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Welcome to Omni Brain, an exploration of the serious, fun, ridiculous / past, present, future of the brain and the science that loves it.

Thoughts on the future of nanotechnology from Richard Jones. Richard Jones is an experimental physicist, whose research centres around the properties of polymer molecules at interfaces and ultrathin polymer films.

Hey, you! Science chica! Why don't you join up with the other femme fatales to complete the female triumvirate of evolution experts? We could change the world!

The Element List blog has a new address and new, fancier digs. Click here to find the new Element List blog.

A couple of little known facts about Ze Frank, video blog impresario of "The Show with Ze Frank," are that he was once a promising neuroscience student at Brown University before he left to pursue music with his band and that his father is Joachim Frank (pictured right), a molecular biologist at the Wadsworth Center and recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. In Wednesday's installment of The Show, Ze put his neuroscience training to use in answering a viewer's question on how best to prepare for final exams. His carefully researched tip: get some sleep.

If you are considering making the jump from academia to biotech, check out the "Industry Insights" online seminar series produced by NatureJobs and the Stanford School of Medicine Career Center (SoMCC). With only two video segments so far, the "series" is a little thin, but the choice selection of companies represented makes the series particularly informative. In the first installment, Michael Alvarez, founder and director of SoMCC, speaks with Hal Barron, Senior VP at Genentech, named in 2006 by Fortune magazine as the best company to work for and by Science magazine as the top employer and most admired company for the fifth year in a row. In the second segment, Alvarez speaks with Nandini Tandon, venture partner with MDS Capital, about biotech invesment and careers combining science, banking and finance. Tandon's PowerPoint presentation slides (shown above) are also available on the website.

Element List will be undergoing a few changes over the next few weeks. For one thing, we're looking for some hired help in reviewing new and cool science websites. If you're interested in earning a little extra money, send us a brief, 150-300 word review of a science website that you particularly enjoy or find useful in your research. We will also consider below-the-radar science news items. If we like your blog article, we'll pay one or two beers worth, depending on length, and include a byline with a link back to you. Send submissions to info@elementlist.com.

At least three videos of the East Java volcanic mudflow have been posted on YouTube over the past few months. Between the photos and the videos, it seems that ordinary people have had limited access to the flooded area, since many familiar scenes have shown up more than once. In each of the videos below, however, the 'reporters' appear to have had some special access to get closer to the crater by virtue of their being a BBC reporter, an oil company employee, or a charming tourist.

• BBC Report - Andrew Harding reports for the BBC on the Java mud volcano four months after the eruption. According to the report, workers are drilling down to the source of the mudflow, where they will attempt to block the flow by pumping in concrete. At the same time, workers are building an earthen wall to contain the flow and pumping some of the muddy water into the river, potentially creating a second environmental disaster.
• Oil Contractor Video - This video was recorded in September by an American with a southern accent who appears to be an oil company employee (based also on his other videos). There's very little narration, but the video does show a fire monitor exposed on dry land in August and mostly submerged only 18 days later in September following a sudden subsidence of the land. The land has subsided five meters since the eruption in May.
• American Tourist Video - Jonbone17, an American tourist, charmed the local Indonesian oil field workers into letting him roam around near the crater. They even posed for pictures with him (above). The last half of the video is actually a slideshow with good images of the new dam/wall that's being built to contain the mudflow.

The American press seems to be largely ignoring the huge environmental and humanitarian disaster in Indonesia that began in May when a mud volcano erupted during drilling in East Java. Thanks to the internet's series of tubes, we can now turn to sites like Flickr for photos of the volcano and local residents as they cope with the disaster. Flickr photo contributors have posted some amazing pictures of the mudflow, such as the top right picture of the crater by Greenpeace, the bottom left picture taken by Farl on a roadside in Sidoarjo, East Java, and top left and bottom right pictures of residents celebrating the end of Ramadan in late October by Mata Adalah Cahaya. Mata has an excellent Flickr slideshow of her pictures here. See also pictures by Bromund Volker.

