From 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., we’ll be back in their mellow private upstairs space—close to Union Square, at 77 Irving Place, between 17th & 18th Sts.

See old friends, meet new ones…..good cheer, good networking, great nibbles….. cool door prizes…..and a special gift for the first 40 arrivals.

Admission (covers food and first beverage):

• 2012 Paid Members: $25 in advance/$30 at the door
• Nonmembers: $35 in advance/$40 at the door
• Students: $15 in advance/$20 at the door
• Join/renew your 2012 annual membership ($25) by PayPal or check (details at http://www.swiny.org/join-swiny/) and pay members’ rate.

RSVP:  http://www.swiny.org/2012/02/leap-day-registration/

Directions

• Subways: the N,R,Q,W, 3,4,5,6, & L trains stop just a few blocks away at the Union Square station. The F & M stop at 14th St (use the 16th St exit, or transfer to the L to Union Square).
• Bus: the M 14 along 14th St.

We look forward to seeing you!                                                            

Leap Year: Facts & Factoids

The Earth takes 365.24219 days to orbit around the sun, but until 45 BC the year was figured at 355 days. The year ended on February 23. Nothing happened at the right time for long. In 45 BC Emperor Julius Caesar devised the Julian Calendar, adding an extra 24 hours to February—creating February 24th—every 4 years. The solution was imperfect because a year isn’t quite 365.25 days, but it kept the seasons from running behind for extended periods. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII and his Gregorian calendar eliminated the Julian calendar’s slight seasonal drift. He moved the year’s end to December 31st, skipped a bunch of days to accommodate all the unnoted Leap Days since Caesar’s time, and calculated that three Leap Days have to be omitted every 400 years. So any year divisible by 100 (i.e., a century year) but not by 400—e.g., 1900—isn’t a Leap Year.

•  The official record for number of children in one family born consecutively on February 29
• The Henriksens from Andenes, Norway. On consecutive February 29ths, Mrs. Karin Henriksen gave birth to her daughter Heidi (1960), then her son Olav (1964), then her son Leif-Martin (1968).
• Some famous people born on February 29
• 1468 – Pope Paul III
• 1792 – Gioacchino Rossini (William Tell, The Barber of Seville)
• 1916 – Dinah Shore, American singer
• 1976 – Ja Rule, American rapper and actor
• Some cool events that happened on February 29:
• 1504 – Christopher Columbus used his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Native Americans to provide him with supplies
• 1936 – Baby Snooks, played by Fanny Brice, debuted on the radio program The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air
• 1940 – For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Academy Award
• 1980 – Gordie Howe of the then Hartford Whalers made NHL history as he scores his 800th goal
• There’s even a website dedicated to all things Leap Year: http://leapyearday.com/

Funded by a grant from the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), the Bootcamp will be held at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, 219 West 40th Street. Bioethics Bootcamp was developed because today’s science writers have to understand and communicate advances in science and technology that frequently raise immediate or potential ethical concerns for individuals, institutions, families, and society.

Throughout the day, a series of panel discussions and question-answer opportunities will feature leading bioethicists, journalists, scholars and scientists exploring a specific, sensitive issue, ranging from conflicts of interest to genetics, human life from beginning to end, and emerging biotechnology. In the Bootcamp’s closing panel, editors from scientific, business, and consumer media will share their criteria and considerations for health or medical topics with a bioethical aspect. Attendees and panelists are invited to mingle from 4:30 onward at a wine and cheese reception.

Register now! SWINY and NASW members are eligible for an early-bird rate of $70 for the day. But hurry: this offer expires on March 1!or more information about the program and to register, visit http://bootcamp.swiny.org.

Full-time for 5 months, Washington D.C.

Job Description:
Mid-career Public Affairs, Public Relations, or Publishing professionals or similar that have a medical background with a preferred focus in pathology or internal medicine! There is a hot upcoming 5 month contract paying $50K in the DC area. Referrals will be compensated with a small reward.

Please send a resume and professional photo to rachel@appliedmemeticsllc.com

Part Time, The Feminist Press at City University of New York, 365 Fifth Ave, NY, NY and/or remote

Job Title:
UndertheMicroscope.com, a web site for young women in science, invites applicants for a part-time Spring editorial internship.
Interns will research, write, and sometimes edit blog posts, interviews, resources, and user-generated content.

Applicants should have excellent research and writing skills, be meticulous about grammar and spelling, feel comfortable interviewing scientists about their lives and work, and have some interest and background in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects. Blogging experience or a major/degree in science is desirable but not required.

