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International Society for Neuroethology 1

InternationalSociety for

NeuroethologyNewsletter

July 2005

Website. The Society is actively searching for apart-time web designer who can upgrade the appear-ance of the Society website and enrich its content. Wehave developed a job description for this position andposted it on our website. Th

The ISN President’s ColumnEdward A. Kravitz ([email protected])Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Greetings to all!

Although political matters may not be an appropriateitem of discussion in the Newsletter of an internationalscientific society such as ours, some outrageous actionsagainst humankind go beyond politics. Accordingly, Iwant to add my voice and hopefully, with your approval,the voice of the ISN, in: (i) condemning such senselessacts of violence; and (ii) sending a strong message ofsupport to our colleagues in London and other cities ofthe world where terrorists have struck. Such attacks on

T H I S I S S U E I N C L U D E S

1 The ISN President’s Column

2 Festschrift for Friedrich-Wilhelm Schür-mann

3 HSTA recipients

6 Nick Strausfeld: Peregrinations of aNeuroanatomethologist

7 The Neural Systems and Behavior courseat the MBL, Woods Hole

8 Adrian Horridge: Modest recollections of aneuroethologist

11 Robinson elected to National Academy

ISN OfficersPresident: Edward A. Kravitz, Dept. Neurobiology, Har-vard Medical School, 220 Longwood Ave, Boston MA 02115USA. Phone: +1-617-432-1753; Fax: +1-617-734-7557;[email protected]

Treasurer: Peter M. Narins, Department of Physiologi-cal Science, University of California at Los Angeles, 621Charles E. Young Drive S., Room LSB 4835, Los Angeles CA90095 USA. Phone: +1-310-825-0265; Fax: +1-310-206-3987; [email protected]

Secretary: Ian A. Meinertzhagen, Life Sciences Centre,Dalhousie University, Halifax NS, B3H 4J1, Canada. Phone:+1-902-494-2131; Fax: +1- 902-494-6585; [email protected]

Past-President: Albert S. Feng, Dept. Molecular &Integrative Physiology, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana IL 61801USA. Phone: +1-217-244-1951; Fax: +1-217-244-5180;[email protected]

President-Elect: Martin Heisenberg, Theodor BoveriInstitut (Biozentrum), Lehrstuhl für Genetik und Neurobiolo-gie, Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg,Germany. Phone: +49-931-8884450; Fax: +49-931-8884452;[email protected]

Councilors: Andrew Bass; Horst Bleckmann; ThomasJ. Carew; Sheryl Coombs; Allison J. Doupe; Martin Giurfa;Ronald M. Harris-Warrick; Eric I. Knudsen; William B. Kristan;Cynthia F. Moss; George D. Pollak; F. Claire Rind; MandyamV. Srinivasan; Harold Zakon

Next ISN Congress: Vancouver, Canada, in 2007.Local organizer: Catharine Rankin, Univ. British Columbia,Dept. Psychology, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver BC V6T1Z4,Canada. Phone: +1 604-822-5906; Fax: +1 604-822-6923;[email protected]

International Society for Neuroethology Voice: 1-785-843-1235P.O. Box 1897 (or 1-800-627-0629 Ext. 233)Lawrence, KS 66044, USA Fax: 1-785-843-1274Website: http://neuroethology.org/ E-mail: [email protected]

©2005 International Society for Neuroethology. Authors may freely use the materials they have provided.


innocent people represent the worst in human behavior,yet they continue daily in too many countries around theworld. There is no excuse for such actions. They can-not be tolerated or supported and we, as men andwomen of science, particularly behavioral science, mustspeak out against them.

Now to other concerns of our Society.

Executive Committee Meeting: The first meeting of theNew Executive Committee (EC) of the ISN (myself, Mar-tin Heisenberg – President elect; Al Feng – Past presi-dent; Ian Meinertzhagen – Secretary; Peter Narins –Treasurer) will be held on Saturday August 27 in Boston.An important part of our agenda will be to think abouthow to make our Society a year round organizationrather than a triennial organization. I’ve asked theCouncil for input on this issue and also on how to im-prove our Society and I welcome comments by themembership on these matters as well. Please just emailme at <[email protected] > with anythoughts you have and I will distribute them to membersof the EC for discussion. We will also have a report atthe EC meeting on the next ISN Congress (July 23-27,2007 in Vancouver, BC – hosted by Cathy Rankin –mark it on your calendars now). If any of you would liketo host the Congress following the next one (scheduledfor 2010 right now, but I will be exploring the notion ofmore frequent Congresses with the EC too), please getin touch with me or with Martin Heisenberg about yourinterest in the possibility. Congresses like ours must bearranged far in advance of their scheduled dates.

Heiligenberg Student Travel Awards and Bullock Lectur-ers: For the current fiscal year, funds and a committeeare in place that will allow the ISN to make 6-8 Heiligen-berg student travel awards. These are for student travelto meetings to present neuroethology-related posters ortalks. Machinery will soon be in place for Bullock lec-turer awards as well. Applications for both programs aremade through the Society Office, which distributes theapplications to existing ISN committees who make thefinal funding decisions. Information about how to applyfor these awards is available on the ISN web site. Un-fortunately the information remains somewhat buried atthat site (basically the awards are announced undermembership and then member benefits). We will be dis-cussing ways to list such awards more prominently onthe main page of our web site at the EC Meeting. To beeligible for a Heiligenberg award, students and theirmentors must be members of the ISN. Remember, stu-dent membership is free, but mentors must be dues-paying members of the Society. It is important to ac-knowledge ISN support on any presentations (talks,posters, seminars) financially supported by the Society.

Payment of dues and maintaining your membership inthe ISN: Societies like ours require membership dues tokeep operating. Our dues are relatively low comparedwith many other professional societies, and as men-

tioned above, student membership is free. Yet, we stillsee a fall-off in membership in non-Congress years. Byincreasing the benefits available to members in non-congress years we hope to reverse this trend. That canonly happen, however, if when notified, you promptly payyour annual dues. Our Society also accepts voluntarycontributions at any time to support ongoing activities.Such funds are used for special items like the Bullockand Heiligenberg awards, although in the future theymight be used to offset costs associated with the activi-ties of chapters (when they are formed) or the organiza-tion of neuroethology-related symposia at meetings.

A report on the deliberations of the Executive Committeeat the August meeting will appear in the next issue of theNewsletter. Until then, I wish all of you a wonderful restof the summer.

