From four-dimensional hexagons to the mind-bending amplituhedron, geometrical shapes are wilder than we learn at school — and they are a crucial tool for understanding reality
Category: education
Using ChatGPT to write essays may be eroding critical thinking skills
A team of neurologists and AI specialists at MIT’s Media Lab has led a study looking into the brain impacts of large language model (LLM) use among people who engage with them for study or work. They report evidence that the use of LLMs may lead to an erosion of critical thinking skills. In their study, posted on the arXiv preprint server, the researchers asked groups of volunteers to write essays while connected to EEG monitors.
Over the past few years, the use of LLMs such as ChatGPT has become commonplace. Some use them for fun, while others use them to help with school or work responsibilities, and the team at MIT wondered what sort of impact LLM use might have on the brain.
To find out, they recruited 54 volunteers. The initial group was then split into three small groups, all of whom were asked to write a 20-minute essay on the topic of philanthropy—one group was asked to use ChatGPT for help, the second was asked to use Google Search, and the third “Brain-only” group was given no tools or resources at all. The participants remained in these same groups for three writing sessions.
Super Humanity | How AI Will Transform Us
Super Humanity — Imagine if your brain could interface directly with AI.
Super Humanity explores the revolutionary intersection of neuroscience and technology, revealing a future where artificial intelligence integrates effortlessly with human thought.
Super Humanity (2019)
Director: Ruth Chao.
Writers: Ruth Chao, Paula Cons, Alphonse de la Puente.
Genre: Documentary, Sci-Fi.
Country: Portugal, Spain.
Language: English.
Release Date: December 27, 2019 (Spain)
Synopsis:
The convergence of human brains and AI will create a new breed of humanity—often described as ‘super-humanity.’
By enabling brain-machine interfaces, human cognitive powers will be amplified, marking the dawn of enhanced humans. Connected minds will unlock advanced synthetic telepathy, offering not only the ability to perceive others’ thoughts but also to influence them. Yet, what are the advantages and dangers posed by these groundbreaking advancements?
Neurotechnology stands at the threshold of a societal transformation, reshaping our concepts of identity and reality itself. The establishment of neuro-rights will be crucial, requiring laws that protect the privacy of our conscious and even subconscious minds.
Mind Forward delves deeply into the potential of this new frontier.
This is the BOMB to worry about | Neutronium Bomb —The Unseen Threat to Humanity
In this intriguing video, we delve into the hypothetical scenario of the effects of a neutronium bomb on Earth. 🌎💥 Join us as we explore the scientific speculation surrounding this catastrophic event! Discover the potential impact and aftermath of such a powerful bomb in this thought-provoking analysis. Remember, this video is for educational and speculative purposes only. If you find scientific speculation and hypothetical scenarios fascinating, you don’t want to miss this! Don’t forget to like 👍 and share this video with fellow science enthusiasts! #NeutroniumBomb #HypotheticalScenario #ScientificSpeculation.
OUTLINE:
00:00:00 The Mysterious Neutronium Bomb.
00:01:39 Unpacking the Science.
00:03:40 Anatomy of a Neutronium Bomb.
00:05:33 The Aftermath.
00:07:36 Wrapping Up.
#Australia #Norway #UK #Austria #Germany #Switzerland.
#Brazil #Italy #NewZealand #Marshal islands #Netherlands #Antilles #Denmark #Switzerland #SouthAfrica #Singapore #Finland #Canada #Maldives, #Turkey #Slovenia #Georgia #Argentina #Thailand #SriLanka #SouthKorea #Russia #Romania #Philippines #Mauritius #India #Colombia #China #Ukraine #Tunisia #Mozambique #Jordan #Indonesia #Fiji #Albania #Vietnam #Uruguay #Uganda #Serbia #Montenegro #Nepal #Moldova #Macedonia #FYROM #Cyprus
The Ezra Klein Show
I honestly don’t know how I should be educating my kids. A.I. has raised a lot of questions for schools. Teachers have had to adapt to the most ingenious cheating technology ever devised. But for me, the deeper question is: What should schools be teaching at all? A.I. is going to make the future look very different. How do you prepare kids for a world you can’t predict?
And if we can offload more and more tasks to generative A.I., what’s left for the human mind to do?
Rebecca Winthrop is the director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. She is also an author, with Jenny Anderson, of “The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better.” We discuss how A.I. is transforming what it means to work and be educated, and how our use of A.I. could revive — or undermine — American schools.
00:00 Intro.
03:03 The future of education?
11:20 Modes of engagement.
17:27 Personalizing education.
26:25 The case for A.I. in schools.
35:09 Who gets left behind?
46:07 How A.I. can increase equity.
49:35 Becoming more human.
55:54 Willpower, literacy, and regulation.
01:01:10 Advice for parents.
01:05:20 Book recommendations.
Teens with depression show unique eye movement patterns linked to memory and attention problems
A new study published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging has found that adolescents with major depressive disorder display unusual eye movement patterns, which are linked to cognitive problems such as memory and attention deficits. The researchers used eye-tracking technology to compare the visual behavior of adolescents with and without depression during different visual tasks. They found that certain eye movement characteristics were significantly different in adolescents with depression and were associated with poorer performance on cognitive tests.
Major depressive disorder often begins during adolescence, a period of intense emotional, social, and cognitive development. Depression in teenagers is not only becoming more common but also tends to recur and interfere with many areas of life, including school, family relationships, and social functioning. In many cases, even when mood symptoms improve with treatment, cognitive difficulties—like trouble with memory, attention, and understanding social cues—can persist. These problems can make it hard for adolescents to return to normal daily activities and may contribute to poor treatment outcomes and higher relapse rates.
