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Neuroscience Has a Race Problem [Jackie Rocheleau, Nautilus]

By Spencer Chen
In [Nautilus]
February 15, 2023
156 views
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• Jasmine Kwasa, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University, noticed that EEG technology had limited functionality with thick curly, kinky, and textured hair types, leading to potential exclusion from research.
• Biases against physical characteristics like dark skin and thick curly hair are baked into all major neuroimaging technologies, including EEG, fNIRS, and MRI.
• Neurobiological datasets are overwhelmingly white, with 95% of the data collected by the UK Biobank corresponding to white study subjects and the Human Connectome Project (HCP) being 76% white.
• Carla Bailey, a neurophysiologist at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, says she only encounters issues with EEG and Black hair when people don’t remove hair extensions that obscure the scalp.
• Precision Neuroscopics is perfecting the Sevo clip, which holds electrodes against the scalp between cornrows braided to accommodate electrode placement, and collecting evidence that it improves the quality of EEG data.
• A 2022 study found that machine learning algorithms trained on large neuroimaging datasets that favor white populations inaccurately predicted the behavior of Black Americans.

Published February 15, 2023
Visit Nautilus to read Jackie Rocheleau’s original post Neuroscience Has a Race Problem

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Notes on Progress: Breakfast with g [Works in Progress, Works in Progress]

By Spencer Chen
In [Works in Progress]
February 15, 2023
139 views
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• Ben Reinhardt’s career has been a journey from academia to NASA labs to high-growth startups and venture capital, all in search of the right institutional home for creating the world that has never been.
• He found that academia is great for suggesting new technologies, but NASA and the tech industry are better for creating functional systems that can be scaled.
• He tried to start his own startup, but found that the pressure to show results on a compressed timescale led to worse technology or failing to meet expectations.
• He then tried venture capital, but found that the same incentives followed him.
• He eventually decided to build his own institution, Speculative Technologies, which is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
• Speculative Technologies is a nonprofit research organization that prioritizes functional systems over novel ideas, and aims to create the world that has never been.

Published February 15, 2023
Visit Works in Progress to read Works in Progress’s original post Notes on Progress: Breakfast with g

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Why Science Needs Diversity [Carlee Ingersoll, Nautilus]

By Spencer Chen
In Uncategorized
February 15, 2023
153 views
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• Wilbur Walters, Dean of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology at Jackson State University, discussed his role as an educational leader and activist, the potential of AI to create a more equitable society, and how he sees greater Black representation in STEM fields as transformative to community empowerment.
• The National Science Foundation reported that in 2021, Black representation in STEM fields totaled only 9 percent.
• Walters believes that exposure is the most important factor in increasing Black representation in STEM fields, and that AI can be used for good to eliminate unnecessary jobs and open access to academic or creative labors.
• He also believes that historically Black colleges and universities have an important role to play in driving larger change in STEM fields.
• Nautilus will donate 10 percent of all new member subscriptions toward initiatives to increase opportunities for young Black people to imagine and succeed in STEM career paths.

Published February 15, 2023
Visit Nautilus to read Carlee Ingersoll’s original post Why Science Needs Diversity

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Will CRISPR Cure Cancer? [Brian Gallagher, Nautilus]

By Spencer Chen
In Uncategorized
February 14, 2023
141 views
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• Brad Ringeisen, chemist and executive director of the Innovative Genomics Institute, is working on two approaches to deliver CRISPR-Cas9 treatment to target cancer cells.
• The first approach is to use antibodies to bind to something that’s only found on a specific cell type.
• The second approach is to use envelope delivery vehicles, which take certain parts of a virus’ targeting system to help specifically target a certain cell type or tissue type.
• Intellia Therapeutics has already shown that CRISPR-Cas9 treatment can be applied intravenously to treat a liver disease.
• The dream is to do an infusion and then monitor the patient for a day or two, as this would be the most efficient and successful way to treat cancer with CRISPR-Cas9.

Published February 14, 2023
Visit Nautilus to read Brian Gallagher’s original post Will CRISPR Cure Cancer?

