Julie

Week 4 The Physical Nature of Thoughts

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===In the above TED Talk, Miguel Nicolelis explores the potential of using electrical nodes to track the firing of brain cells. Every thought has ever been had, no matter how epiphanatic or trivial, was simply a pattern of electrical signaling between neurons. Therefore, all thoughts can be mapped by recording the information in our brains and potentially converting it back and forth, from signal to thought. Miguel worked to extract the motor messages which are embedded within the plethora of information gathered by electrical nodes and transfer these messages digitally in order to make an artificial device mimic the movement of the organism. What happens when the device sends back a response to the brain - will the brain be able to successfully receive feedback from a mechanical, man-made device?===

===He then explains how the monkey Aurora cheats when playing a video game, in which being more efficient at using the joystick means she will be rewarded with more Brazilian orange juice. While she was playing the game, Miguel was recording the "brainstorms" occurring in her mind and developing a pathway for a mechanical robot arm to copy her movements, purely by translating her brainwaves back into physical motions! Next, the most amazing part: Aurora then played the game JUST BY THINKING. She fired the same neurons, but did not actually move her arm (motor neurons are separate).===

"In this moment, the brain intention was liberated from the physical domains of the body of a primate." ===Aurora's brain became so accustomed to controlling the robotic arm that she incorporated it as an extension of her own body! A similar experiment was repeated using digital monkey avatars as the "robot" extension instead. Success! In just four weeks, the brain acquired a new sensory pathway devoted to controlling the avatar. As stated by Miguel, "So that suggests to us that our sense of self does not end at the last layer of epithelium of our bodies, but at the last layer of electrons of the tools that we're commanding with our brains."===

===So why is this useful? At the end of the TED Talk, the potential for this research to help the millions of people who have lost the ability to perform motor functions, despite their normal brain activity. The Walk Again project involves using these brain-machine interfaces to create a new "exoskeleton" for those with lesions or damage to their spinal chords. Not only will this allow those who have lost the use of their bodies to imagine the motions they would like to be able to make, but also their brains would assimilate, just as Aurora's did, to have control over a new, functional (robot) body. I believe this research will give hope to the millions who are confined to wheelchairs or unable to perform motor functions. Although certain problems with the body can be most easily researched by zooming in to the human genome (using PCR!!), we should not forget that for others, the start to potential solutions is, literally, life-size.===

Week 3

The Underestimated Intelligence of Animals media type="custom" key="23195198" width="110" height="110" align="left"

====Above: [|Elephants mourning a death] - emotional suffering does not only happen in humans!! ====

====Did you know? The separation mankind has created between "inferior" animals and "superior" humans is long established, but contradictory to scientific evidence. Why are we any different from them? Animals can reason, feel and suffer, use tools and communicate in complex languages, and in fact, certain animals have outperformed man in memory tests. See below for examples of their under appreciated intellect and how they experience the same intensity and range of emotions. ====


 * 1) ====Chimps, at the age of five, perform better than humans on number memory tests. ====
 * 2) ====[|Dolphins utilize a language with grammar and syntax, and may even call each other by name.] ====
 * 3) ====[|Dogs can predict epileptic seizures, alert diabetics to low blood sugar levels,] [|and be trained to make 911 calls.] ====
 * 4) ====[|Hungry rats that were only fed if they pulled a lever to shock their littermates refused to do so, and mice grimace when they see a mouse they know personally in pain.] ====
 * 5) ====[|Monkeys can perform estimation and mental arithmetic.] ====
 * 6) ====[|Honeybees have a caste based society, with division of labor] and [|complex dances to communicate the location of food.] [<-AMAZING video! worth watching] ====
 * 7) ====[|Crows bend wires into useful shaped tools and ravens use body language to gesture and direct others' attention to specific locations.] ====
 * 8) ====So so so many more! ====

====Still skeptical? Then zoom in from behavioral patterns to microbiology - there is even more support to be found. The amygdala is a part of the brain with which fear and other emotions are associated. There are more neural connections in the amygdala of a dog than of a human, suggesting that their intensity of certain emotions may be stronger than our own. Also, recent scientific research has revealed that spindle cells, composing the region of the brain key in emotional processing, social organization, empathy, intuition about the feelings of others, are found not only in humans and our fellow great apes but also in humpback whales. Empathy is also linked to neurology; mice and monkeys possess mirror neurons, which allow organisms to imagine themselves in the situation of another and thereby feel their pain, discomfort, or other emotions. ====

====After all, all emotions really are, from a biological standpoint, are a teaching mechanism for an organism to repeat pleasurable experiences which ensure our survival and that of our species while avoiding detrimental behaviors which are associated with negative feelings. The goal of surviving is not unique to humans, so why would this mechanism of promoting survival be? ====

====The lack of interactions and experiences the average person has had with the wide range of animals on our planet makes it difficult to judge how wide animals' minds and emotions span, without even spending time with them. Therefore, here is an example which may be more relevant: dogs. Studies evaluate canines by the four dimensions of their personality: sociability, affection, emotional stability, and competence. According to Dr. Gosling at the University of Texas at Austin, these are "remarkably similar to the four basic categories of human personality found in standard psychological tests." No wonder dogs are man's best friend! ====

