International Society for Neuroethology Newsletter August/September, 2012 March 2011 International Society for Neuroethology Voice: +1-785-843-1235 P.O. Box 1897 (or 1-800-627-0629 Ext. 233) Lawrence, KS 66044, USA Fax: +1-785-843-1274 Website: http://neuroethology.org/ E-mail: [email protected] ©2007 International Society for Neuroethology. Authors may freely use the materials they have provided. ISN Officers T HIS I SSUE I NCLUDES President: Alison Mercer, Department of Zoology, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand Pg 1 President’s Column Tel. 64 3 479 7961, Fax. 64 3 479 7584 by Alison Mercer, Univ. of Otago, NZ email: [email protected] Pg 3 Past President’s Ponderings by Paul Katz, Georgia State Univ., USA Treasurer: Fred Delcomyn, Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana, 320 Morrill Hall, 505 S. Pg 3 Sharing Our ICN-2012 on Twitter Goodwin, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. Tel: +1-217-333- by Zen Faulkes, Univ. of Texas-Pan American, USA 8793; Fax: +1-217-244-3499 email: [email protected] Pg 4 Franz Huber’s Research Sojourn in the ‘60s by Franz Huber, Germany (intro by K. Mesce, USA) Secretary: Karen A. Mesce (2011–2012) Pg 7 Report on NIMH Funding for Neuroethology Dept. Entomology & Grad. Program in Neuroscience University of Minnesota, 219 Hodson Hall by Katz (Georgia State), Hofmann (Univ. TX), Doupe (UCSF) 1980 Folwell Ave., Saint Paul, MN 55108, USA Pg 9 Results of ICN-2012 Survey Phone: +1-612-624-3734 Fax: +1-612-625-5299 by Andrea Simmons (Brown Univ.) and Art Popper (Univ. MD) email: [email protected] Pg 11 Congrats and List of ISN Award Recipients Pg 12 Thanks to ICN organizers Past-President: Paul S. Katz, Neuroscience Institute, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5030, Atlanta, GA Pg 13 Our ICN-2012 in Pictures 30302-5030, USA. Tel: +1-404-413-5398 Pg 16 Announcements; ISN Election Results Next http://neuroscience.gsu.edu/pkatz.html Newsletter email: [email protected] President-Elect: votes not yet tallied President’s Column New Secretary: votes not yet tallied New Treasurer 2013: Karen A. Mesce Alison Mercer President of the ISN, University of Otago, NZ Neuroethology – alive and kicking At the 2012 International Congress of Neuroethology at College Park, Maryland, I succeeded Paul Katz as President of the International Society for Neuroethology. Being ICN-2014 elected to undertake this role is a great honor, and I Planning for the 11th International Congress of look forward to the challenge. Neuroethology in Sapporo, Japan (July 28-August 7, 2014) is already underway and you will not want The Society is in excellent health. During his term to miss this meeting. Please note the dates of the of office as President, Paul Katz contributed an Congress in your diary now. Consider whether you enormous amount to the Society for Neuroethology would like to organize a satellite meeting, and begin and I extend warm thanks to him again for his thinking about proposals for symposia. A call for outstanding leadership. ICN Symposia will be posted early next year. These are interesting times. From an economic point of view, countries worldwide are facing enormous uncertainty. It has never been more Past-President’s Parting difficult to predict what is ahead of us in terms of Ponderings job opportunities and funding. However, science Paul S. Katz has a critical role to play in all corners of the world Past President, Georgia State University, USA and the quality of the science presented at ICN- 2012 in Maryland convinces me that As I pass the torch to Alison Mercer, who takes neuroethologists will continue to be highly over as president of the ISN, I’d like to reflect on successful on any future world stage. the state of the Society. ISN is in great shape and I feel confident that Alison will do a wonderful job in We hold a handful of winning cards. For a start, guiding us along. We have seen a number of there is significant public interest in what we do, the changes over the last couple of years. Probably the technologies available to us are nothing short of most important is that we have decreased the phenomenal and most importantly, our emerging intervals between Congresses from three years to researchers are among those who comfortably two years. I think that this will create a more occupy the ‘cutting edge’. As neuroethology vibrant society. It will give us the opportunity to expands its interests and activities ever wider, meet in more places. It will allow us to bring in reflecting its multidisciplinary roots, the science we more students. It creates a greater sense of can do becomes increasingly exciting and so too, its community. It also allows us to alternate with the potential impact. We know it, the public wants to Gordon Research Conference on Neuroethology so hear about it, and it’s a message