White House w00t! Support for Innovative Neuroscience Research

Posted on April 4, 2013 by | Leave a comment

In case you missed it, the White House announced this week their new initiative to fund research focusing on neuroscience innovation.

“The BRAIN Initiative — short for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies — builds on the President’s State of the Union call for historic investments in research and development to fuel the innovation, job creation, and economic growth that together create a thriving middle class.” BRAIN Initiative Challenges Researchers to Unlock Mysteries of Human Mind http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/02/brain-initiative-challenges-researchers-unlock-mysteries-human-mind

Here is a brief introduction to the project from NIH Director, Francis Crick.


On The Clock: The BRAIN Initiative http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slQ8ELULNP0


President Obama Speaks on the BRAIN Initiative and American Innovation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJuxLDRsSQc

“So there is this enormous mystery waiting to be unlocked, and the BRAIN Initiative will change that by giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action and better understand how we think and how we learn and how we remember. And that knowledge could be — will be — transformative.” Remarks by the President on the BRAIN Initiative and American Innovation http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/04/02/remarks-president-brain-initiative-and-american-innovation

Here are a few useful resources.

BRAIN Initiative Infographic: http://www.whitehouse.gov/infographics/brain-initiative (PDF)

White House Blog: BRAIN Initiative Challenges Researchers to Unlock Mysteries of Human Mind http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/02/brain-initiative-challenges-researchers-unlock-mysteries-human-mind

White House Blog: President Obama Launches the “BRAIN” Initiative (all the links in one place) http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/02/president-obama-launches-brain-initiative

I was particularly impressed by the dialog on Twitter that fed into the live streamed question and answer session. Unfortunately, many on Twitter didn’t realize the answers to the questions were in the video stream and were not on Twitter. I have to agree that the process of utilizing Twitter was not well managed for this event.

That said, I will post here some of the questions which most intrigued me, with the video for the Q&A below.

For more information, please see:

NIH: Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative: http://www.nih.gov/science/brain/


Open for Questions: The BRAIN Initiative http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNLjJi7ZSl4

And ….. closing with a gag. Gotta read the credits, folks!

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#IfIHadGlass Becomes #GlassExplorers

Posted on April 2, 2013 by | Leave a comment

I’ve been hearing from friends that some of them have been accepted to the Google Glass program that I mentioned earlier. I thought it would be interesting to track how many of the folk I highlighted as having fun ideas actually made it in, and then we can all track what they do! I also added in some folk who are local, and folk I follow in various social media spaces, saving the best for last. Think of it, perhaps, as the ETechLib version of the Road Scholars. ;) Meanwhile, track BOTH the hashtags in the title. They’ve been exploding.

#IfIHadGlass

#GlassExplorers

EDUCATION: In the classroom, for kids, language learning, journalism in context, and more (Alexandria Mooney YES and Chase Masters YES and Francine Hardaway NOT YET) Comment: No Francine? Why not? Is she too important and influential? Then why did you choose Alyssa Milano?

Now, on the other hand, Geordi La Forge HAD to get a pair.

PEOPLE: Street photography (and anthropology type investigations) (JJ Bentley YES and Renat Zarbailov NOT YET)

FOOD: Cooking instruction & management (Rebecca Otis YES, Lauren Atkins YES, and Jake Croston YES)

#AR/GAMES FOR LEARNING: Augmented reality role-playing game for learning in the forest (Luka Leduc-Boutin NOT YET) Comment: Good grief, how did they miss THIS one?!!!.

WORK: Integration with job functions for construction & architecture, hazardous waste management training (Kevin Reedy NOT YET and Mark Dunton NOT YET) Comment: Again, why on earth NOT? “I would show the right way to use hazardous materials and proper hazardous waste handling techniques.” This is really important stuff! Full of impact and saving lives. I am truly baffled by some of the choices they are making.

HEALTH: Life as a patient with an invisible disability or a child with special needs
(Frank Garufi Jr. YES and Lori Friedrich NOT YET)

HUMOR: “i would never have a problem with bad customers because i would replace their heads with rubber chicken masks so i could retain my customer service smile.” Matthew Stone NOT YET

Now, who are some more folk I already follow who have gotten into Glass Explorers.

