Research by Tom Nichols and colleagues has been featured in the papers with headlines like "Intelligent people's brains are wired differently" (Daily Mail, 28 Sept.). The research is based on unique data from Human Connectome Project (HCP), a collaboration with researchers in Oxford University and Washington University in St. Louis. The HCP data has produced MRI data with high temporal and spatial resolution, specifically tailored to image the connections between different brain regions. In this project, they used 461 subjects to find associations between brain connectivity and over 280 behavioural, health and demographic factors. A single factor with a clear positive vs. negative axis of life factors was found to correlate with functional MRI connectivity. Factors like memory, vocabulary, life satisfaction and being well-educated weighed against factors like substance use, poor sleep quality and anger-aggression scores. While many reports in the press have implied a causal link between "happiness" and how the brain is "wired", the current observational study doesn't justify these conclusions.

Reference:

Smith, S. M., Nichols, T. E., Vidaurre, D., Winkler, A. M., Behrens, T. E. J., Glasser, M. F., Ugurbil, K., Barch, D.M., Van Essen, D.C., Miller, K. L. (2015). A positive-negative mode of population covariation links brain connectivity, demographics and behavior. Nature Neuroscience, (September), 1–7. doi:10.1038/nn.4125

An interview with Professor Nichols covering this subject can be found here.

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A new Bloomberg Business article, Help Wanted: Black Belts in Data, highlights the high and still growing global demand for people with strong data-analysis skills. The article picks out Warwick's BSc in Data Science course, along with related new initiatives at MIT, as prime examples of how some top universities are working to help meet the demand.

Warwick's course is described in the article as "the first of its kind". Professor David Firth, director of the Warwick Data Science Institute, explains: "Certainly it's the first undergraduate Data Science course in the UK. But its most distinctive feature among the various new 'analytics' courses is that Warwick's BSc develops specifically mathematical talent, in exciting ways that lead to a huge variety of immediate and long-term possibilities after graduation".

David continues: "Our first Data Science BSc students started in 2014 --- a small group of highly qualified and well motivated students who were admitted even before the course had fully appeared in the University's prospectus. Given all the public signals about demand for graduates in this area, we're expecting that many more of the best maths-oriented students will choose Data Science in future."

One of the (many) new opportunities generated by the workshop on evidence-based decision support for food security held in the department in April, was an invitation for Dr Martine Barons to join Birmingham Food Council’s food poverty workshop “food insecurity — a city-level response?” held on Monday 11^th May. Although there were half a dozen academics, the vast majority of attendees were drawn from local government and the third sector. All were working in domains which included food and poverty, often directly with individuals and families affected. The purpose of the workshop was to gather the expertise of all on the subject of a city-wide approach to food poverty by identifying the current drivers, possible future drivers, what can be learned from other places, future possibilities and strategies to realise the potential. As part of the evening, Martine was one of the participants interviewed; video here: http://www.birminghamfoodcouncil.org/martine-barons-on-taking-steps-rather-than-swallowing-foodpoverty-whole/

Martine said, “The importance of engaging with opportunities like these is to learn from and engage with those who may facilitate future research opportunities and make use of the outputs of the current project.”