Snacks4theBrain!

Hey, there, listeners, welcome to this episode of S4theB! I have some audio from the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt, and it’s the question and answer portion of last week’s wonderful visit by Nobel Laureate Dr. Stanley Cohen.

Working with Rita Levi-Montalcini (co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1986) at Washington University in St. Louis in the 1950s, Cohen isolated nerve growth factor and then went on to discover epidermal growth factor. He continued his research on cellular growth factors after moving to Vanderbilt University in 1959. His research on cellular growth factors has proven fundamental to understanding the development of cancer and designing anti-cancer drugs. (from Wikipedia)

The School for Science and Math is of course the fantastic program offered out of the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach which brings 25 students from each grade level of high school from Metro Nashville Public Schools to the Vanderbilt Campus one day a week during the academic school year. I would love to include the entire hour, but that would be more main course than snack, and true to the spirit of Snacks4theBrain! we’ll stick to the tasty morsel Dr. Cohen shared at the end of his visit. You’ll hear the voices of the Professor Emeritus in Biochemistry and those of the students and teachers.

The story that Dr. Cohen shares about investigating the similarity between the enzymes in earthworms and in human livers, how he “watered the lawn all afternooon and come nighttime put a miner’s lamp on his head and crawled around on the ground and collected thousands of worms to study” is enough reward in itself! I also love the attribution of his recognition as 1/3 hard work, 1/3 luck, and 1/3 knowing what to do…because we’re not smart enough to know what we don’t know.” The interchanges are enlightening all around and I am sure that you will thoroughly enjoy the listen.

Bear in mind, if you will, that when you hear Dr. Cohen begin to talk, he’s already spent a half hour describing in intricate detail the foundations of his life’s work. The questions ensue.

Before we get going, I’ll pump up the volume on what you’ve been hearing underneath this little rant, “Grand Prize,” music from the Podsafe Music Network at music.podshow.com from amb26, a very popular ambient artist named Anthony Barnes from the UK, . After Dr. Cohen’s spot I’ll play you out with another prize themed song from music.podshow.com, Ottawa Canada’s Doug Hemstead’s “The Prize.” And don’t leave yet after that, because in my search for songs about prizes–this is after all a Nobel Prize podcast :), I found a lovely mellow song from another Canadian, Hilary Grist. You’ll like it.

Download Snacks4theBrain! episode 77 right here, or click “Links” up top to open a Podcast Pickle player for your listening convenience!

Cheers! And happy holidays, all!!!

Welcome to Episode 76, reporting out the November meeting of the Vanderbilt Web Spiders. There’s so much going on at Vanderbilt that I wonder if we’ll ever run out of topics for S4theB? Could that ever happen? I doubt it, Monty!

Case in point: Every month or so a group of 25-50 people who are interested in the Internet get together somewhere on Vanderbilt’s campus to share thoughts with one another. In the words of fearless leader Melanie Moran, Associate Director of the Vanderbilt News Agency, “Vanderbilt Web Spiders is a group of people interested in Web development from across Vanderbilt University that meets once a month to share ideas, identify needs, and ask and answer questions of each other about the latest and greatest in Web use and development.” Ms. Moran maintains a website at vanderbilt.edu/spiders which elaborates, “The Web has revolutionized the way Vanderbilt communicates with the world, and the number of people developing Web sites at Vanderbilt has exponentially increased. The Web Developer Group was started to provide a forum for networking, sharing, and learning. Anyone who is a member of the Vanderbilt community — student, faculty, or staff — can join the group. There are no dues.

Web Spiders meet for one hour each month, with topics ranging from browser compatibility to content management systems. We also have an email listserv where members can get meeting notices and post questions or tips for other web developers on campus.

Web Spiders archives an audio podcast for those who can’t make the meeting and I got permission from Ms. Moran to excerpt from that for this episode of s4theb. If you want to listen to the entire meeting you can get on over to http://blogs.vanderbilt.edu/spiders and do so, but I thought it’d be of service to post a bit from each of the three mini-presentations I got to participate in, including one from me about Education in Second Life. That day I shared a little video of the new Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach presence in Second Life, located on Lighthouse Learning Island, and the video can be accessed at blogs.vanderbilt.edu/s4theb, in today’s shownotes.

Let’s get into some music first, then I’ll share from PodSpiders! Since at least a portion of my shareout this episode certainly heralds a “new age,” let’s just stay with the “New Age” theme. I use a portion of Adam Fielding’s wonderful song “Traveling Light” from from his cd, Distant Activity, available for purchase and download at Magnatune.com, and then play you all out with another of his songs, this one a vocal entitled “Nostalgia.” I love his innovative rhythms and cadences, and I will reference him again, I’m sure.

I think that for brevity we’ll only share out two brief portions of presentations at the Web Spiders meetup. The first is from the Director of the Vanderbilt News Archive, John Lynch The Vanderbilt News Archive is an online-searchable database and collection of video recordings collected since 1968, find out more about it at tvnews.vanderbilt.edu. Mr. Lynch talked for around 20 minutes and I want to share a portion of his engaging chat from somewhere around its middle. Mr. Lynch shared a particularly amusing set of news spots from NBC News about one Buster Lee Blevins, then got all techie with us with some explanations about some of the things we saw in them.

I also share a portion of my piece, Education in Second Life, and lead you out with another tasty treat from Adam Fielding, master of new age ambience. Go listen, purchase, and download Adam’s indie music at magnatune.com.

Download S4theB! 76 here!

Finally, here’s the slideshare from my Web Spider’s shareout. You can visit slideshare for a larger display, and all the links are hot as hot can be!

Are you a teacher? Visit the ISTE Educators’ Portal online to get started in Second Life! See ya next time!!!