I’ve been thinking lately about the question of what leads scientists to choose a discipline. Why does someone end up as a chemist rather than a biologist? A geneticist as opposed to a cognitive neuroscientist?
We might hope that people choose their discipline based on an understanding of what doing research in each discipline involves, but I don’t think this often happens. I know it didn’t happen in my case. Here, then, is how I became a neuroscientist.
As far back as I can r ...read more
Researchers from the University of Sydney had to get creative to see how a toad lungworm alters its host’s behavior. Photo Credit: Patt Finnerty
Parasites are nature’s master puppeteers. Jewel wasps can make cockroaches into docile, edible nannies for their young with just a sting, for example. Some nematodes convince the insects they infect to commit watery suicide because their larvae are aquatic. It’s even thought that Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that ...read more
Platysaurus attenboroughi. (Credit: M. Whiting)
There’s a concept in economics that I’ve always been a bit fascinated by called a Veblen good. The basic idea is: A product or service for which demand goes up the more expensive it gets. It runs totally counter to the normal precepts of economics, but there’s a logic to it.
For some things, works of fine art, say, or luxury cars, it’s not the physical object itself that’s desired, but what it represents. Like N ...read more
Parents may feel guilty when they use television to keep their kids quiet, or give in to a demand for cookies. But most of us are doing a better job than these octopus mothers. Scientists found them clustered on the sea floor, trying to grow their young in a warm bath that will certainly kill babies and moms alike.
The mothers were doomed to begin with. After mating, most female octopuses choose a spot to glue down a batch of eggs. Then they park themselves on top of those e ...read more
Poster for the course “Artificial Intelligence Methods for Social Good.” Credit: Fei Fang | Carnegie Mellon University
Years after it became a running gag on HBO’s show “Silicon Valley,” the idea of companies automatically “making the world a better place” through profit-driven technological development has lost much of its shine. The next generation of computer engineers and tech entrepreneurs may benefit from a more socially ...read more
