No Professor, It Isn’t Obvious.

How reductive language limits students’ learning in STEM classrooms at Columbia.

By: Maria MacArdle

“But obviously, the rest is self-explanatory.” Your professor puts down the chalk, turns to their notes, and prepares to move to the next topic.

Your stomach drops. You look down at the unfinished derivation in your notes and at the QED scribbled on the blackboard. Does everyone else know what is happening here? Did you miss a step? Is this based on something from last class? You’re confused, frustrated with yourself for being confused, and mostly wondering why nothing about this seems obvious at all.

That’s because it’s not. Realistically what you are learning in any given STEM class is the culmination of the life’s work of many scientists. It wasn’t obvious to Faraday that electricity and magnetism were linked, let alone the complex math that accompanied his theories. So why would his years of work, or the work of any other prominent scientist, appear obvious to anyone else?

The language we use in STEM classrooms can have a distinct effect on the way material is learned. Beyond the clarity of the lecture, the tone an instructor takes when introducing difficult topics is something we don’t often think of, but it can have a distinct effect on students’ confidence and in turn, their ability to learn.

Barnard’s own president, Dr. Sian Leah Beilock, has done extensive research on how math anxiety affects a student’s ability to learn the subject. Math anxiety is a perceived predisposition that you are inherently inferior in a subject, which has a clear and destructive effect on your ability to learn it. One way this dangerous correlation is harbored in Columbia’s classes is in the reductive language used to discuss challenging topics. Words and phrases such as “obviously”; “clearly”; “easy”; “self-explanatory”; and other diminishing terms we use without thinking can have a real effect on learning.

When a professor describes a topic as “easy” or “straightforward,” we can often assume that everyone else in the room is at that level, discouraging us from asking questions of both our teachers and fellow classmates. Beyond this, language that makes students feel insecure can result in a pseudo-elitist attitude among students. With this attitude, we pretend to understand what we do not in order to appear on-board with what is expected to be “obvious.” In doing so, we put down those students who expose their confusion openly, or worse, we can use this language to exclude people from STEM fields altogether. More than anything else, students I interviewed were concerned about how it turns people off from studying STEM fields. Many of these students are deeply committed to an education in a hard science; however, this kind of language has made them question their ability to do so, making it even more limiting for those who don’t see themselves as “math people” to hear language that further supports an assumption that if these topics don’t make sense to you automatically, you just don’t have the mind for them.

There is a lot of power in the way we, as students, choose to speak to each other about our classes. With this in mind, we can try to avoid words and phrases that close doors to further discussion. We can make a point to indicate to ourselves and others when something is difficult, and understanding it is a non-trivial accomplishment. We can respect the scientists that came before us and the intellectual leaps they took that are in no way “self-explanatory.”

In this age especially, the last thing we want to do is discourage people from studying the sciences. The stereotype of the lone genius – someone who indeed would find these topics “obvious” – remains a leading idea of how scientific discoveries happen. However, this is in no way the truth. STEM fields have always been a collaborative effort, and any form of exclusivity, be it active or passive, in the language we choose, is counterproductive. While STEM classes do not have a tendency to welcome every identity into the room equally, it is vital to understand that a diversity of perspectives is necessary for great feats of learning to occur. Therefore, it is on us, as students, faculty, and members of an academic institution, to understand and counteract the effects our language can have on the learning of ourselves and others.

Maria is a sophomore studying physics at Barnard College. She is also a staff writer for Columbia Science Review.

Running, Shaving, and Reasoning: An Exploration of Mathematical Paradoxes

By: Tanvi Hisaria

Consider the following situation: a runner is competing against a tortoise in a race. The tortoise is given a head start of 1 meter. Now, the runner starts running. In the time that it takes for him to run 1m, the tortoise has moved 0.5m. In the time that it takes for him to cover that 0.5m, the tortoise has moved another 0.25m. In the time that it takes for him to cover the 0.25m, the tortoise has moved another 0.125m, and so on. In whatever time the runner takes to cover the distance moved by the tortoise, the tortoise will move a little bit more. It would seem that the runner can never overtake the tortoise, but can only reduce its lead. If you perform such an experiment, however, the runner just runs past the tortoise with no regard to the mathematics involved. How can this be explained?

This is a puzzle that troubled Zeno, an ancient Greek  thinker famous for pointing out paradoxes in logic and mathematics. Perhaps one of his most famous paradoxes, the problem described above led to a revolution in mathematical thinking about the concept of infinity. From the above example, consider the sum 1 + (½) + (¼) + (⅛) + …. This value gets closer and closer to 2, which is mathematically stated as “the value tends to 2 as the sum tends to infinity”. Most people understand this result as: the value gets closer and closer and closer to 2, but never actually reaches it, because you’re only covering half the distance between the value and 2 each time you add. However, considering what happens in real life, one does actually reach 2 and overtake the tortoise. This explains an important aspect about a counterintuitive concept of infinity: at infinity, you are not just infinitely close to the value, but are actually there. Thus, infinite sums have a value, and infinity is attainable!