NICOLE GUGLIUCCI (NOISY ASTRONOMER)

DANIEL KRAFT

TRISH WETZEL

MELISSA HOGAN (SAVING CASE)

LISA GUALTIERI

JOHN NOSTA (FORBES)

John NostaFeb 22, 2013 – Public
Simple, #ifihadglass I would help physicians and patients have a richer dialogue and enhance the quality of healthcare. https://plus.google.com/101926706159077857138/posts/E7zy1txiv6g

BOBBY MERCADER (TEDxDetroit)

JOHN MINNI (TEDxDetroit)

John Minni, Feb 21.
#ifIhadglass I would use it when I teach my 3 year old and 7 year old sons things. I would record their reaction to my teaching and develop a database of their responses. The responses could then be played back at a later time to review the concepts.
https://plus.google.com/112173135159920007337/posts/8RsHe4wwS7m

John Minni, Feb 23
#ifihadglass I would take it to my wife’s kindergarten class and we would read a book together I would give them parts to play and film them while we read and then play it back for them.
https://plus.google.com/112173135159920007337/posts/QPDbpngZhoA

JEFFREY TAEKMAN

MISTY MILLS

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Posted in Gadgets, Google

Stack O’ Books — Sources on Transparency and Privacy, All

Posted on April 1, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Stack O' Books

I’m both a writer and a librarian, and I’m having trouble deciding whether to call this an index or a Table of Contents after the fact, or a collection, or something else, but the gist of the idea is along those lines. Here are links to all the posts in the Stack O’ Books series all in one place. At the bottom of the post, I also list the books by publication date, and alphabetical by author.

Part One: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/stack-o-books-sources-on-transparency-and-privacy-part-one/

The Anarchist in the Library (2004) by Siva Vaidhyanathan.
As the Future Catches You (2000, 2001), by Juan Enriquez.

Part Two: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/stack-o-books-sources-on-transparency-and-privacy-part-two/

The Best Science Writing Online 2012, by Bora Zikovic and Jennifer Ouellette.
Decentralization, Sketches Toward a Rational Theory (1980), by Manfred Kochen and Karl W. Deutsch.

Part Three: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/stack-o-books-sources-on-transparency-and-privacy-part-three/

Endless Frontier (1997), by G. Pascal Zachary.
Extreme Trust (2012), by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers.

Part Four: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/stack-o-books-sources-on-transparency-and-privacy-part-four/

The Filter Bubble (2011), by Eli Pariser.
Growth of Knowledge (1967), edited by Manfred Kochen.

Part Five: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/stack-o-books-sources-on-transparency-and-privacy-part-five/

Information for Action (1975), by Manfred Kochen.
Information for the Community (1976), by Manfred Kochen.

Part Six: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/stack-o-books-sources-on-transparency-and-privacy-part-six/

Invisible Colleges (1972), by Diana Crane.
My Stroke of Insight (2006), by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.

Part Seven: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/stack-o-books-sources-on-transparency-and-privacy-part-seven/

Science Since Babylon (1961), by Derek John DeSolla Price
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999), by Richard Feynman.

Part Eight: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/stack-o-books-sources-on-transparency-and-privacy-part-eight/

Six Degrees (2003), by Dunan J. Watts.
The Transparent Society (1998), by David Brin.

In Sequence by Publication Date

1961: Science Since Babylon, by Derek John DeSolla Price
1967: Growth of Knowledge, edited by Manfred Kochen.
1972: Invisible Colleges, by Diana Crane.
1975: Information for Action, by Manfred Kochen.
1976: Information for the Community, by Manfred Kochen.
1980: Decentralization, Sketches Toward a Rational Theory, by Manfred Kochen and Karl W. Deutsch.
1997: Endless Frontier, by G. Pascal Zachary.
1998: The Transparent Society, by David Brin.
1999: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, by Richard Feynman.
2000: As the Future Catches You, by Juan Enriquez.
2003: Six Degrees, by Dunan J. Watts.
2004: The Anarchist in the Library by Siva Vaidhyanathan.
2006: My Stroke of Insight, by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.
2011: The Filter Bubble, by Eli Pariser.
2012: Extreme Trust, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers.
2013: The Best Science Writing Online 2012, by Bora Zikovic and Jennifer Ouellette.

