Brain technology in Black Mirror: Technological myths or real possibilities? Part I

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Abolfazl Alipour

If you happen to watch Black Mirror, it is quite likely that you have been scared by the brain implant technologies depicted in the show. In fact, almost a quarter of this show—at least five episodes of the current 22— illustrate the dangers of brain implants. The horror stories range widely, from transferring someone’s consciousness into a chip for interrogation to 24/7 flawless memory recording that can be viewed by others.

In this blog series, we will go over each of these ideas proposed in the show and review some of the scientific advancements that could potentially give rise to these technologies. If you have not seen the episodes, do not worry: spoilers are kept at a minimum!

This is part one of the series. The proposed technology I’ll discuss from the show is brain implants for memory recording throughout the day and reviewing (or even reliving) memories afterward. The implant is a chip called grain that is inserted into the back of the ear.

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How neuroscientists and engineers make good collaborative partners

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Anna Zhen

To treat a knee scrape, people often put a band-aid on it. Or, to relieve back pain, people may use an ice pack. While these examples involve anatomical regions that people can easily locate and treat, this is not always the case with all aspects of anatomy. For instance, to observe the brain, which is contained within the human skull, more complex equipment and precise computational analysis is required. In fact, the functions of many brain regions have yet to be determined and are still actively being explored and examined by neuroscientists today. However, scientists have made a lot of progress in recent years. Neuroimaging research has identified the functions of various brain regions, which has helped us better understand the brain and potential regions that are responsible for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease.

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Why Are There No Sunspots?

Posted on October 5, 2019 by Jennifer Sieben

It’s easy to think of the sun as a simple bright sphere in the sky, constant and unchanging; but, that is far from reality. The sun is dynamic, with many solar flares, cells of convection, and even storms. One of the easiest changes to see are sunspots, which are located on the surface of the sun (stars don’t have a solid surface like Earth does, but the photosphere layer is usually referred to as the surface). You can see sunspots using a white light solar filter, or by looking through the solar telescope at the Kirkwood Observatory on campus.

The surface of the sun is shown with two large, black splotches. Connecting these two splotches is an arc of yellow light drawn coming out of the sun and extending into space. — Because sunspots are caused by tangled magnetic fields, sunspots are often connected to solar prominences. This is an artist’s rendition of such a correlation. The black splotches are the sunspots, connected by a bridge of solar material that forms a solar prominence. Image credit: NASA/Goddard

Sunspots are dark areas on the surface of the sun, which appear dark because they are cooler than the surrounding area. However, since we are talking about the Sun, cooler means 3800K (6380℉) instead of 5800K (9980℉) Sunspots are cooler because the local magnetic field suppresses convection and prevents heat inside the sun from rising toward the surface. The magnetic field also exerts pressure, which keeps warmer gas away from the area. These sunspots can vary in size from too small to see from Earth to even larger than the Earth!

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How failure fuels science: Perspectives from two early-career ecologists

Posted on September 28, 2019 by Adrienne Keller

Saskia Klink is a PhD student at the University of Bayreuth, who is collaborating with Adrienne Keller. Recently, Adrienne traveled to Germany to work with Saskia on several research projects in her lab. This post is an outgrowth of their discussions together during that time. Check out their previous post to learn more about their collaborative research!

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

Thomas Edison recognized that failures, setbacks, and missteps are central to the scientific process. Creative and thoughtful scientists learn how to reshape such moments to become stepping stones to bigger successes down the road. Yet, when final successes are splashed across mainstream media outlets and dominate peer-reviewed journals, the multitude of failures that breed the flashy headline are rarely acknowledged. Even within scientific circles, scientists tend to dance around discussions of failures and setbacks. This mentality is not only disingenuous to the scientific process, but also slows scientific progress when the wheel to success is reinvented time and again across labs using similar techniques. Here, we provide a glimpse under the hood of how we have experienced the scientific process in all its glory (or lack thereof?). (more…)

Dead people are people too: online trafficking of archaeological skeletons and artifacts

Posted on September 21, 2019 by Guest Contributor

This is a ScIU guest post by Krystiana Krupa, a Ph.D. candidate in IU’s Department of Anthropology and Research Associate for IU NAGPRA, and Molly Mesner Bleyhl, a Ph.D. student in IU’s Department of Anthropology and Graduate Assistant for IU NAGPRA

It seems that once a deceased person is skeletonized, our society overall tends to lose some of the respect that we hold for the dead. Skeletons are treated differently than recently deceased individuals that are still recognizable. However, it is critical that we remember that dead people are people too, and deserve all of the same respect that we give to the living. We are appalled by the idea of human trafficking when it involves living people — why does our attitude seem to change when it comes to trafficking the dead and their belongings? This idea is so ingrained in our society that the law prohibiting the sale of Native American remains is categorized by the FBI under laws relating to art theft instead of human trafficking.

World map highlighting countries in the world where the most antiquities looting takes place. Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE), http://savingantiquities.org/a-global-concern/

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7 Tips on How You Can Help the Environment

Posted on September 14, 2019 by Chloe Holden

This is part three in a series on primates and conservation. Check out parts one and two here. If you want to help with saving our environment and animal conservation efforts follow the tips below! Even the smallest efforts can make an impact on primate conservation, and help combat against the effects of global warming.

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Primates: Nature’s Grounds Keepers

Posted on September 7, 2019 by Chloe Holden

This is the second installment of the Primate Conversations Series. You can read Part 1 here.

A male orangutan with flanges on his face looks off to the side. — A male orangutan https://pixabay.com/photos/monkey-orangutan-animal-face-hair-428032/

In the past year, the iconic video below has become the face of orangutan conservation efforts: a young male orangutan confronting a bulldozer as it destroys the forest around him. Orangutan populations once stretched from the islands of Indonesia through Vietnam and into the south Asian continent. Fossils of orangutan ancestors have even been found all the way up into northern India! Today, wild orangutans can only be found in Sumatra and Borneo, two islands in Indonesia. Their habitats have been significantly destroyed, largely in the past 75 years, due to illegal logging and deforestation to make room for palm oil plantations, as well as other agricultural crops. Habitat destruction such as this can have significant environmental impacts because primates all over the globe play a significant role in maintaining the health of many of the world’s forests, doing their own part in combating the effects of climate change.

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Global collaboration in science

Posted on August 31, 2019 by Jennifer Sieben

Looking back into the archives of scientific papers published in the past few decades, the majority have one, or at most four, authors. Most projects were conducted by a single individual (or a man and multiple uncredited women, but that’s a whole different topic than what I’d like to discuss here): one person started with a question or a single strange observation, and then they began studying it.

But, science (especially astronomy) is becoming more collaborative. An increasing number of papers have more than 20 authors listed; many are authored by giant collaborations, like papers from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which boast over 5,000 authors. If it seems like your name might get lost among the multitude of others, you’re not alone. But, diminished name recognition is offset by the many benefits of such large-scale collaboration.

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Dispatches from the statistics wars

Posted on August 24, 2019 by Evan Arnet

Four soldiers side by side in front of a low-flying helicopter. — The statistics wars are in full swing. *Photo by Somchai Kongkamsri and licensed by Pexels*.

We recently took a guided tour of statistical significance, in which we focused on how the media often fails to correctly interpret statistical information. But, journalists are not the only group that is tripped up by statistics. The scientific community itself has been engaged in deep debate about the proper use of statistical methodology. These debates have been so intense that some have referred to them as the “Statistics Wars.” The latest salvo was a statement in Nature, the world’s premier scientific journal, signed by over 800 scientists and statisticians calling for the end of statistical significance.

Just what is it about statistical significance that gets scientists so worked up?

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From models to the world’s biodiversity: How a theoretical biologist predicts the effects of environmental change

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Abby Kimmitt

Upon establishing the Environmental Resilience Institute (ERI) at Indiana University, the leaders and visionaries reported four main goals. The first goal stated that the supported research would create “accurate predictions about coming changes in weather patterns, water, plants and animals, and disease risk.” This goal focused on directly predicting what Hoosiers would have to face, such as economically-costly extreme weather conditions or an increase in tick-borne diseases. Equally important, the ERI wanted to create predictions about biodiversity, an indicator of the health of an ecosystem that provides countless services to society.

Enter Dr. Jason Bertram, a theoretical biologist.

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