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Ian A. Meinertzhagen, ([email protected])Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Retirement is still mandatory for many of our members.Long-awaited by many, feared by some, it offers a greatuncertainty to all. To mark the occasion of the retire-ment of Friedrich-Wilhelm Schürmann, and his manycontributions to insect neurethology, a Festschrift washeld earlier this year, at the Institut für Zoologie, Anthro-pologie und Entwicklungsbiologie of the Georg-August-

Friedrich-Wilhelm Schürmann, at the podium


Universität Göttingen. Thus, on March 11 a Symposionentitled ‘Insect Model Animals in Neurobiology: NerveCells, Nerve Nets and Behaviour’ was organised, withdiverse program of talks delivered by visiting friends andcolleagues from Germany and overseas. GerhardBraus; Dean of the Biological Faculty of the University,introduced the event, with the first three presentations,delivered in English, by Dick Nässel (Stockholm Univer-sity, Sweden) on G-protein-coupled receptors in Droso-phila; by Michael Bate (University of Cambridge, Eng-land) on the Genetic specification of larval movement inDrosophila; and by Ian Meinertzhagen (Dalhousie Uni-versity, Halifax, Canada), on The synaptic terminal of thefly’s photoreceptor: Some lessons from an identifiedsynapse. The second session was led off by GerhardWegener (Universität Mainz) on flight: neuronal control

Two neuroethologists discuss the events of the eveningFranz Huber (left) and Jochen Erber (right).

of muscle Locust metabolism- a new paradigm?; andfollowed by a talk by by Joachim Erber (Techische Uni-versität Berlin) on From bee behaviour to genes; andbrought to a close in a final talk given by Klaus Schild-berger (Universität Leipzig) on the Neural basis of com-munication and aggression in crickets. The lively Sym-posium was concluded in jovial fashion by closing re-marks and a presentation to Friedrich-Wilhelm made byNorbert Elsner, Director of the Institute, and was fol-lowed by a wonderful evening reception attended bymany neuroethologist and other colleagues and theirpartners. It would be hard to imagine any more fitting orcivilised way to celebrate Friedrich-Wilhelm’s contribu-tions to science, particularly his distinguished contribu-tions to insect neuroanatomy. Yet such tribute will surelybe premature, as Friedrich-Wilhelm enters the nextstage of his career, as a scientist in retirement. We look

One of many presentations. Smiling participants, from left toright: 1. Heribert Gras; 2. Dagmar Schürmann; 3.; Friedrich-Wilhelm Schürmann; 4. Michael Hörner.

forward to seeing many more publications from you yet,Friedrich!

Heiligenberg Student(Travel) Award recipientsLast year the Society made the first of its HeiligenbergStudent (Travel) awards (HAS) to six students, all ofthem to attend the ISN Congress in Nyborg, Denmark;their reports from this meeting appear below.

Noopur Amin ([email protected])University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

It was an honor to be awarded a Heiligenberg StudentTravel Award to attend my first neuroethology meeting,the 2004 ISN Congress in picturesque Nyborg, Den-mark. Thanks to this travel grant, I was able to presentmy poster “Selectivity for natural sounds in the auditorysystem of songbirds develops during vocal learning” at

the conference.This work wascarried out inFreder ic The-unissen’s song-bird laboratory atU.C. Berkeley.One of the majorgoals of the lab isto understandhow natural or

behaviorally-relevant sounds (i.e. conspecific songs) are processed inthe auditory forebrain of these little creatures. I am par-ticularly interested in understanding how selective neuralresponses to natural sounds arise in higher areas of theauditory system. To address this issue, I recorded from


the auditory forebrain of juvenile songbirds and com-pared their selectivity for natural sounds to the robustselectivity found in adults. The results I presented at themeeting showed that, when compared with the adultauditory forebrain neurons, juvenile auditory neurons areless selective for natural sounds over synthetic soundsthan are adult neurons. This suggests that the robustselectivity found in adults develops ontogenetically. Mycurrent studies are aimed at elucidating the role of plas-ticity in shaping the selectivity for behaviorally-relevantsounds that is characteristic of adult auditory forebrainneurons.

It was a stimulating experience to present my researchto other graduate students and interested faculty andpostdocs and, in return, receive their invaluable feed-back. I was highly impressed by the quality and depth ofthe posters. The talks also illustrated impressive neuralstudies of unique and diverse behaviors, from foragingbees to echolocating bats, from “singing” crickets tocolor discriminating butterflies, all of which left me in aweof our natural surroundings. Before I attended the con-ference, I was unaware of the diversity and complexity ofthese various animal models, and have since developeda greater appreciation for the inherent beauty in all livingthings, big and small. Indeed, for me, the 2004 ISNConference has become a benchmark for all futureconferences – rigorous and interesting science com-bined with a friendly and relaxing atmosphere, leading toa refreshing and thought-provoking exchange of ideas.In fact, I am looking forward immensely to the next Neu-roethology Congress in 2007 in Vancouver!

James Newcomb ([email protected])Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

I am honored to have been offered a Heiligenberg Stu-dent Travel Award to attend the International Society forNeuroethology (ISN) meeting in Nyborg, Denmark last

year. I am aPh.D. candidatein the lab of Dr.Paul Katz atGeorgia StateUniversity in At-lanta, USA. Weare undertakingresearch on theevo lu t ion o fnervous systemsby comparing

electrophysiological properties (recorded as in the ac-companying illustration) in homologous neurons in nudi-branch molluscs that exhibit different modes of locomo-tion. (Yes, slugs do move!) My poster presented ourrecent findings that specific homologous neurons in spe-cies with divergent modes of locomotion retain somebasal properties and functions, despite the addition ofnew functions in some of the species. Our work demon-strates how neural circuits evolved from pre-existing

networks. Our poster was fortunate enough to win oneof the "Best Poster" awards at the meeting. Participatingin the ISN conference was an invaluable experience.This was my first time attending this meeting (and goingto Denmark!) and I was able to make contacts with anumber of researchers whom I had not previously met,including at least one potential future collaborator. I wasalso able to witness some of the other stunning neu-roethological research currently going on in labs aroundthe world. Overall, this was an extremely invigoratingand enriching experience and I would like to thank theISN for awarding me this opportunity.

Lior Rosenberg ([email protected])Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel

I am currently in the last year of my PhD studies inFrederic Libersat’s laboratory in the Ben Gurion Univer-sity, Bee Sheva, Israel. My Ph.D. title is “Molecular andcellular effects of wasp venom neurotoxins on prey CNSand behavior”.

