Video: Computer Program Reveals Colors and Motions Invisible to the Human Eye

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a computer program that reveals colors and motions in video that are invisible to the human eye.  They can also run the program on existing video (as they illustrate with a clip from a movie in this demonstration) and uncover a new world that our eyes are normally unable to see. [YouTube video credit: The New York Times]

Support the "Think Tank" to Give Cognitive Science Education a Boost

What is pink and green on four wheels with a big, glowing brain on top? Granted he can fundraise $10,900 by March 13th, Tyler Alterman's cognitive science education station will be. Alterman is teaming up with artists and scientists from his lab to build a  lab-on-wheels called "The Think Tank." 

“Most think tanks have Washington, D.C. addresses,” notes Alterman, a researcher at the New School for Social Research. “But The Think Tank, as a literal and metaphorical vehicle, will roam New York streets (for starters) without an address, empowering kids and adults with the behavioral and brain sciences wherever it parks.” To join about 70 others in supporting Alterman's campaign--launched on Alterman and Darwin's birthdays--check out his video and crowdfunding page at http://igg.me/at/CogSciOnWheels.

The lab-on-wheels will be built out of a renovated box truck by Alterman and a team of artists headed by Christine Alaimo, a neuroscientist with a cupcake business in support of autism research. Alterman plans to bring classrooms and scientists aboard The Think Tank to teach the research process, collect demographically diverse data, and educate citizens with sidewalk talks about how the science of brain and mind can improve lives.

Created as Alterman’s senior thesis project, The Think Tank is a collaboration between theCUNY Macaulay Honors College senior and the New School for Social Research’s distinguished neuroscientist Dr. Daniel Casasanto, who holds a doctorate from MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and contributes to Psychology Today.

After meeting his funding goal of $10,900, Alterman plans to unveil the vehicle at a public benefit, held in the Honors College's landmark brownstone neighboring Lincoln Center. The benefit will be headlined by the Amygdaloids, a rock band made up entirely of neuroscientists. Named for the part of the brain believed to register fear, the band is fronted by Joseph E. LeDoux, a leading authority in neural science, Director of the Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety and author of such books as The Emotional Brain: the Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. Other highlights include mini-lectures by noted experts and a screening of shorts from the Imagine Science Film Festival.

About the Think Tank team:

Tyler Alterman, who will graduate from Macaulay Honors College this spring, is a researcher in the Department of Psychology at the New School for Social Research in New York. The recipient of such prestigious awards as the Goldsmith Scholarship and the JK Watson fellowship, he is majoring in Cognitive Science, which combines

neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, anthropology and philosophy.

Daniel Casasanto, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the New School for Social Research. He studies how linguistic, cultural, and bodily experiences shape the brain and mind. He received his doctorate from MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and completed post-doctoral training at Stanford University on a National Research Service Award. Casasanto's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Mental Health, and by a James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award. He has authored over 50 scientific publications which have been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Scientific American. He is a founding editor of the interdisciplinary journal Language and Cognition, an associate editor of Frontiers in Cognitive Science, and an editorial board member of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General and of Psychological Science.

About Macaulay Honors College:

Macaulay Honors College offers exceptional students a uniquely personalized education with access to the vast resources of the nation’s largest urban university and New York City itself. Selected for their top high school records and leadership potential, every Macaulay student receives a full in-state tuition scholarship available to eligible New York State residents, a laptop and technology support, and a $7,500 Opportunities Fund to pursue global learning and service opportunities. For more information visit www.macaulay.cuny.edu.

Watch the video below for more information:

Welcome to the Age of Emotionally Relevant Robotics

Meet "DIEGO-SAN", developed by David Hanson (of Hanson Robotics) for the Machine Perception Lab at the University of California San Diego Institute for Neural Computation. With a face by David Hanson and Hanson Robotics, which mounts on a robotic body (not yet functional), this robotic baby boy was built with funding from the National Science Foundation and serves cognitive A.I. and human-robot interaction research.

With high definition cameras in the eyes, Diego San sees people, gestures, expressions, and uses A.I. modeled on human babies, to learn from people, the way that a baby hypothetically would. This is a major milestone in "emotionally relevant robotics"--taking the next step from A.I. that learns human movements to A.I. that learns human emotions.

Here's a link to a TED video in which David Hanson discusses the future of emotionally relevant robotics.

Today's Mind Rhyme

It was a strange thing that happened to me

So strange in fact it didn't happen at all

Twas a thief in a mirror who stole all my reason

For so many reasons I can barely recall 

--D.L. DiSalvo

Why You Should Take Studies Linking Certain Foods to Cancer with a Grain of Salt

We've all seen this scenario play out: a study is published suggesting that eating [insert food name here] increases your risk of developing cancer.  Then a few months later another study comes out, probably in just as reputable a journal, saying that the evidence suggests no such link. The same thing happens with studies claiming that eating a particular food reduces cancer risks.

So what should we believe?

According to a new study that examined 35 years' worth of studies like those above, we should think twice before believing most of them.

Researchers from the Stanford Prevention Research Center and Harvard Medical School selected the first 50 ingredients they found in randomly chosen cookbook recipes, including meats, fish, vegetables, dairy products, bread and spices.

The researchers then ran each ingredient through a medical journal database to find studies linking how much of the ingredient people consumed to their risk for some type of cancer. For 40 out of the 50 ingredients there were a total of 264 such studies; 103 studies suggested the ingredient was tied to an increased risk of cancer, and 88 to a decreased risk.

The average effect shown in each study was roughly a doubling or a halving of cancer risk for any given ingredient.  The usual suspects like fatty meats and sugar were in the "doubling cancer risk" category, and foods including onions, celery and green tea were in the "halving cancer risk" bucket.

The problem, the researchers found, is that the evidence presented in any one study was usually weak. In larger reviews that included multiple studies, the links between particular foods and cancer risk were typically much smaller or nonexistent.

Dr. John Ioannidis from the Stanford Prevention Research Center in California, who worked on the analysis, told Reuters Health:"We have seen a very large number of studies, just too many studies, suggesting that they had identified associations with specific food ingredients with cancer risk. People get scared or they think that they should change their lives and make big decisions, and then things get refuted very quickly."

This does not mean, however, that eating a lot of certain kinds of foods won't elevate or decrease your cancer risk -- it means that any one study claiming such a link is probably not telling the whole story.  Comprehensive reviews of findings over time present a more accurate story, but that's not usually how science is reported. Doing so requires researchers, like those who conducted this study, to sift through the clutter and find convincing trends, if they exist.

More of this "meta analysis" of studies is needed for several reasons, not the least of which is to prevent the public from becoming jaded about the over-hyping of individual, headline grabbing studies.

The study, "Is everything we eat associated with cancer? A systematic cookbook review" was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

H/T: Reuters Health