Phantom Melodies Yield Real Clues to Brain’s Workings.

The article I read was about a woman who had musical hallucinations. She constantly heard music playing. It wasn’t as if a song was stuck in her head like we often have after hearing a pop song too many times on the radio. Instead, they were so real, the woman, Sylvia, could easily imagine a choir or marching band in her room. Her condition is rare. People with musical hallucinations usually are psychologically normal — except for the songs they are sure someone is playing. The doctors decided to perform tests such as scanning her brain while she heard those songs and asking her to evaluate how loud or soft it was on a scale. By comparing the two states, they found important clues to how the brain generates these illusions. They found that a few regions consistently produced stronger brain waves when the hallucinations were louder. The research helps scientist observe the parts of the brain that control our auditory parts.

            The conclusions of the study are preliminary, because it was based on a single person. However, the same method may work on other people with musical hallucinations. Sometimes people with musical hallucinations say that hearing real music can quiet the imaginary tunes. Researchers had already found that they could use a similar method to mask tinnitus, in which people have a nagging ringing in the ears. Dr. Kumar argues that these results support a theory developed by Karl Friston of the Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging: that our brains are prediction-generating machines. The research could explain why some people have music hallucinations, especially people suffering from hearing loss, and how to negate it.

            The article was pretty clear and covered everything; I don’t have much to say about the article itself. It could’ve provided some visual aid to understand Karl Friston’s theory or some of the MRI scans of Sylvia’s brain to show differences in the brain between when she heard loud and soft music. However, the writing was very well done.

Zimmer, Carl. "Phantom Melodies Yield Real Clues to Brain’s Workings." Http://www.nytimes.com/?action=click&contentCollection=Science®ion=TopBar&module=HomePage-Title&pgtype=article. N.p., 13 Feb. 2014. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.

Freezing Out the Bigger Picture

I read the article, “Freezing Out the Bigger Picture”, from the New York Times. This article essentially discussed the difference between weather and climate. This article aims to answer the question, “If the world is really warming up, how come it is so darned cold?” Last month when President Obama was declaring that global warming was a fact, it was hard for many Americans to believe this due to the many record low temperatures all around the country. For example, “The temperature would bottom out later that night at 13 degrees in Washington, 14 in New York, 1 in Chicago, minus 6 in Minneapolis — and those readings were toasty compared to some of the lows earlier in January.” Most people think that whatever sort of temperature and weather is happening around them is actually happening everywhere. However, these people do not understand the difference between weather and climate. Scientists refer to global warming as “global” because they look at trends all around the globe. It is about what is happening in the long run and not about the weather fluctuations day to day. With the USA only covering about 2% of the world, this severe weather only happening in certain places in the USA, really has no effect on the rest of the world. “The Arctic blasts were caused by big dips in the jet stream that allowed frigid air to descend from the polar regions into the central and eastern United States. But toward the west, those dips have been counterbalanced by unusual northward swings of the jet stream that sent temperatures soaring.” So where there are record low temperatures in some places around the world, there are also record highs in others, and they balance each other out. For example, California has been in a drought with high temperatures for 3 years. Scientists contend the massive decline of sea ice in the Arctic has destabilized a weather pattern that normally keeps frigid air bottled up near the pole. “That pattern is known as the polar vortex and its boundary is a fast-moving river of air called the jet stream. When the vortex weakens, the jet stream can develop big kinks, creating zones of extreme heat and cold.” Therefore, although many people perceive that the world is cooling due to these low temperatures, globally this decrease in temperature is not the case, and the world is actually warming up.

This article is very relevant to everyone in the world. We all have some impact on making the world warm up and it is our job to stop it before it becomes a much bigger issue than is already is. These record high and low temperatures also affect us day to day. We have been hit by these extremely cold temperatures and snow storms, which are things we aren’t always used to. If we want to preserve our globe, it is important that we look past what is just going on around us, and we take into account the entire globe because we all must work together to help the earth.

I thought this article was very interesting. It gave a very different take on global warming that I hadn’t heard of before. I think it is important that everyone understands that weather and climate are very different, and just because the weather is one way around them, it does not mean the weather is like that everywhere. I liked how this article emphasized how important it is for everyone to take into account the climate globally and to not get stuck on the weather around them. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/science/freezing-out-the-bigger-picture.html?ref=science&_r=0