Alphabetical by Author

Brin, David. The Transparent Society (1998).
Crane, Diana. Invisible Colleges (1972).
De Solla Price, Derek John. Science Since Babylon (1961).
Enriquez, Juan. As the Future Catches You (2000, 2001).
Feynman, Richard. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999).
Kochen, Manfred; Deutsch, Karl W. Decentralization, Sketches Toward a Rational Theory (1980).
Kochen, Manfred. Growth of Knowledge (1967).
Kochen, Manfred. Information for Action (1975).
Kochen, Manfred. Information for the Community (1976).
Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble (2011).
Peppers, Don; Rogers, Martha. Extreme Trust (2012)
Taylor, Jill Bolte. My Stroke of Insight (2006).
Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Anarchist in the Library (2004).
Watts, Duncan J. Six Degrees (2003).
Zachary, G. Pascal. Endless Frontier (1997).
Zikovic, Bora; Ouellette, Jennifer. The Best Science Writing Online 2012.

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Posted in Librarianship, Reading, Research, Thoughts, Trends

Hashtags of the Week (HOTW): Naming and Shaming (Week of March 25, 2013)

Posted on March 31, 2013 by | Leave a comment

First posted at the THL Blog by Chris Bulin (@Arduane): http://thlibrary.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/hashtags-of-the-week-hotw-naming-and-shaming-week-of-march-25-2013/

I was amazed (and a little horrified) by the number of stories having to do with ethics in science over the last week. As a student at the School of Information, we heard quite a bit about the incident of public shaming and resulting fallout from PyCon (a conference about the Python programming language). There was a lot of scuttlebutt and some serious discussion about the role of sexism in STEM. On the heels of this came the “revelation” that the I F*cking Love Science (IFLS) blog was run by *gasp* a woman! Twitter was absolutely flooded with posts about #science, #ethics and #sexism.

Around the same time these issues were being discussed, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory at Heidelberg published a paper which released the full genomic sequencing of a strain of commonly used HeLa cells, as noted by Forbes. This brought up questions about personal genomics and privacy. You can follow this conversation on the following hashtags #HeLa, #privacy, #bioethics, #genomics.

And, to add a strange twist to our ethics discussions this week, Australian scientists have been able to resurrect an extinct frog as part of the Lazarus Project, while researchers in the US attempt to bring back the carrier pigeon. Both of these #deextinction initiatives have gotten Twitter talking about woolly mammoths and Jurassic Park.

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Stack O’ Books — Sources on Transparency and Privacy. Part Eight

Posted on March 29, 2013 by | 1 Comment

Stack O' Books

Back in the 1950s, Kochen (a mathematician) and Pool (a political scientist) were the first to think about it but couldn’t find a solution without computers. Milgram (a psychologist), aided by White (a physicist-sociologist) and followed by Bernard (an anthropologist) and Killworth (an oceanographer), then attacked the problem empirically but couldn’t explain how it actually worked. Thirty years later, Steve and I (mathematicians) turned the problem into one about networks generally but failed to see its algorithmic component, leaving that door for Jon (a computer scientist) to open. Jon, in turn, left the door open for Mark (a physicist), Peter (a mathematician), and me (now a sociologist of sorts) to walk through and pick up the solution that now seems to have been lying there all along. It’s been a long trail, almost fifty years, and now we think we finally understand the problem, it seems like someone ought to have figured it out long ago. But it had to happen this way. (pp. 160-161)

Six Degrees, by Dunan J. Watts.

Comment: I admit, part of the reason I selected this quote was because it mentioned Fred, and I wanted to show that I’m not the only person who thinks he did some important work. More importantly, however, is the way in which this wonderful story illustrates the essential importance of boundary-spanning and collaboration in knowledge discovery. I spend a fair amount of time on this in the chapter, and while this particular quote didn’t fit into the story I was trying to craft, it supports it nicely, and I wish I could have included it.


