Snacks4theBrain!

On Monday, October 1st, the freshman class at the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt visited the Harpeth River, at a beautiful stretch of its snakelike path through Davidson County and Middle Tennessee. The yellow Metro Nashville Public School bus pulled into picnic shelter number 11 at the beautiful Edwin Warner Park, located just a few miles from the School’s lab at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Light Hall.

The students were out for a field trip with the intention of gathering data to assess the health of the stream. They were learning to use all manner of field instruments–digital levels, digital pH probes, GPS devices, and scientific magnifier lenses–and how to record and interpret the readings and observations from those instruments in meaningful ways. They also used their hands and their feet, “kick seining,” stirring up the stream to capture macroinvertebrates and capturing downstream-bound critters in a fine mesh sein, or net. The collected debris from these efforts was transferred into glass petrie dishes, where careful observation would identify the inhabitants of this watery evirons–would they be only the sort of creatures that could survive in polluted environments, or would they find more sensitive, delicate species that would indicate the river is satisfactorily healthy? Well, final interpretation of findings would have to wait until later, when all the data would be compiled back at the lab. For this episode of S4theB! you’re out here on the river with the students, listening in on the process.

The voices you hear will be those of students, their talented teachers, and the occasional crow, along with that of Pat Holiday, retired USGS ranger and geologist (and also Brittainy’s grandfather!). You’ll also be treated to two very nice bites of wonderful music, “The River,” and “Fire Dance,” from Jesse Manno. You can pick up these songs or the entire album, “Sea Spirits,” for a song at Magnatune.com! Alrighty, stalwart listeners, listen up right here or click “Links” up top to use the Podcast Pickle player at the site!!!

And BONUS!!! here’s a slideshow of pictures from the river visit:

Hey there, ya’ll, and welcome to episode number 57 of Snacks4theBrain! This is a very special episode for me, as its number coincides with the precise number of years I have been on the planet, and I accomplished that number just a few weeks ago, on May 25th. That aside, I am extraordinarily pleased to share with you the 20 minutes or so I spent with the Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Matrix Biology, Dr. Billy Hudson.

Dr. Hudson is a very busy man. That’s why I was so embarrassed when Amanda called me from my “non-office” (I don’t have a desk there, much less an office–I usually use the tiny conference room for any work I do physically at the CSO office) to tell me he was there for the interview. Me? I was sitting in his office at B-3102 Vanderbilt Medical Center North wondering why he wasn’t there. Remind me to tell you about finding his office in the first place sometime!

Anyway, I power-walked through the labyrinthine corridors to the CSO offices in Light Hall only to find that another meeting had been scheduled in the conference room. Punting (a skill at which I’m fairly adept), I suggested coffee in the VUMC Cafeteria. I’ve interviewed folks at Panera, Fido, and in other places but never there, so I’m hoping the audio is as good as the interview felt.

Over my French Roast coffee and Dr. H’s decaff, we chatted for a bit about his research, his career beginnings, and his outreach project, “Aspirnauts,” through which he is working with 4-11th graders in his “very, very” rural hometown in Arkansas.

After our chat concluded, I asked him what kind of music he likes; and it turns out he doesn’t get much time to listen to music, but his wife being a classical musician, that’s some of his favorite style. He grew up listening to country music, so I split the difference, the show opens with a nice classical piece from Magnatune.com and closes with a country song–well, a folk song I think Dr. Hudson will like, a bit of shameless self-promotion for my CD, available for sale at CDBaby and at iTunes (search Scott Merrick).

Cheers ’til next time! Oh, I will be in Atlanta in two weeks for the annual ISTE National Educational Computing Conference. Can you guess the content for Snacks58? Hehehehehee. Listen up here, or click Links and use the PodcastPicklePlayer!

Howdy, ya’ll,

Longtime “nohear.” Yeah, I know, we’ve been hard at work on the new School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt and with end-of-the-year things at my “day job” as Lower School Technology Coordinator at University School of Nashville. Not to mention Spring Break! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

That said, I hope you’ll enjoy S4theB! episode 55, a quick but very listenable concoction whose main ingredient is my reading of an article by Dr. Alan I. Leshner, Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Executive Publisher of Science. Back in January of this year Dr. L. published a moving plea for our institutions of higher education to make outreach to K12 schools (you know those public school systems everyone is always saying are failing our youth?) with science outreach as a mandatory element in the review process for both tenure and promotion. Wow.

I emailed Dr. Leshner for permission to use the article in this podcast and his administrative assistant got back to me with a query about just how I would do so. I replied, well, I’d read it aloud, hopefully sharing it with a portion of the educated citizenry who might not have seen it in Science. She consulted with him and voila, here ’tis.

Dr. Leshner’s piece is framed by some new and very well performed and produced independent music from a husband and wife acoustic duo who reside in Fabriano, Italy. My first Italian independent music! I sincerely hope you’ll like that, and that you’ll visit for a shopping extravaganza to support their efforts to bring talented artists’ music to the public. While you’re there, check out the skimmy on Magnatune. It’s quite a story…

There’s also a TechTipTidbit (courtesy of Worldstart.com via Dr. T. at completelyfreesoftware.com) all about RAM and Virtual Memory in your PC. Don’t know what I’m talkin’ about? You might after giving S4theB! 55 a listen! Listen up, right hear (sic)!

Episode 54 of S4theB! features a fascinating chat with Dr. Pat Levitt (photo courtesy of www.vanderbilt.edu), Director of the Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. Dr. Levitt is also a member of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute Neuroscience Council and is extraordinarily active in a plethora of professional organizations, including the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, and the National Advisory Mental Health Council for the National Institute of Mental Health. He is the author of over 170 scientific papers and serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals that include Biological Psychiatry, Cerebral Cortex, and Neuron.

Pat Levitt, as you can see, is a very busy guy. That’s why I was so pleased to be able to meet with him in his offices on the 4th floor of the John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. My portable recorder was sadly out of juice so I rigged up my laptop with a headset mic (the explanation for my own comments during the interview sounding like I’m speaking with a tin bucket over my head ), but I have to say the 30 or so minutes we chatted were among the most enjoyable and enlightening I’ve spent in these nearly two years of interviewing some of the most interesting people in science.

Enough chatchat: Download S4theB! Episode 54 here or click the Podcast Pickle player on the links page to hear it right in your browser.

This episode’s music hearkens back to the Podsafe Music Network for its listening-on-the-theme-of-the-brain content. 3 Feet Up’s “Teflon Brain” and audio project The Fabrications’ “Brain Cells” color up the show, and there’s even a TechTipTidbit for you! I lead out by fudging a little with BRAIN BUCKIT’s (well, there’s “brain” in the band’s name!) bluesy “Rocket Science.” All in all, I think it’s a a satisfying Snacks! and I hope you’ll agree!

Links:

• Dr Pat Levitt’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center page
• The Vanderbilt Brain Institute
• BrainsRule.com – a great site for learning about the human brain!
• Spoon-fed Snacks! — Click here for Google results search returns for “Pat Levitt environment genetics blog”