The National Institutes of Health (NIH) does it again by being selected for another "Site of the Month" for its great website titled "NIH News in Health." NIH News in Health is a monthly newsletter with short articles about health and medicine. Although not all of the articles are about the nervous system, there is still plenty of information for anyone interested in neuroscience and the brain.

NIH News in Health articles are easy to understand and have links to other sites if you want to learn more. The February 2020 issue has an article about stuttering and the January 2020 issue has stories about anesthesia, pain, seasonal affective disorder and sleep health. You can read issues of the newsletter dating back to 2010. In addition to posting monthly newsletters, NIH News in Health has published three special issues about healthy eating, parenting and seniors.

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3. NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS POETRY CONTEST

The 2020 Neuroscience for Kids Poetry Contest was a great success and winners have been sent their prizes. Thank you to everyone who participated. A total of 296 poems were submitted by people from 22 states in the United States and 16 different countries including Bulgaria, Norway, Bangladesh and Mongolia. A new contest, the Neuroscience for Kids Drawing Contest, will start in October.

You can read a few of the winning entries on the poetry contest website at:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/contest20.html

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4. AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE MEETING

Last month I gave a presentation at Family Science Days as part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting. The audience was mainly children and their parents. The meeting organizers told me I had only 15 minutes to talk and then I should take questions from the audience. With only 15 minutes to talk, I tried to focus on how the brain takes in information from the world through our senses and then makes decisions and responses based on this information to help us survive.

Instead of just talking at the audience, I had activities throughout my 15 minutes. For example, I used visual illusions to show how the brain attempts to interpret what we see. Everyone seemed to enjoy playing along and there were a few good questions after my talk. After my presentation, I spent about 30 minutes in the "Meet a Scientist" booth talking with people who had more questions.

In 2021, the AAAS annual meeting will take place in Phoenix (AZ), February 11-14, 2021.

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5. BRAIN AWARENESS WEEK

Brain Awareness Week (BAW), the yearly event to promote the public and personal benefits of brain research, is this month (March 16-22, 2020). Find a BAW event in your city by searching the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives calendar:

http://dana.org/baw/calendar/

In my opinion, anytime is a good time to celebrate the brain. So, if you cannot get to a BAW event during the official BAW, then plan an activity for another date. I will be hosting about 800 students during the annual BAW Open House at the University of Washington. I will also visit a few local classrooms and conduct a sheep brain dissection for students who will be on campus during BAW.

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6. MEDIA ALERT

A. "Brain Support" by Robert Frederick (AMERICAN SCIENTIST, March/April, 2020).

B. The cover story of the March/April issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN is "Healing with Marijuana."

C. "Your Brain Knows the Meds You Need" and "Don't Believe Everything You've Heard About Blue Light" (TIME magazine, March 2-9, 2020).

D. "Turning Brain Evolution on its Head" (NATURAL HISTORY, February, 2020).

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7. THE TREASURE TROVE OF BRAIN TRIVIA

A. Brain Awareness Week is this month: March 16-22, 2020.

B. A large, extinct South American rodent that lived about 10 million years ago weighed 80 kg (176 lb) had a brain that weighed only 47 gm (0.1 lb). (Source: Ferreira, J.D. et al., Small within the largest: brain size and anatomy of the extinct Neoepiblema acreensis, a giant rodent from the Neotropics. Biol. Lett.16:20190914.http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0914).

C. Philanthotoxins are chemicals in the venom of the Egyptian solitary wasp (Philanthus Triangulum). These toxins paralyze the wasp's prey by blocking receptors for acetylcholine and glutamate.

D. Neuroscientist and 2014 Nobel Prize winner (2014) Edvard Moser was born in 1962 on a small island in Norway inhabited with fewer than 500 people. He moved to a larger island that had about 4,000 people in 1963 and lived there until he was 18 years old.

E. 90% of today's medical science terms have their origin in Greek, Latin or Greco-Latin. (Source: Soutis, M., Ancient Greek terminology in pediatric surgery: about the word meaning, J. Pediatr. Surgery, 41:1302-1308, 2006.)

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8. SUPPORT NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS

Help Neuroscience for Kids

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9. 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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Eric

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