Requiem for the researchers.

Requiem for the researchers
More than 100 passengers aboard downed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 were traveling to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, according to reports.

On this behalf, the International AIDS Society confirmed in a statement that "a number of colleagues and friends" were aboard the plane, although it did not state an exact number. In addition, Barack Obama confirmed reports that nearly a third of the passengers were scientists, health workers, and activists headed for the AIDS conference. He said : "On board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 there were apparently nearly 100* researchers and advocates traveling to an international conference in Australia dedicated to combating AIDS/HIV."... "These were men and women who had dedicated their own lives to saving the lives of others and they were taken from us in a senseless act of violence."
All 298 souls aboard were killed in the terrible crash.

One of the famous names that came out was the Dutch HIV researcher Dr Joep Lange. He was the president of the International AIDS Society and one of the precursors and advocate for the combination therapy using multiple antiretroviral drugs for management of HIV/AIDS. He was also an activist pro implementation of affordable HIV/AIDS medication for the poor, specially in the African continent. Dr. Lange was married and he was the father of 5 children. He was a professor of infectious diseases, at the Academic Medical Center (AMC) in Amsterdam since 1983.

His wikipedia profile is updated as a requiem for this great researcher:
In 2001, he founded the "PharmAccess Foundation", a non-profit organization based in Amsterdam which aims to improve access to HIV/AIDS therapy in developing countries, and he served as chairman until his death. Lange was a former president of the International AIDS Society (2002–04). Lange was also the Scientific Director of HIV[e]Ducation, an online learning system for medical doctors, nurses and counsellors working with HIV-positive people. He was also a founding editor of the medical journal, Antiviral Therapy.

In 2006 he became Professor of Medicine at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam and Senior Scientific Advisor to the International Antiviral Therapy Evaluation Centre, Amsterdam. He was also co-director of the HIV Netherlands Australia Research Collaboration, based in Thailand. Lange also served on Accordia Global Health Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board.[4]

He was a member of several societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society for Microbiology, and International AIDS Society.

He received the Eijkman Medal for tropical medicine and international health in 2007

magical moon tonight!

Rare Friday the Thirteenth Full Moon
By Geoff Gaherty, Starry Night Education
June 13, 2014; 9:30 AM

Over the next few nights, the full moon will be riding low in our summer sky.

The summer solstice will occur Saturday (June 21), so the noontime sun is nearly at the highest it can get in our Northern Hemisphere skies. This puts the full moon, occurring just after midnight Eastern Daylight Time on Friday the 13th, at close to the lowest it can possibly get this week.

The full moon is an instantaneous event: the exact instant when sun, Earth and moon fall closest to a straight line. A moment before this, the moon is in waxing gibbous phase; a moment after, it is in waning gibbous phase. Only at exactly 12:11 a.m. EDT (0411 GMT) is it exactly "full." [The Moon: 10 Surprising Facts]

As far as the naked eye is concerned, the moon looks full for a day or two on either side of the exact "full" phase. Only with a telescope can you see that the moon is being lit from a slight angle, causing the line of sunrise or sunset on the moon, called the terminator, to be very close to one edge or the other.

Would we be happy without a phone?

