NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS NEWSLETTER
Volume 20, Issue 1 (January, 2016)

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HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS!

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Welcome to the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter.

In this issue:

1. What's New at Neuroscience for Kids
2. Neuroscience for Kids Site of the Month
3. Neuroscience for Kids Poetry Contest
4. Generation Nano: Small Science, Superheroes Competition
5. Neuroscience for Kids Polls
6. Media Alert
7. Treasure Trove of Brain Trivia
8. Email Changes
9. Support Neuroscience for Kids
10. How to Stop Your Subscription

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1. WHAT'S NEW AT NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS

Neuroscience for Kids had several new additions in December including:

A. December Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter was archived
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/news1912.html

B. 2016 Neurocalendars
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurocal.html
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2. NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS "SITE OF THE MONTH"

The Neuroscience for Kids "Site of the Month" for January is the "NeuroPod" at:

http://www.nature.com/neurosci/neuropod/index.html

Hosted by the journal Nature, NeuroPod provides monthly podcasts about the new brain research. In December, NeuroPod reported on the effects of caffeine on repeated brain scans, optogenetics, and language. Podcasts dating back several years are available where you can listen to the program online or download the programs to enjoy later.
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3. NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS POETRY CONTEST

The 2016 NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS POETRY WRITING CONTEST is now open to students in kindergarten through high school, college students, teachers and parents. Use your imagination to create a poem, limerick or haiku about the brain and you might win a prize. The complete set of rules and the official entry form for the contest are available at:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/contest16.html

Entries must be received by the February 1, 2016 deadline.
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4. GENERATION NANO: SMALL SCIENCE, SUPERHEROES COMPETITION

The National Science Foundation is sponsoring a contest that asks high-school students to create a superhero and the nanotechnology-driven gear that the superhero would use. Students must also make a 90-second video or a one page comic strip about their superhero and gear. Entries are due on February 2, 2016. For more information about the competition, see:

http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/gennano/
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5. NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS POLLS

Sprinkled throughout the Neuroscience for Kids web site are polls asking people about their opinions and results of various tests and online activities. Here are some of the data.

a. Green, blue, red and yellow were the most common colors people saw when they spun Benham's disks (reported by 6,719 people). (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/benham.html).

b. 1.4 to 1.8 mm was reported by 1,070 (25.3%) of 4,233 people as the diameter of their blind spot (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/blindspot.html).

c. Of 36,268 people who answer the question "How many cups of caffeinated coffee do you drink each day?," 15,786 (43.5%) of them said "None" and 3,237 (8.9%) of them said "More than 10 cups" (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/caff.html).

d. People read an article about yawning and then were asked how many times they yawned while they read it. Of 74,234 people who responded, 20,947 (28.2%) people said that they did not yawn at all and 15,245 (20.5%) people said they yawned more than five times. (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/yawning.html).

e. People were asked how often they remembered their dreams. Of 30,312 people who answered the question, 4,714 (15.6%) said they remembered their dreams every day, 10,928 (36.1%) said they remembered their dreams several times a week and 4,360 (14.8%) said they remembered their dreams less than once a month. Many people (30,540 of 50,334 respondents, 60.7%) said they dream in color; few people (3,826 of 50,334 respondents, 7.6%) said they never dream in color. Common dreams reported by 27,858 people included those about friends or family (9,934 people; 35.7%), life problems (4,625 people, 16.6%) and pleasant topics (2,764; 9.9%). (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/sleep.html).

Remember that these statistics are for people of many different ages from all over the world. Also, the numbers are very selective because the questions were answered by people who visited the Neuroscience for Kids web site; they are not from a random sample of the general population.
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6. MEDIA ALERT

A. Many neuroscientific discoveries made the DISCOVER magazine top 100 stories of 2015 (DISCOVER magazine, January-February, 2016). These include: Team Identifies Genetic Markers for Depression; Brain Scans May Lead to Better Diagnoses; Missed Immune Connection in the Brain; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Gets Some Respect; Why Worms Don't Get Lost; A Mighty (Small) Mouse Brain Map; Mind Reading at a Higher Level; The Remote-Controlled Brain; How Oxytocin Changes Behavior; Genome Reveals Clues to Octopus Intelligence; A Key Piece of the Pain Puzzle Is Solved; 'The Dress' Was More Than a Meme; Neurons Alter DNA All Day, Every Day.

B. "The Return of Electroshock Therapy" by Dan Hurley (THE ATLANTIC magazine, December, 2015).

C. "The Brain's GPS" by May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser is the cover story of the January, 2016, issue of DISCOVER magazine.

D. "Of Sound Mind" by Michael Schwartz and Anat London (NATURAL HISTORY magazine, December 2015-January, 2016).

E. "Autism in Early America" by John Donvan and Caren Zucker (SMITHSONIAN magazine, January-February, 2016).
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7. THE TREASURE TROVE OF BRAIN TRIVIA

A. "Hungry Brain" is the name of a Chicago jazz club.

B. Prozac, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant drug, was approved by the FDA in 1987.

C. Robert Barany was in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp during World War I when he won the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the vestibular system.

D. In 2014, 54,070 research doctorate degrees were awarded in the United States. Of these degrees awarded, 8,991 were in the biological/biomedical sciences. (Source: National Science Foundation, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsf16300/?WT.mc_id=USNSF_178)

E. January is National Birth Defects Prevention Month.
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8. E-MAIL CHANGES

Some people change e-mail addresses at the end of the year. If you change your e-mail address and would like to continue to receive the Neuroscience for Kids newsletter, please let me know. If the newsletter bounces back to me because an e-mail address is incorrect or a mailbox is full, then that e-mail address is removed from the mailing list automatically.
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9. SUPPORT NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS

To ensure that Neuroscience for Kids stays available, we need your help. All contributions to Neuroscience for Kids are tax deductible (subject to IRS regulations). If you would like to donate to Neuroscience for Kids, please visit:

Help Neuroscience for Kids
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10. HOW TO STOP RECEIVING THIS NEWSLETTER

To remove yourself from this mailing list and stop your subscription to the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter, send e-mail to Dr. Eric H. Chudler at: chudler@u.washington.edu
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Your comments and suggestions about this newsletter and the "Neuroscience for Kids" web site are always welcome. If there are any special topics that you would like to see on the web site, just let me know.

Eric

Eric H. Chudler, Ph.D.
(e-mail: chudler@u.washington.edu)
(URL: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html)