Post by Louis Sumrall, President, Portland State University Neuroscience Club
We did it!!
More Noggin Fest posts are coming soon…but please check out what this two day celebration of art, music & brain research helped support..!
Synapsing in San Diego @ SfN!
LEARN MORE: Nonprofit Noggins
DOWNLOAD: Noggin Fest Press Release
At its most distant vantage point, life has an elegant beauty – we marvel before so many networks of interacting parts and pieces so finely tuned by ages of adaptation. By some coincidence of nature, it is also at the most near vantage point that life exhibits similarly serene grace. Our brains let us perceive and understand our world, and so many brilliant images and experiences come from pondering how the world makes our mind.
“Painting is poetry that is seen but not heard, poetry is painting that is heard but not seen.” – Leonardo da Vinci
Come join our celebration of the beauty of the mind, and the brain that makes it, and make new connections in our growing networks of artists, scientists, and enthusiastic folks like you! Join us at Noggin Fest 2018!!
Noggin Fest: Entirely student-run and organized!!
Last year’s Noggin Fest at the Alberta Rose Theater was a night filled with the groovy sounds, splashes of color, vivid neurons, and new synapses!
LEARN MORE: Noggin Fest 2017!
Noggin Fest raised the funds to send 10 students from PSU and WSU Vancouver to Washington DC (and supported housing for 21!) to meet kids and present to K-12 classrooms about brains, neurons, and how neuroscience research is illuminating how the mind works.
These trips are not just for teaching middle schoolers about the structure of a synapse, or college students about poster presentations – they are also meant to educate lawmakers and policy makers about the importance of integrated, multi-disciplinary classrooms and the connections that come from grassroots volunteer groups like NOGGIN!!
LEARN MORE: From classrooms to Congress!
This year, Noggin has been invited to present the keynote speech on brain awareness at the Society for Neuroscience Conference in San Diego. This honor truly reflects the impact that creative education can have on the classroom, and the public…
LEARN MORE: Noggin Keynote @ SfN Brain Awareness Campaign Event
In November we’re sending ten more busy brained students from PSU and NW Noggin to the San Diego conference, and local public schools – and to support this outreach we are proud and excited to announce NOGGIN FEST 2018!
Noggin Fest will be hosted at Watershed PDX Art Venue as a two-day neuroscience research, art and music festival on October 19th and 20th!
Friday we’ll rock out with our intro show kicked off by Mouthbreather! Enjoy a beer from Astoria’s legendary Fort George Brewery and a dog (or two) from the Dogs n’ Fries food cart while relaxing to the (brutally) smooth sounds of Disenchanter. Let your mind wander and grow disorganized amidst the gentle heat glow of Shannon Entropy. At last, take orbit and fly alongside the incomparable Bitches of the Sun!
Saturday we are thrilled to host the science and art interactive games of Sarah Vitak. Boil water with your brain and explore the inner structure of a balloon-built neuronal network..!
All ages Saturday noon – 4pm!
Come check out additional local artists on display including Rodney Hickman, Haley Jensen, Jason Simpson, Samantha Coiner, Mirabai Scholz, Alison Dennis, Merry Jo Carter, Sam Kitzberger, Kindra Crick, Sienna Morris, Pilar Pennell and Noggin’s very own Jeff Leake!
LEARN MORE: “The Effect of Small Things” @ Gallery 114
There’s music on Saturday too, and plenty of it. When We Met’s sophisticated punky pop grooves should shake off the dust for you to witness the mind-melting cello-rock of Human Ottoman…
Prepare to get appropriately fired up by the heavy pound of B.R.U.C.E.’s coverage of current world events. They say humor is the best lubricant for the truth which is why Internet Beef is up next with their cleverly-constructed punk-infused nickelodeon-rock. Next, we experiment with The Mercury Tree’s “This is your brain on microtones” approach to prog-metal. By this point, we should all have sufficiently lost our minds in preparation for Karma Rivera’s hard-hitting hip-hop beats and unprecedented stage presence. I even heard that there might be some collaboration between Noggin Fest musicians this year!
We have the great fortune of welcoming Michelle Espy all the way from the Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico to present her work on SQUIDs – a new lightweight type of MRI scanner that is both cheap and accessible to remote communities. We also welcome three local neuroscientists, Jonathan Horey, Eric Feczko, and Amber Schwartz to present their work on brain scans, magnetic therapies, and tons of exciting brain tech!
LEARN MORE: Michelle Espy: Detecting dangers to support health and security
LEARN MORE: SQUID-detected ultra-low field MRI
“Here is this mass of jelly – three pound mass of jelly – that you can hold in the palm of your hand, and it can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space, it can contemplate the meaning of infinity, and it can contemplate itself contemplating the meaning of infinity.” – VS Ramachandran
As always, no event Northwest Noggin is part of would be complete without real human brains! Come have a hands-on look (and feel) at the 3-pound lump of fat and protein that makes you you! We will have neuroscience students from PSU, OHSU, and Noggin offering lessons, answering questions and leading workshops demonstrating this amazing organ that gives weight to your world.
Join us to make pipe cleaner neurons and celebrate the tradition of scientific art that makes Noggin amazing!