How did Larry Small get the Smithsonian Secretary job in the first place? For one thing, he's never led a research institution, museum, or a non-profit before. Instead, his entire professional life has been spent in ... banking. Twenty-seven years at Citicorp. Eight years at Fannie Mae. Guess all that banking experience would mean that he knows something about making money with other people's stuff. As this 2002 article from Archeology magazine entitled "Crisis at the Smithsonian" suggests, it seems that Small has been on the path to selling out the Smithsonian for quite some time:

While the Board of Regents justified Small's appointment by arguing that he brought with him the kind of management competence and business savvy the institution needed to improve its bottom line, he and his policies have been attacked in editorials in major newspapers, and by academics and conservators both inside and outside the Smithsonian. During his tenure, directors of seven museums have submitted their resignations. Congress has intervened after Small's cutbacks included the proposed closure of the institution's animal biodiversity research facility. Small seemed to raise hackles wherever he went, even on his home turf.

Commercial sponsorship of museum exhibitions has been another bone of contention. Donations from Fujifilm, Kmart, General Motors, and Catherine B. Reynolds for a "Hall of Achievers," sparked a flurry of letters, including an open letter from a group of 170 scholars, authors, and academics to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the chancellor of the Smithsonian's Board of Regents. "If Mr. Small is permitted to continue his agenda," it read, "the Smithsonian will become much like a shopping mall, with virtually every inch devoted to the promotion of a corporation or its product."

His personal life has also been dogged by controversy. After pictures of Small's private collection of South American masks, headdresses, and costumes appeared in the January 2000 issue of Smithsonian magazine, he was investigated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which suspected that the pictures showed feathers from protected bird species and teeth from endangered cats. The service opened the investigation in November, closed it in March 2001, and reopened it last summer after the service reviewed additional information from published of Small's collection and reports from ornithologists.

Small pleaded guilty in January 2004 to a misdemeanor violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for his collection of Amazonian bird feathers that allegedly included feathers from endangered species.

The countdown is on to find a gift for every geeky friend and familiy member you have. Tracking down those one or two perfect gifts can be hard. What do you give a geek who already has everything? Why, give them the hottest gadget of the season, of course. No, not a video game player. A DVD Rewinder! The one and only DVD Rewinder from DVDRewinder.com spins disks backwards and plays rewind sounds in MP3 format. You can even download new rewind sounds and load them onto the rewinder through the MP3 port. But this handy gadget does more than rewind DVDs. It also rewinds CDs and video games. A built-in compartment also holds disc cleaner, providing simultaneous cleaning and rewinding capability. Just read what customers like Josh Wickham have to say.

The fallout has been swift and harsh over the Smithsonian's secret deal with Showtime Networks to provide the network right of first refusal over commercial documentaries that make significant use of Smithsonian materials. The Interior subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee has responded by placing limitations in the FY07 budget allocation, including "limiting the Smithsonian's ability to execute any contract or legal agreement which could limit public access to the Smithsonian collections. In addition, the bill reduces the Smithsonians salaries and expenses account by $5 million."

The Java mud volcano that was triggered by drilling last May shows no signs of stopping more than six months since the first eruption. BBC News reports that the mud volcano is erupting at a rate of 130,000 cubic meters per day compared to 5,000 cubic meters per day last spring. The land around the volcano has subsided five meters since the eruption and is expected to subside even more as the outpouring of mud leaves a deep crater behind. Indonesian government officials are currently pursuing a plan to divert the mud into the sea through large plastic pipes and dredges, a plan which has alarmed environmentalists. More than 12,000 people have been forced from their homes by the disaster, and at least 11 people were killed last week in a gas pipeline explosion triggered by the mudflow. Residents have complained that neither PT Lapindo Brantas nor the Java government have done much to stop the mudflow or help displaced residents. According to Al Jazeera, PT Lapindo is a subsidiary of Indonesia's second largest publicly traded energy company, which is controlled by the family of Aburizal Bakrie, the senior cabinet minister of the "people's welfare."

MediaShift is a weblog that tracks how digital media technologies and techniques such as weblogs, RSS, podcasting, citizen journalism, wikis, news aggregators and video repositories are changing our world. It tells stories of how the shifting media landscape is changing the way we get our news and information, while also providing a place for public participation and feedback.

Crunchnotes is an informal collection of thoughts on Web 2.0, written by Michael Arrington. It is a companion blog to TechCrunch.

The talented authors of Oxford University Press provide daily commentary on nearly every subject under the sun, from philosophy to literature to economics. OUPblog is a source like no other on the blogosphere for learning, understanding and reflection.

Gizmodo, the gadget guide. So much in love with shiny new toys, it's unnatural.