Category "College"

What do you want to be when you grow up? Maybe you want to be a doctor, an athlete, a teacher, a CEO, a chef…the list of possible jobs are endless. You could be anything and have time to figure out what your interests are! 

Have you ever played with building blocks? Maybe you’ve built a really tall tower, a cool building, or even an airplane from blocks or Legos. Your body is also made of building blocks. However, these building blocks look very different from the ones you are used to. They are called cells, and they make up your body.

Joy, anger, surprise, sadness, fear…all of these are examples of emotions we feel throughout our lives or even throughout a day. Emotions are a normal part of life. We might feel joy around our friends, surprise when we hear good news, or sadness when we lose something. The brain plays a big role in these emotions that we are feeling. 

We communicate with other people around us all the time. Whether it’s family, friends, classmates, teachers, or anyone else, we are always sharing information with each other. Similarly, your brain is constantly communicating with the rest of your body. Your brain controls so much—like movement, breathing, and how you’re feeling. But how can your brain communicate this with the rest of your body?

Pictures are fun and easy to take on a phone or camera. But how could you take a picture of your brain? Brain imaging, also called neuroimaging, is very important to doctors and scientists. Pictures of the brain can help doctors detect problems in the brain and make sure it is healthy. But if they can’t use a regular camera, how do they take these images?

Move your right arm in a circle. Now stomp your right foot. What side of your brain is controlling these muscles? You might think that the right side of your brain controls the right side of your body. This would make sense, but it’s actually the opposite. That’s right—when you move your right arm or stomp your right foot, the left side of your brain is at work.

Our brain is sensitive to change. Over cycles of prosperity and endangerment, animals developed the organ to serve as a tool for adaptation to the environment. As intelligence enhanced, so did the potential for beings to shape the world according to their preferences. Soon enough, the evolution of mankind upgraded the brain to the extent that we overcame the natural limitations of animalistic competition and resource acquisition for our species. Although we developed the ability to turn the world into our playground, we lost the checks on our responsibility to the ecosystem. Consequently, we are now pumping into the world toxic pollutants to further our short term goals at the expense of our future. However, our actions have finally caught up with us. Our gift of intelligence may be taken away by the very pollutants it has generated. 

Yesterday, while surfing Youtube, I came across a video on baking dark chocolate brownies at home. The irresistible delight of seeing the chocolate pulp rise in the oven into an airy ball of dough conjured in my mind the sweet aroma of a bakery, leaving my drooling mouth desperate to chomp down one of those scrumptious treats. It is incredible that watching a short video can leave us with a complete experience. How can a simple visual exposure stimulate our gustatory and olfactory senses as well? The answer is as simple as it is complex: memory.

A brain engineered from metal. An outlandish concept established by sci-fi movies. Before we know it, the artificial mind evolves to possess a conscience and develops an undeterred hatred for the human race, leaving us embroiled in a precarious robot takeover. Man vs. Machine. Laser shooters. Perilous explosions. Is this all a bit much? Perhaps. However, we may truly be on the verge of a breakthrough allowing us to construct the artificial mind from scratch.