Now, let’s consider another mathematical puzzle: Russell’s paradox. In a town, there exists only one barber, and he shaves all the men who do not shave themselves. Thus, there are men who shave themselves, and men who are shaved by the barber. But, who shaves the barber? If he shaves himself, then he cannot be the barber , as the barber is supposed to shave only the men who do not shave themselves. If he does not shave himself, then he also cannot be the barber,  as the barber is supposed to shave all men who do not shave themselves. Thus, a paradox arises, and the barber seems unable to either shave or not shave himself.

This story is an example of the broader problem in set theory (the mathematical study of collections of objects). Let S be the set of all sets that do not contain themselves; does S contain itself? If yes, then S contradicts itself, since S is the set of all sets that do not contain themselves. If not, then S should contain itself, as S is a set that does not contain itself. While the barber paradox has a solution in popular lore (the barber is a woman and hence does not need to shave!), Russell’s original paradox is not so simple. Early proposed solutions questioned every aspect of set theory: the definition of sets, hierarchies of sets, and even the nature of logic itself. Consequently, the aforementioned paradox has introduced new conditions and axioms that have strengthened the foundations of set theory.

The two examples demonstrate the utility of paradoxes in mathematics. These deconstructions of logic invite mathematicians to delve deeper into a problem and find flaws in reasoning, thereby demonstrating a good strategy for solving any problem in general: to find the right answers, you have to first ask the right questions. There are various other examples, such as the Bertrand Paradox, that have led to a clearer definition of the term ‘random’ in probability problems. These paradoxes have questioned previously unchallenged areas of mathematics. In the process of resolving a paradox, all terms of the problem are examined meticulously, which leads to the extremely precise and well-defined discipline that exists today.

Tanvi is a freshman in Columbia College intending to major in Mathematics.  She is a staff writer for the Columbia Science Review. 

 

A Roundup of Early October National Healthcare News

By Sean Wang

Trump to Eliminate Health Care Subsidies

On Thursday, October 12, amidst a number of failed attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President Trump ordered major changes to the nation’s insurance system. One of these major changes would be to remove crucial health care subsidies for low-income recipients by cutting off critical federal payments to insurers. In turn, because markets could collapse due to increased insurance policy costs or a decreased number of insurers, there is the potential for widespread disruption to markets across the nation. Some insurers worry that markets could collapse due to increased premiums or a decreased number of insurers. As a result, consumers who do not obtain insurance through their employers will not have a choice for a health plan. These plans are also predicted to be significantly more expensive, according to an LA Times article by Noam N. Levey and David Lauter.

These federal payments Trump is proposing to cut, known as cost-sharing reduction payments, currently amount to $7-$9 billion for this year and to almost $100 billion for the next decade. These payments are used to reimburse insurers for reducing insurance costs for their low-income clients. Although cutting these subsidies supposedly implies reduced budget costs, the Congressional Budget Office found in its studies that instead there would be a net cost of $194 billion over the next ten years by removing cost-sharing reduction payments.

Cost-sharing reduction payments made to health insurers could, as Levey and Lauter state, mean the difference between an insurance plan with a $2000 deductible or $0 deductible for someone just above the poverty line. A concern for insurance companies is that, under the Affordable Care Act, they are required to offer low-deductible health plans. That is, insurers would need to find a way to provide affordable insurance plans to low-income people without the federal subsidies. As a result, the viable options seem to be increasing premiums across all plans and pulling out of markets.

While Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) praised Trump’s action as a way to give back the decision-making power to Congress, Trump has received bipartisan criticism for his measure. Representative Ilena Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla) tweeted: “Cutting health care subsidies will mean more uninsured in my district @potus promised more access, affordable coverage. This does opposite.” Maine Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), a centrist Republican, who has opposed several recent GOP bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and Republican Nevada governor Brian Sandoval also criticized Trump. Furthermore, Congressional democrats Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said in a joint statement that Trump has “apparently decided to punish the American people for his inability to improve our healthcare system.” At least nineteen state Democratic attorney generals have said they will also sue the federal government to prevent the administration from taking action.

The greatest impacts come to individuals and families who make more than four times the poverty line; they could see their insurance providers pulled from the regional markets or see their premiums sharply increase. As a result, their access to insurance is either hindered or completely eliminated. While the process for making policy changes may not take effect until 2019, the implications of what may be to come are dire and must be addressed now.

Trump Administration Rolls Back Affordable Care Act Birth Control Mandate Redo

On Friday, October 6, the Trump administration released a notice through the Federal Register, announcing a major change to current employer standards for providing subsidized birth control. The official notice removes the federal requirement that employers must include birth control coverage in their insurance plans. In addition, employers can now be held exempt from providing contraception services on the basis of sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.