Interns will work approximately 5-7 hours per week, mostly remotely.
Applicants based outside of New York are encouraged to apply but must demonstrate a strong work ethic.

Editorial internships are unpaid but credit may be arranged with your university.

We are accepting applications on a rolling basis with an opportunity to begin as early as January 2012. Please reply as soon as possible with your resume, a statement of interest, and a writing sample (blogs acceptable) to editor@underthemicroscope.com. Please include “INTERNSHIP” in your subject line.

UndertheMicroscope.com is part of the National Science Foundation-funded Women Writing Science project at the Feminist Press at the City University of New York. It was developed in collaboration with IBM. The mission of the Feminist Press is to publish and promote the most potent voices of women from all eras and all regions of the globe.

The Feminist Press at the City University of New York The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406
New York, NY 10016

Celebrate this Leap Year Day at SWINY’s annual bash at the Friend of the Farmer restaurant in their mellow private upstairs space, see old friends, meet new ones…..good cheer, good networking, great nibbles…..door prizes.

Members: $20 in advance, $25 at the door
Nonmembers: $30 in advance, $35 at the door
Students: $15 in advance, $20 at the door

Register now!

It’s an ideal time to renew your membership or join for those who haven’t yet made the move.

We look forward to seeing you!

The SWINY Board

“Insight must precede application.” – Max Planck (image courtesy Smithsonian Institution)

Of 80 Max Planck Society scientific institutes across the globe, Max Planck Florida Institute is the first established in North America. MPFI brings together the field’s leading senior neuroscientists and best young researchers, representing a diversity of scientific disciplines and approaches, to seek fundamental answers about brain function and neural circuits.  These circuits form the complex synaptic networks of the brain, which determine who we are, how we think, and how we behave.Understanding the functional organization of the nervous system, its capacity to produce perception, thought, language, memory, emotion, and action, remains the ultimate challenge for biology.  These circuits hold the key to understanding how to ameliorate the effects of devastating neurological, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders such as autism, epilepsy, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease.

Among MPFI’s top scientists is internationally known neurobiologist David Fitzpatrick, PhD. Dr. Fitzpatrick joined the Institute last year from Duke University, where he was founding director of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, to lead the new institute as CEO and Scientific Director, as well as leading the research group studying functional development of the visual cortex.

Research began at MPFI late in 2009.  Currently working in temporary facilities on the campus of Florida Atlantic University, the Institute will move into a state-of-the-art research building on campus this summer.

On January 31, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., at German House, 871 U.N. Plaza, join David Fitzpatrick, PhD, CEO & Scientific Director of Max Planck Florida Institute, and Joshua Sanes, PhD, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Paul J. Finnegan Family Director, Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, for a public dialogue entitled, “Which Way Did It Go? New Insights into the Organization and Development of Brain Circuits that Compute Motion Direction.”  The two experts will discuss their research in this area and its significance for understanding brain function and development. The free program is sponsored by the German Center for Research and Innovation and Max Planck Florida Institute. A reception follows. For more information on this program, click here.

On February 1, from 9:30 from 11:00 a.m., also at German House, 871 U.N. Plaza, science journalists will have coffee with Dr. Fitzpatrick and colleagues and  get an inside look at the new Institute, its recent research findings, its unique approach to research, and its leading edge scientific agenda.

In the February 1 program, Dr. Fitzpatrick will discuss the scientific questions each of the Institute’s six research groups hopes to answer, including his lab, which examines visual experience and perception in development of the cortex. This research has implications for understanding neurodevelopmental disorders.  Nobel laureate Dr. Bert Sakmann will participate via Skype to discuss new research findings from his lab, in which his team described their creation of the first realistic representation of a neural circuit.  This research is part of a major project of Dr. Sakmann’s lab, in which scientists are working to create a complete 3D map of the rodent brain. This map will increase understanding of how the brain computes, and lay the groundwork for future studies of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Please RSVP to Dennis Tartaglia for both events, info@tartagliacommunications.com, (732) 545-1848, indicating which event(s) you will attend. Please include your name, media affiliation, address, business and cell numbers.

NOTE: PRE-REGISTRATION AND PHOTO ID ARE REQUIRED FOR BOTH EVENTS.  PLEASE REGISTER NO LATER THAN TWO DAYS BEFORE EACH RESPECTIVE PROGRAM.  REGISTRATION FOR BOTH EVENTS IS FREE.