Duncan Watts and Dalton Conley discuss Six Degrees of Separation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFK1bpQwHF4

This new “immune system” may be imperfect … but at least we started noticing some dangers, like ozone depletion and species extinction, long before the trends grew too severe. Passionate advocates and antagonists swarm around each problem, hollering so loud we can’t ignore the peril, even when we squeeze our eyes shut and hope it goes away. This trend is especially important given society’s growing complexity and the rapid pace of change. Science and technology must progress swiftly, in order to offer any hope of solving the world’s problems. Still, with every advance, new questions and dilemmas burst forth to confound even a culture filled with large numbers of college graduates. As the recent furor over human cloning showed, it takes time for people to listen, argue among themselves, overreact, learn some more, and finally start making the sort of practical, as we go decisions that may (with luck) take us into the twenty-first century in fairly decent shape. (pp. 142-143)

The irony here is that our relative immunity against fallacy is in large part carried out via the adversarial tug and push of countless indignant, righteous, and often narrow-minded individuals, many of whome would be anything but tolerant or democratically inclined if by some magic or intrigue they ever achieved coercive power. The service they provide for the rest of us — the calm, relatively contented majority — cannot be overstated. (p. 143)

The Transparent Society, by David Brin.

Comment: For me, choosing quotes from this book is almost impossible. My first copy is studded with little shreds of torn paper marking places where David said something especially important. I agonized over the quotes to include in the book chapter, because I had limited space and many voices to include. I was trying so hard to give equal space to both sides of the debate, when what I wanted to do was just hand people copies of David’s book and make them read it. It was so hard for me to think of anything unique that I could bring to the conversation. I tried anyway.

The first time I met David was when he was on tour for this important book, having fought with his reluctant publishers to get it out in print. He spoke on campus in a rather unusual and elegant room in the UM Law School, a room which reminded me of a church in some ways. We chatted afterwards, and have stayed in touch over the years through various social media.

This was the most important book for me while I was working on my chapter. I bought extra copies of it, so that I would have access to it in many places without needing to depend on carrying it around with me. Then I carried it around anyway. David is quoted in my chapter several times, but not as many as I wanted.

This book is beyond being a must-read on the topic. After the book had been out for a few years, reviewers started to denigrate it based on its age, saying things like, “Surprisingly relevant, given how dated it is.” I always want to blow raspberries when I hear things like that. This book has at no point since publication been anything less than the most important work available on the topic of the dynamics of transparency and privacy in our evolving society. READ THIS! There are others that go into specific aspects in more depth, but I know of no other single work that does such a brilliant job of tersely describing the issues, trends, risks and benefits of various scenarios. (Not to mention that David studs the book with little gems of quotations from other writers, giving you clues about who else to read to extend your reading in this area.) David himself does take this to the next level with his new fiction masterpiece, Existence, which places many of these core concepts in story form for easy digestion. Read both!


The Transparent Society: Secrecy vs. Privacy, Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0AX79lT4_c


The Transparent Society: Secrecy vs. Privacy, Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oz2CZgrm8k

Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oz2CZgrm8k&playnext=1&list=PL454460A507A72911&feature=results_main

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Posted in At the Movies, Health, Healthcare, Support, Science, Librarianship, Reading, Research, Science2.0/Health2.0, Thoughts, Trends

Stack O’ Books — Sources on Transparency and Privacy. Part Seven

Posted on March 28, 2013 by | 1 Comment

Stack O' Books

The trouble seems to be that it is no man’s business to understand the general patterns and reactions of science as the economist understands the business world. Given some knowledge of economics, a national business policy can be formulated, decrees can be promulgated, recessions have some chance of being controlled, the electorate can be educated. I do not know, indeed, whether one might in fact understand the crises of modern science so well as to have the power to do anything about them. I must, however, suggest that the petty illnesses of science — its superabundance of literature, its manpower shortages, its increasing specialization, its tendency to deteriorate in quality — all these things are but symptoms of a general disease. That disease is partly understood by the historian, and might be understood better if it were any man’s professional province to do so. Even if we could not control the crisis that is almost upon us, there would at least be some satisfaction in understanding what is hitting us. (p. 193)

Science Since Babylon (1961), by Derek John DeSolla Price

Comment: Another important work from the classics I read in graduate school. I find it ironic that the challenges for the practice of science explicitly articulated here — “its superabundance of literature, its manpower shortages, its increasing specialization, its tendency to deteriorate in quality” — are even more prominent now, fifty years later, than they were in 1961 when Price described them as a disease.

