Schroedinger’s Utility Belt, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Randomness

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Schroedinger’s Utility Belt, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Randomness

Biology has an amazing capacity to adapt in very specific ways. From learning (and generating) entirely new facts, languages and skills, to making antibodies to take down an infection, human biology is profoundly capable of generating specific biological changes in response to stimuli that are completely novel. On an intuitive level, it’s easy to equate this with the way human behavior often solves a problem—you observe a new stimulus, analyze it, and come up with response. And that’s where intuition fails to grasp how simultaneously haphazard and immensely clever biology can be.

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An Obviously Dangerous Idea

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An Obviously Dangerous Idea

It’s not often that I get into heated debates with people on my iPod, but I found myself doing just that while listening to a recent episode of the Radiolab podcast called “Cut and Run”. Radiolab, for those who are unfamiliar, is a highly engaging and entertaining radio program about “science, philosophy, and the human experience.” For the most part, I think they do a really good job explaining the science behind a particular phenomenon in a way that is both accurate and entertaining, while handling the subject matter in a respectful manner. In this particular episode, however, they really missed the mark.

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Getting to Novice: What I’ve figured out so far about how to become a science writer

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Getting to Novice: What I’ve figured out so far about how to become a science writer

This blog’s sister organization, Neuwrite-West, is a science-writing working group at Stanford through which scientists can practice and learn together to become better public communicators of science. For the first year of the group’s existence, we have focused on writing for and critiquing one another, as a fun and safe way to improve our science communication skills. However, our ultimate goal has always been to share our perspective on scientific issues and enthusiasm for the process of discovery with the broader public, so this year we must turn our sights to more active engagement with the larger world of science journalism. As the group embarks on this effort, my colleagues asked me to offer up some advice for group members on how to get from the pleasant idea of science writing to the stage of actually sending your work out into the world for publication. A simple google search for all of the science writing that I’ve had published will reveal that I have scarcely set out on this path myself, but I have read and heard a great deal of excellent advice from professional science writers over the last year, and am happy to synthesize and summarize what I think I’ve learned below, along with some key resources that I’ve found useful along the way and gladly pass on to you.

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Making the right impression

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Making the right impression

Is direct-to-consumer advertising appropriate when it comes to health information?

My my, the FDA have been busy recently. Or, perhaps more accurately, they have been publicly busy recently. As the primary agency involved in the regulation and supervision of food and pharmaceutical safety standards, the US Food and Drug Administration may not be the most glamorous of government bodies (FDA, Miami anyone?) but it certainly has its work cut out in an age where technological advances in the generation of health data are outpacing changes in law and policy.

We’re entering a very interesting era of health informatics. We now have the technology to collect, for relatively little cost, terabytes of data on an individual related to their genetics, metabolism, gut flora, immune response, brain activity… the list goes on. The question is – how can we use these data to make meaningful choices about healthcare? And should individuals without medical training, be allowed access to information about their own health status that could be misinterpreted or misused? This is the current subject of debate in the somewhat bizarre altercation between the FDA and 23andme – a company set up to provide (limited) genetic information direct to consumer (DTC). 

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Ask a Neuroscientist: Why does the nervous system decussate?

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Ask a Neuroscientist: Why does the nervous system decussate?

Our latest question comes from Dr. Sowmiya Priyamvatha, who asks: I've learnt that tracts to and fro from the brain cross. Why should they cross? Is there any evolutionary significance for that? I know left side of the brain controls right and vice versa but why?

Your question is actually hotly debated among evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists. There are, in fact, multiple theories about why tracts cross in the human nervous system. My favorite theory, though, has to do with the evolution of the entire vertebrate lineage. It is called the “somatic twist” hypothesis[i], and it asserts that neural crossings (technically called “decussations”) are the byproduct of a much larger evolutionary change—the switch from having a ventral (belly-side) nerve cord to dorsal (back-side) nerve cord.

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NeuroTalk S2E9 Kathleen Cullen

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This week we speak with Kathleen Cullen about how our brains control our eyes and head, why astronauts get sick in space, and more! 

This week we speak with Kathleen Cullen about how our brains control our eyes and head, why astronauts get sick in space, and more! Dr. Cullen is a professor of physiology, and the director of the Systems Neuroscience and Aerospace Medical Research Unit at McGill University.

Dr. Cullen is a professor of physiology, and the director of the Systems Neuroscience and Aerospace Medical Research Unit at McGill University.

This episode can also be streamed or downloaded here: NeuroTalk S2E9 Kathleen Cullen

Ask a Neuroscientist: Motor Skills and Handedness

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Ask a Neuroscientist: Motor Skills and Handedness

Eric (age 18) asks: How different are the fine motor skills in your dominant hand rather than in your non-dominant hand? Say, if I have used a computer mouse for my entire life with my right hand, but am left-handed, would my computer mouse accuracy improve if I now switched to using the mouse with my left hand? How long would it take to catch up to my right-handed computer mouse skills?

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Ask a Neuroscientist: Spoken versus Written Language

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Ask a Neuroscientist: Spoken versus Written Language

n this edition of Ask a Neuroscientist, I crowdsource the answer to a question about the differences between how the brain processes spoken versus written language.  

The question comes from Minski, who wrote:

"Does writing down what I think and saying what I think activate different parts of the brain and neuropathways?  I feel I have an easier time writing than I do speaking, so I wonder.  

Thank you for your time and knowledge!"

 

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Your Brain on Music ... and/or Dopamine

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 My workday is full of people wearing headphones. Almost everybody on the bus to work is plugged into a music player or a smartphone. The bicyclists pushing pedals along the busy El Camino Real road that bisects Silicon Valley are also almost universally equipped with devices that occupy their ears, though arguably they would be better off paying attention to the sounds of traffic (for a summary of American laws regulating this matter, see here). Once I get to my laboratory, I have no one to say good morning to, as the hearing of my co-workers is engrossed by whatever is playing on their computers. Pretty soon, I also feel the urge to plug in to my Internet radio station and tune out the world. Once I do, I’m happier. And that got me wondering. How much do we know about the neurobiology behind compulsive behavior that generates pleasure and does the craving for music exhibited by many people around me share this neurobiology?

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