Neoteny is the greatest state of mind (Part 2: Star Trek - Into Darkness)

- - -
First of all, I randomly ran into one of my friends whom I haven't talked to in many months. This was out of pure serendipity. I was looking for the medical school library, which was really hard to find as there were no signs I could locate... and I somehow wandered into a genetics lab building, peeked into one of the doors, and saw my friend M furiously scribbling. So I did the logical thing and pushed the (unlocked) door and knocked at the same time. And she was like OMG hellooooo!

So we chatted about life and lamented about work. Not that anything was going particularly badly, just the nature of research. I mentioned that I wanted to see the newest Star Trek movie. M expressed the same sentiment and that she would ping me about it later. Eventually I remembered that I needed to go to the medical library which she directed me to and it happened to be right downstairs. Oops.

That same Saturday at approximately 9:10pm, M emailed me about going to a late showing of Star Trek at 11:35pm. I already showered and was about to make dinner. I quickly whipped up a random pasta stew and slurped it down and met up with her and and her boyfriend K who was driving a new manual car. The amount of (sober) spontaneity was unprecedented. (I did not realize I would top myself a day later.)

We got bubble teas. M and K sneaked in theirs in M's bag. I got the warm barley tea and it wasn't sealed completely, so I left it in the car but that's okay. Maybe I should have specified completely no sugar instead of half. Anyway... Fast forward past the drone of previews. I was getting sleepy.

I was really looking forward to Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto's reprise as Kirk and Spock. And especially anticipating Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of the mysterious villain John Harrison. He nailed it! I totally enjoyed all three characters' chemistry with one another, as I interpret Harrison to represent a dark and impulsive side of Kirk, which the cool and rational Spock is an antithesis of. The action scenes are quite exciting, but I particularly dig the nuanced performance Cumberbatch brings in his dramatic deliveries.

Scotty is a timely (comic) relief at all the right times. The hot blonde of a weapons specialist with a physics Ph.D. is an ambivalent but admirable attempt at bucking stereotypes. I would have liked to see more of Sulu, but Cumberbatch stole the show :-P

Kudos to the CG artists and set designers as well. I liked the futuristic skyline of San Francisco - where the Star Fleet is based! I assume people would have learned to control earthquakes by that point :-P

The next day I ran into another friend in my lab building and he didn't like the movie and called BC's character "freakazoid". I think he doesn't like the "excessive pandering" to "fangirls". Perhaps he can stick to watching hip-hop music videos.

Dr. Chu goes to Washington...

... and ends up hungover, waking up next to a solar panel. In a clever combination of the politician's non-denial denial of the affair and his characteristic dry wit while more or less staying true to what he believes in:

“I just want everyone to know that my decision not to serve a second term as Energy Secretary has absolutely nothing to do with the allegations made in this week’s edition of the Onion. While I’m not going to confirm or deny the charges specifically, I will say that clean, renewable solar power is a growing source of US jobs and is becoming more and more affordable, so it’s no surprise that lots of Americans are falling in love with solar.”

His wife purportedly expressed skepticism: "Is that really you? You don't have hair on your chest."

In a sense, Prof. Steve Chu's stint in Washington D.C. does indeed feel like the Frank Capra's movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He even showed an excerpt of it (2m16s until about 2m37s). The naïve and nerdy physicist who's an ardent advocate for renewable energy and had to be forced to talk about the oil and gas industries as SoE.

He talked about many many examples of how a technology was initially derided and dismissed even by subject experts until it found an agent of dissemination who made it economically feasible and popular. And then it becomes as obvious to anyone. Like James Watt to the steam engine and Henry Ford to the automobile. A log-log-linear learning curve, if you will.

"[Refrigerator size] is not plateauing because of the size of the American appetite. It's plateauing because of the size of the kitchen door."

He clearly enjoyed his time at Bell Labs. Of the "flat structure where everyone argued about ideas but respected one another as people." I wish I could always find such places to do my work in... If there are more articulate scientists with social conscience, perhaps the Earth would not be totally destroyed after all...

"We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children."

At the end of the talk, he quoted Apollo 8 astronauts and showed the entirety of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.

Two members of the audience asked him questions along the line of "how do you encourage scientists/ students/ student-scientists to be involved in policy? Any advice?" I don't remember what he said exactly, but it had the gist of Dory the blue tang's "just keep swimming just keep swimming just keep swimming swimming swimming"

Mwahaha sorry about the earworm. And if anyone can comment on the feasibility of fusion as an energy source, it would be the veteran laser guru.