You see, I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to really get to know something, how careful you have to be about checking the experiments, how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself. I know what it means to know something, and therefore I see how they get their information and I can’t believe that they know it, they haven’t done the work necessary, haven’t done the checks necessary, haven’t done the care necessary. (p. 22)

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, by Richard Feynman.

Comment: It is always entertaining to read Feynman, and his insights into the practice of science, its dynamics, strengths and weaknesses, are valuable to consider even when you disagree with him. If you disagree with him, can you refute him, and if so, based on what evidence? The issues he raises here, about making mistakes and fooling yourself, are especially critical for each innovator to consider in this time of rapid change when innovations arise, crest, and vanish before we have time to evaluate their unknown risks and hidden costs.


The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Richard Feynman Interview (1981) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXiOg5-l3fk

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Posted in Health, Healthcare, Support, Science, Librarianship, Reading, Research, Science2.0/Health2.0, Thoughts, Trends

Stack O’ Books — Sources on Transparency and Privacy. Part Six

Posted on March 27, 2013 by | 1 Comment

Stack O' Books

There is some evidence that the diffusion of a scientific innovation is a fashion-like process in which influence is transmitted through steadily expanding networks of scientists. Thus it is plausible to view science as an enormous cluster of innovations, of which the most successful are diffused by means of a contagion process that produces a logistic curve in all facets of scientific activity. Behind the seemingly impersonal structure of scientific knowledge, there is a vast interpersonal network that screens new ideas in terms of a central theme or paradigm, permitting some a wide audience and consigning many to oblivion. (p. 76)

Invisible Colleges (1972), by Diana Crane.

Comment: Some debate the scholarship and design of the research on which this work is based, but say what you will, this was at that time one of the works that most influenced thought on how social relationships shape knowledge and our understanding of scientific discovery. Much of our current work on the influence of social networks on scholarship and policy development is based at root on the thoughts expressed in this book by Diana Crane. The influence of this book extends far past academia to the design and development of such now-everyday tools as Facebook and Twitter, and even to popular culture, with this anecdotal example:
IF “Invisible = Unseen”
AND “College = University”
THEN “Invisible College” = “Unseen University”.

It makes sense that having two cerebral hemispheres that process information in uniquely different ways would increase our brain’s capacity to experience the world around us and increase our chances for survival as a species. Because our two hemispheres are so adept at weaving together a single seamless perception of the world, it is virtually impossible for us to consciously distinguish between what is going on in our left hemisphere versus our right hemisphere. (p. 28)

My Stroke of Insight (2006), by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.

Comment: There were two specific ways in which this book caught my interest. One was this concept shown in the quote above that apparent opposites need not necessarily actually function in opposition to each other, but may instead be complementary and necessary aspects of forming a functional whole. The other aspect is the idea that we cannot easily perceive that which is part of our body or part of our existence when it functions normally, but only when it does not. Like Dr. Jill, I also suffered a kind of brain damage, most notably when I suffered severe chronic long term carbon monoxide poisoning a dozen years ago. We are often told that we cannot feel things inside our brain, but as part of the damage and healing process, I had powerful visceral sensations associated with trying to think about memories or skills located in the damaged area, as well as the sensations of the neurons sending out new or extended axons, probing around the damage, trying to find a new path to the old information. Similarly, we don’t tend to notice our feet unless they hurt, our lungs unless we are struggling to breathe, etcetera. Both of these are important lessons not just for how we as individuals listen and learn, but also how professions discover creativity, nations change economic and policy strategies, and possibly even for us as a species.


How it feels to have a stroke. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU

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