Crime and Neuroscience

According to a study done in 2013 by Eyal Aharoni et al., it may be possible to predict if a person will commit a crime based on brain scans.  In the study, they found that little anterior cingulate cortex activity correlated to if a released prisoner would commit another crime.  Amazingly, they could even predict how long it would be until the second crime was committed.  The study looked at impulsive behaviors during an MRI scan.  They found that the prisoners were much more impulsive than most people and were inabile to stop an wrong action once it was started, even if they knew it was wrong.    This study was important because it implies causation between gyrus activity and crime, not just correlation.  This could eventually be used in court to decide if a prisoner should be released.


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/you-illuminated/201304/can-we-predict-crime-using-brain-scans

-Kenna Sherman

Trippy Perspective on Life

I stumbled across this interesting kaleidoscope animation referencing the origins of life. I found interesting the minimal shapes used to create complex patterns. Much like how cells evolved into highly complex systems but are all built using similar building blocks. Animation

Iron Fertilization of the Ocean

In July 2012, businessman Russ George dumped 100,000 tons of iron into the North Pacific in an act of rogue science. His hope was that the iron would cause a bloom of photosynthetic organisms that would take up excess carbon in the atmosphere and that it would somehow help the salmon population. While this did cause a bloom, many scientists were upset because it is hard to calculate if the organisms are actually taking in a significant amount of carbon and if the possible adverse effects were worth it. Thankfully, George's experiment did not destroy the ecosystem. In order for there to be a long term effect, the area would have to be continuously fertilized. This experiment also showed that there was no benefit to the environment and could still potentially cause harm. But these findings have not stopped George from trying it again. Last year, he was pushing the Chilean government to let him dump iron off the coast to help the fisheries. His proposal has had a lot of push back from scientists and will most likely be rejected.

To learn more, read these articles:
https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2012/10/18/iron-fertilization-savior-to-climate-change-or-ocean-dumping/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/iron-dumping-ocean-experiment-sparks-controversy/

Body Farm Documentary

Body Farms are a unique laboratory setting that serve the purpose of understanding how a human body decomposes under different conditions, with implications for solving murders. I found this really interesting documentary from National Geographic that interviews the founder of a body farm and explores it's many interesting uses.

Plants Defend Against Snail Spit

Like we talked about in class, plants can be at a disadvantage because, unlike animals, they can’t run away from predators. Some plants have physical properties to discourage predation. New research shows that tomatoes can detect predators and defend themselves before attack. In the study, John Orrock put snail spit near a tomato plant and found that the plants produced more lipoxygenase, a compound known to discourage herbivores from eating the plant. Evolutionarily, this is very advantageous for the tomatoes because they don’t have to waste energy making other defenses and only produce what they need.

Read More Here: https://news.wisc.edu/eavesdropping-plants-prepare-to-be-attacked/

-Kenna Sherman

Pig Brains, Human Immortality?!

A group of smart people at Yale have let the press know about their experiment involving decapitating up to 200 pigs and "restoring their circulation using a system of pumps, heaters, and bags of artificial blood warmed to body temperature." successfully to keep the organs alive for up to 36 hours. This has interesting implications in lab experiments on alive brain tissue. At the same time it rises ethical questions surrounding use of an "alive" brain- what does "alive" mean anyway, what does "dead" mean? There was no evidence suggesting the restored pig brains had conciseness, but how could we measure that? What is the difference if human brains were to be involved? A short article worth a read, the original research paper has yet to be published.
I saw another titles from an unreliable source, InfoWars,  about this same research titled, "Radical Experiment that Could Allow Humans Immortality." An easy jump, I know. 

MIT Tech Review
InfoWars

Animals in Australia

It was mentioned a few times in class that humans have introduced a lot of animals to Australia. I was curious as to which animals and how many different ones were brought over, so I did a quick Google search and came across this website that includes a few of them, along with pictures. I didn't know that there were camels in Australia! I also came across this site that includes some information on how introduced animals are managed. Rabbit Hemorrhagic Virus Disease is mentioned, which is the viral disease that was used to try to control the rabbit numbers (but was not successful).