I am studying the effect of venom injection of the solitarywasp Ampulex compressa (illustrated), which instead ofparalyzing, modifies the behavior of its prey. The injec-tion of waspv e n o m in-duces a tran-sient paraly-s i s , t h e ngrooming be-hav ior fo l -lowed by long-term lethargy.I am focusingmy researchon decipheringthe neuronal Wasp stinging the cockroach into its CNS

modifications the venom induces in the CNS of its prey,to bring about the long-term lethargy. To investigate thevenom’s effect on specific neuronal circuits that controlthe expression of specific behaviors, I am using a com-bination of biochemical, pharmacological and electro-physiological techniques.

In the project I presented at the ISN conference, Ishowed that the activity of octopaminergic neurons in thethorax of stung cockroaches is altered. These neuronssecrete octopamine, which has an overall arousal effectin the cockroach’s nervous system and muscles. I amcurrently writing this data for publication.

The ISN 2004 Seventh International Congress in Ny-borg, Denmark was an intriguing experience. I havelearned both from the lectures and from having the op-portunity to consult with scientists in the field of neu-roethology, and in return received feedback on my ownwork. If I had one disappointment it was that the confer-ence was over so soon.


Nadja Spitzer ([email protected])Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

I am Ph.D. student with Donald H. Edwards and Debo-rah J. Baro in the Department of Biology at GeorgiaState University in Atlanta, USA, and a scholar in theCenter for Behavioral Neuroscience and the Brains andBehaviors Program. My dissertation research centerson cloning and characterization of crustacean serotoninreceptors. Crustacean systems offer relatively simplecircuits with identified neurons in which basic mecha-nisms of neural function can be elucidated. The bio-genic amine serotonin can have different modulatoryeffects in crustacean circuits, depending on factors suchas the social status of the animal (the lateral giant es-cape responsein crayfish) orthe species(identified cellsof the stoma-togastric nerv-ous system). Iam generating

pharmacologi-cal profiles fortwo serotoninreceptors fromthe crayfishand spiny lob-ster in order tobegin to investigate the mechanisms underlying differen-tial cellular responses to serotonin in the lateral giantescape circuit and the stomatogastric nervous system.In the summer of 2004 I received a Heiligenberg travelaward to attend the Seventh International Congress inNyborg, Denmark. I presented a poster with detailedimmunocytochemical mapping of the crustacean 5-HT1α

receptor throughout the crayfish nervous system andquantitative RT-PCR analysis of expression levels of thisreceptor in dominant and subordinate animals. Attend-ing this conference was an excellent experience, allow-ing me to present my work to the neuroethology com-munity and to interact closely with leading researchers ina constructive and informal setting. In particular, I foundthe Young Investigator Lectures very inspiring and moti-vating. This conference was relatively small and allowedme the chance to interact with investigators working ondiverse and fascinating model systems. Thank you foryour support in allowing me to attend this excellentmeeting.

M. Jade Zee ([email protected])Section of Neurobiology & Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca,NY, USA

I am very grateful for receiving the HSA travel award. Atthe ISN meeting, I presented some data from my dis-sertation work from the lab of Dr. Janis Weeks, whichdealt with species-specific differences in the neuromus-

cular system of Lepidoptera. My poster was met withgreat enthusiasm and I received a lot of constructivefeedback, of a sort that I otherwise might not have re-ceived at a more general meeting, such as the Societyfor Neuroscience. It also impressed upon me the inter-national nature of scientific research these days - datathat I had collected in Japan and analyzed in the USA,was now being presented at a meeting in Denmark.Shortly after ISN, I joined the lab of Dr. Andrew Bass inthe Section of Neurobiology and Behavior at CornellUniversity, as a postdoc, and am further developing myskills and interest in steroid-mediated effects on behav-ior, now in a vertebrate model (teleost fishes). The op-portunity to attend the ISN meeting at the transition pointbetween graduate school and postdoctoral studies wasespecially helpful since it allowed me to meet other sci-entists and start immersing in my new research field ofvocal communication.

Two HSA re-cipients, JadeZee and ShivaSinha enjoyingthe hospitality ofDenmark

“Better a bottlein front o’ methan a frontallobotomy”

(anon: Ed)

Shiva R. Sinha ([email protected])Biocomplexity Group, Dept of Physics, Indiana University,Bloomington, IN, USA

First and foremost I am honored to have received anHSTA, not only because it is an award named in honorof one of Neuroethology’s greatest scientists but also forthe wonderful opportunities it afforded me in attendingthe Congress. The meeting in Nyborg, Denmark, wasidyllic in locale and in intellectual discourse. I would liketo thank our Danish colleagues for a meeting that wassplendidly organized and that allowed for a great wealthof information exchange and discussion.

My graduate work was conducted at the University ofMaryland, College Park, USA, in the lab of CynthiaMoss. Within this institution of eminent neuroethologists,I became interested in the lofty question of how neuronalcircuits changed their mode of operation in relation tobehavior and behavioral context. To that end my dis-sertation research was focused on making neural re-cordings from neurons in the superior colliculus of teth-ered, unrestrained and freely echolocating bats. I de-vised neural and behavioral recording techniques to re-cord from SC neurons while bats actively tracked a


swinging target (the behavioral paradigm I co-developedwith Dr. Marc Holderied). Micro-stimulation of the SC inecholocating bat species interestingly elicits sonar vo-calizations. However, no actual recordings had previ-ously been made while bats freely engaged in echoloca-tion behavior. The results of these experiments demon-strated pre-motor sonar vocal activity in the SC, andidentified changes in the temporal characteristics of dis-charge in relation to sonar duration. These experimentsnot only provide a comparative approach to under-standing SC functionality in goal-oriented behaviors, thatfor example complement studies of eye movements andplanning in monkeys, but they also open the window toquestions of internal valuation and adaptive behavioralchoice during uncertainty (i.e. to neuroeconomics).

Since March, after completing my dissertation, I havebeen a post-doctoral fellow in the Biocomplexity group atIndiana University. My research here is with Robert deRuyter van Steveninck, and is still motivated by my in-terest in the coordination of behavior and neuronal op-eration. It involves estimating the statistics of the visualscene encountered by blowflies. This is accomplishedusing a “fly camera” we are developing for field record-ings. Once we have a statistical understanding of thefly’s visual input, subsequent neurophysiological experi-ments will aim to explore the impact of changing anddeviant statistics on neuronal response properties.

Named in honour of Walter Heiligenberg, a reminder thatthese awards are made upon application to the ISN. Astudent applicant must be a member of the Society (stu-dent membership is free), with a supervisor who is also amember. Heiligenberg Student (Travel) Awards (HSA)are for travel or other expenses associated with attend-ing neuroethology-related meetings to present a platformtalk or a poster. Each award is for up to $600 and theISN anticipates being able to make 8-10 such awardseach year. A committee chaired by Mark Konishi willreview applications up to three times a year. The com-mittee encourages qualifying student members to applyfor these awards, and the supervisors of such studentsto bring these awards to their students’ attention. Fur-ther information is available on the ISN website.