Double, double, toil and trouble;

... Fire burn, and pseudopotentials bubble. That about sums up my research these days.

Fiddling with the mysterious inner workings of how to best represent atomic orbitals so they appear to behave just like in experimental observations...

It's like the simmering of a secret sauce where each ingredient must be mixed in the right amount and added at the right time. Otherwise dramatic explosions break out in the form of error messages like "Jacobian has collapsed", "5s is unbound", "x1 must be monotonically increasing", or "failed to bracket eigenvalues". 

Now I know why Snape the potion master is perennially frustrated. At least my research group appreciated the Shakespeare reference and the clip-art of a bubbly cauldron.

Biz school profs' (canine) personas

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I've been amusing myself lately by associating my recent profs with characteristic dogs, in some cases anthropomorphic ones.

P.C.R. - (a slightly loopy) German Shepherd. Claims to be serious and pedagogical, but secretly is not that serious and has a dark sense of humor. (He called me by different wrong names TWICE).

J.M.L. - the Tramp in Lady and the Tramp. Whimsical, laid-back, yet perceptive and shrewd. Reminds me of Robin Williams' characters.

J.D.S. - the Terrier in Lady and the Tramp. Energetic, snappy, yappy, inclined to provocative and dramatic flairs.

J.P. - a cross between a beagle and a Dachshund...? He's ex-military, has engineering degrees, and lots of hands-on mechanical design experience. Hard to place him so far.

Looking forward to adding more descriptions. I might have to expand my set to more animals later on...

WARNING: Conference trolls, mess with me and you die. :-)

- - -

(2:15:22 PM) Me: I have found that conference poster trolls are @$$holes
(2:15:30 PM) Me: At some point I will screw with them
(2:15:53 PM) Me: But I'm too much of a rookie right now
(2:20:09 PM) Friend: It's not a big deal when you're presenting a poster
(2:20:18 PM) Friend: Just wait until you give a talk and the trolls attack
(2:20:31 PM) Me: hmm
(2:20:41 PM) Me: I have not encountered that at that symposium
(2:20:44 PM) Friend: Chances are it's something personal in any case
(2:21:04 PM) Me: however, the moderator did introduce one speaker as "beauty and power in the same package"
(2:21:19 PM) Friend: People challenging your work have a competing work, or more likely they're competing for a share of the same funding pie.
(2:21:24 PM) Me: because the audience was 2/3 white males over 40
(2:21:39 PM) Me: and the speaker was a youngish Chinese woman
(2:21:51 PM) Me: I see... competitors
(2:21:57 PM) Friend: Haha what is this the 19th century?
(2:22:03 PM) Me: yes
(2:22:05 PM) Me: totally
(2:22:09 PM) Friend: At least physicists don't have the balls to make a comment like that.
(2:22:32 PM) Me: Although if the competitors don't have valid point, everyone else can see that it's playground squabble
(2:23:48 PM) Friend: I don't get it was the moderator really old?
(2:24:07 PM) Friend: I just can't imagine that happening at any conference I go to, it'd be really awkward
(2:24:30 PM) Me: He was kinda old
(2:24:35 PM) Me: Not *that* old
(2:24:38 PM) Me: 50 ish
(2:24:56 PM) Me: I wonder how many times the speaker got comments like these
(2:25:10 PM) Me: prolly a few times
(2:30:18 PM) Friend: Still doesn't seem very appropriate in a professional setting.
(2:30:24 PM) Friend: Even if it's a real small conference.
(2:30:35 PM) Friend: Unless the speaker was the moderator's wife or something like that
(2:30:44 PM) Me: oh hahahahahha
(2:30:58 PM) Me: That has not been confirmed or denied... :P
(2:31:04 PM) Friend: Well who knows.
(2:31:13 PM) Me: indeed
(2:31:16 PM) Friend: I keep hearing conferences are good places to hook up
(2:31:26 PM) Me: Even for old ass people?
(2:31:32 PM) Me: ... especially
(2:31:35 PM) Me: for old ass people
(2:32:09 PM) Friend: You have a point
(2:32:21 PM) Friend: I'm 29 and I'm already starting to lose interest
(2:33:24 PM) Me: les sighs
(2:36:08 PM) Friend: I can't imagine what I'd be like when I'm 50
(2:36:26 PM) Me: I can't either
(2:36:28 PM) Me: scary thought
(2:36:34 PM) Me: banish banish
(2:42:20 PM) Friend: tiger mom :-P
(2:43:26 PM) Me: Me?? ZOMG
(2:43:40 PM) Me: I sure hope not