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Contra Kavanagh On Fideism [Scott Alexander, Astral Codex Ten]

By Spencer Chen
In Scott Alexander [Astral Codex Ten]
February 14, 2023
145 views
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• Chris Kavanagh recently tweeted about Scott Alexander’s article on Ivermectin, criticizing the rationalist community for ignoring conspiracy ecosystems and how they distort things.
• Rachel responded to Chris’ tweet, suggesting that the article may have persuaded some people to get vaccinated instead of taking Ivermectin.
• Chris responded to Rachel, saying that his critique was orientated towards the rationalist community and what it says it does vs. what he sees.
• The author shares a personal story of how he was once a believer in a conspiracy theory, and how anti-conspiracy bloggers and podcasters could have saved him from a five year wild-goose-chase, but chose not to.
• Kavanagh’s criticism of the author’s 25,000 word essay on ivermectin is accepted, but not from him, as he has devoted his career to the subject.
• The author interprets Kavanagh’s comment as suggesting that it is a mistake to even try to evaluate the evidence, as it suggests there might be evidence on both sides.
• The author points out that there were actually thirty different studies that supported ivermectin, and it was adopted in several countries.
• The author compares Kavanagh’s comment to fideism, the belief that someone who reasons their way to belief in God is a sinner.
• The author argues that the PR argument of Kavanagh’s comment looks bad, as it suggests that doing good science is a near occasion of sin for doing bad science.
• The author argues that conspiracy theorists have the same biases as everyone else, but are slightly worse at applying CONSTANT VIGILANCE.
• The author uses the example of premenstrual dysphoric disorder to illustrate how it is not obvious how to apply the heuristic “trust experts”, and how both sides were trying to make the reader short-circuit their thought process.
• The author argues that it is important to have tolerance for others forming their own opinions, and for science communicators to help guide people through this process.

Published February 15, 2023
Visit Astral Codex Ten to read Scott Alexander’s original post Contra Kavanagh On Fideism

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If Technology Only Had a Heart [Sian E. Harding, Nautilus]

By Spencer Chen
In [Nautilus]
February 14, 2023
150 views
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• The history of the total artificial heart is punctuated with both brilliant innovation and continual clinical failure.
• In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson funded a program to develop the first functional self-contained artificial heart.
• The first total artificial heart was implanted in 1969, but a reliable off-the-shelf version is still out of reach.
• The original goal was to replace the failing heart completely, but the goal changed to keeping the patient alive until a transplant donor could be found.
• The development of ciclosporin in the early 1980s dramatically improved the success of heart transplantation.
• Ventricular assist devices (VADs) take blood out of the ventricle of the heart and push it into the aorta at high pressure.
• Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) have become a therapy in themselves, with survival rates of over 50 percent seen at seven years.
• Solutions for a completely implantable total artificial heart seem tantalizingly close, but no one is anticipating an easy ride.

Published February 14, 2023
Visit Nautilus to read Sian E. Harding’s original post If Technology Only Had a Heart

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Researchers Discover a More Flexible Approach to Machine Learning [Steve Nadis, Nautilus]

By Spencer Chen
In Uncategorized
February 10, 2023
141 views
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• Artificial intelligence researchers have celebrated successes with neural networks, but they remain relatively inflexible.
• In 2020, two researchers at MIT introduced a new kind of neural network based on the *Caenorhabditis elegans* worm.
• Liquid neural networks offer an elegant and compact alternative, and experiments are showing they can run faster and more accurately than other continuous-time neural networks.
• Liquid networks differ in how they treat synapses, and they are more adaptable than traditional neural networks.
• The team has tested the network on an autonomous car and an aerial drone, and they are working to improve the network’s architecture.
• Liquid networks are well suited to the analysis of electric power grids, financial transactions, weather, and other phenomena that fluctuate over time.