The Federal Register’s official summary states that “these interim final rules expand exemptions to protect moral convictions for certain entities and individuals whose health plans are subject to a mandate of contraceptive coverage through guidance issued pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” The government notice also mentions that the government’s interest in providing contraceptive coverage does not require it to violate held “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

There does not seem to be a definition of what qualifies as “sincerely held religious beliefs.” In an LA Times article by Michael Hiltzik, however, Hiltzik believes that “the new policy applies to any employer claiming a religious or moral objection to offering contraceptive coverage, including even publicly traded for-profit corporations with no evident religious or moral character. Those claiming moral scruples won’t have to prove or validate them in any way.” As a result, there would be no effective checks on companies who claim religious or moral objections. Hiltzik also notes that, unlike that of the Obama administration, the new policy does not offer a workaround to protect employees from losing their contraceptive coverage. The Obama administration’s policy allowed employees of morally objecting employers to utilize their insurance to cover contraceptive coverage; in turn, the insurers would be reimbursed by the government. This solution is not available in the new policy; in fact, there is no solution at all.

Furthermore, the impacts of the policy could be potentially far-reaching: a New York Times article details a study conducted by the Obama administration study which found that more than 55 million women currently have access to birth control without co-payments because of the coverage mandate. To put this into perspective, approximately one in three women in the United States rely on this provision.  

In addition, Hiltzik of the LA Times finds that the mandate for “contraceptives without cost-sharing sharply reducing women’s out-of-pocket spending on oral contraceptives; fewer than 5% of women of reproductive age had any out-of-pocket spending on those medications at all in 2014.” He also believes that the Department of Health and Human Services’ impact analysis gives a false impression; that is, the HHS’ analysis states that the policy change “will not affect over 99.9% of the 165 million women in the United States.” Hiltzik contends that the estimate is based off the assumption that only 200 employers would be affected. These employers, however, were not the only ones who have challenged the contraceptive mandate on religious or moral grounds. The true impacts have yet to be assessed, given that more companies now have the freedom to remove birth control from their insurance coverage with impunity. Any employer can utilize this policy change to their desire; as a result, the policy change could be severely detrimental to women who cannot necessarily afford contraceptive care outside of their employer insurance.

The policy change is not without backlash. Washington attorney general Bob Ferguson (D) believes that it violates the First Amendment as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment and provisions of the Civil Rights Act. There have also been responses from the attorney generals of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, and California, Xavier Becerra, who agree with Ferguson’s assessment. They also think that the new rules violate the First Amendment. The First Amendment bars government action “respecting an establishment of religion,” which all three attorney generals believe the motion has done. Attorney General Ferguson, in his statement suing in the US District Court for Western District of Washington, argues that “the new rules unlawfully contradict certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act, such as a prohibition against gender- or religious-based discrimination in health care access.”  In other words, the new rules laid out by the Trump administration could violate certain guidelines set in the Affordable Care Act in terms of health care access.

The impacts of the rules changes are two-fold. Women’s access to birth control is now at their employer’s discretion. There are no cost-efficient ways in which women can obtain their birth control. Not only are these constraints harmful to women, but also arguably unlawful. Furthermore, employers who choose to remove women’s birth control as a part of their health insurance plans can do so under the vague assertions of “moral or religious reasons.” Giving companies this legal precedence to deny access to a good or service blurs the lines between church and state.

Sean Wang is a first year at Columbia College planning to study biochemistry and pre-med. He is a new writer hoping to focus on healthcare policy and other global health issues. His column detailing national health care updates runs monthly.

Then and Now: The Development of Climate Change Denial (1970-2017)

By Sonia Mahajan

President Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December 2016 reflects a growing—and alarming—lack of concern about climate change. Pruitt, who was previously Attorney General of Oklahoma, attempted to sue the EPA a total of fourteen times before being nominated to head the agency. He is a climate change denier who firmly believes that human activity does not negatively impact the environment. Pruitt’s refusal to support the EPA’s basic goals of protecting the environment poses a serious threat to Earth.

There was not always so much opposition to the concept of climate change. Democrats and Republicans alike celebrated the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Two years later, then-president Richard Nixon, a Republican, officially established the EPA. While official archives do not mention “climate change” in Nixon’s original goals for the agency, they note that the EPA was responsible for researching “the adverse effects of pollution” in order to “[strengthen] environmental protection programs.” Nixon’s proposal for the creation of the EPA was met with very little opposition from Congress. In fact, the Congressman who “presented the most serious alternatives” to the EPA asked for a more far-reaching environmental protection agency instead.

Unfortunately, Pruitt’s view on climate change is now commonplace. Although climate change deniers have been a prominent part of American politics since the 1990s, it was not until recently the White House endorsed their ideology. Since the early 2000s, the GOP has increasingly supported climate change deniers. In 2004, the Republican Platform stated, “Republicans are committed to meeting the challenge of long-term global climate change by relying on markets and new technologies to improve energy efficiency.” Yet just four years later, the GOP’s attitude towards climate change shifted dramatically. The 2008 and 2016 Republican Platforms stated, “Climate change is far from this nation’s most pressing national security issue.”  The 2016 Republican Platform went so far as to say that “the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] is a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution.”  The IPCC assesses climate change and publishes reports based on research from the leading scientists in the world. While the GOP has historically refused to address climate change through economic mechanisms that call for increased government regulation, including the Kyoto Protocol, this outright denial of climate change seems to have grown significantly over a relatively short period of time.

