Must reads

• A May 14, 2014 The Sydney Morning Herald article reported that Australia will establish a $1 billion medical research fund expected to grow to $20 billion by 2020 for cutting-edge research. According to the article, "The fund could change the way medical research is done in Australia, with interest from the capital able to fund $1 billion a year in new research projects through the National Health and Medical Research Council. ''The additional $1 billion a year in funding will roughly double the government's direct funding to medical research,'' it said in its budget overview."
• A May 14, 2014 BU Today article reported that Boston University is "launching a new interdisciplinary research center to explore the roots of psychiatric diseases and neurological impairments." According to the article, "The Center for Systems Neuroscience (CSN), opening in July, will be led by Michael Hasselmo, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of psychological and brain sciences. The inaugural director, Hasselmo says the center’s researchers will work to further enhance the understanding of how brain systems mediate behavior…The center’s creation dovetails with the federal BRAIN initiative announced a year ago by President Obama to probe the origins of disorders such as Alzheimer’s, autism, schizophrenia, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury."
• A May 13, 2014 Time article reported on new research that finds "a link between longer years on the football field and slower reaction times on cognitive tests." According to the article, "But the findings do suggest that even when a young athlete weathers a high school or college season concussion-free, smaller blows to the head may result in cumulative changes. And it establishes that after many such years, the brains of young adults engaged in contact sports may be poised on a knife's edge: While youth and the brain's inherent resilience may erase the effects of early impacts, the structural changes detected here could presage a more worrisome outcome. In neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, similar structural changes in the brain precede the appearance of symptoms by years and possibly decades."