Published February 10, 2023
Visit Nautilus to read Steve Nadis’s original post Researchers Discover a More Flexible Approach to Machine Learning

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What Is Scientific Discovery Worth? [Paul M. Sutter, Nautilus]

By Spencer Chen
In [Nautilus]
February 3, 2023
149 views
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• Neutrinos have been a mystery for nearly 100 years, and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) was created to try to catch them.
• DUNE is a $1.7 billion project funded mostly by the Department of Energy, and it involves the most powerful neutrino beams ever created, 10,000 tons of ultra-pure liquid argon, and 800,000 tons of excavated rock.
• Neutrinos are everywhere, but they are so small and charge-free that they are difficult to catch and study.
• Other neutrino detectors, such as Super-Kamiokande and IceCube, have been built, but they have only managed to capture a handful of neutrinos.
• DUNE is now running about a decade behind schedule and over budget, and the DOE is questioning whether the project is worth the investment.
• The only way to find out if DUNE will be successful is to build it out and flip it on, but this raises the question of what scientific discovery is worth.

Published February 3, 2023
Visit Nautilus to read Paul M. Sutter’s original post What Is Scientific Discovery Worth?

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Three economics happenings of note [Noah Smith, Noahpinion]

By Spencer Chen
In Noah Smith [Noahpinion]
January 7, 2023
108 views
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• The FTC has proposed a national ban on noncompetes, which are clauses in a worker’s employment contract that prevent them from working for a competitor for a set period of time.
• Evidence suggests that banning noncompetes can raise wages for low-wage workers by 2-3%, and for workers bound by noncompetes by as much as 14-21%.
• Businesses argue that noncompetes make them more willing to hire and train workers, and that they allow them to invest more in creating new technologies.
• Opponents argue that noncompetes quash innovation by preventing new companies from entering an industry.
• The debate is ultimately about the choice between a dynamic, competitive economy and one dominated by big, secure companies.
• Park et al. (2023) argue that papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time, with a measure of disruptiveness (CD index) declining across a variety of fields.
• Alternative explanations for the decline include: low-hanging fruit hypothesis, burden of knowledge hypothesis, and cultural/institutional changes in academia.
• Pierre Azoulay’s analysis of life sciences papers suggests that the decline in disruptiveness may have halted in the 80s.
• Olivier Blanchard’s thread asserts that inflation is the outcome of a distributional conflict between firms, workers, and taxpayers.
• Paul Krugman’s “Football Game Theory of Inflation” likens the process to a football game in which everyone tries to stand up to see over everyone else.
• Ivan Werning’s model suggests that a wage-price spiral can occur even with falling real wages.
• Ricardo Reis argues that labor may not be the most important variable cost for companies, and thus wage demands may not be driving inflation.

Published January 7, 2023. Visit Noahpinion to read Noah Smith’s original post.

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The third magic [Noah Smith, Noahpinion]

By Spencer Chen
In Noah Smith [Noahpinion]
December 31, 2022
137 views
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• Humans have achieved greater living standards than other animals due to two great meta-innovations: history and science.
• History is about recording knowledge in language, while science is about discovering generally applicable principles about how the world works.
• Science is often done in a lab, but can also be done by observing nature. Mathematics is a powerful tool for expressing laws of the universe.
• Despite the success of science, some complex phenomena have so far defied the approach of discovering si1mple, generalizable laws, leading to the idea that some domains of human knowledge may never be described by such principles.
• Leo Breiman’s essay “Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures” demonstrated that algorithmic models (early machine learning techniques) were yielding better predictions than data models, even though the former were far less easy to interpret.
• Alon Halevy, Peter Norvig, and Fernando Pereira argued that in the cases of natural language processing and machine translation, applying large amounts of data was effective even in the absence of simple generalizable laws.
• AI may always be powerful yet ineffable, performing frequent wonders, but prone to failure at fundamentally unpredictable times.
• Natural experiments are a different tool than science and history, as they allow us to verify causal links.
• Khachiyan et al. used deep neural nets to look at daytime satellite imagery, in order to predict future economic growth at the hyper-local level, with astonishing accuracy.
• AI may revolutionize fields of endeavor where traditional science has run into diminishing returns, leading to a leap in human power and flourishing.

Published December 31, 2022. Visit Noahpinion to read Noah Smith’s original post.

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