There are many theories as to why climate change denial has grown so rapidly. Some believe that fossil fuel giants, such as Exxon Mobil and the American Petroleum Institute, are spreading false and misleading information about the low environmental impact of fossil fuels. (The former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, Rex Tillerson, is currently Trump’s Secretary of State.) A paper by Jean-Daniel Collomb in the European Journal of American Studies noted that fossil fuel companies often donate large amounts of money to politicians. In 2012, donations to Republican candidates were significantly higher than donations to Democratic ones. Collomb also cited a study by Peter J. Jacques, Riley E. Dunlap, and Mark Freeman that reported “of 141 environmentally-sceptic books written between 1972 and 2005, only 11 were not linked to corporate-funded conservative think tanks.” Additionally, Collomb suggested that while conservative opposition to climate change began because of economic policy, many Americans who are opposed to climate change now view increased environmental and economic regulation and the subsequent decrease in consumerism as a threat to “the American way of life.”

Just this year, we have already seen the signs of climate change in the form of record-breaking hurricanes in Florida and Texas and a barely-contained wildfire in Northern California. But change denial has far-reaching consequences that impact more than just the United States. In June 2017, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, which then-President Obama signed in 2015. The Paris Climate Agreement called to limit the global temperature increase for this century under 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.  The U.S.’s withdrawal from the agreement is a significant blow to worldwide efforts to curb climate change. Scientists estimate that a global temperature increase of another mere 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit may cause “runaway climate change”, leading to irreversible consequences.

As of right now, the U.S. is the second-largest contributor to pollution in the world. If we expect to leave behind a clean and sustainable Earth for future generations, we must accept climate change as a grave reality. If the Trump administration continues to deny climate change and prevent the EPA from implementing environmentally sound policies, the effects of global warming and climate change will certainly become even more pronounced. Only time will tell if the EPA will one day return to its original purpose of protecting the environment. If it does not, we run the risk of causing climate change that can’t be stopped.

Sonia Mahajan is a Columbia College freshman studying sustainable development and political science. She is a staff writer for the Columbia Science Review. 

For the Love of Contrast // Part 2: LG’s Road to OLED Authority

By: Eli Epperson
Edited by: Helena Rios

In South Korea, a competition for television display dominance is raging. Its competitors, Samsung and LG, lead the world in the production of this pervasive technology field, which, by the year 2022, is expected to be worth close to $170 billion [1]. As mentioned in the prequel of this article, “Part 1: The OLED Explained,” in the market of display technology, the most popular type of television is the familiar LCD or liquid-crystal display. When it comes to LCD manufacturing, Samsung is the clear champion, comprising approximately 21% of the market, while its competitor LG controls only around 12% [2]. However, although the LCD may be the most popular type of television display, there is one emerging technology in particular that touts a number of advantages over it: the organic light-emitting diode display. While LG is lagging behind its rival in terms of LCD production, the company has emerged as the leader in the field of OLED display technology. The tech giant’s success in this field comes by virtue of an unexpectedly effective secret weapon, in the form of a number of electronics-based patents acquired years ago. With the numerous advantages that OLED displays have over LCDs, LG may now be in the position to gain control of the lucrative television market.

Despite the relatively recent debut of the OLED television, the technology behind these ultra-thin displays dates back to the late 1980s [3]. Chemists Ching W. Tang and Steven Van Slyke developed OLED technology at the Eastman Kodak company twenty years before the release of the world’s first OLED television in 2007 [4]. In 2003, Kodak developed the technology into one of the earliest consumer products to have an OLED screen: the EasyShare LS633 digital camera, which featured a 2.2 inch OLED display. Also at this time, Kodak had begun to see declines in sales due to consumers’ preference for digital cameras over film ones. This shift in preference represented a kind of bittersweet dilemma for the company, since Kodak not only pioneered the first digital camera but also held a major stake in the success of film cameras, a longtime moneymaker [5]. While the market for OLED televisions was coming into focus, the camera company decided to set its sights elsewhere, given the tremendous investment that developing an OLED television would cost. In 2009, Kodak finally sold off its OLED intellectual property to LG in the form of approximately 2,200 patents and patent applications [6]. Many people thought nothing of this transaction. In fact, LG’s senior director of communications, Ken Hong, admitted that when LG bought the rights to Kodak’s OLED technology, “nobody else thought that was going to be a successful business” [7]. But the deal turned out to be incredibly fruitful for LG. This success did not stop the company from filing a lawsuit against Kodak a few years later, claiming that a number of Kodak’s patents actually belonged to one of LG’s subsidiaries. In the same year that the iconic camera corporation filed for bankruptcy [5], the two companies agreed on a settlement that cost Kodak three of the disputed patents [6].