The cell alteration from the cellphones...
Dr. Nesrin Seyhan is the chair of the Gazi biophysics department in Ankara (beside being a member of the Advisory committee of the WHO, a Scientific member , İCEMS and a Panel member , NATO RTO HFM). She has been studying the effect of radiation on cells for the last 20 years, focusing lately in the kind of radiation that the cell phone emit.
Besides the fact that millions of people do not have a phone, we can asume that you can be happy without this addictive device. I made the experiment multiple times, mostly because I did not have any other option, and it was ok at the beginning but lately it was an awful experience. I had to change mobile plans and according with the Murphy's laws, if something can go wrong, it will... I was without a phone for a week.
A quick search in the pubmed, the scientific papers data base, with the word cell phone gives you 5424 articles. The best one was a Korean research back from 2014 by Kim and collaborators published in PLOS One (1). They studied Smartphone Addiction in 795 students in elementary, middle, and high schools across South Korea. They conclusion was that Smartphone addiction is gaining a greater spotlight as possibly a new form of addiction along with internet addiction.
Other interesting study done in El Cairo showed the effects of pulsed electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone in adult rats. The researchers exposed adult rats to a daily dose of Electromagnetic radiation (EMR, frequency 1800 MHz) and sacrificed after 1, 2 and 4 months. Then, monoamines were determined by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FD) using their native properties. they reported that the exposure to EMR resulted in significant changes in dopamine (DA), norepinephrine (NE) and serotonin (5-HT) in the hippocampus, hypothalamus, midbrain and medulla oblongata of adult rats.
Soooo, the exposure of adult rats to EMR may cause disturbances in monoamine neurotransmitters and this may underlie many of the adverse effects reported after EMR including memory, learning, and stress (2). This results, plus other research has showed that we might feel happy every time he heard our hone ringing... and also stressed.
The good news is that a study involving a nationwide cohort study of mobile phone use, did not found increased risks of tumors of the central nervous system, providing little evidence for a causal association (3).
Obviously the mobile phone technology changed our life in a daily bases, and our social etiquete has been affected for the "staring at the phone" behavior and the "just to check updates" constant social interaction interruptions. But getting deeper in the biological effects of the phones, Dr. Nesrin Seyhan, registered a concerning alteration in the programmed cell death (aka apoptosis) in rabbits exposed to radiation. Furthermore, exposure to 1,800 MHz may induce some pathomorphological alterations in different tissues of non-pregnant and pregnant rabbits and their infants. In other research from her group they showed that apoptosis resulted from radio frequency radiation exposure of pregnant rabbits and their infants (3). They measured the oxidative DNA damage and lipid peroxidation levels in the brain tissue of pregnant and non-pregnant New Zealand White rabbits and their newborns exposed to RFR. They were exposed to RFR (1800 MHz GSM; 14 V/m as reference level) for 15 min/day during 7 days. Malondialdehyde (MDA) and 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) levels were analyzed. MDA and 8-OHdG levels of non-pregnant and pregnant-RFR exposed animals significantly increased with respect to controls.
This results are alarming and a huge "danger" sign that we should not underestimate, in Dr. Seyhan words: "There exist very few experimental studies on the effects of RFR during pregnancy. It would be beneficial to increase the number of these studies in order to establish international standards for the protection of pregnant women from RFR."


Söderqvist F1, Carlberg M2, Hardell L2.

1-PLoS One. 2014 May 21;9(5):e97920. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097920. eCollection 2014.
Development of korean smartphone addiction proneness scale for youth.
Kim D1, Lee Y1, Lee J1, Nam JK1, Chung Y2.
2-Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci. 2013 Jul;17(13):1782-8.
The effect of pulsed electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone on the levels of monoamine neurotransmitters in four different areas of rat brain.
Aboul Ezz HS1, Khadrawy YA, Ahmed NA, Radwan NM, El Bakry MM.
3-BMJ. 2011 Oct 19;343:d6387. doi: 10.1136/bmj.d6387.
Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study.
Frei P1, Poulsen AH, Johansen C, Olsen JH, Steding-Jessen M, Schüz J.

Pathways for Science Careers in the Cosmetics Industry

MetroNY AWIS invites you to our upcoming event:
Panel Discussion and Networking event on Science in the the Cosmetics Industry
May 8th, 6:30-8:30 pm

Register at http://www.meetup.com/MetroNY-AWIS-Meetup-Group/events/166156842/

Pathways for Science Careers in the Cosmetics Industry

Join us for a career panel and networking event featuring a diverse panel of scientific experts from cosmetic and personal care companies featuring remarks from David Smith, Executive Director of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. Learn how scientific expertise is used in the cosmetic and personal care industry and explore career opportunities and factors that lead to success in these industries.

Christina Andrianov, M.A. (R&D Manager at Mast Global Technical Service,Limited Brands), Marianne Mota Paulino, M.S.(Senior Process Engineer at L’Oreal), Alisa Vasilenko, Ph.D. (Manager of Luxury Development at L’Oreal) and Dulce Almario, M.S., (Director of Product Innovations at Victoria Secret Beauty) will present in a panel discussion.

The Panel will be moderated by Amanda Weyerbacher, Ph.D., who has worked as a Senior Scientist in the Product Safety and Toxicology Department at L’Oreal USA Research and Innovation.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Please note: this is not a job fair featuring employers.

