Of Schemes and Memes Blog

Communities Happenings – a weekly round-up of NPG online news 25/3/13

Nature.com blogs – a collection of blogs from editors and other staff at NPG

Brain activity imaging of a whole zebrafish brain at single-cell resolution. Click on image to view the video [20 MB].

Brain activity imaging of a whole zebrafish brain at single-cell resolution. Click on image to view the video [20 MB].

It is now possible to map the activity of nearly all the neurons in a vertebrate brain at cellular resolution. What does this mean for neuroscience research and projects like the Brain Activity Map proposal? You can find out in the Methagora Blog.

Most Fridays we host a quiz on our Communities blog, Of Schemes and Memes. In this week’s quiz, each round is devoted to a leading scientist, culminating in a picture round that connects them all together.

In Wednesday’s Soapbox Science post, David Wescott asks if we can do anything to improve how science writers reach out to the general public. He suggests some people, outside of science, to take note of:

So maybe it’s time to make outreach a little more comfortable by introducing some of the people that science writers should know, but largely don’t right now – brilliant, entrepreneurial, influential and passionate people, whose only apparent flaw is a lack of sustained interest in topics like duck sex or the Higgs boson.

This week’s best of NPG blogs includes: anthrax vaccine trials, obesity, bizarre creatures, brain cellular-level activity mapping, and an editorial in tweets.

Scitable – Nature Education’s network of science blogs

How is happiness measured? Khalil A. Cassimally looks at the new happiness indexes and concludes that Africa is most probably the least happy place on Earth right now. Although with the consistent upward trend of numerous economic indicators, Africa may well be on the verge of a happiness boom that can benefit us all, Africans and non-Africans.LL_75HPI_1HPI

SciLogs.com – an NPG network of science bloggers 

coast3-225x300Is Google Glass the paradigm shift in communication it is portrayed to be? Was Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s CEO, right to ban working from home? Do we need to completely rethink communication technology? Akshat Rathi argues that it is high time we adapt our communication technology to the water-cooler effect which leads to serendipitous exchange of ideas.

Malcolm Campbell moves to SciLogs.com where he will continue his weekly curation of the best science stories of the week (check out Friday’s linkfest), and write thought-provoking proses about various science topics. His first such blog post is about oceans: “Have we reached the limits of where we might discover life in the ocean? It’s hard to say. What is clear is that wherever we have cast our net, we have found new organisms. Life in the ocean does seem to fit the notion of endless forms most beautiful and wonderful. This said, we should be mindful of the implications when we consider the breadth of diversity in the world’s oceans.”

Plus, you will find all of SciLogs.com blog posts from last week here.

SpotOn NYC – a monthly discussion series in NYC co-hosted by NPG

Save the data: the next SpotOn NYC, which will be a celebration of our 2nd birthday, will take place on the the 25th of April! More details coming soon.

 

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