In recent years, researchers have become interested in using eye-tracking technology as a non-invasive way to study how the brain processes information. Eye movements, including how often people look at certain parts of an image or how well they can follow a moving object, are known to reflect underlying cognitive processes. For example, smooth and coordinated eye movements require good attention control, while frequent or erratic eye movements might indicate difficulty with focus or information processing. Since brain areas involved in eye control also play a role in cognitive functioning, the researchers wanted to explore whether eye movement patterns could serve as indicators of cognitive problems in depressed adolescents.
Pupil Wizard: an app to enhance knowledge of pupillary abnormalities
As neuro-ophthalmology educators, we have sought ways to improve the teaching of pupil-related disorder, focusing on incorporating their dynamic aspects and active learning. Our solution is an app for smartphone and tablet devices. The app, Pupil Wizard, provides a digital textbook featuring a dynamic presentation of the key pupillary abnormalities. It allows the users to interact with a digital patient and explore how each condition responds to direct and indirect light stimuli, near focus, and changes in ambient light (Fig. 1). Moreover, the users can test their knowledge in quiz mode, where random pupillary abnormalities must be correctly identified and multiple-choice questions about them answered.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Rings of time: Unearthing climate secrets from ancient trees
Deep in the swamps of the American Southeast stands a quiet giant: the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). These majestic trees, with their knobby “knees” and towering trunks, are more than just swamp dwellers—they’re some of the oldest living organisms in Eastern North America. Some have been around for more than 2,500 years, quietly thriving in nutrient-poor, flooded forests where most other trees would wither.
But life isn’t easy for these ancient trees. They’re under siege from a variety of threats: rising seas, insect infestations, wildfires and increasingly erratic weather patterns. Unlike most animals, trees generally don’t die of old age—they succumb to the stresses around them.
A study by Florida Atlantic University, in collaboration with Lynn University, the University of Georgia, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and the Georgia Museum of Natural History, reveals how dramatic shifts in climate can have long-lasting effects on even the toughest, most iconic trees—and offers a glimpse into the powerful forces that shape our natural world.
The Map of Mathematics
The entire field of mathematics summarised in a single map! This shows how pure mathematics and applied mathematics relate to each other and all of the sub-topics they are made from.
#mathematics #DomainOfScience.
If you would like to buy a poster of this map, they are available here:
North America: https://store.dftba.com/products/map–… else: http://www.redbubble.com/people/domin… French version: https://www.redbubble.com/people/domi… Spanish Version: https://www.redbubble.com/people/domi… I have also made a version available for educational use which you can find here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9586967… To err is to human, and I human a lot. I always try my best to be as correct as possible, but unfortunately I make mistakes. This is the errata where I correct my silly mistakes. My goal is to one day do a video with no errors! 1. The number one is not a prime number. The definition of a prime number is a number can be divided evenly only by 1, or itself. And it must be a whole number GREATER than 1. (This last bit is the bit I forgot). 2. In the trigonometry section I drew cos(theta) = opposite / adjacent. This is the kind of thing you learn in high school and guess what. I got it wrong! Dummy. It should be cos(theta) = adjacent / hypotenuse. 3. My drawing of dice is slightly wrong. Most dice have their opposite sides adding up to 7, so when I drew 3 and 4 next to each other that is incorrect. 4. I said that the Gödel Incompleteness Theorems implied that mathematics is made up by humans, but that is wrong, just ignore that statement. I have learned more about it now, here is a good video explaining it: • Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem — Numberphile 5. In the animation about imaginary numbers I drew the real axis as vertical and the imaginary axis as horizontal which is opposite to the conventional way it is done. Thanks so much to my supporters on Patreon. I hope to make money from my videos one day, but I’m not there yet! If you enjoy my videos and would like to help me make more this is the best way and I appreciate it very much.
/ domainofscience Here are links to some of the sources I used in this video. Links: Summary of mathematics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathema… Earliest human counting: http://mathtimeline.weebly.com/early–… First use of zero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0#History http://www.livescience.com/27853-who–… First use of negative numbers: https://www.quora.com/Who-is-the-inve… Renaissance science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History… History of complex numbers: http://rossroessler.tripod.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathema… Proof that pi is irrational: https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-prov… and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_t… Also, if you enjoyed this video, you will probably like my science books, available in all good books shops around the work and is printed in 16 languages. Links are below or just search for Professor Astro Cat. They are fun children’s books aimed at the age range 7–12. But they are also a hit with adults who want good explanations of science. The books have won awards and the app won a Webby. Frontiers of Space: http://nobrow.net/shop/professor-astr… Atomic Adventure: http://nobrow.net/shop/professor-astr… Intergalactic Activity Book: http://nobrow.net/shop/professor-astr… Solar System App: Find me on twitter, instagram, and my website: http://dominicwalliman.com
/ dominicwalliman
/ dominicwalliman
/ dominicwalliman.
Everywhere else: http://www.redbubble.com/people/domin…
French version: https://www.redbubble.com/people/domi…
Spanish Version: https://www.redbubble.com/people/domi…
I have also made a version available for educational use which you can find here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9586967…
To err is to human, and I human a lot. I always try my best to be as correct as possible, but unfortunately I make mistakes. This is the errata where I correct my silly mistakes. My goal is to one day do a video with no errors!
1. The number one is not a prime number. The definition of a prime number is a number can be divided evenly only by 1, or itself. And it must be a whole number GREATER than 1. (This last bit is the bit I forgot).