About the speakers:

Marianne Mota Paulino started her career with L’Oreal USA in 2009 as a formulation chemist of hair styling products. In 2012, she transferred to her current role in the pilot team where she is in charge of developing efficient processes for the hair category. As a Sr. Process Engineer, she also ensures technology scale-up and the successful manufacturing of new product launches. Prior to this position, she earned her M.S. in Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied the release of PEGylated proteins from PLG microspheres. She also worked as an intern in 3M and Procter and Gamble (P&G), where she had the opportunity to work on the development of new industrial adhesives and consumer studies for sanitary napkins, respectively. She obtained her dual B.S. in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from University of Florida in 2006.

Christina Andrianov has over 15 years of experience in the Cosmetic Personal Care Industry. She has worked for Mast Global Tech Services since January 2006. As an R&D Manager, she oversees all personal care product development for Victoria Secret Beauty. She manages a team of chemist to ensure a wide variety of formulas meet marketing expectations for aesthetics and meet the stringent timelines. Her team also has to ensure the
formulas are compliant with global regulations and are reproducible on larger scale. Prior to this position, Mrs. Andrianov worked at Ciba Specialty Chemicals (today known as BASF) in the Personal Care Division researching to see if various technologies from different departments could be transferred and applied to Personal Care products. She has also worked for other companies like Outsourcing Services Group, L’Oreal USA – the Maybelline division, Estee Lauder – Clinique Treatment Lab. She earned her M.A. in Cosmetic Science from Fairly Dickinson University, Teaneck NJ in 2003, B.S in Chemistry from SUNY at Stony Brook, NY in 1994.

The panel moderator, Amanda Weyerbacher, previously worked as in Senior Scientist in the Product safety department at L’Oreal. In this role, she managed the clinical safety testing program of multiple consumer products across a wide array of global brands for market launch, ensuring compliance with international regulatory requirements and claim substantiation. Prior to
this position, Dr. Weyerbacher earned her Ph.D. in Pharmacology at Cornell University’s - Weill Cornell Graduate School of Biological Sciences in New York City in May 2009. In her dissertation research, she identified critical pain signaling proteins, cytokines and immune/
central nervous system interactions as relevant drug targets for clinical pain control in an animal model of persistent pain. From 2001-2003, Dr. Weyerbacher was a Clinical Research Associate at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In this role, she managed up to ten active Phase I and II clinical trials, defining and monitoring project scope, timelines and deliverables from project initiation to close-out. She earned her B.A. in Biology-Chemistry from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY in May 2001.


--
The MetroNY AWIS Team

Website: http://metronyawis.weebly.com/
Email: metronyawis@gmail.com
twitter: @MetroNYAWIS

AWIS is a national advocacy organization championing the interests of women in science across all disciplines and employment sectors.

Not a member? Join now!
http://www.awis.affiniscape.com/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=293

Students: Contact metronyawis@gmail.com with subject heading 'membership' and attach an image of your student photoID

RSVP for science talks and courses this week

RAISING THE BAR http://rtbevent.com/
Science talks!
50 Bars. 50 Talks. 1 Night.
April 29TH


Brooklyn Brainery
Free Event! The Mysteries of Ice Cream on April 29

Posted by 16ec9eca tiny Jen on apr 6, 2014 under Event

It might not be prime ice cream eating weather quite yet, but for this month's Masters of Social Gastronomy lecture, we're bringing summertime to Brooklyn no matter what the thermometer says.

Hear the tale of vanilla ice cream, a commonplace flavor with a rare and exotic past. We'll take a hard look at the science that makes ice cream tick and see if we can harness the DIY spirit to craft up astronaut ice cream in your very own kitchen.

The wide range of curious flavors will be on full display, with 19th-century artichoke-and-tomato ice cream and other adventuresome (and masochistic) creations.

Plus! We'll be giving away a signed copy of the new Ample Hills Creamery Cookbook and have some treats along the way.

