are not, because people are often most productive when working conditions are bad. One of the better times of the Cambridge Physical Laboratories was when they worked practically in shacks—they did some of the best physics ever. By turning the problem around a bit, great scientists often transform an apparent defect into an asset. “It is a poor workman who blames his tools—the good man gets on with the job, given what he's got, and gets the best answer he can.”
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Rule 6: Work Hard and Effectively

Most great scientists have tremendous drive, and most of us would be surprised how much we would know if we worked as hard as some great scientists did for many years. As Hamming says: “Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest. Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime.” But, Hamming notes, hard work alone is not enough—it must be applied sensibly.
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Rule 7: Believe and Doubt Your Hypothesis at the Same Time

Great scientists tolerate ambiguity. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. As Hamming says: “When you find apparent flaws, you've got to be sensitive and keep track of those things, and keep an eye out for how they can be explained or how the theory can be changed to fit them. Those are often the great scientific contributions.”
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Rule 8: Work on the Important Problems in Your Field

It is surprising but true that the average scientist spends almost all his time working on problems that he believes not to be important and not to be likely to lead to important results. By contrast, those seeking to do great work must ask: “What are the important problems of my field? What important problems am I working on?” Hamming again: “It's that simple. If you want to do great work, you clearly must work on important problems. . . . I finally adopted what I called ‘Great Thoughts Time.' When I went to lunch Friday noon, I would only discuss great thoughts after that. By great thoughts I mean ones like: ‘What will be the impact of computers on science and how can I change it?'”
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Rule 9: Be Committed to Your Problem

Scientists who are not fully committed to their problem seldom produce first-class work. To a large extent, creativity comes out of the subconscious. If you are deeply immersed in and committed to a topic, day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem. Hamming says it best: “So the way to manage yourself is that when you have a real important problem you don't let anything else get the center of your attention—you keep your thoughts on the problem. Keep your subconscious starved so it has to work on your problem, so you can sleep peacefully and get the answer in the morning, free.”
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Rule 10: Leave Your Door Open

Keeping the door to your office closed makes you more productive in the short term. But ten years later, somehow you may not quite know what problems are worth working on, and all the hard work you do will be “sort of tangential” in importance. He (or she) who leaves the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he (or she) also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Again, Hamming deserves to be quoted verbatim: “There is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing—not much, but enough that they miss fame.”

In our view, Rule 10 may be the key to getting the best research done because it will help you to obey Rules 1–9, and, most importantly, it will foster group creativity [9]. A discussion over lunch with your colleagues is often worth much more than a trip to the library. However, when choosing your lunchmates (and, by implication, your institution), be on your toes. As Hamming says: “When you talk to other people, you want to get rid of those sound absorbers who are nice people but merely say ‘Oh yes,' and to find those who will stimulate you right back.”

]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/ten_simple_rules_for_doing_your_best_research_according_to_hamming-t52.0.html Sat, 08 Dec 2007 02:27:07 +0100 Tiziano http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/ten_simple_rules_for_doing_your_best_research_according_to_hamming-t52.0.html brain research neuro science neuroscience http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/graduate_program_and_event_list-t45.0.html  
We are in the process of creating a list of different neuroscience graduate programs and were hoping that you may be kind enough to PM us with details of programs you know of. We hope to get email contacts we could use to get information regarding these programs and hopefully publicise this forum at the same time

Additionally we have an option to put notices of different Events on our calaendar. We would appreciate it if you helped us out by entering events that you may know of in the calendar section.
 
Regards,
 
The Admin team]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/graduate_program_and_event_list-t45.0.html Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:41:41 +0100 Anand http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/graduate_program_and_event_list-t45.0.html event neuro science neuroscience http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/contribution_to_the_weblog-t31.0.html
At the moment, starting new threads in the blog can only be performed by admins and moderators. However, we encourage contributions from you.

If you wish to make an interesting blog entry, please post your topic in the appropriate board first and then contact us via PM or specify it in your post so that we can move it to the blog section.

Since we are actively looking for moderators, just let us know if you are interested in taking charge for one or several boards. There can be more than one moderator for each board, of course.
So should you wish to make a more active contribution, please contact us.

We hope for many enquiries in this respect.

Sincerely yours,
The administrators of the forum
 ]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/contribution_to_the_weblog-t31.0.html Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:59:02 +0100 Thi http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/contribution_to_the_weblog-t31.0.html http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/server_maintenance-t28.0.html
We'll add additional (optional) profile fields like "Educational Background", "Research Interests", "Methods" and "About me". Thanks for your feedback.

If you are new to the neuroscience forum, you may want to introduce your self with a post!]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/server_maintenance-t28.0.html Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:02:23 +0100 Jan http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/server_maintenance-t28.0.html research neuro science neuroscience http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/literature_discussion_a_novel_strategy_for_analgesic_drugs-t24.0.html
In the paper they describe a new analgesic strategy which is able to specifically block sodium channels in a subset of pain fibres. Utilising the fact that a nociceptor specific ion channel has a channel pore large enough to allow a sodium channel blocker through, they achieve this specificity. The behavioural effects in rats are promising in the paper and I can imagine this strategy being applied to humans once they iron out some issues.

Check out some more extensive remarks regarding the paper here. Do share your thoughts on the paper, the topic and what I have written.]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/literature_discussion_a_novel_strategy_for_analgesic_drugs-t24.0.html Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:11:00 +0100 Anand http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/literature_discussion_a_novel_strategy_for_analgesic_drugs-t24.0.html humans research http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/plant_neurobiology-t22.0.html
Prof. Mancuso - the head of planet's first  International Laboratory for Plant Neurobiology (LINV) argues, that green matter can be nearly as sophisticated as gray matter is. Plants are intelligent beings, and this is not only about signaling and response systems.

"If you define intelligence as the capacity to solve problems, plants have a lot to teach us. Not only are they 'smart' in how they grow, adapt and thrive, they do it without neuroses. Intelligence isn't only about having a brain." Prof. Mancuso

I probably would agree on that "not only" remark, because thinking in neuroscientific terms one would come to the conclusion that the plants have so called "basic intelligence", which means merely adapting to the environment and may be one want to call it "learning". What in addition to that humans can do is  understanding, reasoning and thinking abstractly (and having neuroses), for what having brain is rather inevitable.

And then, for those interested in space research, LINV is currently working on the first robot inspired by plants ("plantoid"), which will be used for exploring the soil on the Mars. May be plantoid will be the first intelligent being there!


]]> http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/plant_neurobiology-t22.0.html Wed, 14 Nov 2007 01:14:25 +0100 Tatiana http://www.neuroscience-forum.net/weblog/plant_neurobiology-t22.0.html humans brain neurons research neuro