Peregrinations of a Neuro-anatomo-ethologist

Nicholas Strausfeld,

([email protected]) Division of Neurobiology,ARL, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

The editor has asked me to write something about myprofessional development, along the lines of “how a neu-roanatomist became a neuroethologist.” The truth is Inever underwent such a metamorphosis, which is not

surprising considering the pedigrees of my tutors at Uni-versity College, London, where I received my under-graduate and graduate education. My Ph.D. advisorwas David Blest, a wonderfully gifted ethologist who haddone his postgraduate work in Tinbergen’s laboratory atOxford. When I started my graduate work, David, al-ready internationally recognized for his work on animalritualization, was pioneering recordings from moth visualsystems. David was a most unusual tutor who intro-duced me to a great deal more than just neurobiology;particularly an appreciation of modern literature and film.He also did his best to asphyxiate himself, me, and therest of the Zoology Department with the most horribleeffluvia given off by cooking serial sections in pyridine orone of its derivatives. The resultant silver stains were sospectacular that they made our nausea worthwhile. Justdown the corridor from where I worked was Brian Boy-cott, who had spent years observing the behavior ofcephalopods and who was then embarking on neuro-anatomical studies that would revolutionize our knowl-edge about the organization of the primate and humanretinas. These gifted and unusual people had been twoof my undergraduate teachers and it was because ofthem that I chose graduate studies in neurobiologythinking that animal behavior and electrophysiologywould be my game. Instead, I became a neuroanato-mist, more by accident than intent.

This was mainly Brian's fault, who had encouragedDavid and me to try a new Golgi method on moth brainsthat he was using on human retinae. We then used thismethod on butterflies, blowflies, honey bees and all sortsof other insects. We were completely stunned by theexquisite beauty of these preparations; the first to revealdetailed neuronal morphologies in insect brains sinceCajal and Sánchez made their pioneering studies be-tween 1910 and the 1930s. Crucially, David and I rec-ognized that the study of neuroanatomy would be whereI could best employ talents received from my parents:my mother a weaver and tapestry maker, my father agraphic artist, to both of whom I owe my deepest grati-tude. And although my father never said as much, itmust have been ironic for him that I spent the next 18years in Germany, the country of his own birth. But hewas relieved that I would not live in penury, which iswhat many artists experienced in those days, particularlyas a refugee in Britain.

Professor Dietrich Burkhardt, affectionately known as“Bu” who had pioneered intracellular recordings from flyphotoreceptors, was my postdoctoral host at FrankfurtUniversity’s Zoology Institute where I was funded by theAlexander von Humboldt Foundation from 1968 until1969. This was quite an experience, sometimes spicedup by the Zoology Institute and the US Embassy sharingthe same small street that was a local focus for studentprotests, driven by moral outrage of the kind sadly lack-ing today. The Institute also backed onto a small andintimate botanical garden where I could indulge in achildhood passion, watching insects behave.


In 1969 Kuno Kirschfeld invited me to give a lecture atthe Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics,which astonishingly offered up a staff scientist position.Thus, I spent the next 6 years in placid Tübingen work-ing in Valentino Braitenberg's Department. This periodbrought me head on with a reductionist approach to thestudy of animal behavior that, in some quarters, waslargely dismissive of the existence of actual nerve cells.Although initially very foreign to me, that intellectual ap-proach played a significant role in driving my own searchfor the neuronal basis for visual behaviors. Later visitsto Franz Huber's laboratory at the Institute for BehavioralPhysiology at Seewiesen were a relief, for they exposedme to the study of animal behavior appropriately rootedin neuroanatomical observation. Seewiesen was alsothe venue for riotous times with Les Williams and astream of foreign visitors, too many to name, some ofwhich forged lasting friendships. One such was withJonathan Bacon who one evening persuaded me to at

On board the Friday Harbor Laboratory's "Nugget," about to trawl forcrustaceans. David Duggins, the skipper, is readying the sledge.

tend a party in the “Birkenhaus” (designed by Erich vonHolst, one of the founders of neuroethology) where I metCamilla, with whom I instantly fell in love and with whomI have been joyously married ever since. This all oc-curred while I was at the European Molecular BiologyLaboratory in Heidelberg, leading its sole neurobiologygroup - that is, until a new regime decided to do awaywith us. One consequence of this was that FriedrichBarth, then Professor of Zoology at Frankfurt University,sponsored my Habilitation - a rite of passage requiredbefore someone could become a German professor.But that was not to be. In the following year, despite agenerous offer from Randolph Menzel at the Freie Uni-versität in Berlin, and in response to John Hildebrand’sinvitation to join his group in Tucson, Camilla and I re-luctantly left Old Europe. This was in 1987 and hasproved to be a happy decision. As well as Arizona beinga wonderful biotope with many and marvelous insects,my working in a place where the faculty all use bugs forcutting-edge neuroscience research continues to be anirreplaceable pleasure.

I have enjoyed intense intellectually and professionallyrewarding times, to which many people and organiza-tions have contributed. Camilla, before all others, whosenudging led me to a Guggenheim Fellowship and onwhom I always rely to purge my manuscripts of gibber-ish; Ron Hoy, who spent a sabbatical in my laboratoryand who imparted much enlightenment; the MacArthurFoundation's extraordinary support, which permitted acertain amount of what Germans call “Narrenfreiheit” topursue comparative and evolutionary studies. And I amcontinuously grateful for funding by the U.S. NationalInstitutes of Health and the National Science Founda-tion, for research is not cheap, and the former has sus-tained my studies of insect vision since 1987.

I will conclude by thanking John Hildebrand for hissteadfast support; also those students and postdoctoralcolleagues who have enriched my laboratory. My grati-tude goes to that most venerable of British Institutions,the Royal Society, for including me in its ranks despitemy having left Britain two days after receiving my Ph.D.Events are almost going full circle: a generous Prizefrom the von Humboldt Foundation has recently enabledus to spend time in Martin Heisenberg’s Institute inWürzburg, Germany, to where we return each year toexperience approaches to neuroethology about which Iknew next to nothing; to where we meet colleagues andfriends, old and new, and with Reinhard Wolf indulge inthe not too occasional glass of trockene Sylvaner. It issaid that it adds some years to one's life. I hope so, for Ifeel I'm still just beginning.