(3:16:41 PM) Me: I shall try to get some exercise now I suppose
(3:16:58 PM) Friend: You should lift weights and get really buff, wouldn't that be cool?
(3:17:04 PM) Me: I am already hahaha
(3:17:15 PM) Friend: I mean arnold buff
(3:17:17 PM) Me: I lift weights when I watch TV
(3:17:19 PM) Me: oh lol
(3:17:23 PM) Me: I thought he used roids
(3:17:29 PM) Friend: That's also an option
(3:17:34 PM) Me: no roids for me.
(3:17:38 PM) Friend: You lift weights while watching tv?
(3:17:41 PM) Me: yes
(3:17:57 PM) Friend: Like you benchpress 400 lbs?
(3:18:04 PM) Me: I wish hahaha
(3:18:11 PM) Friend: That would rule
(3:18:14 PM) Me: it would
(3:18:21 PM) Me: and then I would be afraid of no one
(3:18:36 PM) Me: the conference trolls I can take out in 3 seconds
(3:18:39 PM) Friend: Then you would get some good introductions at conferences
(3:18:47 PM) Me: Hell yeah
(3:19:13 PM) Me: alright time to run up and down stairs.......
(3:19:14 PM) Friend: You should start wearing a sword and a full suit of armor to conferences
(3:19:19 PM) Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
(3:19:30 PM) Friend: The trolls won't mess with you.
(3:19:34 PM) Me: Totally awesome
(3:19:56 PM) Me: Mayhaps I shall try that sometimes
(3:20:04 PM) Friend: I just learned the other day the main character in metroid is a girl
(3:20:10 PM) Me: :P
(3:20:20 PM) Friend: Perhaps a suit like that.
(3:22:03 PM) Me: booyah
(3:23:01 PM) Friend: http://kometani.deviantart.com/art/Assault-Armor-Girl-60670980
(3:23:09 PM) Friend: Yes, this will do
(3:23:13 PM) Me: hohoh
(3:23:19 PM) Friend: But a bigger gun
(3:23:24 PM) Me: pffft
(3:23:42 PM) Friend: You prefer the sword?
(3:23:50 PM) Me: yes
(3:24:11 PM) Me: I like to have slim and deadly weaponry
(3:24:28 PM) Me: mmmmmmmm
(3:24:35 PM) Me: okay aerobic workout time
(3:24:52 PM) Me: stairs on mid-rises
(3:25:00 PM) Friend: http://www.3dtotal.com/pages/interviews/guillaume_menuel/images/large_images/image_01_armor_girl_s.php
(3:25:16 PM) Me: hahaa
(3:25:22 PM) Friend: Surprisingly most images of girls with swords are also very skimpily dressed
(3:25:28 PM) Me: no one is ever messing with her
(3:25:29 PM) Me: lol
(3:25:31 PM) Friend: Not really appropriate for conference
(3:25:37 PM) Me: indeed

Classy sample of spam from a mailing list

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"I am desperately searching for eager victims - postdocs or PhD students - mine or other supervisors' - to make my workhorses and to plunder ideas from. I am a dirty Hun who seethes from jealousy out of every pore. I cannot do research myself because I'm narrow-minded, rigid-brained, and petty. Therefore, I have to recruit desperate scientists from anywhere in the world and then manage (harangue) them into submission. 

The smarter you are relative to me, the more I will hate you. If you complain, you will be threatened by my gang of goons - faculty and administration are all allied with me in order to achieve our clan's goal of world domination which has eluded us for the last century or so. The reward for taking up this Faustian bargain with me is good renumeration - but if you start to complain or expose the secret of my incompetence to others, especially outsiders, then you will be let go as we cannot tolerate traitors within our ranks. ALL credit for your work will go to me and my gang of inbred dullards, not to you. 