For LG, the $100 million dollar price tag for Kodak’s patent treasure trove (plus some legal fees) was a small price to pay, considering this deal later drove Samsung to halt production of their own OLED televisions[7] [8]. The reason behind LG’s success lies in its development of Kodak’s white OLED technology, which offers a number of advantages over Samsung’s approach. Samsung’s OLED televisions used to employ a technique called direct emission, in which every pixel featured three subpixels, each emitting a separate primary color – red, green, or blue. The physics behind OLED pixels results in a different brightness associated with each primary color. For example, blue OLEDs pose a particular challenge, as they are not as bright as red or green pixels of the same size. To combat this, Samsung’s televisions featured blue subpixels that were larger than their red and green neighbors, improving the brightness output of the pixel as a whole. This more complicated OLED patterning scheme, among other factors, made Samsung’s direct emission displays more difficult to manufacture than LG’s displays, which used a method called WRGB. Pixels of WRGB displays use a single white OLED together with color filters producing the red, green, and blue subpixels. In addition, a fourth non-filtered subpixel emits white light, making WRGB televisions brighter than their direct emission counterparts [I]. But what was truly pivotal for LG’s success was the fact that displays featuring the WRGB design were half as expensive to manufacture as were Samsung’s direct emission models. Behind by years of research and losing money to their rival, Samsung quietly abandoned OLED televisions in 2014 [8].

While Kodak’s WRGB technology helped establish LG as the leader in OLED televisions, Samsung still enjoys a comfortable lead in LCD production. Sure, displays made with OLEDs beat everything else on the market in terms of key factors like picture quality, owing to their high contrast ratio, but LCDs remain hundreds of dollars cheaper, an appeal that most consumers cannot ignore. For you tech enthusiasts, the only affordable organics need not be the veggies at your local farmer’s markets though. Many smaller devices like smartphones, cameras, and laptops also feature OLED displays. Rest assured, LG will continue to develop groundbreaking OLED research to one day herald a new age of affordable OLED televisions. For the love of contrast, let’s hope that day comes soon.

References

<http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/display.asp> [1]

<https://www.statista.com/statistics/267095/global-market-share-of-lcd-tv-manufacturers/> [2]

– <https://www.oled-info.com/oled-pioneers-ching-tang-and-steven-van-slyke-were-inducted-2013-consumer-electronics-hall-fame> [3]

<http://www.oled-info.com/sony-xel-1> [4]

<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/the-moment-it-all-went-wrong-for-kodak-6292212.html> [5]

<http://www.oled-info.com/global-oled-technology-says-they-prevailed-kodak-lawsuit-assigned-3-more-patents-and-pioneers-oled> [6]

<https://www.cnet.com/news/lg-says-white-oled-gives-it-ten-years-on-tv-competition/> [7]

<http://blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-stops-making-oled-tvs-due-lgs-dominance/> [8]

Dinosaurs Reclassified

By: Eva Sophia Blake
Edited by: Kim Chia 

For over a century, dinosaurs have been classified using the system created by the paleontologist Harry Seeley. Matthew G. Baron, University of Cambridge Ph.D candidate, however, hopes to redefine and reconfigure how scientists organize dinosaurs.  His work has been supported and encouraged by David B. Norman and Paul M. Barrett, his two advisors. Seeley’s system, created in 1888, divided dinosaurs into two main categories: the bird-hipped (Orinthischia) and the lizard-hipped (Saurischia). The bird-hipped includes armored dinosaurs like the stegosaurs while the lizard-hipped category describes dinosaurs such as the tyrannosaurs. The two groups were believed to be completely distinct, without a shared ancestor between them, till around 1980. This assumption formed how paleontologists understood the evolution of dinosaurs: the division illustrated to them evolutionary pathways.

Baron’s new system calls much of the work done on dinosaurs into question. Baron’s study originates in what is called a “sister-group” relationship between a group in each main category, indicating that the two categories are not as distinct as was previously believed. In light of this discovery, Baron suggests that the two categories should be replaced by different ones. Once Baron realized that the distinction was not as certain, he spent the following three years studying dinosaur fossils. His goal was to find better features to distinguish between dinosaurs that would eventually create a new family tree.

After researching, Baron came up with 457 potential characteristics to organize the species through a wide-ranging evaluation of dinosaurs in both time and space. Overall, 74 different groups were scored for the diagnostic features that Baron had identified. This data was than analyzed using the computer program TNT 1.5-beta to create and evaluate 32 billion potential family trees. TNT lends weight to Baron’s system because of its advanced statistical ability. Baron’s recently published study “A new hypothesis of dinosaur relationships and early dinosaur evolution” focuses on the family tree evaluated as most accurate.

This classification connects the bird-hipped Orinthischia category with the sub-category of Saurischia called Theropods. Because of this connection, Baron suggests two different main categories: the Orinthoscelida (a combination of the Orinthischia and theropods) and the Saurischia. This new distinction greatly changes the make-up of the family tree, suggesting a very different evolutionary story. This new classification indicates that the Orinthischia and the theropoda evolved at a similar point in time and from a joint ancestor. Based on this new information, dinosaurs are suggested to have existed about 247 million years ago during the middle Triassic era. The new tree also implies that the original dinosaurs were omnivorous and had grasping hands—a distinct evolutionary advantage primarily seen in humans. This trait explains dinosaurs’ success in comparison to other species in the Jurassic era.