The Neural Systems and

Behavior course at the MBL,

Woods Hole, Mass., USASarah Bottjer ([email protected])University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Michael Dickinson ([email protected])California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

Course Directors of NS&B

Jacques Loeb, the great developmental biologist andprotein chemist of the early 20th century, is perhaps bestknown for his work showing that pin pricks could initiatedevelopment in unfertilized sea urchin eggs. But Loeb’searly interests focused on animal motion, and laid thegroundwork for what at the time was a radically mecha-nistic view of behavior. Borrowing concepts from bot-any, Loeb proposed that the directed motion of animalscould be explained by their reflexive responses to sen-sory stimuli. Loeb’s diagrams, completed before Ramóny Cajal published his masterpiece heralding the cellulartheory of neurobiology, are remarkably modern. Theflow of information from sensory organs to muscle is in-


dicated by arrows depicting defined pathways in a flat-worm’s brain. Loeb’s arguments also imply that behav-ior is an emergent property of a complex feedback loopin which what an animal experiences is determined by itsprior motor reactions – another astonishingly prescientconcept. Loeb is unfortunately little known by modernstudents of animal behavior and neurobiology. There is,however, one place where Loeb’s contributions to ourunderstanding of behavior are appropriately memorial-ized. Each summer, the Neural Systems & Behaviorcourse convenes for eight weeks in Loeb Hall at the Ma-rine Biological Labs at Woods Hole. The research per-formed in this 30-year old course illustrates how exten-sively Loeb’s ideas have blossomed in 125 years.

Both the scientific and recreational climate of WoodsHole in the summer months are legendary, and students

Becky Markham and Michiyo Kinoshita recording from the leech nerv-ous system. Every student is successful in making beautiful record-

ings from Retzius cells on the first day of the course!

in the Neural Systems and Behavior (NS&B) coursehave an unparalleled opportunity to interact with world-class scientists in an intensive laboratory setting. Thecentral focus of NS&B is the investigation of how proper-ties of individual neurons come together in neural circuitsto generate behavior, perception, and learning – an em-phasis that should endear the course to Loeb’s ghost asit roams the main lab, inspecting the on-going experi-ments being conducted by the 20 students who partici-pate each summer. Laboratory and lecture componentscombine state-of-the-art neuroscience techniques withbehavioral and developmental analyses. The stimulatingand collegial atmosphere encourages students to de-velop their own ideas and employ their newly-learnedtechniques to test novel questions.

A characteristic feature of NS&B, compared with otherneurobiology courses, is that it combines cutting-edgetechniques with a neuroethological approach. Neu-roethologists exploit the tremendous diversity of both

Course Co-Director Michael Dickinson assists Kaushik Ghose & CaraHampton in analyzing their data.

simple and complex behaviors found in nature to extractgeneral principles of brain function. For example, barnowls hunt at night using their superb auditory skills tolocalize prey. The neural substrate underlying auditorylocalization in these nocturnal hunters is extremely welldeveloped – the amount of “brain space” devoted to neu-ral pathways for this behavior is hypertrophied, reflectingthe importance of this behavior both over evolutionarytime and in the animal’s current ecological perspective.This makes the neural circuitry for auditory localizationespecially amenable to experimental investigation,thereby providing an excellent example of the principlefirst elaborated by Nobel laureate August Krogh, that for“for many problems there is an animal on which it can bemost conveniently studied”. The approach of using dif-ferent model systems to exploit natural behavioral rep-ertoires has achieved notable success in advancing ourunderstanding of the neural substrates underlying be-havior, a feat due in no small part to the efforts of NS&Bin propagating this productive experimental philosophyto the generations of students that have taken thecourse over the years.

As the current Course Directors of NS&B, we invite stu-dents, postdocs, and faculty members to apply for theopportunity to spend a summer within the rooms of LoebHall, continuing the long-standing effort to link behaviorto its mechanistic roots.

Modest recollections of a

neuroethologistG. Adrian Horridge, Emeritus Professor

([email protected]) Visual Sciences, RSBS, Austra-lian National University, Canberra, Australia

As a boy I lived on the western edge of Sheffield innorthern England, and every Sunday we would go out


into Derbyshire and picnic. I would take a fishing netand come back loaded with frogs and lizards and cray-fish – all kinds of wildlife. Then, when war broke out andrationing came in, I decided to keep rabbits. As a result,I learned a lot about animal physiology and we had rab-bit meat regularly. When Sheffield was bombed, schoolwas closed until 1943, so I spent a great deal of time inthe public library, where there was a fine reference col-lection on all aspects of science and engineering whichserved the industry of the city. I used to buy chemicalsfor experiments that I could do at home. I was a stinksand fireworks nerd, but it served me well later.

I took four subjects at Cambridge, which meant two orthree lectures and two practicals every day, with someon Saturdays also. Life was extremely hectic, but wewere young and had a long attention span, if necessary,for work all night. In the vacations I went on expeditions,camping. Only 10 per cent of the students in Cambridgein my year had come straight from school. The otherswere ex-servicemen with interesting experiences whohad seen active service. My tutor advised me to con-centrate on biology, taking advantage of the fact that Ialready knew chemistry, but in the first year I was inter-ested mostly in biochemistry, physiology and animalfunction.

In the summer of 1950 I organised an expedition to theisland of Gomera in the Canary Islands, where four of ussurveyed the birds. I got back to find that I had an offerof a Ph.D. studentship. When I turned up at the lab, notknowing exactly what to expect, I went to the chief tech-nician's office and was given a key to a room on thesecond floor – and that's all I got. The room was quiteempty. As a research student in Cambridge in thosedays, you had to find yourself a topic and also findsomebody who would supervise you in it. Then you hadto collect your apparatus. You built it yourself orscrounged it from somebody who had just finished orsome other member of staff who had got some stuff inthe cupboard, and collected things from various placesin the lab such as the chemical room in the corridor, theworkshop and the electronics workshop. So, having as-sembled everything you thought you wanted, you mightstart some experiments. Initiative and self-reliance werethe keys to success, and one had to pay the small ex-penses of the research out of a small student grant.

