Results of the Jury Selection Award of the video contest ‘Invest in Our Future – Invest in Science’ are finally in!

Why Does Science Matter?

and

When You Think About Science…

This completes our set of three winners, with the most liked on Facebook winner

Symposium invited speaker, Steven Reppert, tells all about the spectacular fall migration of monarch butterflies to PÚBLICO

“Butterflies are really cool, because we can manipulate their behavior.” – tells Steven Reppert to PÚBLICO newspaper.

Last week, on October 24-25, the 10th National Conference of Ethology took place at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, bringing together more than 100 participants from a wide range of specialties including ecology, evolution, development, physiology, psychology and neuroscience.

The conference programme consisted of two full days of scientific discussions, poster sessions and talks. Four presentations were selected as winners.

Next year, 2014, was chosen to be the year of the brain in Europe, with the goal of communicating to the general public scientific concepts in neuroscience and increasing awareness to neural disorders and diseases. It has quickly gained significant support from over 200 organisations, representing patients, health care professionals, industries in all areas of brain disorders and scientific communities.

Zach Mainen was recently interviewed by weekly Portuguese newspaper Expresso and the result will make you smile… and might even make you feel happier! Yes, you can programme your brain to be happier and that only depends on you.

The topic of this interview was happiness but Zach Mainen also talked about rewards, Facebook, social sciences and his (happy) life in Portugal!

Read all here (PT)

A novel method provides researchers with a way to identify how alterations at the level of specific nutrients in an organism’s diet can lead to changes in brain and behaviour.

In a study conducted across seven years and four countries, a new way of controlling the exact composition of the nutrients ingested by flies was established.

Into the Unknown is the title of the most recent film directed by Sankalp Meshram, on Charles Corrêa Architecture of the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown.

Enjoy this beautiful film:

It’s a dramatic building, no doubt about it
Zachary Mainen

It’s a metaphor but you work inside a metaphor
Rui Costa

A new discovery shows that the two alternative characters of the desert locust exhibit different abilities to learn and remember. This study published on November 21st in the scientific journal Current Biology, is the product of the work of researchers from Portugal and the UK. It is titled ‘Phenotypic Transformation Affects Associative Learning in the Desert Locust.’

The third Congress of the Association of Tuberous Sclerosis in Portugal took place at the Champalimaud Foundation on the 17th and 18th of November. It was a unique occasion where patients, families, doctors and researchers could meet, exchange ideas and share the most up to date knowledge about this disease.

We have arrived at the end of another very full year, a year replete with plans, meetings, experiments and conversations, a year of accomplishments and also setbacks, large and small. As the seagull, we persevere in meeting the challenges and sticking to our vision. We aspire to show our endurance in work and in life.

Zach Mainen
Director, Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme