Science

13 Dec

Posted at 18:27h in Cancer, Neuroscience & behavior, Science, Social currents by
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2023

If you visit me on a regular weekday morning, I’ll probably be sitting in my usual spot in my bed, looking across to the other corner of the room. I am going through my semi-mandatory morning routine reading of the medium.com blog, but  given the tech holidays about to crash our lives, it’s all about 2023, of course:

  • 2023 Predictions: Innovations in Immersive Tech to Watch
  • Become a Data Scientist in 2023 with these 10 resources

And then – move over tech and sociopolitical tabs – here comes the real thing:

 

And to top it all off:

  • A Master Plan for 2023

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25 Jul

Posted at 18:51h in Science, Social currents by
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Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Spectacular

It was a spectacular few minutes. There is magic in watching a rocket lift off the desert floor shooting up with that thunderous power. Like it’s mocking the very concept of puny, earthy gravity, as it submits to the roar of the thrust. It’s adrenaline-pumping material.

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/gallery

And so it was that Jeff Bezos escaped earth for all of 10 min, and the human race got its 3 space musketeers. Bezos, Branson, Musk. BBM. And their muskets are these rockets. They twirl them around like their boyhood light-sabers.

Their space plans vary: Branson launches a pure space tourism business; Elon Musk fantasizes about making humans a multiplanetary species. And Bezos’ illusions of grandeur are still unknown and mysterious. The amazonification of space has begun.

But I am very confused and very, very conflicted.

What are we doing in space exactly? What is the problem we are trying to solve?

It’s not that I don’t get space excitement. I do! I remember July 20, 1969. Watching the moon landing as a little girl in my town on a Greek island. We had no home TV then, but we gathered outside the one luxury hotel along the waterfront, and I still remember craning my neck up to the screen to catch the moment. What a glorious, mind-bending feat that was!! I’ll never forget the feeling, I was hooked. Twelve years later, April ‘81, a group of us, young grad school engineering students – still without TVs – get up at 2am and trek to someone’s house to watch space shuttle Columbia take off. We cheer, fret, and, eventually, explode in thrill. Oh, the innocent days when space was about discovery! (more…)

26 Jun

Posted at 08:24h in Neuroscience & behavior, Science, Social currents by
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Photo by Andy Kelly on Unsplash

Meet Klara

As Klara tells the story, this is how it begun:

[Fourteen-year old Josie and Mother walk into the store. They look around for a while. Mother strikes up a conversation with someone, but Josie is clearly unhappy]

“But Mom, what’s the point?”, she asks. “She is great , I know. But she is not who I want!”

“We can’t keep searching forever, Josie”.

I hear the Manager’s voice coming again, and there is something new in it.

“Excuse me, miss. Do I understand that you are looking for someone in particular? One that you’ve seen before?”

“Yes, ma’am. You had her in your window a while back. She was really cute, and really smart. Looked almost French? Short hair, quite dark, and all her clothes were a little dark too and she had the kindest eyes, and she was so smart”.

“I think I know who you mean”. Manager said. “If you’d follow me, we’ll find out”.

I stepped into the Sun. When Josie saw me, her face filled with joy, and she quickened her stride.

“You’re still here! Mom, this is her! The one I’ve been looking for!”

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05 May

Posted at 08:34h in Neuroscience & behavior, Science by
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What can I say?

Two thoughts:

1 – You can transfer your brain’s electrical signal to another through a wire – it’s really that simple?!

2 – Gage’s group has put together DIY brain science technology. The goal is to promote the teaching and learning of neuroscience in schools – and at your home. You can now do neuroscience at home. Enter the BackyardBrains era: https://www.backyardbrains.com/

28 Apr

Posted at 12:56h in Science by
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This months marks the 25th anniversary of the Hubble telescope in space. And it’s a big celebration.

So how do we measure progress here on Earth?

135,000 times around the planet; 570,000 images of 100 billion galaxies from 370 up. Feast your eyes and mind on what we have learned for our investment in Hubble:

Hubble’s Greatest Hits – National Geographic Magazine.

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/

 

06 Mar

Posted at 11:00h in Better thinking, Neuroscience & behavior, Science by
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If you, like me, have spent the many years of mandatory (and optional) schooling sitting at a desk and listening to a teacher ‘teach’, and you now wonder whatever happened to all this information you ‘received’, we have good news and bad news:

The bad news is, we didn’t really learn much of any of this. Really not. It was mostly good until test time, and then it was over. Done. Basically, hugely wasted time. And immensely wasted opportunity.  13 years in K-12, then college and grad school(s), and what remains? It hurts to think about it.

Neuroscience now proves that the 'Sage on Stage' model fails to deliver long-term learning. Intensely experiential, effortful models do that.

But there is also good news: We now know exactly why we did not learn much. Better yet, we know how to really, really learn! Seriously. Neuroscientists have understood enough – maybe just enough still – about the way the brain records, stores and retrieves information, to be able to tell us, conclusively, that… the methods we have been using, the “Sage on Stage” instruction model does not result in ‘real’ learning.

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