If you look at the above images from your seat in front of the computer, Mr. Angry is on the left, and Ms.Calm is on the right. Now, get up from your seat, and move back 10 or 12 feet, and PRESTO!! they switch places!! It is said this illusion was created by Phillippe G.Schyns and Aude Oliva. Hat Tip to Dan.
"The subject areas that qualify as neuroscience are as far-reaching and as interconnected as neurons themselves. Consequently, neuroscientists often work on questions that span several distinct subfields. Many neuroscience programs are interdepartmental and take on the structure of an institute rather than a department." Emma Hitt writes a good overview of careers in neuroscience for Science magazine this week in Careers in Neuroscience: From Protons to Poetry. My three cents was that a strong demand exists for people with regulatory and clinical trial management expertise related to neurological diseases and psychiatric illnesses. For jobs in the neurotech industry check out NIO's job board.
"Whatever path a student decides upon, neuroscience is replete with opportunities for graduate students and postdocs who have given thought to planning their career path. People who are just entering into this field will be the Nobel Prize winners of this next generation, says Insel. "This really is the place for the brightest and the best students to jump in because we know so little, and the opportunities are so great."
MIT researchers have developed a new algorithm to help create prosthetic devices that convert brain signals into action in patients who have been paralyzed or had limbs amputated. The technique, described in a paper published as the cover article in the October edition of the Journal of Neurophysiology, unifies seemingly disparate approaches taken by experimental groups that prototype these neural prosthetic devices in animals or humans. "The work represents an important advance in our understanding of how to construct algorithms in neural prosthetic devices for people who cannot move to act or speak," said Lakshminarayan "Ram" Srinivasan, lead author of the paper.
The Neuroethics Society mission is to promote the development and responsible application of neuroscience through better understanding of its capabilities and its consequences. The Society currently invites undergraduate students in relevant fields to join as members.
Neuroscience could have an impact on the legal system that is as dramatic as DNA testing, MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton said. Neuroscientists need to understand law, and lawyers need to understand neuroscience." Putting their money where it counts, the MacArthur Foundation has funded The Law and Neuroscience Project to the tune of $10M for the next three years. The project includes three research networks on these central aspects of criminal responsibility: diminished brains, addiction, and medically normal decision-making. Each network is co-directed by a neuroscientist and a legal expert.
Proponents of neuroscientific evidence say it can help make the judicial system more accurate and less biased on matters of guilt, punishment, and treatment, on the detection of lies and bias, and in the prediction of criminal behavior. They believe the result could be less crime and fewer people in prisons. Skeptics fear that brain-imaging technology poses a threat to privacy and notions of personal responsibility. Both scientists and legal scholars warn that failing to properly integrate neuroscience and law could harm the legal system by sending the wrong people to prison, and by creating skepticism about some of the laws basic assumptions.
Neuroscientific evidence has already been used to persuade jurors in sentencing decisions, and courts have admitted brain-imaging evidence during criminal trials to support pleas of insanity, said Michael Gazzaniga, co-director of the project. Without a solid, mutual understanding of each others fields, lawyers and judges cannot respond in an informed way to developments in neuroscience, and scientists cannot properly advise lawyers or recognize the legal relevance of their current and future research.
The Gruter Institute will lead the education and outreach work under the grant, overseeing numerous yearly conferences aimed at educating state and federal judges and others in the legal arena about neuroscientific findings relevant to the law. This agenda has been a long time coming and the Gruter Institute has played a major role over the past two decades in cultivating these important memes. Kudos to Gruter and the rest of the scholars involved in helping us prepare for our emerging neurosociety.