Saturday 23 October 2010

International Prize for Biology will be awarded for Dr. Nancy Ann Moran

Heard about International Prize for Biology this year. This award has started to commemorate the sixty-year reign of Emperor Showa and his devotion to biological research. Dr. nancy Ann Moran will be awarded for her excellent research on "Biology of symbiosis". Congratulations!
International Prize for Biology

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Congratulations on a new baby!

One of my previous student has delivered her first baby, as heavy as 3600 g, and named Youka. Her husband is also my previous student, and so I feel like a grandmother. Wish her happy and healthy life.

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Meeting: Cortical Development@Crete, May 2011

John Parnavelas has announced us about opening of registration in Cortical Development meeting in Crete, Greek next May. I am invited as one of the speakers. Have never been to Crete, so I'm excited to attend.

Registration (for non-speakers) will be through:
Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICH)
PO Box 85
73 100 Chania, Crete
Greece

Tel: +30 28210 35080/1
Fax: +30 28210 35001
E-mail: <mailto:confer@maich.gr>confer@maich.gr


Cortical Development 2011

Friday 1 October 2010

Congratulations on Ig-Nobel Prize!

On September 30th, my friend Prof. Toshiya Nakagaki has awarded Ig-Nobel Prize at Harvard. 

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PRIZE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi of Japan, and Dan Bebber, Mark Fricker of the UK, for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
REFERENCE: "Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design," Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Science, Vol. 327. no. 5964, January 22, 2010, pp. 439-42. 
[NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ARE CO-WINNERS BOTH THIS YEAR AND IN 2008 when they were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for demonstrating that slime molds can solve puzzles: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Kentaro Ito, Atsushi Tero, Mark Fricker, Dan Bebber


As refereed above, Dr. Nakagaki has won this Ig-Nobel Prize twice. The first one was in 2008, when my colleague, Prof. Akio Ishiguro at Tohoku University Graduate School of Engineering, was also awarded.


COGNITIVE SCIENCE PRIZE. Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan, Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University, Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Ágotá Tóth of the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.
REFERENCE: "Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism," Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ágota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407, September 2000, p. 470.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero



Congratulations!!!