Very Important Details:
Tuesday, April 29
Free, 21+
Doors at 7:30pm, talks start at 8pm
Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street in Gowanus

Totally optional RSVP



SciCafe May 7, 2014
Collective Behavior in Ant Colonies and Beyond
Time:
Doors open at 6:30 pm

Program begins at 7 pm

Collective behavior takes many forms, such as emergence, self-organization, superorganism, quorum sensing, artificial intelligence, and dynamical networks. Stanford University biologist Deborah Gordon will discuss her research on ant colonies to investigate systems that operate without central control.Location: Wallach Orientation Center

Entrance: 77th Street

8 Ways to Get the Best out of Networking Events

http://www.myscizzle.com/blog/get-the-most-out-of-networking-events/

are we humans? or are we dancers?

one of the first lessons that they teach you when you are learning to dance any social dance is the following:
practice! dance with as many people you can, have a lot of different dance experience and learn with all of them. Therefore, it is not correct and you must avoid the attachment to only one partner. Indeed you accumulate errors and get use to the other person way to dancing. The professionals claim that you must dance with other people, even if you have a stable partner. they consider stupid and counterproductive for you evolution to get stuck with only one follower or leader.
Now, that is in the dance floor... but isn't it the world a huge dance salon. Aren't we learning how to live or how to dance. If this analogy is truth, and we are dancers, then why all this social pressure to keep only one partner? why is bad to enjoy different songs with different people.
Evolutionary the system of a couple has given advantage to the survivor of the offspring. Socially we had created so many rules to keep everything under control that it looks that we can only dance one style per time. Are we limiting ourselfs superimposing external rules?
perhaps in case we found a great dancer, the one that we love to dance with is the event that keep us away of the desire to try other styles.

the pursuit of happiness

Want a Happier Life?


Realize that enduring happiness doesn't come from success. People adapt to changing circumstances—even to wealth or a disability. Thus, wealth is like health: its utter absence breeds misery, but having it (or any circumstance we long for) doesn't guarantee happiness.

Take control of your time. Happy people feel in control of their lives. To master your use of time, set goals and break them into daily aims. Although we often overestimate how much we will accomplish in any given day (leaving us frustrated), we generally underestimate how much we can accomplish in a year, given just a little progress every day.

Act happy. We can sometimes act ourselves into a happier frame of mind. Manipulated into a smiling expression, people feel better; when they scowl, the whole world seems to scowl back. So put on a happy face. Talk as if you feel positive self-esteem, are optimistic, and are outgoing. Going through the motions can trigger the emotions.

Seek work and leisure that engages your skills. Happy people often are in a zone called "flow"—absorbed in tasks that challenge but don't overwhelm them. The most expensive forms of leisure (sitting on a yacht) often provide less flow experience than gardening, socializing, or craft work.

Join the "movement" movement. An avalanche of research reveals that aerobic exercise can relieve mild depression and anxiety as it promotes health and energy. Sound minds reside in sound bodies. Off your duffs, couch potatoes.

Give your body the sleep it wants. Happy people live active vigorous lives yet reserve time for renewing sleep and solitude. Many people suffer from a sleep debt, with resulting fatigue, diminished alertness, and gloomy moods.

Give priority to close relationships. Intimate friendships with those who care deeply about you can help you weather difficult times. Confiding is good for soul and body. Resolve to nurture your closest relationship by not taking your loved ones for granted, by displaying to them the sort of kindness you display to others, by affirming them, by playing together and sharing together. To rejuvenate your affections, resolve in such ways to act lovingly.

Focus beyond the self. Reach out to those in need. Happiness increases helpfulness (those who feel good do good). But doing good also makes one feel good.

Keep a gratitude journal. Those who pause each day to reflect on some positive aspect of their lives (their health, friends, family, freedom, education, senses, natural surroundings, and so on) experience heightened well-being.

Nurture your spiritual self. For many people, faith provides a support community, a reason to focus beyond self, and a sense of purpose and hope. Study after study finds that actively religious people are happier and that they cope better with crises.

Digested from David G. Myers, The Pursuit of Happiness (Harper Paperbacks, 1993)

Google glasses: NAY or YAY?

From a simple user perspective...
They offered the glasses to me, and after a first excitement to say yes and get them, i rejected the ofter... Why?
Glass pros: they look super cool and you can adapt them to you own glasses. They are light and after a few minutes they almost feel natural. You can call, write, watch and make videos, all in a very simple and easy way.
They are the future, besides any questioning, the tech future is going straight to have this kind of devices on behalf of the rectangular phones. So why waiting?
Glass cons: the technology is in diapers, they need more feedback and enhance some functions in order to provide a high level service. They are expensive ($1500). Most of my friends swear that they wont walk next to me if I using the glasses... plus my boyfriend extremely emphasized he does not want me to use them...

