World Science Festival | Sunday, May 31 "What Is Sleep?" and "To Explain the World"

Today was the last day of the "World Science Festival" and I attended two events which show the multifaceted aspects of the science showcased in these five-day marathon of the WSF.

The first event "What Is Sleep" took place at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, where Alan Alda introduced the five panelists, sleep expertsL Mary Carskadon, Paul Shaw, Robert Stickgold, Matthew Wilson. Each panelist is a researcher in different areas of sleep, and mainly with totally different subjects ranging from rats to fruit flies and...humans. While the experiments were understandibly very different, given the diversity of the subjects, the conclusions were similar: sleeping is crucial to the brain functioning and can help to restore memories and maximize our learning potential. The recommendations presented by the panelist, were quite inline with common sense: follow the circadian rhythms and slow-down before going to sleep.The aim was the detect recommendations presented by the panelist, were quite inline with common sense: follow the circadian rhythms and slow-down before going to sleep.
   The centerpiece of the event was the live video observation of human subject, sleeping off-stage whose brainwaves were tracked by EEG. wired-up person sleeping offstage. EEG is a common tool to detect sleep activity as shown by studies ongoing for several years this experiments was not really adding to the educational and informational intent.
     My other critique to this event, otherwise enjoyable and educational, was the lack of attention to sleeping disorders and problems, which are experienced by a large percentage of the world population; a summary of statistics and studies can be found in a webpage from the Center of Disease Control. Even if the event duration was only one hour, some time could been allocated to outline the main sleep problems and disorders as well as the treatment options and other related resources. Every healthy person is aware of the importance of adequate sleep, but how to achieve it often outside our control -or our free will, just to mention another popular theme of the WSF, To overcome the lack of information from the WSF event, below are a few useful sites:

• http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/sleepdisorders.html
• http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/understanding_sleep.htm
• http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-disorders-problems

Screenshot of a polysomnographic record (30 seconds) representing Rapid Eye Movement Sleep. EEG highlighted by red box. Eye movements highlighted by red line. Retrieved on June 1 2015 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream#/media/File:Sleep_EEG_REM.png

The other event concluding the five-day WSF marathon was "To Explain the World: a Conversation with Steven Weinberg", moderated by Peabody Award-winning journalist John Hockenberry and hosted by the New-York Historical Society. The conversation was based on the latest book “To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science" written by the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg, who also holds the Regental Chair in Science at the University of Texas at Austin.
    Weinberg stated at the beginning of the conversation that "the standard model is not the end of the story" and introduced some of the differences between the classical Greek science and the Hellenistic practitioners, with mentions of Democritus, pre-Socratics, Plato's Academy, Aristotle. Some emphasis was to given to the work of Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 – c. 230 BC), credited with the first heliocentric model. 
   The conversation was inspiring: Weinberg emphasized the importance of the unity of science and shared more personal details on his research activities. Weinberg, a New York City native and graduate of Bronx High School of Science, discovered the power of mathematics while understanding the equations behind the catenary of a bridge.  He became involved in research at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, which shaped his later studies in particle physics and quantum gravity. He was aware a Nobel prize in 1979 in  physics jointly to Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam  "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current".

   I wanted to ask Professor Weinberg several questions which, due to the long line-up, were not answered:

• Are built construction of early observational astronomy (archeoastronomy) of relevance in the history of astronomy
• How he situates art in scientific discoveries? What is the role of beauty in science either in a theory formulation of in the geometric cosmological interpretation or configurations itself (e.g. galaxies form). 

Both questions were derived from perhaps a vision of a cross-disciplinary approach to science, where art and science are integrated methodologies in the advancement of knowledge. A vision which perhaps was missing from many of the WFS programs, where art was a mere presentation/communication tool instead of a component of a scientific approach.

From the book cover of "To Explain the World: the Discovery of Modern Science"

commentary on Nobel Prize in Physiology | I Walk, Therefore I Remember

‘A’ Figure, from Ramon Llull's memory wheel “Ars Brevis” (1617)

We learned yesterday that 2014 Nobel Prize in  Physiology or Medicine  (8 million Swedish kronor equivalent to $1.1 million) has been awarded to three neuroscientists "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain". John O'Keefe, who receives one half of the prize, is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London; he discovered in 1971  the first component of a spatial positioning system. Quoting from http://www.nobelprize.org: "He found that a type of nerve cell in an area of the brain called the hippocampus that was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room. Other nerve cells were activated when the rat was at other places. O'Keefe concluded that these 'place cells' formed a map of the room." The other half of the prize will be shared by the married couple May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. In 2005 the couple "discovered another key component of the brain's positioning system. They identified another type of nerve cell, which they called 'grid cells', that generate a coordinate system and allow for precise positioning and pathfinding. Their subsequent research showed how place and grid cells make it possible to determine position and to navigate."
Hugo Spiers, director of the spatial cognition group at University College London, gives a summary of the relevance of these discoveries “Grid cells and place cells offer one of the few bridges neuroscientists have linking the cellular level to the cognitive level, as they help explain how individual brain cells help us navigate, remember the past and imagine the future.”

