Innovation as a Learning Process from Roger H. Shealy on Vimeo.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Innovation as Learning Process
This video describes four style of learners and how they all contribute to the innovation process.
Innovation as a Learning Process from Roger H. Shealy on Vimeo.
Innovation as a Learning Process from Roger H. Shealy on Vimeo.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Brain Economic and Moral Choices
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There were many old models those divided the decision making mainly into two separate processes. The rational goal oriented decision making process and the irrational emotion based decision making process sometimes referred to as "Animal Spirits". All the attempts that are made to civilize humans were to suppress the irrational decision making and promote rational decision making. The modernity was based upon the ascension of the rational decision making to the highest pedestal while our instinctual urges were considered bad and relegated to the bottom of the pyramid of the needs.
This two part division provided a satisfactory explanation for our behavior in the past. It also provided guidelines for developing suitable methods to train kids to become rational functioning adults. However, the recent advances in non invasive brain scanning techniques such as FMRI allow us to probe inside the brain while it is trying to make decisions. The technique still lacks fine spatial and temporal resolution but it is getting better with time and it provides a glimpse of inside working of human brain.
The neurons inside the brain are interconnected and we do not find a clear cut distinction between two types of decision making. In fact both of them are involved in all types of decision making. This invalidates the "Rational Actor" model of humans used in Economic theory. Human are not purely rational decision making computers.
We now have new disciplines like Neuro-economics and Behavioral Finance. These disciplines have shown that our decisions differ sometimes considerably from a pure rational actor. All decision are value based decisions including the decisions involving money and morality.
Here is a fascinating video that shows some of the experiments in the field of Neuro-economics showing human decision making and a neuroscience based explanation
We can not find a moral center within the brain making moral decisions. Also, we can not find 'Homo Economus nuclei " within the brain making rational informed decisions on money matters purely out of self interest. This conclusion is fairly obvious to common people but the religious authorities and the big name economists so far are not willing to accept these findings in Neuro-economics despite the mounting evidence supporting the idea that brain is an organic unit and it acts as a single unit to perform calculations leading to making decisions.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Evolution of Religions
Faith and Religion are still dominant factors in people's lives and in organizing human societies. It is difficult to discuss faith and religion without strong emotional reactions from its adherents. People have faced discrimination and have lost their lives if they happened to belong to wrong faith depending upon the majority view.
Despite all this scholars have studied religion, its evolution including the believers. The scholarly opinions are all over map because it is difficult to study religion as an objective phenomenon because of the subjective faith of the scholars.
Here is a talk by Dr. Jared Diamonds. His bio
The video
The talk is long but raises some very interesting points. Especially the religion providing justification for killing other humnas.
Despite all this scholars have studied religion, its evolution including the believers. The scholarly opinions are all over map because it is difficult to study religion as an objective phenomenon because of the subjective faith of the scholars.
Here is a talk by Dr. Jared Diamonds. His bio
Jared Diamond, professor of geography at UCLA, received the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1998 for Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. In 1999, he received the National Medal of Science. His most recent book is Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2004).He studies religion from evolutionary perspective.He believes that religions evolved along the changes in the human societies.
Professor Diamond argues that religion has encompassed at least four independent components that have arisen or disappeared at different stages of development of human societies over the last 10,000 years.
The video
The talk is long but raises some very interesting points. Especially the religion providing justification for killing other humnas.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
How Bacteria Communicate
Image via Wikipedia
The research in my laboratory focuses on the molecular mechanisms that bacteria use for intercellular communication. Our goal is to understand how bacteria detect multiple environmental cues, and how the integration and processing of this information results in the precise regulation of gene expression.
The bacterial communication phenomenon that we study is called quorum sensing, which is a process that allows bacteria to communicate using secreted chemical signaling molecules called autoinducers. This process enables a population of bacteria to collectively regulate gene expression and, therefore, behavior.
In quorum sensing, bacteria assess their population density by detecting the concentration of a particular autoinducer, which is correlated with cell density. This “census-taking” enables the group to express specific genes only at particular population densities. Quorum sensing is widespread; it occurs in numerous Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. In general, processes controlled by quorum sensing are ones that are unproductive when undertaken by an individual bacterium but become effective when undertaken by the group. For example, quorum sensing controls bioluminescence, secretion of virulence factors, sporulation, and conjugation. Thus, quorum sensing is a mechanism that allows bacteria to function as multi-cellular organisms.
She found that bacteria can effectively use chemicals to communicate and socialize. In her TED talk video she explains her research work in more understandable terms.
She is also attempting to develop effective strategies to fight diseases that have become antibiotic resistant by studying the underlying mechanisms of Bacterial communication.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
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