Some ecology #ADayWithoutWaste is a sustainability awareness campaign that is inspiring us to understand how our individual actions can come together to create lasting change, benefiting our environment and our future.

http://www.globalcitizen.org/Content/Content.aspx?id=5c0c61d8-e52a-4f9c-ae0b-489aa2717227
Hey,

One-third of the food produced on the globe is wasted - that's almost 1.3 billion tons per year.

Pledge to go #ADayWithoutWaste on Wednesday and do something about this!

Good course about drug development and protein-protein interactions

Good course about drug development and protein-protein interactions
Chemical Computing Group (CCG) would like to invite you to a hands-on computer-aided drug design workshop hosted in conjunction with The Office of Research Computing at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. This workshop is scheduled to take place at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine located at 1301 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, New York on Wednesday May 07th. A detailed agenda can be found below.

There is no cost to attend this workshop but pre-registration is required as seats are limited. Our workshops are open to the public, so please do not hesitate to forward this email to colleagues who might be interested in the subjects presented - no previous MOE software experience is required to attend.

Best regards,

Petrina



CCG Workshop at Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Date: Wednesday 07th May, 2014

Location:1301 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, New York,

Room 551, Price Venter/Block Pavillion
Map: http://goo.gl/T2P8Su

========================================================================

8:30-9:00 Morning Coffee and Continental Breakfast

========================================================================

9:00-12:00 Designing Inhibitors with MOE Structure-Based Drug Design Tools
Visualization / Pharmacophores / Docking / Combinatorial synthesis

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This hands-on course covers the application of in silico structure based drug design (SBDD) tools for the rational design of Tarceva-based EGFR kinase inhibitors. Starting with raw PDB protein-ligand 3D structures, all the steps required to initiate and advance an SBDD study are covered: preparing PDB structures for modelling, binding pocket visualization, protein-ligand contact analysis and the use of SAR for in situ modelling (modifying and optimizing ligands in the binding pocket) to design new compounds. Advanced topics such as pharmacophore query generation, protein-ligand docking, protein alignments for binding site comparison and in situ combinatorial synthesis will also be covered.

========================================================================

12:00-13:00 Lunch*

========================================================================

13:00-17:00 Analyzing and Rationalizing Protein-Protein Interactions
Interface visualization/ Surface property mapping/Interactive mutagenesis/Hot-spot detection

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This course covers tools in MOE for analysing protein-protein interactions, such as molecular surfaces and non-bonded contact visualisation in 3D and using 2D interaction diagrams. Examples include calculating surface properties such as electrostatic hot-spots or patches, as well as physicochemical properties such as the isoelectric focusing point and zeta potential. The effect of mutations such as residue scanning on protein-protein interactions is explored.

========================================================================

REGISTER @ http://www.chemcomp.com/Workshops-North_America.htm

========================================================================

*Lunch and refreshments will be provided

Amazing social science... how to avoid dumb asses...

Amazing social science
I want to recommend this blog, first because is written by a female researcher, second because it is just really good!
http://yourejustadumbass.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/what-people-dont-tell-you-about-dating-the-wrong-types/

I guess we all had had experiences with "Dumb asses", aka "players". The kind of guy/girl who treat you as a prince/princess in order to get you, and after they spill the spell on you, and you are enchanted with the bright words... well, they just get bored and left you. The other worse "Dumb asses" are the ones who continue the flirting after the situation is over, just to keep you in the list. like sending you messages about how gorgeous you were looking when they saw you the last time or how much they miss you.. even if they never really contact you in person... or you already have somebody else!
The last case not only indicated completely disrespectful for you and for you current partner, but also to themselves because they do not realized that it was over. It is a sad situation when a relationship that was apparently going great turn to be just illusions and lies. However, it shows our strength and wit, to move over, forgive yourself for being silly sometimes and fall in some dangerous zones... and finally be smarter next time: just date smarter!

Are we asking too much from the animal models?