====I believe it is absolutely essential to understand how intricate the minds of animals are. **Relating to sustainability**, once the value of animals' minds is realized by the public, there will be increased support for programs lessening deforestation and the destruction of habitats, which cause suffering and extinction. Instead of objectifying, exploiting, and causing suffering to the 3+ million other animal species on our planet, we should be appreciating how intelligent and emotionally developed they really are. When Emperor Penguin fathers fast for 115 days to incubate their mate's egg through a bitter winter, why do we not applaud his selflessness? Some may argue that he is not really selfless - he is simply exhibiting this behavior in order to increase the likelihood of benefiting his family and passing on his genes. But are our acts of selflessness really so different? ====

So next time you pass by a family of ants and feel an urge to stomp on them, simply because you were born into the only species on earth that has convinced itself that unnecessary suffering of fellow animals is completely acceptable as a form of entertainment, remember that [|they will experience pain] and never return home with [|essential information] for their fellow colony members about the new source of food that could have saved their lives.

Week 2 Meet Your Meat (you knew it was coming) "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." — Albert Einstein This week's post is based off of the following three article sources: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Boston University Sustainability Presidential Climate Action Plan



=Get the facts:=
 * 1) At present, the US livestock population consumes more than 7 times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire American population.
 * 2) The amount of grains fed to US livestock is sufficient to feed about **840 million people** who follow a plant-based diet.
 * 3) World meat production has **quadrupled** in the past 50 years and farmed animals now outnumber people by more than three to one.
 * 4) Growing production of animal products contributes to malnourishment in the developing world, global warming, widespread pollution, deforestation, land degradation, water scarcity and species extinction.
 * 5) The average fossil energy input for all the animal protein production systems studied is 25 kcal fossil energy input per 1 kcal of protein produced, **11 times greater** than that for grain protein production.
 * 6) According to the EPA, factory farming pollutes US waterways more than all industrial sources combined.
 * 7) Producing 1 kg of animal protein requires about **100 times more water** than producing 1 kg of grain protein.
 * 8) **According to the United Nations**, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops) now **uses 30 percent of the Earth's land mass.**
 * 9) More than **260 million acres of U.S. forest** have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals
 * 10) Animals raised for food in the U.S. produce far more excrement than the entire U.S. human population, roughly **89,000 pounds per second**, all without the benefit of waste-treatment systems.



Taking a step back from the heated ethical argument which often arises during this conversation (but hopefully won't this time), it is important to keep an open mind to these significant benefits of not supporting the meat industry for the survival of our planet. Buying meat means even more resources will be put into livestock production/processing instead of humans in need; the planet cannot feed both increasing human and farmed animal populations. As we learned in our ecology unit, the 10 % rule roughly illustrates how much energy is lost between each higher trophic level. Efficiency is key, especially in times of environmental crises, so now is the time to identify what is causing problems to sustainability - pollution, wasted energy, depletion of resources - and execute solutions. As shown by the 10 statistics above, all supported by many professional studies, slaughterhouses are a major contributing factor to myriad global issues.

Without a high demand by consumers, the livestock/meat industry will begin to stagnate in its growth, if not decline. Many environmentally green efforts are difficult to support on a day-to-day basis without devoting extra time or resources - but not this one. In fact, you can help to approximately double the world's food supply while [|saving money] and avoiding continuation of [|horrific animal abuse] simply by making the choice to reduce your meat intake. See below for info on a project called Meatless Mondays:

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At 1:48, the above video describes its #1 reason to participate in Meatless Mondays: the environment. "If every American replaced chicken with vegetables for 1 meal, once a week, it would be like taking half a million cars off the roads." Considering transitioning to a vegetarian diet or participating in Meatless Mondays? [|Here are some tips on how to become a vegetarian the healthiest way.](If you like losing weight, living longer (Harvard University's Archives of Internal Medicine), contributing to lessening animal abuse, or saving the planet... you won't regret it!)

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." — Albert Einstein Week 1 What is Love? (cue Haddaway) [|Article] The topic of love comes up throughout all areas of society, from popular culture to daily relationships. From a neuroscientist's point of view, what is love really? What makes it such a focus of our lives? Studies show that in romantic love, thinking about your significant other stimulates the [|ventral tegmental area], causing dopamine to be released into the brain's reward system. Other chemical/love relationships reveal further support for some of the behaviors characterized as being "in love"; serotonin decreases, causing a lack of sense of control, the activity of the prefrontal cortex and amygdala is lessened, leading to a willingness to take larger risks than usual, and increased oxytocin causes men to become "more emphathetic, sensitive, and cuddly. There are also behavioral components to being in lvoe. As shown in [|this study], eye contact is a major component of the facilitation of emotional connection. When the subjects looked at the eyes of another subject instead of his/her hands, they reported feeling significantly more affection and connection.



The connection between such an abstract concept such as love and neurons firing in the brain due to chemical signals is interesting to me due to how physical even emotions really are. I feel that the fact that there is scientific reasoning behind the irrational and affectionate aspects of love supports these experiences by making them more real. Potential discussion question to answer below: do you agree that the neuroscience behind love enhances it? Or should it be seen as a transcendent emotion instead of non-romantic synapses and chemicals?

[|Read more about biochemistry's role in love in this informative article!] media type="custom" key="23072338" align="center"