We are ruthless gangsters who recruit legitimate scientists from all over the world to do our work because we cannot do any of it ourselves - due to severe brain rigidity brought about by centuries of inbreeding the traits of blind obedience, robotization, and general dullness. The techniques which we employ to keep these victims productive is nagging, threats and psychological abuse, facilitated by the university's administration. Eventually, the victims give up all credit for their research to us. I have no conscience since I am a psychopath. I am entitled to success because supremacy is my birthright."

Homogeneous and heterogeneous speaker-audience interactions

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One thing I noticed in the myriad of talks this past week was that the speakers' gender and ethnicity correlate with those of the audience members who asked them questions at the end of their talks. Not surprisingly, guys asked significantly more questions than gals, regardless of who was presenting.

Perhaps this is a good argument of why we need educators from as many different backgrounds as possible... in order to encourage participation from a diverse group...?

Interdisciplinary approach to the energy issues

- - -
Met students from all different fields of science, economics, business, and law. [Insert "synergy" here]

Really got a comprehensive view of how to solve the energy problems, although a lot more breadth than depth. Lots of brief talks (engineers/scientists thought were too non-technical and some MBA/law students thought were too technical). I learned more about carbon capture & sequestration, geothermal powers, wind turbines, aviation and automotive research, etc. On the non-science side, there's carbon tax, cap & trade, behavioral economics, and that McKinsey greenhouse gas abatement cost graph...

Fun tours to local habitats and companies and labs...

Gin no Saji (銀の匙, Silver Spoon, a manga series by Arakawa Hiromu, with reference to Dan Pink's Drive)

- - -

It certainly feels refreshing to see a manga series that doesn't have the usual medley of gratuitous violence, complicated and/or explicit romantic entanglements, and/or (psychotic/delusional) characters either with or without magical powers. On some level, I identify with Hachiken, the main lead of Gin no Saji, who is from the city and therefore an outsider at an agricultural trade high school. He's also somewhat adrift on the sea of life without a landmark of destination in sight.

All of Hachiken's classmates seem pretty set in life. They have decided to follow a specific trade in some type of farming or animal husbandry, often take over the family farm. A subset of them dream of playing professional sports in order to make more money and support the family business. On the one hand, these youngsters are following a tradition in what they are born into, what they are familiar with. On the other hand, these trades demand a lot of physical and mental stamina, as well as a strong intrinsic motivation. Like Hachiken before he enrolls at the school, I really have no idea what it actually takes to wake up before dawn and clean the stables and milk the cows and harvest the eggs and... butcher the animals.

Hachiken gets asked many times that all-encompassing inevitable question, "What do you want to be? What is your dream?" To which he would reply, "I... don't really... have one..." He very likely has followed a prescribed path that supposedly leads to a contrived and canned definition of success. Like a perverse version of E.T. following a trail of Hershey's.

Ahh, the artificial construct of being number-one. When people are conditioned in an environment filled with numerical differentiators and zero-sum games, their intrinsic motivation soon withers and dies. (Read Dan Pink's Drive for more elaboration on this idea.)

Over the course of the seasons, Hachiken's experience at the agricultural school has opened his eyes in ways that a regular city high school would not. Perhaps he will eventually find some kind of purpose in life.

Speaking for myself, a perversely conventional definition of an educational "success" story. Is it a success story if I don't feel much like one?






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Once upon a random research meeting

- - -

I opened the door to the small conference room.

Jokester Grad Student: Speaking of women.

[Chuckles from the group]

Me: Huh? What's going on... Can you recap please?

Jokester: We were talking about how there aren't enough women at Cal Tech.

Me: Oh really. [Facetiously] Like 10%?

[More chuckles]

Male REU Student: 10% [ROFL]

Jokester: More like 28%... I mean, how was it for you?

Me: So the overall is half and half. But some majors are 25%, 15%, and others are like 80%. You can probably guess which ones...

Postdoc: Women's studies?

Jokester: Biology?

Me: Yeah.

Jokester: It's those fuzzy mice.

Me: [Raised eyebrows] And killing them.

[Loud laughter from the group]

Jokester: What does this say about women?!

Me: [Deadpan] Don't mess with them.

[More laughter]

Female REU Student: Well-played.

Me: Har har har.






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The disadvantages of an elite education

-  -  -
This article by William Deresiewicz has probably been cited N = too many times ad nauseum. But that's only because many people read it and resonated with the message.

Number and label games are much easier to play than the nebulous and mystical exercise of self-reflection. Like jamming round pegs into square holes. In my case, it's an amorphous peg.

The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you.

