On the SGU we recently talked about aphantasia, the condition in which some people have a decreased or entirely absent ability to imagine things. The term was coined recently, in 2015, by neurologist Adam Zeman, who described the condition of “congenital aphantasia,” that he described as being with mental imagery. After we discussed in on the show we received numerous e-mails from people with the condition, many of which were unaware that they were different from most other people. Here is one recent example:

“Your segment on aphantasia really struck a chord with me. At 49, I discovered that I have total multisensory aphantasia and Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM). It’s been a fascinating and eye-opening experience delving into the unique way my brain processes information.

Since making this discovery, I’ve been on a wild ride of self-exploration, and it’s been incredible. I’ve had conversations with artists, musicians, educators, and many others about how my experience differs from theirs, and it has been so enlightening.

I’ve learned to appreciate living in the moment because that’s where I thrive. It’s been a life-changing journey, and I’m incredibly grateful for the impact you’ve had on me.”

Perhaps more interesting than the condition itself, and what I want to talk about today, is that the e-mailer was entirely unaware that most of the rest of humanity have a very different experience of their own existence. This makes sense when you think about it – how would they know? How can you know the subjective experience happening inside one’s brain? We tend to assume that other people’s brains function similar to our own, and therefore their experience must be similar. This is partly a reasonable assumption, and partly projection. We do this psychologically as well. When we speculate about other people’s motivations, we generally are just projecting our own motivations onto them.

Projecting our neurological experience, however, is a little different. What the aphantasia experience demonstrates is a couple of things, beginning with the fact that whatever is normal for you is normal. We don’t know, for example, if we have a deficit because we cannot detect what is missing. We can only really know by sharing other people’s experiences.

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In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I discuss the incredible potential of information-based technologies. As we increasingly transition to digital technology, we can leverage the increasing power of computer hardware and software. This is not just increasing linearly, but geometrically. Further, there are technologies that make other technologies more information-based or digital, such as 3D printing. The physical world and the virtual world are merging.

With current technology this is perhaps most profound when it comes to genetics. The genetic code of life is essentially a digital technology. Efficient gene-editing tools, like CRISPR, give us increasing control over the genetic code. Arguably two of the most dramatic science and technology news stories over the last decade have been advances in gene editing and advances in artificial intelligence (AI). These two technologies also work well together – the genome is a large complex system of interacting information, and AI tools excel at dealing with large complex systems of interacting information. This is definitely a “you got chocolate in my peanut butter” situation.

A recent paper nicely illustrates the synergistic power of these two technologies – Interpreting cis-regulatory interactions from large-scale deep neural networks. Let’s break it down.

Cis-regulatory interactions refer to several regulatory functions of non-coding DNA. Coding DNA, which is contained within genes (genes contain both coding and non-coding elements) directly code for amino acids which are assembled into polypeptides and then folded into functional proteins. Remember the ATCG four letter base code, with three bases coding for a specific amino acid (or coding function, like a stop signal). This is coding DNA. Noncoding DAN regulates how coding DNA is transcribed into proteins.

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Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm was intense enough to cause flash flooding, which washed out roads and bridges and shut down traffic in many areas. The epicenter of the rainfall was in Oxford, CT (where my brother happens to live), which qualified as a 1,000 year flood (on average a flood of this intensity would occur once every 1,000 years). The flooding killed two people, with an estimated $300 million of personal property damage, and much more costly damage to infrastructure.

Is this now the new normal? Will we start seeing 1,000 year floods on a regular basis? How much of this is due to global climate change? The answers to these questions are complicated and dynamic, but basically yes, yes, and partly. This is just one more thing we are not ready for that will require some investment and change in behavior.

First, some flooding basics. There are three categories of floods. Fluvial floods (the most common in the US) occur near rivers and lakes, and essentially result from existing bodies of water overflowing their banks due to heavy cumulative or sudden rainfall. There are also pluvial floods which are also due to rainfall, but occur independent of any existing body of water. The CT flood were mainly pluvial. Finally, there are coastal flood related to the ocean. These can be due to extremely high tide, storm surges from intense storms like hurricanes, and tsunamis which are essentially giant waves.

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I have written previously about the concept of structural batteries, such as this recent post on a concrete battery. The basic idea is a battery made out of material that is strong enough that it can bare a load. Essentially we’re asking the material to do two things at once – be a structural material and be a battery. I am generally wary of such approaches to technology as you often wind up with something that is bad at two things, rather than simply optimizing each function.