Imagine…. when you smell a rose, you always taste maple syrup. Or taste cake whenever you say “table.” Or see red every time someone says “Tuesday.” This is synesthesia, a neurologic condition affecting millions of people in which stimulation of one sense automatically and consistently stimulates another. The ancient Greeks named it. Psychophysicist Gustav Fechner and scientist Sir Francis Galton documented it in the late 19th century. Synesthesia research fell out of favor by 1930—then was forgotten until the 1980s.

Author/journalist/synesthete Maureen Seaberg discusses her journey to recognize and understand her expanded sensory wiring—the science, and the impact on thinking and creativity of this fascinating phenomenon.

In her quest to understand why, for example, the letter A is always A for her, Maureen talked with top neuroscientists and quantum physicists, with the co-inventor of the World Wide Web, with a savant, and a Tibetan lama. She collaborated with Dr. William Bushell—a biological/medical anthropologist who is a visiting scholar at MIT and directs the Science of Yoga Project at Tibet House. Synesthetes are often found in the arts—examples include Itzhak Perlman, Lady Gaga, Pharrell Williams, Tilda Swinton, Marilyn Monroe—and Maureen spoke with rock stars, rappers, actors, violinists. The result is Tasting the Universe, published last March. Her book features a raft of first-time interviews with synesthetes that include Itzhak Perlman, Billy Joel, and Marian McPartland.

Maureen has become an expert in this mingling of the senses. She moderated international synesthesia workshops in 2010 and 2011 organized by the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She has presented at the American Synesthesia Association Conference at Vanderbilt University, and at New York University. (Maureen’s earlier work has appeared in The New York Times, the Daily News, PBS, and MSNBC among others.)

WHO:
Maureen Seaberg and Dr. William Bushell will speak, followed by a Q&A.

Books will be available for purchase, and the author will sign them.

WHEN:
Thursday, January 26, 2012, 6–8pm

WHERE:
ASME Headquarters Conference Room, 3 Park Ave. at 34th St. (22nd Floor)

ADMISSION:
SWINY member–$5, nonmember–$10, student–$5.

RSVP HERE

(Join SWINY or renew your lapsed membership for just $25 and pay the member’s fee.)

Freelance

Job Description:
I have a manuscript that I am thinking of submitting to the journal Cell. As Cell is a high impact journal, the manuscript needs to be read for impact, clarity and strength of argument before submission.

If you have edited or wrote manuscripts for similar journals (Cell, Nature, Science, NEJM) and are interested in lending your expertise please contact me with a CV/resume or a list of manuscripts worked on.

I anticipate that this project will take 2 weeks. Thank you for your attention.

Contact: brine2006@yahoo.com

Job Description:
We’re scouting freelancers for the online news section of BioTechniques, the International Journal of Life Science Methods.

For the past four years, BioTechniques has developed an online news section. Now, we’re looking for a couple good freelance writers to help provide two news stories per month for this section.

Our news articles cover various aspects of the life science community, including new methods, recent research publications, funding issues, career advice, and lab lifestyle.

If you are interested and available, send me an e-mail with your
resume and clips for consideration.

http://www.BioTechniques.com/News

Contact: Andrew S. Wiecek, andrew.wiecek@informausa.com

Full time, NYC (possibly offsite)

Program Description:

Science Friday (www.sciencefriday.com) is the highly popular radio science talk show heard each week on NPR and Podcast on the Web. We also produce unique SciFri Videos and news stories. We are a small band of people dedicated to the ideal that science should be “user friendly” and that professionalism, humor, and quality are essential to success.

Job Description:
We have a job opening for a Spanish Language Producer who has the skills to translate our English audio and video science content in Spanish, who can create new and original Spanish language content in the areas of science and technology.

Position Responsibilities
• Translate SciFri Videos into Spanish and create subtitles using Final Cut software.
• Find, research story ideas and create new video and/or audio content
• Help create and maintain Spanish Language section of web site, www.sciencefriday.com/cienciacierta/ including ability to write blogs, Tweets, Facebook entries, etc.

We offer
• Flexible hours and workspace; you might be able to work offsite if conditions allow it.
• A challenging environment, the opportunity to work with friendly people and learn new skills in radio, video and Internet.
• Competitive wage rate or full time position w/health benefits.

Qualifications
• Exceptional Spanish Language speaking and translating abilities
• Proven experience in Spanish science and technology writing, editing.
• Interpersonal, written and oral communication skills; plays well with others.
• Self-starter who can work independently.
• Knowledge of Final Cut editing software, preferred.

To apply, please send a resume and samples or URL links to your work to Ira Flatow, Executive Producer, iflatow@sciencefriday.com, with a cover letter describing why this sounds like the right job for you, plus references.