January 30

One of the candidates for the new chair of my department gave a seminar today.  He used the most amazing graphic of a synaptic vesicle (see below).  After googling it, I learned that a synaptic vesicle averages 40 nanometers across.  I then googled a nanometer to make sure I knew exactly what that was.  If I understood it correctly, a nanometer is 1/1000 of a micron which is 1/1000 of a millimeter.  The blue dot in the corner, next to the number 30 is two millimeters across.  The entire square is 1.25 inches across.  Forty nanometers is really, really small, and yet there are things much smaller making up the vesicle itself.  It just boggles the mind.

While I was making my little calendar square for today, I watched a program on PBS called The Music Instinct: Science and Song.  It's all about the neuroscience of music.  When we listen to a piece of music that is very meaningful to us, our entire brain lights up.  And that is just one small bit of what they discussed in the program.  If you have the chance, definitely watch it....  Mary

A synaptic vesicle, up close and personal:  Takamori and Elsevier