Additionally, while many have previously assumed dinosaurs emerged in South America, the new classification suggests that the Northern Hemisphere was an equally likely origin. Baron suggests Scotland as a potential origin point because the creature Saltopus elginesis has many similar features in common with the early dinosaur Baron has recreated.

While the new classification is statistically supported as the most likely because of the use of the TNT programming, many paleontologists remain unconvinced. It is unclear whether the scientific community will adopt Baron’s potential system or continue to use the one that has existed for over a century. Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago who has been a proponent and modern adaptor of Seeley’s original classification system, does not believe the new system has any significant contributions because of its lack of new features and scoring.

Baron responded to this criticism by noting that rather than reconfiguring the characteristics, he simply created a classification that was unbiased towards the historical one. Specifically, the system TNT does not have the same information of preexisting systems that a scientist would. Baron’s article has certainly laid the groundwork for more conversation about classification. What remains to be seen is how other paleontologists will respond and how new data may eventually change the proposal.

The Role of Our Immune System in Alzheimer’s

By: Mariel Corinne Tai Sander

Edited by: Kim Chia

In 1907, at a conference in Tubingen, Dr. Alois Alzheimer described a curious disease characterized by “numerous small miliary foci…found in the superior layers…the storage of a peculiar material in the cortex” [1]. While researchers now know what those “small military foci” are—plaques of beta amyloid proteins in the brain—the reason why they form and lead to the neurodegenerative disease known as Alzheimer’s remains a mystery.

Researchers at Harvard University have found a possible explanation for why these plaques form. Their theory is connected to the workings of our immune systems. They have found that as part of the innate immune system, amyloid proteins are present throughout the body and trap foreign microbes. Researchers are proposing that the same thing happens in the brain—when a microbe enters the brain via the blood-brain barrier, the immune system sends in beta amyloid proteins to stop the pathogen. This accumulation of protein forms the characteristic plaques of Alzheimer’s [2]. This theory implies that the plaques might be caused by infections in the brain.

Normal v. Afflicted with Alzheimer’s

Researchers have found this hypothesis consistent with results from testing in individual neurons, yeast, roundworms, fruit flies, and mice. In one experiment the researchers inserted Salmonella bacteria into the brains of two groups of young mice: one that produced beta amyloid proteins and one that did not. They found that the brains of the mice were filled with beta amyloid plaques, engulfing the bacterium. The mice who couldn’t produce the protein had no plaques – but they also died more quickly from the infection [2].

This model of Alzheimer’s is further complicated by a study at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Michal Schwartz and her team gave mice PD-1 blockers, which kept their immune systems active and halved the amount of amyloid beta, then administered cognitive tests. They found that after the blockers, the mice scored better than they had before [3]. What these two studies show is that development of Alzheimer’s disease is intrinsically dependent on the immune system. However, it’s not clear whether it’s a result of an overactive or an underactive immune system. The study at Harvard would suggest it is the former – that is, an overproduction of amyloid beta proteins in the brain. Michal Schwartz’s, on the other hand, suggests the opposite – the immune system could play an essential role in clearing the brain of these protein clumps. 

Either way, the idea that the cause – and thus the cure! – for Alzhiemer’s lies within our own immune systems is a groundbreaking one.

References

[1] http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/11/02/alois-alzheimers-first-case/

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/health/alzheimers-disease-infection.html?_r=0

[3] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/immunotherapy-drugs-used-for-cancer-could-also-fight-alzheimers/

The Missing Piece of Misinformation

By: Audrey Lee
Edited by: Helena Rios

Every day, over three billion people lose themselves in a virtual reality. Most of them will send a Snap to friends, like a selfie on Instagram, or react angrily to a rant on Facebook. They return to the physical world only so they may attend to necessities and responsibilities such as school, work, and sleep, before resuming their trance in cyberspace.

Social media platforms are becoming increasingly popular as they enlarge and accelerate how we communicate. Since the launch of Facebook live a year ago, many of us have come to rely on the site to receive up-to-the-minute news and to watch live streams of monumental events. While many find Facebook to be a convenient and efficient news source, the ongoing controversy over its dissemination of fake news suggests that it may not be the most credible. The company is currently under fire for allowing misinformation to spread and for consequently misguiding its users’ perspectives and decisions.

Although many people claim that it is Facebook’s responsibility to correct this issue, the real solution lies not within the company’s developers or algorithms, but within us.

A key factor in how we develop as socially conscious individuals is how we experience, observe and reflect on real-world situations. As our awareness shifts from atoms to bits, we lose touch with our physical world and allow our consciousness to be influenced by our interactions in cyberspace. It is not surprising that the Internet and social media currently play dominant roles in our lives. When I received my first smartphone, I was instantly awestruck by the freedom I had to access the Internet from anywhere at any time. I no longer had to wait until I was in front of a computer to check my emails and read updates on world news. Now, I could receive reports and exchange messages on a connected mobile device almost immediately. Even when it comes to learning, much of what I wish to know comes from “just Googling it” quickly online.

