Category Archives: Brain

For all your cerebral needs…

The Monty Hall Problem

December 2nd, 2015 | Brain

The Monty Hall Problem - 3 doors

The Monty Hall Problem is a famous statistical brain teaser that has caused never-ending debate over the past 30 or 40 years. It is based on the old TV gameshow “Let’s Make A Deal,” which was hosted by Monty Hall, and it goes something like this:

There are 3 doors. Behind 1 door is a fancy car, and behind the other two doors are goats. You first make a choice of one of the three doors. Then Monty Hall open up one of the remaining doors with a goat behind it and then asks you if you want to switch your guess to the remaining door or keep with your originally guessed door. So the question is: should you switch?

The answer is not very intuitive and sort of messes with most people’s basic understanding of statistics.

Here’s the quick answer: YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SWITCH!

Here’s the longer explanation:

The door you originally picked has a 1/3 chance of having the car both before and after Monty gets involved. When Monty picks one of the remaining doors to open with a goat behind it, that doesn’t change the statistics of the scenario. Crazy, right!?

So that means there is a 2/3 chance that the two doors you did not pick have the car. From those two, Monty eliminates a bad door. The remaining unpicked door still has a 2/3 chance of having the car, even though you are staring at just two unopened doors. That’s higher than 1/3, so you switch.

Most people forget the the host knows where the goats are. If you pick door 1, you have a 33% chance of getting it correct and a 66% chance of being wrong. Essentially what you’re being offered at the 2nd part is that if there is a car behind either of the doors you didn’t pick you win. Which is 66%.

Here’s the 3 possible scenarios that can be played to make it even more clear:
You pick door 1. The car is behind door 1. The host opens a door with a goat behind it (either door 2 or 3, since they both have goats).

You switch, you lose.
You stay put,you win.

2)

You pick door 1. The car is behind door 2. The host opens a door with a goat behind it (thus has to be door 3, since the car is behind 2, and you’ve chosen door 1)

You switch, you win.
You stay put, you lose.

You pick door 1. The car is behind door 3. The host opens a door with a goat behind it (thus has to be door 2, since the car is behind 3, and you’ve chosen door 1)

You switch, you win.
You stay put, you lose.

Switching = 66% success rate
Sticking = 33% success rate

If you are still not convinced, you can play around the the odds at this online simulation

http://www.montyhallsimulation.com/

 

-RSB

Blue Brain Project Simulates 30,000 Neurons of Rat Brain

October 9th, 2015 | Brain

FIGURE 13_Spontaneous activity v3

The European Blue Brain Project to simulate the rat brain has finally bore its first fruit. Researchers spent over 20 years of biological experimentation and 10 years of computational science work to get to this point.
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The project has been hotly contested across the science world.
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Last year, more than one hundred neuroscientists threatened to boycott the project unless significant changes were made. More than 1 billion euro was funneled into the project by the European Commission, and many scientists wondered if anything useful would be created.

But alas, the first findings were published October 8 in the journal Cell, in an article entitled, “Reconstruction and Simulation of Neocortical Microcircuitry.”

“[We] find a spectrum of network states with a sharp transition from synchronous to asynchronous activity, modulated by physiological mechanisms,” wrote the authors. “The spectrum of network states, dynamically reconfigured around this transition, supports diverse information processing strategies.”

This first simulation is meant to represent a “scaffold” on which many more layers of complexity can be added. I think it’s a good first step and hopefully this work can lead to a deeper understanding of the human brain.
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-RSB

Bioluminescent Hawksbill Sea Turtle

September 29th, 2015 | Brain

Bioluminscent Turtle 2

Marine biologist David Gruber, of City University of New York, recently underwent a mission to film biofluorescence in small sharks and coral reefs near the Solomon Islands. The team was keeping an eye out for crocodiles in the area when surprisingly, a glowing “spaceship” hovered by them in the dark waters.
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It was the first time that a bioluminescent turtle had ever been caught on film.
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We’ve featured biofluorescence on the site before in Japan and in the Maldives. Animals are known to use it for hunting, mating, but it’s still unclear why turtles would benefit in this case.

After this film was shot, Gruber visited with the local villages and found some captured turtles that all glowed as well.
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Further research will be surely be conducted to determine how these turtles acquired this amazing ability.

-RSB

Computing Cancer

August 26th, 2015 | Brain

Computing Cancer 2

Scientists have recently created a comprehensive computer model of a cancerous tumor in three dimensions. The interdisciplinary research team was constructed of collaborating scientists from Johns Hopkins, Harvard University, and the University of Edinburgh.
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The new method will allow laboratories to gain a better understanding of cancer growth dynamics and the response to therapies.

Cancer is genetically heterogeneous and thus, the response to treatment is not always uniform. Some cells of the tumor may respond to one of the chemotherapy drugs, while other cells remain resistant.
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This new modeling tool (and its future iterations) can help us understand how genetic heterogeneity arises and potentially lead to improved treatment protocols.
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-RSB

“Change is Everything” by Son Lux

May 5th, 2015 | Brain, Robot

Change is Everything Son Lux

“Change is Everything” is a new song by the band, Son Lux. The video was conceived and produced by Nathan Johnson and the folks at The Made Shop. Via NPR:

“The first day we knocked out 535 frames (out of roughly 4,000). By day three, the pads of my fingers were so raw that it hurt to move a pin. I didn’t know how I’d be able to keep going, but my wife, Katie found some rubber finger tips at Staples that helped dull the pain (though it also decreased our precision). We also didn’t realize that the surface of the foam core board would be blown out by day four.
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We got to the point where the board was so pockmarked that the pins would randomly shoot out and fly across the studio every couple frames. After that, we stocked up on a few more boards and started wearing safety goggles.”

“I’ve always been attracted to art that uses very simple materials in its execution,” says Johnson. “I love the ‘lots of something little’ approach.
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I guess, partly, because it means that you can use everyday materials that everybody has access to, which feels really accomplishable. I love the idea of seeing something ordinary and mundane transformed into something beautiful and lifelike; and it feels extra empowering to know that the price of admission is only the amount of time and energy you’ve got to spend.”

But it does take a fair amount of time and energy…

The whole video took about a week of prep work and then 2 solid weeks of the tedious frame-by-frame shooting that is stop-motion animation. I’d say it was all worth it!

-RSB

Brain Coasters by Think Geek

April 30th, 2015 | Brain

brain coasters 1

brain coasters 2

brain coasters 3

If you want to nerd out your house guests, look no further. The folks at Think Geek put together this simple, yet cerebral idea :).
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Each coaster resembles an axial slice of a human brain. In other words, if you stack them all together in the right order, you get a recreation of the brain.

I’m having neuroanatomy lab flashbacks.
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For $20, they can be yours! via ThinkGeek.

-RSB

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