Research Blog

Following the people and events that make up the research community at Duke

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Author: Olivia Zhu

Seeing may not be perceiving—the neurobiology of perception

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On March 26, 2014

In Animals, Behavior/Psychology, Lecture

The elephant-nosed electric fish

The elephant-nosed electric fish

By Olivia Zhu

Larry Abbott argues that sensation is not perception. In a lecture presented on March 25th to the Department of Neurobiology at Duke, Dr. Abbott, of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University, presented his model of integrated perception.

Dr. Abbott went into particular depth about how an organism can tell itself apart from its surroundings. Though we may take it for granted, self-identification is extremely important in many instances: for example, when a young, male zebra finch learns how to sing by copying his tutor, he must be able to distinguish his own song from other birds’ songs in order to properly listen to it and refine it.

Dr. Abbott studies self-perception in elephant-nosed electric fish. Electric fish have an organ in their body that sends out strong electric pulses. However, the fish also have a sensory organ to detect electric pulses from potential prey, which are several orders of magnitude lower than their own signals. Their own electric fields should diminish their sensitivity to external electricity; this interference, though, is prevented because their electricity-generating organ sends impulses to the sensory organ to inform it when it is firing. Essentially, the fishes’ neural circuits are tuned to cancel out the input they receive from their own electric pulses.

Ultimately, Dr. Abbott claimed that when you look at your friend, you’re not exactly seeing your friend: your mental image is a product of various mental manipulations of the original sensory input your brain receives. His mathematical, model-based approach attempts to redefine the way in which we view ourselves and our relation to the world.

Jane Austen and Game Theory

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On March 25, 2014

In Behavior/Psychology, Lecture, Mathematics, Science Communication & Education

game

Attendees played Regency Era card games involving game theory before the talk

By Olivia Zhu

“It is a great deal better to choose than to be chosen.” –Jane Austen, in Emma.

Jane Austen — novelist, romantic, and social critic — can now add another title to her repertoire: game theorist.

This role has been bestowed upon her by Michael Chwe, a game theorist in the Department of Political Science at UCLA and author of the book Jane Austen, Game Theorist. Chwe claims that Austen acts as a social scientist by setting up a theoretical framework for game theory in her novels. In his talk to a lively crowd well-versed in Austen’s works on March 25th, Chwe explained Austen’s uncanny emphasis on choice, preference, and strategic thinking.

map

Chwe’s illustration of Jane’s choices and commensurability analysis in Pride and Prejudice

According to Chwe, Austen does not attribute actions to random variables, but rather to careful consideration of all alternatives. For example, Fanny Price in Mansfield Park chooses to refuse Henry Crawford’s offer of marriage after weighing her options; she does so entirely out of personal preference. Similarly, a major tenet in game theory is that the individual chooses what she wants to do without much consideration past her own wishes. Chwe said that Austen places a criticism on game theory here, when Fanny’s uncle, Sir Thomas, chastises Fanny being selfish instead of marrying Henry for the family’s financial security.

Chwe also introduced the game theory concept commensurability, in which negative factors are literally subtracted from positive factors in a decision to produce a single number of utility. He stated that Austen’s language, including phrases such as “finely checkered” happiness, “two

Chwe's playful histogram of Elizabeth Bennet's quantification of emotion.

Chwe’s playful histogram of Elizabeth Bennet’s quantification of emotion.

pleasures, however unlike in kind,” and “on the whole, no cause to repine,” clearly illustrate Austen’s intent to quantify emotions for commensurability.

Finally, Chwe pointed out the bounty of strategic thinking, another element of game theory, present in Austen’s novels. Austen does not portray calculation as unnatural or cold, he says. She mentions the word “scheme” 126 times, “contrive” 54 times, “foresight” 49 times, and “calculate” 41 times. Her strong, female characters often pride themselves on their ability to anticipate others’ actions.

Chwe concluded that though there is no direct evidence that Austen infused game theory into her novels, she clearly explores the concept of choice in her work.

Finding Order in Insect and Orc Swarms

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On February 18, 2014

In Animals, Behavior/Psychology, Biology, Physics, Visualization

Ouellette's model of insect swarming

Ouellette’s model of insect swarming

By Olivia Zhu

Dr. Nicholas Ouellette looks for the organization in disorder.

Ouellette, associate professor in the mechanical engineering department at Yale University, studies collective motion in animal systems. On February 17, he presented his models of swarming of Chironomus riparius, the non-biting midge, as part of Duke’s Physics Colloquium. Ouellette ultimately hopes to pin down fundamental laws of biology through his physics research.

In the lab, Ouellette has found that Chironomus insects swarm in a columnar, teardrop shape in the center of their container. They only live in their flying state for two to three days, during which they mate, lay eggs and die. During this period, swarming affords them protection from predators and the opportunity to mate.

