The "Brain's GPS" and the Iterative Process of Discovery
Drs. May-Britt and Edvard I. Moser are newly minted Nobel laureates along with their mentor Dr. John O'Keefe. The committee honored them for their discovery of the specific cells, now known as "grid cells," that are responsible for representing the three-dimensional map that the brain makes as it travels through a space.
Required to Give Does Not Mean Required to Give Wisely
A recent post in Fast Company highlights the increasing popularity of "giving while living" styles of charity:
Accepting and Embracing the Mixture of Madness
"And the minute they'd gone," says Lynne, "I leaped up. I leaped on his desk, I leaped off his desk. I danced all around the room. I had the most fabulous time. And he said - he immortalized; I really owe my whole career, in a way, and I suppose my life to this man - he said, there is nothing wrong with your child. She's a born dancer."
Why Ello Needs Craig Newmark(?)
There has been surprising interest in a minimalist new network named ello whose model and feature set is reminiscent of the early days of Twitter. Ello has seen signups of late hit the 35,000 per hour mark. The reason? The founders claim thatr unlike Twitter and Facebook, their users don't pay a "high price in intrusive advertising and lack of privacy."
Using an HIV Drug to Treat Early-Stage Ebola
Dr. Gorbee Logan noticed that there were similarities between how Ebola and HIV replicate themselves and decided to treat some of his Ebola patients with an HIV drug. He has tried the drug on 15 patients, and all but two have survived. While this is not a statistically significant sample, it's a much higher survival rate than is currently being reported elsewhere.
Using Culture Change to Prevent Domestic Violence in the NFL
During his amazing talk on the epidemiology of violence at Dent the Future 2014, Dr. Gary Slutkin said (and I paraphrase) that one of the key determining factors in whether an individual will commit a violent act is whether or not that person thinks their peer group will find the violent act acceptable. Slutkin's work is showing that violence spreads just like an epidemic, with cultural attitudes about violent behavior as the key vector for predicting when and where violence will occur.