I had no topic, so I went down to the Plymouth laboratoryof the Marine Biological Association of the United King-dom, which in those days was an independent body thatwas funded by the government. This laboratory had twogood-sized ships with which it explored the westernfringes of Europe, the Atlantic Shelf and the EnglishChannel, kept an eye on fisheries and ocean productiv-ity, and supplied marine animals to the universities. TheDirector allowed me to work at the lab, and I discoveredthat Norman Berrill, a famous Canadian zoologist, hadworked there in the '20s on the regeneration of the heador tail of marine worms, until the whole worm eventuallyreturned to a normal body. I thought that if I could go

back and look at the problem again, using electrophysi-ological techniques, I could follow the process of regen-eration. In the marine laboratory there was a Polishrefugee professor, Alexandrowicz, who had been givensanctuary during the war. He was staining – with meth-ylene blue and other rather nice methods – the neuronstructure of the nervous system of the crustaceans. Thisis very much an art, with lots of tricks in the technique.He taught me very well how to handle nervous systemsin invertebrate animals, and showed me the literature inthe extensive library.

Then I went back to the Cambridge Zoology Department,where (Lord) Victor Rothschild had just purchased somemicroscopy equipment out of his own private money. Iwas able to use a phase-contrast microscope for the firsttime to look at transparent jellyfish, which I collected bygoing on my motorbike to Brancaster Staithe, on theNorfolk coast. The nerves of jellyfish are completelytransparent but can be seen under phase contrast. Avery lucky break, I thought. In those days the experi-ments had to be designed so that they were simple andcheap. I spent the whole of that year building electronicequipment and recording from snails and odd things thathad some nerves in them. I first built a power pack, thena multivibrator stimulator, then a DC amplifier that gaveme enormous trouble because it was totally unstable. Igot a radar oscilloscope, which had a blue screen andfast time bases, and produced circles on the screen, butI changed the time base and the amplifiers inside so Ihad a new oscilloscope with a green screen that gave along fluorescence. I had help from several people in allthis hard work. For example, there was a good physiol-ogy lab across the road – Hodgkin and his assistants –and I got lots of instruction from Willie Rushton abouthow to make microelectrodes. One result was that laterwhenever we had a problem in the lab I was able tosolve it. Once you've made all the equipment and dis-covered the little details of exactly how to do the experi-ments, you become more confident. When I had suc-cessfully recorded the nerve impulse from jellyfish andidentified the synapses, I wrote a thesis in 1952 for afellowship for St. John's College.

I was then obliged to look for work of national impor-tance in lieu of military service. By good fortune, I wentto the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), Farnborough,to a remarkable group that had built the Mosquito aero-plane out of balsawood. (It turned out to be radar trans-parent and, because the frames were negligible inweight, had superb acceleration.) I worked on new ma-terials for the rockets which were being invented at thattime. Ground-to-air rockets were being made out ofanything from steel to aluminium to glass fibre to as-bestos. We were looking very hard at ways of using thecovalent bond to maximise the strength of materialsbased on carbon, boron and silicon because if you usethese light elements instead of metals, the specificstrengths, dividing by the specific gravity, jump by afactor of about 10. One of the things I did there was to


invent the material for the venturi, the bit at the back endof the rocket where the high velocity gases come out. Iwas invited to join a big company making rockets, simplyon the strength of that invention, but turned them downbecause they used asbestos. We pulled our own fibres,we persuaded glass companies to make peculiarweaves of glass fabric. We built helicopter blades out offibreglass, linen fibre or silica fibres, and spun them untilthey bust – which makes a lot of noise! – and we filledrockets with all kinds of explosives and then fired themto see what the structural material would withstand. Itwas a very practical kind of science, and a great learningexperience.

I got back to Cambridge with an 1851 Senior Award anda research fellowship at St. John’s College. From there Icontinued going to Naples at Easter, when it was cold inEngland. The Stazione di Napoli was supported by uni-versities all over Europe who paid a fee and in exchangehad table rights. (That is, they could send people towork there.) The lab was one of the great laboratories ofthe world until the 1960’s or so. At lunch – served in thelab – you could hear six to ten languages being spokenaround the lunch table. I got to know quite a number ofpeople from European labs while there. I spent a lot oftime working in the magnificent library dating from the1880s onwards, holding every possible journal and bookand monograph you could hope to find. I went to workon jellyfish, hydromedusae and Ctenophores, a group ofanimals that are hardly known. They have the mostprimitive nervous system of any group of animals. Thereis no major concentration of nerves anywhere, no 'brain',yet their behaviour is well organised. For example, thegenus Beroe is carnivorous. It puts a million cilia intoone cell, all packed tight side by side, and makes theminto teeth. I used that to show that cilia move by thesliding of microtubules. Another ctenophore, calledMnemiopsis, has little bits sticking out. If one of the ciliaon the ends of these detects a vibration, it expands bycontracting circular muscles. It leaps out and sticks onto any copepod or anything similar that approaches it.

In the spring of 1955, I was in Naples while the Cam-bridge Professor of Zoology, Carl Pantin, was there. Hesaid to me one day, 'I have a letter from a friend of minein St. Andrews University (in Scotland). They are look-ing for a lecturer who will work with marine animals.Would you like me to write to Callan and suggest that heappoints you?' I said, 'Oh yes, by all means do that.' Idid write a letter myself to Callan, and learned after-wards that he'd thrown it in the wastepaper basket, butwhen Pantin's letter arrived he changed his mind andgave me a lectureship in the Gatty Marine Laboratory.(The latter was named after the Rev. Gatty who pre-sented £2000 for a new building in 1896.) My job wastenured; those were the days!

In 1955 I had written from Cambridge – on College note-paper – asking the Shell Oil Company whether theycould help me to go and work on the coral reefs in theRed Sea. I had a very helpful letter back to say yes, if I

presented myself at the Shell office in Port Said, theywould look after me and take me down the Red Seacoast to the Egyptian marine laboratory at Hurghada.That is about 200 miles south of Suez on the Egyptiancoast of the Red Sea – lots of reefs everywhere, and avery good place to work on corals. I took my equipmentin a rucksack.

Before I left Cambridge, Pantin had asked me to read achapter of a book being written by Ted Bullock, who wasa professor at UCLA. Ted had started to write a book,which eventually had the title “Structure and Function ofthe Nervous System of Invertebrates” – a two-volumework, with hundreds of illustrations and thousands ofreferences. The chapter I read was on Coelenterates,the group of animals I had been working on for five or sixyears. I knew the literature, and because I had workedon coral reefs and at Naples, Millport and Plymouth, I'dseen lots of material that Bullock was unaware of. So I

4 decades ago: Nerve Net Symposium, ASZ meeting, Nash-ville TN, USA. Dec. 1964.

