It started out as a small shake, similar to the earthquakes I have grown accustomed to. I decided just to wait till it finishes before I rode my bike back home. But the shaking continued and all of a sudden I felt this violent jolt. That was when everybody around me knew this was no regular earthquake. People scrambled to evacuate from indoors areas out to the streets. I remember a man yelling something in Japanese, and waving his hand signalling people to come out to the streets. I saw so many worried eyes and recall the crying sounds of children. The violent shaking only continued and my eyes were fixated on the 4 storey that to me looked like it was going to collapse. By then the only question on my mind was, what should I do if the building fell over? Thankfully it did not and soon after the shaking stopped. I don’t remember how long the shaking actually lasted for because it sure seemed like an eternity.

I decided to go to work, even though I was sick that day, to get more information (since I don’t know Japanese). I found out later that the earthquake epicenter was just off the coast of the Tohoku area (northern Japan) and it would be the biggest recorded earthquake in the history of Japan. There were tsunami warnings for almost all the coastal areas of Japan (Yokohama included), the phone lines were all busy and electricity was cut off. Everyone was so worried, especially those with friends and family up north, whom they couldn’t contact. We were told to stay indoors and on high grounds. The trains had stopped and people took refuge at the nearest indoor building. For us, we stayed at work. It was not until nightfall when electricity had returned. As we looked on the internet, we discovered the devastation that had just occurred. The video that stuck a poignant image in my head was one that showed an entire city being engulfed by the tsunami. I was really hoping that all those houses were empty. It was not until dawn that we found out that there might be problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

I’m sure everyone is familiar with the Fukushima nuclear power plant by now. There has been a lot of panic outside of Japan on the matter. I’ve been keeping up with the news and have been assured that the radiation levels are at a level that is not dangerous to human health. As a matter of fact, the radiation levels are almost negligible outside of the 20-30 km radius of the Fukushima power plant. A lot of the foreigners at work did leave the country briefly, but it was always due to family pressures. As of today almost everyone is back at work. However as the nuclear power plant has been shut down, there is now not enough electricity being produced and provided to the greater Tokyo area. This has been the major disruption to work, as we are now required to use 30% less electricity. But everyone is doing their part.

Quoting from Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan: “In the 65 years after the end of World War II, this is the toughest and the most difficult crisis for Japan”. So many people have been left homeless, without food and electricity. The temperatures have been almost sub-zero up north. Aftershocks are still going on. It will take an immense effort to rebuild from the world’s most expensive natural disaster. Please make a donation if you can.

–Dave

BiObserve (Bonn, Germany), one of the organisers of this workshop, invited Dr. Maria Gulinello, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, New York. Dr. Gulinello is the director of the behavioral core facility at the Albert Einstein College and is a real expert in the wide field of behavioral research.

Beside Dr. Maria Gulinello, representatives of BiObserve as well as Dr. Oliver Stiedl will give lectures about related topics (e.g. ‘Data Analysis & Statistics’, ‘Fear learning in mice’, ‘Heart rate dynamics: from mice to man’, …). The workshop will start in the morning of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 9:30, each day with an open end.

Torben has written such a comprehensive summary that there is not much to add. Maybe some pictures

Hej da

Christian

Friday, 29/10/10

After the sovereign circumnavigation of  some technical difficulties by Evelyn, Karen and Heidi, the KickOff meeting was opened by Peter Heutink at the VU in Amsterdam. The lecture by Pieter Heuting about the missing heritability and causality was followed by a lecture from Guus Smit explaining elegantly the meaning of ‘systems biology’ and a lecture by Heidi de Wit, who impressed the audience with her amazing research findings, her 5-star price-winning experience in prague and subliminaly enhanced the audience’s appetite for lunch. The lunch, including milk rolls filled with raisins, lovingly prepared by the VU catering service, in combination with some fresh coffee, restored potential physiological energy deficits, so that everyone was looking forward to the second third of the first day.

In the laboratories of Rhiannon Meredith and Oliver Stiedl the students were introduced to methods like 2-photon microscopy, Ca-imaging, telemetric measurements and behavioral tests. Another coffee break, sponsored by Evelyn’s ‘chipknip’-card, was followed by a workshop on social media by Annet van Betuw. During this workshop the significance of social media in the modern, globalized world was vividly explained to the flabbergasted students, using a new kind of presentation-technique called ‘prezi’. Also it was tried several times to clarify the use of this weblog, but it seems that there are still some open issues.

The social event of this first day offered again some difficulties to Evelyn (mainly caused by public transport), but again she justified her reputation as one of the best EU-managers worldwide.  Authentic dutch food (including hutch-potch and vla-flip) and strong belgian beer left a comfy impression and prepared everyone for some hours of recreative sleep.

Saturday, 30/10/10

As soon as everyone had made it to the man-made island called ‘Ijburg’ in the north of Amsterdam and found the wonderful meeting-location called ‘L63′, Matthijs Verhage gave a warm welcome to the students, their supervisors and the organisers. Several lectures followed, to elucidate the work of the partners in the BrainTrain project, their particular contribution to the project and how everyone is going to work together during the next 3-4 years. This time lunch consisted of hot tomato-soup and organical sandwhiches, what brought up some disappointment, because most of the students fell in love with dutch milk rolls the day before. Lectures were given by: Peter Heutink, Piero Carnici, Guus Smit, Eckhart Gundelfinger, Helena Danielson, Heidi de Wit, Angus Silver, Thomas Kuner, Rhiannon Meredith, Claudia Bagni, Oliver Stiedl and Christian Gutzen. After some administrative issues were mentioned in front of the students, so that they were able to ruminate about them during the next years, the students were sent away to give the supervisors, senior-researchers and organisers some privacy.

The social event of this evening combined a channel cruise in Amsterdam with some kind of restaurant hopping. Again, excellent food in both restaurants and belgian beer brought people together and helped perfectly to build a fundation for real-life social and scientific networking.

Sunday, 31/10/10

Despite the fact that this Sunday everyone was already quite exhausted after 2 days of intensive introduction, the students gave excellent talks providing information about their scientific background, the planned time-line of their work during the next 3-4 years and their contribution to BrainTrain. Unfortunately, the magnificient lunch did not got the deserved appreciation, due to the fact that everyone was eager to return home and get some rest.

Conclusion:

Please provide some comments! For example, I think we need some kind of mailing lists and a password protected area within this weblog. Also, a FAQ for frequently asked questions regarding traveling, reimbursements,… would be helpful I guess, but of course also password protected.