Are we asking too much from the animal models?
I guess the answer is yes. From the controversial Rat Park, where Dr.Alexander tried to emulate "human" social conditions in order to study addiction, we have been claiming that we translate the results that we found in rodents to humans. Also the experiments in non human primates have been subject of manipulation, trying to appeal the similarities with men.
Are we just wasting thousands of animal lives in studies that are going no where, that are lacking controls and bringing empty results?
Well, the amount of animal killed without even been used in experiments is alarming. This creatures are eliminated just because they were sharing a facility venue with infected or "potentially hazardous" animals. So, without any functionality hundreds of lives are sacrificed because of bad experimental planing and lack of regulation.
As researchers we should take more seriously the animal use in science, why not treating your mouse/rat/hamster/ferret/monkey/dog/cat/horse/duck/pig etc... as you would like you childhood pet to be treated: with respect!

Ebola, the hemorragic fever is closer that what yout think, but there is not reaon to panic, yet.

Ebola, the hemorrhagic fever is closer that what you think, but there is not reason to panic, yet.

In case you did not heard about it, the CDC (Center of Disease control)reported an outbreak of a "more virulent" Ebola virus infections in Guinea, spreading now to Sierra Leone . Ebola virus is the etiological agent of severe hemorrhagic fever. The symptoms? fever, rash, severe abdominal pain and vomiting, bleed both internally and externally. The fatality rate? around 90%. Even worse, this outbreaks are occurring with increasing frequency. Some explanations for this are the increased contact between humans and the natural reservoir of the viruses (fruit bats), and fluctuations in viral load and prevalence in this reservoir (Polonsky et al. 2014). The transmission of the virus mostly occurs by contact with infected blood, secretions or organs of either bats, nonhuman primates or humans. This is why you should not eat bats or monkeys if you visit any of the affected areas, or hung out around the cemeteries. Not surprisingly, Ebola was named as the most frightening disease in the world. It was documented for the first time in 1976 in the Republic of Congo, one of the sources came from the Ebola River.

In 2012 an outbreak in Uganda found us in a similar medical emptiness: the research of two of the vaccines that were "apparently" going great had been canceled by the department of defense, due to founding constrains. Therefore, so far we do not have any vaccine or effective treatment available.
Albeit a DNA based vaccine was described in 2003 to fully protected macaques against the fatal virus, it did not continue to further clinical trials.It was not until 10 year later, that a group in the US National Institutes of Health published the research about a vaccine consisting of a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus expressing the ebola glycoprotein which to protects macaques from Ebola virus infections, although this method is not licensed for human use (Marzi 2013). But, why does the US department of defense care about an African virus? the answer is pretty obvious: it can be used as a bio hazard weapon. On the other hand, no leading pharmaceutical is gonna invest in a "very expensive and time consuming" vaccine development to be used in countries that can not afford even a basic level of health care. Some compounds are showing a promising antiviral effect "in vitro" and/or an inhibition of a variety of viral protein activities. Sadly, all of them are in an early stage of drug development.
Before freaking out, the best "cure" and prevention method against this scaring virus is knowledge, so check out the updates in the CDC web:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ebola-outbreak-in-guinea-5-things-you-should-know-1.2584439


Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2014 Feb 10. [Epub ahead of print]
Emerging Filoviral Disease in Uganda: Proposed Explanations and Research Directions.
Polonsky JA1, Wamala JF, de Clerck H, Van Herp M, Sprecher A, Porten K, Shoemaker T.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Jan 29;110(5):1893-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1209591110. Epub 2013 Jan 14.
Antibodies are necessary for rVSV/ZEBOV-GP-mediated protection against lethal Ebola virus challenge in nonhuman primates.
Marzi A1, Engelmann F, Feldmann F, Haberthur K, Shupert WL, Brining D, Scott DP, Geisbert TW, Kawaoka Y, Katze MG, Feldmann H, Messaoudi I.

Sense to Synapse 2014 registration is open

Sense to Synapse 2014 registration is open

“Sense to Synapse 2014” mini-symposium will be held on Saturday, April 26th 2014, at Washington Square NYU Campus. Keynote speakers for the event include: Jonathan Demb (Yale), Jose Pena (Albert Einstein), Ofer Tchernichovski (Hunter College), Fred Sachs (Buffalo) and Glenn Turner (CSHL). The key-note lectures will be complemented with 8 short talks by postdocs and young faculty. This is an excellent opportunity for junior scientists to present their work to the experts in the field, as well as to the attending editors of renowned journals.

