Hanging at Little Bits

On the Bicycle...

Today was the day Nicholas finally put it together (got over his mental block) and bicycled on his own. It took all of about five seconds.

Climbing Monadnock

Katie and I hiked Mount Monadnock Friday. More picture on Facebook here.

Monadnock is a well known New England "mountain" 3165 feet tall with about 2000 feet from base to the summit; it is a well known "starter" mountain. Because of the tremendous rain the night before, there were very few people there - when we reached the summit, it was only Katie and I and two other people. The trail we climbed had portions that were like hiking a mountain stream due to all the run-off. And we did get caught up in some light rain while starting our descent.

Here are some of my favorite pictures. There are more on my Facebook site including pictures of Katie picking wild blueberries and an orange salamander.

"Who's Got Your Back"

Last week I was able to attend EO-Boston's lunch with Keith Ferrazzi, talking about his new book Whose Got Your Back. I am not usually a fan of motivational speakers but Keith is a rare exception - he is real, and his talks are about what really matters. I will be reading his book.

WSJ: In Search for Intelligence, a Silicon Brain Twitches

My vote for the coolest "big science" project for the next decade...



WSJ: In Search for Intelligence, a Silicon Brain Twitches
A project dubbed Blue Brain, which is building a biologically accurate artificial brain, aims to tackle one of the mysteries of neuroscience: How does human intelligence emerge?

Slideshow here.

Project website at the EPFL here.

Summer Sunday Fun

Summer Camp Begins...

Summer camp starts this week. The kids are doing the new LINX summer camp at Elm Bank, right here in Wellesley.

Katie's excited she will get to continue her "inventing" with Mr. Steve while still doing all the usual outdoor summer activities. Nicholas is just happy to get out of the house.

Purgatory Chasm

We spent yesterday exploring several of the state parks in central Massachusetts including Purgatory Chasm State Reservation.

Nicholas (Finally) Lost His First Tooth

So How Much Does the Drug Industry Spend on Marketing?

One of the few blogs I read regularly is Derek Buhl's In The Pipeline. Derek, a research chemist with decades of experience in drug development, provides well written and accessible insights into why getting new drugs to market is so hard.

Today's column discussed a Nature Reviews Drug Discovery that examined the perception that drug companies spend too much on promoting their products by marketing and not enough on R&D.

That a More Humane World Might Be

My friend Noah Bullock, an Episcopal missionary in El Salvador for the past three years, is now working on a book project, That a More Humane World Might Be. You can learn more about the project, and also make a donation to support his efforts, at www.elsalvadorproject.wordpress.com.

Fourth of July at Morse's Pond