Left to right, top: Tardent, Prosser, Passano, Horridge, Lyke, Fraser;Row 3: Boettiger, Pavans de Cecatty, Mackie, Ewer, Miller, March;Row 2 Wuman, Lentz, Ross, Goreau, Rushforth, Josephson, Lenhoff,Chapman; Front: Leghissa, Bullock, Hernandez, Robson, Arai,Batham, Pantin.

rewrote that chapter completely, and sent it back. Theresult was that Ted Bullock invited me to be a co-authorin the great work, and he arranged for us both to havefellowships at the Center for Advanced Studies in Be-havioral Sciences, on the Stanford campus in Palo Alto,California. The fellowship meant full return fares, plus afull salary from the Center for Advanced Studies. Mywife, Audrey, and I went in 1958, with two children, atfirst to the house of Steve Wainwright in Berkeley, up onEuclid Street, above the campus. So for a summer, Iworked in the Berkeley library while Ted Bullock was stillin Los Angeles. Then for the 12 months of the fellowshiphe and I went to Palo Alto, and we lived in Menlo Park. Iwas still a lecturer at St Andrews and was supposed togive my courses, so somehow I managed to shuttle to StAndrews. At the end of 1963, back at the Gatty, we hadall the students doing the index, with cards spread in


rows on the floor. Writing, checking and indexing thosevolumes was so much work that it was said I never needwork again – which was totally untrue!

When I went back to the Gatty in 1959 after California, Ifound that the Director, Jimmy Dodd, was in the finalstage of departing, leaving about 15,000 square feet ofvacant lab space. I was appointed Director, soon at-tracted a number of bright and enthusiastic young stu-dents, and started a golden decade of research on theneurobiology of invertebrates. In 1966 I published 26papers. That's one a fortnight. We had a great deal ofmoney coming in, because in a marine laboratory youcan apply to the White Fish Authority, to the NatureConservancy and to the National Development Commis-sion, as well as to the various research councils. Gettingmoney from all these sources was learned from TedBullock, who schooled me, American-style. He mademe go to labs all around America and give seminars. Asa result, the Gatty just boomed. Everything we touchedseemed to turn to gold. Everybody was very happy, andstudents were excited by the work. If you have a marinelaboratory, you have an enormous variety of challengesfor a biologist.

So began the great procession of students who passedthrough over the years. They have been an enormouslyentertaining and productive lot. It was my custom in themiddle years not to publish with my students, but alwaysto insist that they publish their own papers in their ownname, as I had done. There must be a couple of hun-dred such papers. That is unusual now, because thesedays a professor has to put his name on the papers tokeep up the flow of grants, an iniquitous system.

While I was at the Gatty I got a telegram from Clem Mar-ket, chairman of the biology faculty at Yale University:'Our member of staff' – 'has unfortunately run off withsomeone else's wife and is not likely to come back. Thecourse on comparative nervous systems is due to startin one week's time. Would you please come and givethe course? What are your terms?' I named a sum plusthe air fares in order to commute about every threeweeks back to St Andrews – and he immediately agreed.I rented a room in New Haven and commuted fromScotland. If you teach American students they demandextensive class sheets and literature. So I wrote theseup as a book – ‘Interneurons’.

When I was at Palo Alto I had talked with experimentalpsychologists about learning. When I went back to StAndrews and was working on locust eyes, I rememberedthat Pavlov had done an experiment with dogs, soundinga bell and then shocking or feeding them. So I thought:'Let's see if we can teach locusts to avoid a shock at thesound of a noise.' The locust's ear is on its thorax, and Ididn't believe that the learning would be in the locust'shead. The circuit was arranged so that the plate wasdivided up into segments, and if a locust had a leg onone and the other leg on another, then it would get ashock. They never responded to the sound. But the

locusts would stand on one leg and support themselveson the roof of the cage or in some other posture suchthat there was no return circuit and they didn't get theshock. Then I found that if a locust was suspendedabove a water surface and got a shock whenever ittouched the water, in five minutes it would learn to holdits foot above the water. What's more, if you cut thehead off after it had learned, the learning persisted. Andif you taught a headless locust to hold up a leg up, andthen tested it on the other leg, the learning was trans-ferred. So we had a very simple learning preparation inan insect ventral ganglion with a few thousand nervecells. I published this in 1962 as 'Headless learning ininsects'. It got into the elementary psychology textbooksto show that learning does not require a large brain. Anumber of other scientists took this up, although I don'tthink they advanced very far. But for a psychologist,headless learning was quite something!

Although many insects have ears – crickets, cicadas andso on sing to each other – the story was that they did nothave pitch discrimination: they detected only the ampli-tude of the wave-form, not its frequency. So, in 1961 Iset to work recording from nerve cells in the centralnervous system of the locust, and showed that differentnerve cells were responding in a way that demonstratedpitch discrimination. The discovery really annoyed atleast one senior professor who was committed to the oldstory. I also discovered how easy it is to get into a newtopic when you have the basic skills and have read theliterature. These experiments illustrate that the field iswide open for those who try. It was not the last time thatI trod on toes on someone else’s patch, but more of thatanon.

Gene Robinson elected to

National Academy

Ian A. Meinertzhagen, ([email protected])Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

On May 3, the US National Academy of Sciences an-nounced the election of 72 new members and 18 foreignassociates from 14 countries in recognition of their dis-tinguished and continuing achievements in original re-search. Among these was University of Illinois’ neu-roethologist Gene E. Robinson, the present incumbent ofthe G. William Arends Chair in the Department of Ento-mology, and Director of the Neuroscience Program, atthe University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Election tothe Academy’s membership, which currently numbers1,976, is one of the highest honours that can be ac-corded a U.S. scientist or engineer. With a doctoratefrom Cornell University, Dr. Robinson is an internation-ally recognized entomologist whose work has focusedon the honeybee and on the relationship between genes


Gene’s bees, their genes, and Gene

the Academy’s membership, which currently numbers1,976, is one of the highest honours that can be ac-corded a U.S. scientist or engineer. With a doctorate andsocial behavior. In investigating a wide range of honey-bee behaviours and their underlying genetic bases,Gene and his colleagues have discovered that an indi-vidual bee’s caste activities can be predicted by knowingthe profile of its gene expression in the brain. He is cur-rently involved in a new project, BeeSpace, as part ofthe University of Illinois Institute of Genomic Biology, thatwill help analyse social behavior on an unprecedentedwhole-genome scale, using databases on the honey-beeto study the mechanisms of social behavior.

Congratulations, Gene, on behalf of the Society, for thistruly outstanding mark of recognition.