In medicine, for example, I generally don’t like combo medications – a single pill with two drugs meant to take together. I would rather mix and match the best options for each function. But sometimes there is such a convenience in the combination that it’s worth it. As with any technology, we have to consider the overall tradeoffs.

With structural batteries there is one huge gain – the weight and/or volume savings of having a material do double duty. The potential here is too great to ignore. For the concrete battery the advantage is about volume, not weight. The idea is to have the foundation of a building serve as individual or even grid power storage. For a structural battery that will save weight, we need a material is light and strong. One potential material is carbon fiber, which may be getting close to characteristics with practical applications.

Material scientists have created in the lab a carbon fiber battery material that could serve as a structural battery. Carbon fiber is a good substrate because it is light and strong, and also can be easily shaped as needed. Many modern jets are largely made out of carbon fiber for this reason. Of course you compromise the strength when you introduce materials needed for the energy storage, and these researchers have been working on achieving an optimal compromise. Their latest product has an elastic modulus that exceeds 76 GPa. For comparison, aluminum, which is also used for aircraft, has an elastic modulus of 70 GPa. Optimized carbon fiber has an elastic modulus of 200-500 GPa. Elastic modulus is one type of strength, specifically the resistance to non-permanent deformity. Being stronger than aluminum means it is in the range that is suitable for making lots of things, from laptops to airplanes.

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By now we have all seen the impressive robot videos, such as the ones from Boston Dynamics, in which robots show incredible flexibility and agility. These are amazing, but I understand they are a bit like trick-shot videos – we are being shown the ones that worked, which may not represent a typical outcome. Current robot technology, however, is a bit like steam-punk – we are making the most out of an old technology, but that technology is inherently limiting.

The tech I am talking about is motor-driven actuators. An actuator is a device that converts energy into mechanical force, such a torque or displacement. This is a technology that is about 200 years old. While they get the job done, they have a couple of significant limitations. One is that they use a lot of energy, much of which is wasted as heat. This is important as we try to make battery-driven robots that are not tethered to a power cord. Dog-like and humanoid robots typically last 60-90 minutes on one charge. Current designs are also relatively hard, so that limits their interaction with the environment. They also depend heavily on sensors to read their environment.

By contrast we can think about biological systems. Muscles are much more energy efficient, are soft, can be incredibly precise, are silent, and contain some of their own feedback to augment control. Developing artificial robotic muscles that would perform similar to biological systems is now a goal of robotics research, but it is a very challenging problem to crack. Such a system would also need to contract slowly or quickly, and even produce bursts of speed (if, for example, you want your robot to jump). They would need to be able to produce a lot of power, enough for the robot to move itself and carry out whatever function it has. It would also need to be able to efficiently hold a position for long periods of times.

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Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has only been identified in a few other species, dolphins, elephants, and some parrots. Interestingly, it has never been documented in our closest relatives, non-human primates – that is, until now. A recent study finds that marmoset monkeys have unique calls, “phee-calls”, that they use to identify specific individual members of their group. The study also found that within a group of marmosets, all members use the same name to refer to the same individual, so they are learning the names from each other. Also interesting, different families of marmosets use different kinds of sounds in their names, as if each family has their own dialect.

In these behaviors we can see the roots of language and culture. It is not surprising that we see these roots in our close relatives. It is perhaps more surprising that we don’t see it more in the very closest relatives, like chimps and gorillas. What this implies is that these sorts of high-level behaviors, learning names for specific individuals in your group, is not merely a consequence of neurological develop. You need something else. There needs to be an evolutionary pressure.

That pressure is likely living in an environment and situation where families members are likely to be out of visual contact of each other. Part of this is the ability to communicate at long enough distance that will put individuals out of visual contact. For example, elephants can communicate over miles. Dolphins often swim in murky water with low visibility. Parrots and marmosets live in dense jungle. Of course, you need to have that evolutionary pressure and the neurological sophistication for the behavior – the potential and the need have to align.

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I am not the first to say this but it bears repeating – it is wrong to use the accusation of a mental illness as a political strategy. It is unfair, stigmatizing, and dismissive. Thomas Szasz (let me say straight up – I am not a Szaszian) was a psychiatrist who made it his professional mission to make this point. He was concerned especially about oppressive governments diagnosing political dissidents with mental illness and using that as a justification to essentially imprison them.

Szasz had a point (especially back in the 1960s when he started making it) but unfortunately took his point way too far, as often happens. He decided that mental illness, in fact, does not exist, and is 100% political oppression. He took a legitimate criticism of the institution of mental health and abuse by oppressive political figures and systems and turned it into science denial. But that does not negate the legitimate points at the core of his argument – we should be careful not to conflate unpopular political opinions with mental illness, and certainly not use it as a deliberate political strategy.