Oh is that ever so true. In my case, also add to the overwhelming inhibition factor of making small talk in general. Some days are better than others, but still. I can only imagine how I'd fare trying to talk to someone who doesn't have a scholarly background in some type of science or engineering or art or music. Like how I was at a loud bar trying to make conversation with a law school student. Utter and complete disaster that was. At least I was in a large group.

The second disadvantage is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth.

Hahahaha... for me that only lasted until end of high school. I did not have a traditional Ivy education during undergrad, but it was definitely very elite. And demanded a lot of self-initiative, which was pretty dead in me for reasons too complicated to go into right now. I froze in the headlights when I was in place where I really had to ponder concepts long and hard and work things out and struggle through dead ends in order to properly learn. I did not learn how to fail gracefully.

If you’re afraid to fail, you’re afraid to take risks, which begins to explain the final and most damning disadvantage of an elite education: that it is profoundly anti-intellectual.

Deresiewicz means that the system discourages self-motivated inquiries about the world. In that sense, I feel like perhaps I still retain some of that ability. I devour books and media about subjects that relate to my "job" to various degrees, from closely related to barely so. Even seemingly completely unrelated. I don't know whether this will help my earning potential in any significant way. With the world the way it is now, most likely not...

But I'll keep feeding my brain because it's one of the very few things that actually alleviates my ever-persistent existential crisis.






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Existential meetings in space and time

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me: how're things?

friend: Hi,
Things are.
I'm trying to write a paper.

me: Things are indeed

friend: How are things there?
Are-ing, too?

me: yes
just realized I have a 9am meeting
which I thought was at 10
oy.

friend: That's sad.
Even if people are well up and out by 9:00, nothing should be scheduled until 10:00 or later.
The French seem to abide by that.
Still, if you are working then, you don't have to schedule meetings then.

me: the nanofab people seem to be... early
actually, they start early and often end late
It's a "fab user" meeting

friend: A user meeting?!?!

me: If I schedule something, it's almost always 1pm or 2pm or 3pm.

friend: Those should not happen at least until 3:00.
Exactly.
There's just something about building invisible things that makes one immune to time.

me: yes
astrophysicists
mathematicians
philosophers

friend: Yes.
I suspect that if you get used to not being able to perceive three spatial dimensions, then you also become numb to the fourth dimension.

me: ahahaha






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Mythologically abstruse acronyms

- - -
Came across this fun little widget. I seriously guessed on 6 of those. Good times...

Molecular Biology Jargon or Minor Thundercats Character?

90% (9 out of 10 Questions Correct)

Facebook quizzes, quiz apps & blog quizzes by

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The zen of simulacrums

- - -
me: I'm compulsively surfing blogs today
I also went comment happy
must be a rebound from the powerpoint making marathon this week
 
friend: haha write a few wiki articles while you are at it then
 
me: Hmm, I'm not big on writing wiki articles
My writing is mostly fiction nowadays
even my research
jk

friend: fiction is simulation =)

me: Thanks har har

friend: the reverse may not be true

me: mmm that actually sounds deeply philosphical

friend: isn't it?






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[Fudgy Science Episode 002] (FSE 002)

- - -
Upon further reflection based on the last two days, I have revised my graph from FSE 001.

I added hysteresis loops into the system, so now it has "memory" and would thus depend on the immediately prior state. This means that if I start out fully awake and become less awake, I would follow the arrows pointing left. If I start out comatose and become more awake, I would follow the arrows that pointing right.

The dip in the bottom blue curve in the 80% to 100% awake range indicates an "OMFG what was I rambling about earlier" moment.

This is probably related to the refractory period or the elastic curves... recovering from a comatose state takes more energy because the brain has been running on an empty tank, so to speak.

I realized this after I went from ~50% awake to ~70% awake over the past two days due to a last-minute whirlwind generation of data figures because my old figures were deemed "weird and inconclusive". My new graphs basically verified the findings from a previous paper, using a similar system but not exactly the same. Since it was a paper that I found on Monday, of which my collaborators have never seen, it proved to be the saving grace for my presentation today... otherwise I would have no "new" data whatsoever. I spent the entire day yesterday running loads of simulations and finishing my slides.

Collaborator: "I saw you were still changing your Powerpoint file at 2AM..." (Yay Dropbox shared folder)
Me: "Yeah um... the table has like 30 things in it..."