While the Internet has made it more efficient for us to search for answers in the vast sea of information, it has also made us adopt a more shallow way of thinking. Instead of delving deeply into topics and learning from experience, we often read the first few articles in a search engine and simply accept that their authors know more than we do. Particularly in areas with which we are not that familiar, we simply believe whatever we read on what looks like a credible source. This shallow surfing in place of contemplative thinking has come to dominate not only our Internet searches but also our understanding of ourselves.

As social media networks pervade our daily lives, they not only affect the way we interact with others but also change the way we think and view ourselves in virtual and physical reality. In our lives on the screen, there are no limits to how many profiles we can create and how many background stories we can fabricate. Many people also tailor the descriptions of themselves to whatever would be popular and socially desirable online. For instance, Instagram posts can be easily rendered to attract more followers and headlines on digital news articles can be sensationalized to attract greater readership. While exaggerated media are not unique to the Internet, our online social networks have made it much easier to create and spread fake news like wildfire.

These virtual identities together with our constant contact with misinformation shape the ways we think about ourselves in real life. Self-identity, which used to be built upon real-life experiences, observations, and deep thinking, is now based on virtual experiences that can be rife with false misinformation and shallow understandings.

Although there is a tendency to point fingers at mainstream media platforms like Facebook and TV networks for media bias, it is important to realize that the onus is not on them to reform the way they operate. All social media and news media companies are simply doing what they’re meant to do: moving information across a global network regardless of whether the information is true or false. Ultimately, it is up to us as users to determine how much we allow our perceptions to be affected by these media. It is impossible for us to avoid the pervading effects of social media and the Internet in our society. However, we can balance their imact by maintaining a boundary between our internal awareness and external virtual influences.

In the Internet Age, where information and misinformation can be easily dispersed, it is up to our self-consciousness to determine the stability of our inner lives.

References

http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/04/introducing-new-ways-to-create-share-and-discover-live-video-on-facebook/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/12/facebook-2016-problems-fake-news-censorship

http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/10/did-the-pope-endorse-trump/

For the Love of Contrast // Part 1: The OLED Explained

By: Eli Zachary Epperson
Edited by: Helena Veronique Rios

For more than a decade, the tech giants Samsung and LG have ruled the market for television displays. While the most popular television technology is the familiar liquid-crystal display, or LCD, the organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, display has emerged as a notable competitor [0]. In fact, OLED displays offer a number of advantages over LCDs, leading to superior picture quality. At one time, both Samsung and LG produced OLED televisions. In 2013, however, Samsung ceased production of OLED dislpays, leaving its competitor as the undisputed champion of the OLED TV market [1]. But if OLED displays are actually better than LCDs, why did Samsung run away from it, as if it were a flaming Galaxy Note 7? I will recount the events that brought LG to the forefront of the OLED television market in a following blog post. First, however, the more obvious questions must be addressed: in what ways are OLED displays better than LCDs? What is the underlying science behind the OLED’s operation? And how do you even pronounce “OLED”?

This last question does not have a clear answer, as there is no consensus on how the acronym is pronounced. Therefore, readers may take their pick between the two most common pronunciations: “oh-led” and “oh-el-ee-dee.” As for the science behind them, they function in a way that is similar to traditional light-emitting diodes.

Traditional LEDs are formed by joining two semiconductor materials, each having different electrical properties due to the addition of other elements or compounds. A good example of these two materials are n-type silicon and p-type silicon, where “n” and “p” stand for “negative” and “positive.” The silicon referred to as “n-type” contains elements or compounds that have more electrons (negative charge carriers) available for chemical bonds than pure silicon does. The other material is called “p-type,” and it contains elements or compounds that have fewer bonding electrons than pure silicon does. In p-type materials, where there could have been an electron there is instead the absence of an electron. This absence is referred to as a hole, and it acts much like a positive charge carrier itself. In other words, when compared to pure silicon, n-type materials have a higher concentration of electrons, while p-type materials have a higher concentration of holes. When the two are placed adjacent to one another, electrons are able to “fill” holes in a process called recombination. Extra energy associated with the recombination process is released as light.

In OLEDs, the functions of n-type and p-type materials are played by organic molecules (here “organic” just means containing carbon). A simple OLED consists of the following parts stacked on top of one another:

A substrate acts as the supporting layer of the OLED. It can be made of a number of materials like plastic or glass.

An anode is a positively charged electrode through which current enters a device like our OLED stack. It can be thought of as the source of holes in an OLED circuit.

A conductive layer consists of organic molecules that transport the holes from the anode to the emissive layer.

An emissive layer is where electrons and holes recombine to generate light. It transports electrons and consists of organic molecules.

A cathode is a negatively charged electrode and acts as the source of electrons in the OLED circuit [2].