Meetings and Courses30th International Ethological Confer-

ence, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, August 15-22,2007Local organiser: Richard E. Brown ([email protected])Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

The 30th International Ethological Conference will beheld on Canada’s Atlantic coast, at Dalhousie Universityin Halifax, Nova Scotia from 15-22 August 2007. Focus-sing on the importance of Ocean studies and Neurosci-ence at Halifax, the themes of the meeting will be"Ocean Life Ethology" and "Neuroethology". Invitedspeakers and symposia on these and other topics will beorganized in 2006. Information on the meeting will beavailable on a website linked to the main website of theI n t e r n a t i o n a l C o u n c i l o f Ethologists(http://www.zoo.ufl.edu/ice/).

Halifax is a popular summer destination offering a rangeof recreational pursuits. Further information on thesemay be found on the Destination Halifax website(http://www.destinationhalifax.com/). Rooms have beenreserved at both Dalhousie University residences andlocal hotels. The organizers hope you will plan to attendthis meeting. 2006 4th Gordon Research Conference on

Visual System Development, Il Ciocco, Barga,Italy, May 14-19, 2006Chair: Pamela A Raymond([email protected]) University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,USAVice Chair: Ross Cagan([email protected]) Washington University Schoolof Medicine, St. Louis, USA

The 4th GRC on Visual System Development will beheld next year in Tuscany. A tentative list of sessiontopics includes:Seymour Benzer LectureEye DeterminationOcular Growth and PolarityEvolution and Organization of PhotoreceptorsRetinal Degeneration and RegenerationInteracting Signaling PathwaysComplex and Novel Developmental Regulatory Mecha-nismsCell Cycle RegulationAxon Guidance and Plasticity

For further information take a look at the GRC website:

http://www.grc.uri.edu/grc_home.htm

Positions Available

Postdoctoral positions. Two postdoctoral positions inbirdsong physiology are currently available. They areboth at the University of Minnesota, which has a strongand dynamic neuroscience group with expertise across awide range of disciplines.

1. Neurophysiology of vocal learningA postdoctoral research position is available to study thecellular bases of song learning in the zebra finch. Ourresearch program uses an integrative approach to ad-dress how memory and sensory feedback are used toshape behavior. We are particularly interested in (1) therole of neuronal excitability in regulating the ability tolearn vocalizations; (2) the role of sleep in learning; and(3) a neural signal that may result from the comparisonof memory and sensory information. We use a wide ar-ray of techniques, including chronic multi-electrode re-cording in awake animals, whole cell patch clamp inbrain slice and in vivo, and behavioral analyses. Appli-cants should have an M.D. or Ph.D. and significant ex-


perience in neuroscience. Quantitative analysis and/orelectrophysiology experience preferred. This position isavailable immediately and is supported by the JohnMerck Fund. This position is open to foreign citizens, aswell as citizens of the United States.

2. Birdsong in translationA unique training opportunity is available in translationalneuroscience. We are seeking a M.D. or Ph.D. scientistwith experience in electrophysiology and strong interestsin developmental disorders. The successful candidatewill receive intensive, interdisciplinary training in neuro-behavioral development, including several cutting edgetechniques, direct experience in translation from basic toapplied science, and a required developmental neuro-science seminar series tailored to this integrative pro-gram. The first half of the 3-year research program willfocus on the developmental electrophysiology of the ze-bra finch song system with Teresa Nick. The secondhalf of the program will address the development of hu-man learning and memory, using insights from the song-bird model, with Kathleen Thomas. Techniques will in-clude fMRI, high-density EEG, and multi-electrode („tet-rode‰) recording. This position is funded by a post-doctoral "road map" training grant from the NIMH and begins July 1, 2005 or after.

For either position, please submit CV and the names ofthree referees to: Teresa Nick ([email protected]).For more information please check the following website:http://www2.neuroscience.umn.edu/tnick/

Postdoctoral position. A postdoctoral position is avail-able at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zürich forthe behavioral analysis of mechanosensory flight controlpathways in the fruit fly Drosophila.

The objective of the project is to reveal the functionalrole of mechanosensory pathways for free-flight controlin the fruit fly. For this, wild type and transgenic flieswith specific mechanosensory deficiencies will be be-haviorally tested for their ability to perform stable freeflight in a wind tunnel equipped with virtual-reality displaytechniques. In particular, the roles of certain parts of themechanosensory pathways from the wings and halteresfor flight control and maneuvering will be explored.These experiments will be complemented with meas-urements of wing kinematics and flight forces performedwith flies of various genotypes flying tethered in a 'flightsimulator'.

This postdoctoral position will be based at the Institute ofNeuroinformatics (INI), a joint institute of the FederalSchool of Technology (ETH) and University of Zürich,Switzerland. The research is part of a collaboration withthe MPI in Dresden and is jointly funded by the Volks-wagen Stiftung. The behavioral studies will be closelylinked with analyses of the neural physiology and circuitsperformed in Dresden and behavioral experiments ad-dressing visual flight control performed at INI.

The successful candidate is a true team player with ex-cellent experimental skills, a broad and profound techni-cal understanding (e.g. with a background in engineeringor physics) and a keen interest in biological systems (in-sect physiology and behavior, flight control, aerodynam-ics, biomechanics). Excellent communication skills andcommand of English are required. The position can pro-vide a regular postdoc salary for up to 3 years.

Contact and further information from Dr. S.N. Fry at:[email protected], for further information on thelab and current projects, see:http://www.ini.unizh.ch/~steven/?loc=Research/Projects

Material for Future ISNNewslettersThe Editor would welcome, indeed wholly dependsupon, material for future newsletters to fill the varioussections of each issue. Reference to past issues willreveal the scope and style of contributions, the breadthof their variation and the depth of their originality. Mate-rial is solicited for meetings, courses, and job opportuni-ties which might include some aspect of neuroethologyand therefore be of interest to readers of the Newsletter.Advertisements for positions (faculty or trainees) are lim-ited to 150 words. Announcements of new books (copy-right 2005) written or edited by ISN members should in-clude the full citation information (including ISBN) plus a40-50 word description of the book. (Note that bookscontaining chapters contributed by an ISN member arenot appropriate for inclusion.) We also welcome an-nouncements of courses and future meetings, reports onrecent meetings, discussions of research areas or topicsof interest to neuroethologists, laboratory profiles, andeditorials. Regretfully, we also publish occasional obitu-aries and memorials.

Material should be submitted no earlier than one monthbefore the next issue (in this case, November, 2005).We also welcome announcements of future meetings,discussion material about research areas or topics ofinterest to neuroethologists, and similar types of mate-rial. Word limits depend on the type of article. Have anidea for an article that you or someone else would write?Contact the Secretary prior to submission to determinethe length and suitability of material to be submitted. Allmaterial must be submitted electronically, preferably asan attached file to an e-mail prepared in MS Word andsent to Ian Meinertzhagen at [email protected]


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