For some inexplicable reason, Bertalan Mesko wanted to interview me about blogging.

(Image: Roberto Sozzani) Russian researchers affiliated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have developed a red fluorescent protein that is 7-10 times brighter than any other red fluorescent protein currently being used for imaging. The protein, which has been named Katushka, is derived from a brilliant red sea anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor, the blue tip anemone, above) bought by one of the researchers from a pet shop in Moscow. After acquiring the specimen, co-author Sergey Lukyanov took it to his laboratory, where he and his colleagues isolated the red protein. They cloned the…

The final post at Neurofuture is a fantastic 30th edition of Encephalon, which, as usual, includes good stuff from the best neuroscience and psychology blogs on the web. The next edition of the carnival will be hosted by Dr. Deb Serani on September 10th. If you'd like to contribute, email permalinks to your neuroscience  or psychology blog posts to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com, or use this submission form.

I start my M.Sc. in neuroscience in about a month's time. The recommended text is Principles of Neural Science, by Kandel, Schwartz and Jessel. It's a great book that I'll get round to buying one day, but, because I'm on a limited budget, I'll have to make do with the abridged version, Essentials of Neural Science and Behavior, and Fundamental Neuroscience, by Zigmond, et al., both of which have been sitting on a shelf at my mother's house for a few years.

This year, several research groups have used bacterial proteins called channelrhodopsins to develop a technique with which light can be used to control the activity of nerve cells or the behaviour of small organisms. For example, Ed Boyden's group at the MIT Media Lab used the method to activate or inhibit neurons on a millisecond-by-millsecond timescale, while Karl Deisseroth and his colleagues at Stanford have created an optical on/off switch that can control the movements of the nematode worm. Devices employing such technologies could in theory be used in advanced neural prostheses for a…

Zooillogix is the latest addition to ScienceBlogs.com. It's chock full of weird and wonderful stuff from the animal kingdom, like the Peter's elephant nose fish, which detects prey using electrical fields emitted from its chin.

Olaf Blanke, of the Federal Polytechnic of Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, explains how it was done: Read more about the study at New Scientist and Ars Technica.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric condition which is characterized by intrusive thoughts and ritualized and repetitive behaviours, such as excessive hand-washing, which are performed in order to neutralize the obsessions. OCD is one of a spectrum of disorders that includes Tourette's Syndrome, autism and bipolar disorder. OCD affects approximately 2% of the population, and is listed by the World Health Organization as being amongst the top 10 most debilitating illnesses, in terms of decreased quality of life and loss of income. It is often treated - only mildly…

Somatopsychic is a relatively new blog, by Mitch Harden, a graduate student in the Behavioral Neuroscience program at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

Reuters reports that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just approved the use of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in children and teenagers.

A significant proportion of people with HIV/ AIDS develop neurological symptoms, such as impaired co-ordination, personality changes, deficits in learning and memory, and mania and depression. HIV-associated dementia is difficult to treat; although highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) has led to improved prognoses for patients, these drugs do not effectively penetrate the blood brain barrier. So, the brain can act as a "silent reservoir" for HIV, which can therefore cause lasting and irreparable damage. Exactly how HIV causes dementia was unknown. But a new study by researchers…

The New York Times contains an article by George Johnson, who attended the recent Magic of Consciousness Symposium in Las Vegas, at which a number of well-known magicians discussed how they exploit the limits of perception in their performances: Apollo, with the pull of his eyes and the arc of his hand, swung around my attention like a gooseneck lamp, so that it always pointed in the wrong direction. When he appeared to be reaching for my left pocket he was swiping something from the right. At the end of the act the audience applauded as he handed me my pen, some crumpled receipts and…

You've probably gathered that I've spent a long weekend in New York City with other ScienceBloggers and members of the SEED magazine team. I think it's fair to say that a good time was had by all. I've posted some of the pics I took out there, but I haven't written anything about  the trip. Others have posted quite a lot about our shenanigans, as well as more pics.  Anyway, after what seems like hundreds of beers and dozens of tequilas, plus about 11,000 km of air travel, I'm back in London. It'll be business as usual on this blog as of tomorrow. 

Atlas at the Rockefeller Plaza. More blogger pics below.  Bora Zivkovic (aka Coturnix) with some really handsome (but quite hairy) guy.  Mike Dunford, Suzanne Franks, Janet Stemwedel and Rob Knop.  Shelley Batts, Rob Knop, Mike Dunford and Josh Rosenau. 

Kevin Beck. More pics of the ScienceBloggers in NYC below. Jennifer Jacquet.  Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science and Storm World.  Sheril Kirshenbaum, Mooney's co-blogger.  

...in the Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science is a fantastic new blog that needs a shorter name. It's by Jack Josephy, who's studying philosophy and cognitive science at the University of Sussex. See also Distributed Neuron, by Zachary Tong, a biology undergraduate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

I heard this being played by someone who was selling records and CDs in the street, next to a bar we went into last night. It's an old favourite of mine, from way back when hip hop was still good. There's no video, so enjoy looking at the album cover while you listen. It's by Big Daddy Kane, who hails from Brooklyn.

More photos below. Rob Knop - spent all weekend in the hotel room. Snores quite loudly. Mike Dunford - snores very loudly. Shelley Batts - behaves very badly when drunk. RPM - drinks other peoples' beer. More photos coming soon.

Greetings from New York City. I arrived at JFK at about noon, and got a proposal of marriage about 20 minutes later, from a lady who works at Howard Beach subway station, who said she loved my accent! (Even though I sound nothing like Hugh Grant!) Anyway, after about 2 hours on the A train, I'm now sitting at a bar between 79th and 80th St. on Amsterdam Ave., with Grrl and Chris. I'll be meeting some of the other ScienceBloggers this weekend, and doing plenty of boozing and a bit of shopping too. 

In today's New York Times, John Tierney discusses an argument by Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, that our existence could be nothing more than a computer simulation being run by posthumanists. Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or "posthumans," could run "ancestor simulations" of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.…