When a voltage is applied to the stack, the generated light passes through filters that determine the color of the pixels. When no voltage is applied, the pixel is completely off. Liquid crystal displays make use of a similar light-filtering scheme, but instead use a backlight of LEDs that light the entire screen when the television is on. Rather than turning off pixels by turning off the LEDs of the backlight, LCDs block unwanted light through the process of polarization. Herein lies the difference in picture quality: when an OLED pixel is off, it appears completely black, while an LCD pixel still “leaks” light from its backlight. This means that OLED displays have higher contrast than LCDs (and any other display, for that matter). When it comes to determining picture quality, contrast is the most important factor. The higher the contrast, the sharper the images appear on the screen [3] [4]. While high contrast is the true game-changer, OLED displays offer a number of other advantages. For instance, since there is no light polarization involved, they have a wider viewing angle than LCDs. Because they do not need a backlight, they also draw less power. In addition, they are lighter and thinner than LCDs, and can even be used to make flexible and transparent displays [5]!

The advantages of OLEDs are numerous. Unfortunately, because the OLED is a relatively new television display technology, the cost to produce OLED televisions is greater than that associated with the popular LCD, leading to comparatively higher-priced devices. But the cost is not the only factor that caused Samsung to shy away from OLED TVs. The true turning-point in the OLED game, to be discussed in a following blog post, came as a result of an unexpectedly lucrative deal on LG’s part that allowed the company unrestricted access to a cutting-edge type of OLED.

Reference:

-<https://lcdtvbuyingguide.com/top10.shtml&gt; [0]

-<http://www.consumerreports.org/lcd-led-oled-tvs/will-there-be-a-samsung-oled-tv-in-2018-/&gt; [1]

-<http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/oled1.htm&gt; [2]

-<https://www.cnet.com/news/led-lcd-vs-oled/&gt; [3]

-<http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/23843/what-is-the-difference-between-a-soft-and-sharp-image&gt; [4]

-<http://www.oled-info.com/oled-tv&gt; [5]

 

“One Pig Heart Please”: Xenotransplants Take A Step Forward

By: Tiago Palmisano
Edited by: Bryce Harlan

Xenotransplantation. The first time I heard this word I assumed it was something from a sci-fi show. Technology akin to the faster-than-light hyperdrive or the gravitational tractor beam, perhaps. Little did I know that xenotransplantation is not only very real, but also on the frontier of medicine. But enough introductions, I’ll get to the point. Xenotransplantation refers to any procedure in which the tissues or cells of one species are transplanted into another. For instance, the brain of a dog into a cat or (much more realistically) the use of pig skin on a burn patient. But what is the use of xenotransplantation? After all, we seem to be proficient at transplanting organs between humans.

Well, the importance of developing this technique stems from the lack of available human organs for the overabundance of people in need of a transplant. At the time I am writing this article 121,177 people in the U.S are waiting for a lifesaving organ donation, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. That number shrinks considerably if we can figure out a way to safely put the organs of animals into humans. Pigs, in particular, are the focus of current xenotransplantation research due to their high supply and the fact that their anatomy is relatively similar to ours. Imagine if a cardiac surgeon could simply order up a pig heart every time a patient went into heart failure.

Basic sketch of pig-to-baboon heart xenotransplantation. A combination of genetic modification and drug therapy is necessary to prevent rejection. via Stanford HPS

Amazingly, one team of researchers has taken some considerable steps towards that exact goal. They managed to transplant pig hearts into five baboons, and the primates survived for on average 298 days. The remarkable aspect of this experiment is not that the pig hearts were able to effectively pump blood in a baboon body. Rather, the difficult part is preventing the recipient from rejecting the porcine organ. Rejection occurs when the immune system of the host recognizes the new tissue as a foreign and initiates an attack, damaging the transplant and rendering it useless. Organ rejection is a problem even between humans, so the task of getting one species to accept the tissue from another species only complicates the issue.

In this study, published at the beginning of April, the researchers used some clever techniques to increase the chance that the baboons would accept the hearts. First they genetically modified the pigs, decreasing the susceptibility of porcine tissues to immune response. Then, once the xenotransplant was complete the baboons were given a drug regimen to help regulate their immune system. Using this strategy, one of the primates was able to live with a pig heart for over two and a half years. This provides substantial evidence that long-term survival of a heart xenotransplant is possible, and the time may be soon approaching when actual xenotransplant surgeons are in hospitals throughout the world.

While baboons were used here to serve as approximations for humans, the use of porcine anatomy in humans is not a new idea. The bioartifical liver device (BAL) uses pig liver cells and functions as a temporary dialysis machine for patients with acute liver failure. In this way, the pig liver cells either help the human liver recover or keep the patient alive until a transplant becomes available. Additionally, pig brain cells (neurons) have been used in humans with Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease. It seems as though scientists are slowly finding ways to make the pieces fit. Although the idea of pig parts in human bodies may be off-putting to some, xenotransplants have the potential to make the organ waiting list a thing of the past. And that’s an idea that everyone can enjoy.