While the world of mental illness is much better today (at least in developed nations), the strategy of labeling your political opponents as mentally ill continues. I truly sincerely wish it would stop. For example, in a recent interview on ABC, senator Tom Cotton was asked about some fresh outrageous thing Trump said, criticism of which Cotton waved away as “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.

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I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have been. They pick up on subtle body language and non-verbal cues, they seem to understand specific words, and they are capable of successfully communicating their wants and desires. My latest dog is an Australian shepherd, who is both smart and willful. Any attempt at training him to do what we want results in him equally training us to do what he wants. An of course we love them and the emotional connection is real and bidirectional. Dogs and humans have evolved a symbiotic relationship.

Still, I was very skeptical when I heard about a recent social media phenomenon – posting videos of dogs using a soundboard to communicate. After watching the videos I am completely unimpressed, and my skepticism has been supported. It turns out that this is mostly just the old “Clever Hans” effect, falling into the same trap that all attempts to teach animals to communicate have risked.

In the early 20th century, Wilhelm von Osten, who was a mystic and phrenologist (among other things) showcased his horse, Hans, who he claimed could not only do arithmetic, but could read, solve problems, track a calendar, and other tasks. Hans would communicate by tapping his hoof the correct number of times. Osten probably really believed in Hans’s abilities, and he showcased them far and wide. However, when psychologist Oskar Pfungst investigated Hans he found that the horse was simply responding to non-verbal cues from his owner, essentially noted when to stop on the correct answer. He initially removed the trainer from the area, but Hans was still able to perform. However, he then made sure that no one present knew the answer, and then Hans could not perform. Hans needed cues from people to know when to stop.

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Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic people“. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop roleplaying game where a small group of people each play characters adventuring in an imaginary world run by the dungeon master (DM). (That explanation was probably not necessary for the majority of readers here, but just to be thorough.) The game has just celebrated its 50th anniversary, which was even commemorated by official US stamps.

The game certainly has a very different reputation today than it did in the 70s and 80s. Back then it was seen as the exclusive domain of extreme geeks and nerds, mostly males who needed a distraction from the fact that they had no chance of finding a girlfriend. This was never true, but that was the reputation. In the 80s things got even worse, with D&D being tied to the “satanic panic” of that decade. The game was blamed, mostly by fundamentalist religious groups, for demon worship, witchcraft, and resulting in suicides and murder. I still remember when the school board in our town had a debate about whether or not the game should be banned from school grounds. The adults having the conversation had literally no idea what they were talking about, and filled the gaps in their knowledge with their own vivid imaginations.

In reality D&D and similar roleplaying games are perfectly wholesome and have a lot of positive attributes. First, they are extremely social. They are especially good for people who may find social interactions challenging or at least very demanding. While roleplaying you are in a social safe-space, where you can let aspects of your personality out to play. The game is also mostly pure imagination. Other than a few aids, like dice for random outcome generation, maps and figures, the adventure takes place in the minds of the players, helped along by the GM. The game can therefore help people develop social connections and social skills, and to learn more about themselves and close friends.

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Superconductivity is an extremely interesting, and potentially extremely useful, physical phenomenon. It refers to a state in which current flows through a material without resistance, and therefore without any loss of energy or waste heat. As our civilization is increasingly run by electronic devices, the potential benefit is huge.

As physicists unravel the quantum physics of superconductivity, this allows them to potentially design new materials that can display superconductivity in useful settings. One recent study presents a small breakthrough in a specific type of superconducting material – Kagome metals. These are a class of ferromagnetic metal metamaterials with an interwoven structure that resembles the Japanese basket by the same name. This creates some specific quantum effects that are currently being researched for their technological uses, one of which is superconductivity.

One of the ways in which superconductivity arises is through what are known as Cooper pairs – two electrons that join together in a quantum state that distributes them like a wave throughout the material. Cooper pairs can therefore “travel” through a material without resistance. A recent study looks at the formation of Cooper pairs within Kagome metals, showing something surprising to physicists. Previously it was believes that Cooper pairs were evenly distributed within Kagome metals. The new study finds that the number of Cooper pairs in the star-point locations with the Kagome pattern can contain a variable number of Cooper pairs.

This was predicted in 2023 by Professor Ronny Thomale. His predictions have now been verified by direct observation, changing how physicists think about the superconducting potential of Kagome metals. You can read the study if you want to delve deeper into the details, but let’s talk a bit about the technological potential.

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