those who hold the that there is a neuroethology-related meeting each purse strings need to hear. year. There is something that we can all do to spread the We have changed the membership dues to a two- word that requires relatively little effort. The year term as well. This shift prevents the lapses Education section of the ISN website provides between congresses that we previously had with resources for all to use and enjoy. Help keep the one-year membership and three-year congress website relevant and useful. Post a photograph or intervals. We have also removed unnecessary videoclip of the animal that you work on, or barriers to membership by eliminating the consider putting together a powerpoint presentation requirement for endorsement by an existing member that highlights the people and research in your lab. and the need to submit a c.v. We have created a What we are doing is exciting – it’s important to new category for post-doc membership to provide a help spread the word! financial incentive for post-docs to maintain their membership as they transition to faculty. To those of you who have already contributed images, animations, videos, or links to existing We have taken over the awarding of the Capranica resources – BIG THANKS. You rock! Prize from Bob and Pat Capranica, who were using 2 International Society for Neuroethology their own resources to pay for the award. In specifically. As luck would have it, the last memory of Bob, I would like to ask each of you to International Congress of Neuroethology (ICN) contribute just a little bit to the Capranica Fund to provided some excellent examples of this usage. help pay for these prizes http://www.neuroethology.org/ebusisne/DONATIO During the week of the Congress, I was tweeting NS.aspx about ICN events using the tag #icn12. The #icn12 tag identified the tweets as being related to the We have also established a new honor, the Fellows Congress, and made it easier for people to track the of the ISN. This honorary fellowship is for our news about it if they so desired. People were most distinguished members to recognize their genuinely interested in some of the material that lifetime achievements. This first year, we honored was being tweeted from the conference. One of my six of the founding members of ISN favorite examples was the response to my tweet http://www.neuroethology.org/ebusisne/AWARDS/ describing a fact dropped by Binyamin Hochner: FellowoftheISN.aspx Octopus arms contain about 2/3 of the animal’s half a billion neurons. The ISN has formalized support for Neuroethology (https://twitter.com/DoctorZen/status/23358 courses. However, we still need a mechanism to 5457701715969) promote the teaching of these courses. That prompted comments like these: http://psfebus.allenpress.com/eBusISNE/EDUCATI “That. Is. FASCINATING.” ON/Courses.aspx (https://twitter.com/psyoureanidiot/status/23 3588298071830529) Finally, as you can see by all of the links above, we “Can't wait for a chance to casually drop this have revamped the website (Neuroethology.org). fact.” This is now hosted by our managing agency, Allen (https://twitter.com/avivahoperutkin/status/2 Press. This website should be more attractive and 33587535903862784) easier to use than our old website. It also integrates “It's true! They're amazing.” better with our membership database to keep the (https://twitter.com/katherineharmon/status/ member search and other functions up to date. 233587478613868544) But there was more to this than just simple In addition to these material changes in the Society, amazement of an interesting fact; the tweet I have observed a change in the attitudes of the prompted this interesting question, showing that members. I’m finding that although funding is people were actually thinking about the difficult, there is an optimism about our field. information. John Bachir asked: Neuroethology is strong and vibrant. I expect that it “is that also true for the octopuses(pi?) who will continue to grow in the years to come. I look will abandon an arm to escape an enemy? forward to seeing the Society continue to evolve. they abandon their brain?" (https://twitter.com/johnjoseph/status/23360 4028892856320) What a great question! I replied that this was more Neuroethology Live! Sharing Our like a lizard losing its tail: it loses part of its spinal cord, but not its brain. Craig B provided another ICN-2012 on Twitter example of the possibilities for interaction. When I Zen Faulkes (@DoctorZen on Twitter) tweeted a comment by Ron Hoy that traditional University of Texas-Pan American, USA electrophysiology seemed to be used less than in the past, Craig asked: In the March 2011 newsletter, I wrote an article “Does that mean fewer opportunities, or about the uses of the microblogging website, would labs use ephys if they could find Twitter, for scientists.