Ouellette and his lab have devised various methods of modeling the insects’ swarming. They found that the insect density remains constant, and that the “scattering,” or collisions of insects, mirrors that of an ideal gas over long periods of time. Interestingly, the graph of individual insect speed follows a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, even though the lab did not track the usual factors that create such a distribution, like temperature.

The most pressing question Ouellette would like to answer is which factors create a swarm—he has determined that close insect-insect repulsion contributes to swarming, but distant insect-insect attraction does not. To pursue this question, Ouellette is testing how many insects it takes to make a swarm.

Wildebeest stampede modeled in The Lion King

Wildebeest stampede modeled in The Lion King

Other animals that exhibit collective motion are mackerel, wildebeests and starlings. Some familiar examples of collective motion modeling are visible as the Orcs storm the castle in Lord of the Rings and as the wildebeests charge the canyon in The Lion King.

Deconstructing the HS Textbook: A perspective from Steve Nowicki

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On February 12, 2014

In Biology, Science Communication & Education

Nowicki's original version of his textbook, published by the family-owned McDougall-Littell. Nowicki railed against the organization of the new corporation, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, owned by people somewhere in the Arab Emirates.

Nowicki’s original version of his textbook, published by the family-owned McDougall-Littell. It’s now published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

By Olivia Zhu

Today I learned that Steve Nowicki wrote my ninth grade biology textbook! Dr. Nowicki, most commonly known for his neurobiology research in birdsong or his role as Dean and Vice Provost for undergraduate education, gave a lecture about his experience writing a high school textbook on Tuesday, February 11, through Bass Connections.

Nowicki shed light into the seven-year process of writing a textbook.  He said the table of contents itself took two years. After drafting an initial table of contents, Nowicki sent it to nationwide teacher focus groups—multiple times—for revisions. He then edited the table of contents to meet each individual state’s standards, a process complicated by No Child Left Behind. As for the actual writing process? “I could send the editors crap,” Nowicki confessed. The editors would then turn crap into “better crap.”

Dean Nowicki's official portrait

Dean Nowicki’s official portrait

Nowicki then faced more challenges. He described the struggle of biology textbook companies against the Texas state government, whose governor and chair of state education simply did not believe in evolution. The legislature ultimately allowed the teaching of evolution, mostly in the interest of attracting businesses, in Nowicki’s opinion. The opposition got personal as well. Nowicki said that in the Los Angeles Unified School District, competing textbook companies spread smear sheets about him questioning his credentials as a scientist and the quality of his book.

Ultimately, Nowicki put forth tremendous effort into writing a textbook that still stands as the biology book for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, but said it did little for his CV and didn’t turn much profit.

Still, he said he feels rewarded because he believes “each average citizen should know something about biology,” if only to be thoroughly informed of current issues.

Advice in the "Love Market" from Dan Ariely

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On February 11, 2014

In Behavior/Psychology, Business/Economics, Faculty, Lecture

ariely

In a simulation in which he doled out five dollars to every audience member, Ariely demonstrated that a small gender inequality leads to an enormous balance of power. One gender would be competing, in this case paying, for a partner of the opposite sex, and thus expending all of their resources supply and demand-style.

By Olivia Zhu

With Valentine’s Day approaching—ripe with the promise of love for some and fraught with the bitter reminder of love unfulfilled for others—Duke professor Dan Ariely shared what he’s learned about the “love market” by analyzing romance from a behavioral economic perspective.

Starting with the premise of assortative mating—the principle that “hot” people date “hot” people, and “not hot” people date others who are “not hot”—Ariely asked how the “not hot” psychologically cope with their “unattractive” partners. His answer: “not hot” people “reframe what is important to them” and focus on non-physical qualities, like humor.

Using regression-based labor analysis, Ariely discovered that the most attractive quality in men was height. In fact, for a 5’ 9” man to be equally attractive to a 5’ 10” man, he would have to make $40,000 more in salary per year. Not to fear—men were equally shallow. The most attractive quality in a woman was BMI, with the optimal being 18.5 (slightly underweight). No amount of money could make up for a woman’s BMI; men didn’t care about a woman’s salary or her graduate degree.

Ariely also discussed the pitfalls of online dating. Online dating often ends in repeated disappointment, he said, not only because of embellished profiles, but because your imagination fills in the gaps of a potential date’s personality with ideal, untrue qualities. Moreover, online dating is inefficient, with an exchange rate of six hours of talking for one coffee date.

To improve your online dating experience, Ariely suggested “going and doing stuff together,” even if in an online environment, and asking provoking questions about past relationships and sexual fantasies rather than sticking with mundane, interview-style dates. He also found that too many online “options” decreased one’s happiness by making one pickier. Perhaps we shouldn’t have so much freedom in our love lives, after all.