Show with Their Ears: Technology Extends Theater’s Thrills to Blind Patrons

The article Seeing the Show with Their Ears: Technology Extends Theater’s Thrills to Blind Patrons by Anand Giridharadas opened my eyes to a phenomenon that I had no idea was taking shape. This article detailed the breakthrough technology of D-Scriptive. D-Scriptive caters to those who are either blind or extremely visually impaired by describing what happens on stage during a Broadway play. Giridharadas writes, “ Fostering that pleasure takes technological trickery. Because every live performance is slightly different, playing a single audio track wouldn’t work: before long, the action would outrun or lag the description on the tape. D-Scriptive solved the problem by dicing up its narration — into more than 600 audio files...an individual file, or cluster of them, is assigned to a particular cue given by the theater’s stage manager.” The article describes this breakthrough technology in a positive light in the beginning, explaining just how revolutionary it is for those who are blind. D-Scriptive allows people who wouldn’t otherwise be capable of enjoying a Broadway show to experience live theater. However, the article does details a couple of D-Scriptive’s pitfalls. One down side to this technology is its overwhelming nature for the listener; these audio files are jam packed with descriptions of costumes, set design and facial expressions and the listener must take all this information in while listening to the songs and the dialogue. 

This article described a very important breakthrough in science. One of the main goals of science is to make life better for everyone, especially for those at a disadvantage. D-Scriptive is a great example of what our future and current scientists need to be thinking about. Technologies such as these will help those who experience life in different ways and will improve the overall quality of life. 

I really enjoyed reading this article; it was easy to read and quite interesting scientifically.  It did, however, leave me wanting more information and critique on the D-Scriptive technology from the author. I felt that his perspective was unique and an elaboration on his experience would have made the article more relatable. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/theater/technology-extends-theaters-thrills-to-blind-patrons.html?ref=science&_r=0

Giridharadas, Anand. "Seeing the Show with Their Ears." New York Times. New York Times Company, 6 Feb. 2014. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.

NYU GSTEM Summer Intership program for Girls

NYU GSTEM (http://cims.nyu.edu/gstem/) is a six-week program designed for young women in their junior year of high school. During this program, you will live at home and commute to New York University and internship sites throughout New York City! You will have an opportunity to work on a small project alongside researchers in the mathematical and physical sciences, produce a brief paper about your work, and deliver a short oral presentation to your peers. You will be supported by experienced STEM tutors who will be matched to your area of interest and provide guidance throughout the program.

Apply online starting on February 1st!

Program Dates: July 7 - Aug 15, 2014

Monday, July 7-Friday, July 11: Orientation Week
Lectures, workshops, and information sessions on campus to help you prepare for the program.

Monday, July 14-Tuesday, August 12: Internship Weeks
Internship research four days per week and one campus day each week.

Wednesday August 13-Friday, August 15: Final Convocation
Program completion with final lectures, papers, and student project presentations.

Tuition Cost: $2,750

A generous grant from the Sloan Foundation has underwritten this program.

Scholarships may be available for students who cannot afford the full tuition.

For questions, contact Dr. Matthew Leingang, Rebecca Stern, or Dr. Mark Saul: gstem@courant.nyu.edu

The article entitled Written All Over Your Face: Humans Express Four Basic Emotions Rather Than Six was published on February 3^rd using materials and information from the University of Glasgow. This article discusses the research that was conducted and used to conclude that humans have four distinguishable basic emotions, rather than the previously considered six. The previous six basic emotions were happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust, proposed by Dr. Paul Ekman. Researchers at the University of Glasgow challenged this proposal by studying the muscles of the human face. Using the Generative Face Grammar platform developed at the University of Glasgow, and observing the signaling of different emotions from the brain to the face, the team observed that happiness and sadness have their own unique emotional signaling systems, while fear and surprise share a common signal, and anger and disgust share a common signal. One of the members of the team, Dr. Jack, said "We show that 'basic' facial expression signals are perceptually segmented across time and follow an evolving hierarchy of signals over time; from the biologically-rooted basic signals to more complex socially-specific signals.”

            This article is important to science because it expands our understanding of how the human brain signals certain muscles, for example in the face, and it challenged the previously accepted idea that humans had six basic emotions. This shows that science is constantly progressing and that everything we know about the world around us can still be tested and improved. This is helpful for scientific discovery regarding more complicated things as well. With all of the technology the University of Glasgow created to complete this experiment, the team will be deciding new ways to expand their research. For example, in the near future, the researchers plan to use the equipment and knowledge gained from this experiment and develop their study by observing facial expressions from people of different cultures.

            I think this article was very interesting and eye opening about human emotions. I personally did not know that there was an accepted understanding that humans have six basic facial expressions, but learning about how it was proved right and then proved wrong was very interesting. It is usually hard to think about having only four emotions when we feel so much more than that on a day to day basis, but looking at the study from a scientific point of view was very interesting.

SOURCE: Rachael, Jack E. "Written All over Your Face: Humans Express Four Basic Emotions Rather than Six." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 Feb. 2014. Web. 4 Feb. 2014.