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A scary congregation of toxic gases

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I think this is more than what Britney Spears had in mind when she wrote "Toxic"...

Yeah, um, I was too scared to get closer for a clearer shot. I couldn't tell what the bottom two were... but here are their identities:
(1) tertiarybutylarsine
(2) trimethylgallium
(3) tributylphosphine
(4) trimethylindium
(5) trimethylaluminum
(6) dimethylzinc
(7) Jabba the Hutt's fart
(8) Meth lab explosion

I will figure out what (7) and (8) really are.

[Edit 2011.07.28 19:06]
(7) is 1,1-dimethylhydrazine (UDMHy) ... My original guess wasn't too far off.
(8) is 200ppm silane in hydrogen






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The academic track as an RPG

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The PHD Comics has already presented this process as a game of Monopoly, but what will manifest all the intricacies in their visceral splendor is... making an RPG. Granted, it'll only appeal to a very small crowd, of which only a small fraction would be masochistic enough to relive their lives in an alternate reality.

But yes, it'd be a lot like Spore. The evolution and leveling-up through different stages, i.e. undergrad, grad, post-doc, (research associate), assistant prof, associate prof, full prof, and emeritus prof :-P

I suspect if anyone actually makes this game, it'd be more for self-amusement (abuse?) LOL.

Conversational

- - -
Met a friend I haven't seen in a while. As good grad students, we chatted about research. I talked about my quantum physics simulations and he talked about MOS cap parameter extraction and modeling...

And then I managed to turn a conversation about the new football-themed decor at a campus dining place into a dialogue about philosophy, religion, and science :-P

"So many football pictures here... people are obsessed!"

"Yeah, the whole sports fan concept is like a religion... hardcore fans almost worship their favorite teams and/or players..."

"Are you Christian?"

"No, you?"

"I'm Buddhist."

"Buddhism is more like a philosophy... Christianity is more similar to sports team worshipping :-P"

"So do you believe in anything?"

"This may sound a little strange... I believe in the laws of Nature."

"Like Newton's Laws and such?"

"Yes, although they're only a subset of Nature's laws because they only work part of the time... And we won't ever discover all the laws because of our limited perception..."

(Then we talked about scientific discoveries and technological advancement... and decided that anything could happen in the next thousand years.)

Interpersonal dynamics

- - -
I try to be a positive presence in my work environment. I think smiling helps. And posting artworks in my cube. And picking up fallen posters with thumb pins sticking up from the floor.

I also try to send updates to people. Network Protocol 101 (think TCP/IP... note the double-meaning here... I love entendres)... although I've been a little behind in updating my research advisor on my recent happenings. Mostly because I consider them to be the usual stew of big-company acclimatization.

Those Enneagram types... I seem to have a strong element of Types 4, 5, 6, moderate 1, 8, 9, and weak 2, 3, 7. Which is completely expected. I like the descriptions of what's the "best" version (i.e. self-actualization) of each type. And on the other ends of the scale too, guilty as charged.

It's good to have goals, hopes and dreams...

Like being Forever 22.

I wonder if my alum mentor thinks I don't like to admit failures. Although it turns out we failed at the same thing. He's an engineer -> entrepreneur -> venture capitalist. Back in grad school days he was a bona-fide lab rat, and loved it. Though his dad had always told him it's good to be self-sufficient, hence the move to start-ups.

I really want to learn more about start-ups from him... because I will likely do that at some point. It feels awesome to be among a group of kindred spirits united in the same goals (i.e. I knew these people by their screen names before meeting them IRL, ROFL.)

I suppose my high school guidance counselor might be right about me after all. Really few people understood me back in high school...

The Singularity is near!

- - -
And no, the NEMSSS seminar today did not involve giant Madagascar cockroaches. It did involve cybborrg beettles, complete with implanted chips inserted during pupal stage.

The chip talks to the remote control and stimulates muscles that pull on the exoskeleton that creates a mechanical resonance to flap the wings. With directional control by individual pulse train stimulation on left vs. right wing. The speaker was a former student of my PI. He was very energetic like a boy with his favorite toy.

He was also very eager to discuss the ethical issues about controlling beetles, etc. I think that he's only interested in it as an intellectual debate. N from my group thinks that if it were our PI, he would be more inclined toward the "don't hurt the beetles because it causes pain" side.

The study is basically funded by DARPA. Surprise surprise!