Are We Merely Machines? Defining the Qualities That Make Us Human

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On January 30, 2014

In Computers/Technology, Engineering, Faculty, Lecture

Picard

Dr. Picard speaks with Dr. Michael Gustafson of Duke University

By Olivia Zhu

In an age where the line between humans and robots begins to blur, we’re hard-pressed to identify the source of our uniqueness as humans. Dr. Rosalind Picard of MIT provided insight to that question during the Veritas Forum on Wednesday, January 29.

As a leader of the Affective Computing Research Group, Dr. Picard develops technologies that interpret and display emotion. For example, MACH is an interactive program that analyzes voice inflections and their corresponding emotional connotations to help MIT students refine their interview skills.

Improved sensors can inform parents and educators when autistic children and infants are under stress, which a child himself may not be able to communicate. But despite their lifelike appearances, the robots still lack feeling and experience, according to Dr. Picard.

Although Picard attempts to mimic humanity in her technology, she firmly denied that we are merely machines. She said that assembling a system—in this instance, a human—lends one a better understanding of that system; however, it does not give one a complete understanding of what makes us human.

Adding an element of faith to her lecture, she said that a person can only have full knowledge of humanity after death. What, then, makes us human? While the audience primarily suggested love or consciousness, Picard held that the defining human quality is the capacity for a relationship with God, “the very author of all meaning, of all emotion, all consciousness.” She went on to discuss her own faith, founded largely by reading the Bible.

To continue this conversation, further discussion will be held at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, February 5th in Social Psychology 130. The panel will feature Duke professors Ray Barfield, Bill Allard, and Connie Walker.

Detecting Dark Matter: the LUX experiment

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On January 17, 2014

In Physics

Photomultipliers of the LUX detector

Photomultipliers of the LUX detector

By Olivia Zhu

How far would people go to detect something that, by definition, isn’t there?

Scientists from the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment have built a facility a mile underneath the black hills of South Dakota in hopes of finding evidence of dark matter. Dark matter currently “does not exist” because it cannot be detected with light; however, it must be there, as it exerts a gravitational force on “normal” matter. Actually, it should have a rather large presence: the universe is made of 4.9% normal matter, 26.8% dark matter, and 68.3% dark energy.

On Jan. 16, Carmen Carmona-Benitez, a LUX representative from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, presented LUX’s latest findings to Duke’s Physics Department. The LUX experiment hopes to detect the presence of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), a candidate component of dark matter. Carmona-Benitez described their detector, which has photomultipliers at either end; these photomultipliers will sense light emitted from electrons when WIMPs collide with their nuclei.

The LUX experiment, comprising 100 people, is a collaboration of 17 institutions in the United States and a few internationally. How could 100 extremely talented scientists work together without butting heads? Well, Carmona-Benitez stressed that many of the scientists design the machinery supporting the primary WIMP detector. For example, the team at University of California Santa Barbara built a filter system for the enormous tank of water that shields the detector from external gamma radiation. Another team contributed four thermosyphons used to cool the detector.

Thanks to these various efforts, LUX has achieved unprecedented sensitivity to WIMPs; however, no WIMP has been detected. This suggests that WIMPs, in fact, do not exist, and therefore do not comprise dark matter. The LUX team, though, refuses to give up and is creating a new and improved LZ experiment for WIMP detection.

The Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL), based at Duke, is also trying to understand dark matter by studying neutrinos.

New Blogger: Olivia Zhu

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On January 15, 2014

In Neuroscience, Physics, Science Communication & Education, Students

196034_10150927127403780_429300165_n-2Hi!  My name is Olivia Zhu, and I am a sophomore biophysics major hailing from Pleasanton, California. I’m thrilled to start writing for the Duke Research Blog.

When I started my Duke career, I had absolutely no idea what research was. I had a vague conception of it as a drawn-out, painstaking process in which one traded in his life’s freedom for a micropipette. However, midway through my freshman year, a conversation with Professor Henry Greenside prompted me to reconsider. Professor Greenside inverted my perspective on research: he showed me that research did not revolve around tedious procedures, but rather around the pursuit of answers to fascinating questions. Since then, all sorts of research topics, particularly those with some aspect of physics, have captivated me. I found that research fulfills the idealistic conception I have always held of education: research represents the ultimate pursuit of pure knowledge, often without the pressures of immediate practical application.

Currently, I work in the Mooney Lab of neurobiology, which studies the learning processes in songbirds. Via surgical viral infection, I am examining the role that dopamine plays in this circuit.

In other matters, I enjoy forsaking my science-based identity by taking English, art, and history classes. I play soccer, run around campus, read classic novels, and discuss philosophy with friends. At Duke, I am a part of the Round Table and pWILD communities. Sometimes I miss hiking in California or exploring the islands in Beaufort, North Carolina, but I know there’s no place I’d rather be than here in Durham.

I’m looking forward to sharing my exploration of research at Duke!

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