- Campuses :
- Twin Cities
- Crookston
- Duluth
- Morris
- Rochester
- Other Locations
http://www.umn.edu/urelate
612-624-6868
What's Inside
Summer Research Experiences for Undergrads
Director
Apostolos Georgopoulos, MD, PhD
Regents Professor,
Neuroscience
Associate Director:
Jeanette Gundel, PhD
Professor, Linguistics
Trenton Jerde, PhD
Research Assistant Professor,
Cognitive Science
from PNAS
Program illustration for Cozzarelli Prize in Biological Sciences presentation showing dragonfly visual neuron and representative population vector. Image by Leo C. Hernandez.
Georgopoulos shares in Cozzarelli Prize
Dr. Apostolos Georgopoulos and colleagues have been awarded the Cozzarelli Prize in Biological Sciences for their article titled, "Eight pairs of descending visual neurons in the dragonfly give wing motor centers accurate population vector of prey direction." The authors, Paloma T. Gonzalez-Bellido, Hanchuan Peng, Jinzhu Yang, Apostolos P. Georgopoulos, and Robert M. Olberg will be recognized during the PNAS Editorial Board Meeting and the NAS Annual Meeting Awards Ceremony on April 28, 2013, in Washington, DC.
The annual award acknowledges papers that reflect scientific excellence and originality. The award was established in 2005 and named in 2007 to honor late PNAS Editor-in-Chief Nicholas R. Cozzarelli.
from BBC Nature
Chimps' 'girl talk' uses more negative gestures
By Michelle Warwicker BBC Nature
Female chimpanzees are more "negative" when communicating with other females, research has found.
The study analysed the different gesturing strategies used by a group of females at Chester Zoo.
In female-female interactions, the chimps used more aggressive signals and "apologised" less often with gestures of reassurance.
But they employed a more positive strategy around males, with more expressions of greeting and submission.
"When communicating with males, females sort of 'suck up' to them," said PhD student Nicole Scott from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, US, whose findings are published in the American Journal of Primatology.
Read the entire story at BBC Nature.
Special Colloquium
Julie Vargas, Ph.D
May 23, 1:30pm, Elliott Hall N119
"Myth and Mythconceptions in Skinner's Legacy"
Many 'urban myths' endure about B. F. Skinner. This talk will touch upon the major misconceptions about the science that Skinner began. Skinner's substitution of contingencies of reinforcement to replace internal "free will" or other out-of-reach agencies produced name-calling, urban myths, and caricatures. Some of the more popular myths and caricatures will be contrasted with more accurate descriptions.
A native Minneapolitan, Dr. Vargas is the daughter of B.F. Skinner, who was a UofM faculty member from 1936 to 1945. She received her bachelors degree in music from Radcliffe College, a masters in music education from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in educational research from the University of Pittsburgh. She was an elementary school teacher before becoming a faculty member at West Virginia University.
Dr. Vargas is a former president of the Association for Behavior Analysis International and one of the founding editors of The Behavior Analyst. She is currently President of the B. F. Skinner Foundation, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.