The success of the previous editions prompted "Sense to Synapse" to become an annual event, and we are happy to announce that the registration for this year's edition is open:

Abstract submission deadline is 31st March
Registration deadline is 18th April

For more information, to register, and to submit an abstract, please visit :http://sense2synapse.com/

Why neurobiologists are cooler than other scientists?

why neurobiologists are cooler than other scientists?
They love to teach their science, to be involve in social events and they are always there when a help sing is posted. Also, they like to outreach and organize brainy events. Who am I talking about? yes, of course: researches in the neuroscience field. They are the coolest, from the nerdy side to the happy social life.
But the question is why?
Only the genetically awesome curious minds choose the neuro research?
or how a science college student change in order to become a neuro scientist?
They organized the brain week, with an amazing turn out, have you hear about genomicweek? or immunoweek? NOP. Therefore, you will expect that they were more neuro scientists walking on the earth than any other scientist. In fact it is not a "numbers game" : the search in pubmed for the word neurology gives 234150 hits, neurobiology 62623, microbiology 990706, molecular biology 383907, genetics 2627208, immunology 1368182 if you add oncology the number of publications gets multiply. This means that they are not publishing more or even more represented in the scientific world. Instead they scream louder, they get out attention and drag us to the "Brain world".
If you attend any executive committee you will find a majority of them, if you go to a seminar oriented to improve some skill or expertise... they will have a heavy representation, furthermore, probably they organized the event.There are exceptions, like in all the orders of life. But you must admit that you met more amazing outstanding neuro scientists than any other kind of researcher.

Take home message from the Cosmos: to the scientists: go out and recruit more scientist

The first episode of the TV series “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey”, was in part a tribute to Carl Sagan, the astrophysicist writer and presenter of the original “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”, and a reminder about the importance of mentoring the next generation of researchers. Moreover, it defines science as a community experience where the exchange of hypothesis and results between researchers is the driving force of knowledge evolution. The more curious minds we can attract to become scientists, the faster we will unravel the mysteries of the universe. After all, "vires in numeris", which means, "strength is in numbers".
As presenter of the new “Cosmos” series, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson repeatedly hallmarked the merits of science and the scientific method; science is powerful, Dr. Tyson argues, because it operates using empirically verifiable evidence. As he says,
“We are all connected; to each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.”
Human existence and the survival of the future generation relies on the in-depth comprehension and understanding of the forces of nature. Dr. Tyson reminds us that our predecessors on earth were the earliest astronomers, to whom we owe the survival of the human race.
My favorite quote is: science is a cooperative enterprise spanning the generations, it’s the passing of a torch from teacher to student to teacher, a community of minds reaching back to antiquity and forward to the stars.
At the end "we are all made of star stuff" and we love big explosions on screen.

Why most of the postdocs are lazy..... to go out of the lab?

It is a sad reality, postdocs work very hard in the labs and/or offices, and when they are "done" they just want to go home. Therefore, all the social activities that would promote and improve the scientific life are pushed out, they are added to the list of things to do "whenever i would have time"... in other words "walking the LATTER street you arrive to the NEVER avenue.
Why is this behavior so spread?
One possibility, is the "physical and psychological tiredness" exposed before. After 9 to 12 h of experiments and mind squeezing projects and seminars, it is not surprising that a person would not have energy or interest in participate or take any responsibility outside the current one.
The more frightening option, it is the fact that most of the people who choose to became a postdoctoral fellow, are just socially boring, introverted and non interested in know or interact with the world outside the laboratory. Within this hypothesis, rest the idea that scientist are awkward people not capable to survive in the human jungle, so they hide or shelter themselves in a solitary career.
Of course, they are a lot of exceptions, but this article is not about those great communicators and teachers. Fortunately some researchers are more social and they take the initiative to have networking events, meetings, postdocs days, etc. All of this projects are volunteer based and they just pay off with the good feeling of being helping your peers.
How can we solve this situation? do they want to be save or abducted to the "outside" world?
First, we can start with not freaking out when somebody answer "i am a PhD." to the question "what do you do for living?". on the other hand, the researches should be more outreaches, trying to find join in communicating they research to non-scientific public.
Second, is good to remember that no man is an island. Only trough collaborations and collective projects we can reach a successful career and discoveries.