The Memory Theatre of Giulio Camillo from "The Art of Memory" (France Yates, 1966)

J. Publicius. Oratoriae artis epitome (1482)

The media announced this identification of the neural cells responsible for our spatial orientation as the discovery of an  "internal GPS". I was quite intrigued by learning how scientific discoveries are proving concepts which have present in humanistic approaches to knowledge for thousand years. Frances Yates in "The Art of Memory" (1966) recounts how the mental process of remembering has been augmented by several techniques for thousand years, back to the ancient Greek and Rome. This tradition/body of knowledge developed further in the Middle Ages and Renaissance with memory theatres and "memory wheels". Related iconography includes diagrams from treatises by Giulio Camillo, Giordano Bruno and Ramon Llull —only to mention a few names from a longstanding tradition. In all this examples, brought to attention by Yates scholarly work, there is a clear connection between space, representation and the process of memory. Spatial orientation — defined by the media defines as internal GPS— relates to cognitive process and memory, and finally scientific evidence proofs with neuroimaging. Is this another example of how intuition and art methods are essential to progress knowledge, even before scientific evidence proofs it? Or perhaps artists and scientists —although I have a hard time separating the terms— should collaborate? Paraphrasing once more Mahatma Gandhi's  "Truth is one, paths are many",  a quote used in so many different context, I would add, even if it does not sound catchy:

Knowledge is one, methodologies are many

As a research artist I have been involved for years with movement, space and memory; one of my latest work "My Geospatial Self" the awareness of where we are in space and time, mapping places to thoughts of emotion. I constantly use my phone GPS as tool to record my presence in space and time in the ephemeral footprints of the encounter between myself and the surface of planet earth. I relentlessly take photos of trying to find beauty or whatever aesthetic commentary in everyday life encounters of places and people, in the social or natural environment. I am sure that something happens to the neurons and synaptic connections of my brain, even if I cannot document it. My walks creates memories and promote healing from emotional pain and stress. And I am satisfied with it, even if will not bring a Nobel prize.

My "mind walk" wearing a EEG headset, on October 3, 2014, Hudson Waterfront, New York

NYC, World Science Festival | Afterglow: Dispatches from the Birth of the Universe | Refining Cosmology

Cosmic Microwave Background fluctuations from COBE

Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)  image of the CMB temperature anisotropy

Two separate WSF events, both taking place in the NYU campus, have been devoted to cosmology: more specifically to the varies discovery and theories related to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)  radiation. The CMB is the light coming from the Big Bang explosion, providing information on the birth and evolution of the universe. In "Afterglow: Dispatches from the Birth of the Universe" Lawrence M. Krauss engages in conversations with Nobel laureate John Mather and other scientists on the experiments which led to models and theories on the beginning of the universe.
John Mather was one of the leading designers of the satellite COsmic Background Explorer (COBE), which  provided information on cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) of the universe and crucial measurements for our understanding of the universe. Thanks to the data taken by the COBE, the popular map of the CMB anisotropy was developed.

The curvature of the universe related to density parameter, Omega (Ω)

Events NYC | Neuroscience: Eric Kandel on Memory at CUNY

Erkenne Dich selbst (know yourself)

This evening my walkabouts took me across the street from the Empire State Building: the Graduate Center of CUNY presented Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel, as launching event of the new Interdisciplinary Committee for Science Studies. Eric R. Kandel, M.D., professor at Columbia University and director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 2000.

In his presentation dr. Kandel focused on memory and introduced the history of research on memory as a system problem and as molecular problem. He started with phrenology (from the Greek φρήν "mind" and λόγος "knowledge"): the popular XIX century discipline (now considered pseudoscience) was developed by the German physician Franz Joseph Gall and assigned cognitive functions and emotions to areas of the brain. The history of how cognitive functions became assigned to specific brain region was quite fascinating and quite amusing to learn how intelligence and emotional responses were determined as function of measurement of the skull.

Dr. Kandel's presentation progressed into contemporary neuroscience and introduced memory related topics such as the relationship between short term, long term, implicit and explicit memory, spatial learning in the hippocampus, influence of aging and how memory is effected by emotions. He also mentioned his upcoming book on art and neuroscience, with references to the German expressionism as well as Gestalt and visual illusions. The content was delivered with great clarity to be fully understood and appreciated even by an audience without specific more technical knowledge in the field of neuroscience.

In the QA session the audience introduced major themes such as neuroscience and ethics: can evil have a biological explanation?

Unfortunately the QA session ended before I was able to ask a question on mnemonic systems from the ancient Greece, Rome and the Renaissance ---as narrated in The Art of Memory by Frances A. Yates. As an artist interested in neuroscience and concerned with the transformation of space, the association between space and memory is quite relevant to my work.

To be continued...

PS The Empire State Building has nothing to do with dr. Kandel's presentation, I only took the photo on my way to CUNY, as I am always fascinated by the interaction of light with landmark building ---and I am not the only one, remember Andy Warhol? As the topic of the lecture was memory and this blog (as many others) is a collection of visual memories...why not including it?