Darwin Revelation

At the beginning of this course, my knowledge of Charles Darwin—his work, personal life, and views—was fairly minimal. I could only recall bits and pieces from my 8th grade science and 10th grade biology classes. Being largely indifferent to him (and a few science-related subjects in general), I haven’t devoted a lot of thought to something directly pertaining to Darwin until now.

I try to maintain a fairly impartial approach when it comes to his famous theory of evolution, and its ongoing argument with creationism. Like I’ve mentioned before, I believe anything is possible: because I was raised with and learned both views, I respect and see validity in both sides of the argument, finding it difficult to choose a “side.” Despite my admitted apathy towards this subject, I feel it is impossible to be objective to it, which is my “revelation” —that we cannot completely observe our own species without some sort of bias or influence from our culture/society.

Okay, but this is pretty obvious, right? How is this a “revelation?” I’ve understood for a while that the influence of one’s culture can play a role in his or her beliefs, opinions, and view of the world. I had to argue with myself the day we discussed gender (and race) in Darwin’s The Descent of Man; I saw the blatant sexist observations of a man—but a man of his time.

Being a female myself, the role of women throughout history and in context of cultures around the world has always fascinated me. I am a proud alumna of Catherine McAuley High School, a Catholic girls’ school in Portland, Maine. My senior English teacher considered a feminist by her students, though she claimed otherwise (a “womanist”). I learned a lot in my four years about the places in the world my gender has been, and where I/we can now go, and how far we’ve come.

Here are some of the claims and observations Charles Darwin makes in his work, The Descent of Man: “Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition…of a past and lower state of civilization” (Darwin, 234), “Man is more powerful in body and mind than woman…therefore it is not surprising that he should have gained the power of selection” (242), and finally, “Man is more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger, but whether or not proportionately to his larger body, has not, I believe, been fully ascertained” (233). Now, from reading those statements, one would conclude that he was sexist. However, science historian Evelleen Richards argues, “To label him as a sexist may be technically correct…but it is mere rhetoric in the context of a society in which almost everyone was a sexist—who held discriminatory views of woman’s nature and social rôle” (443).

I certainly agree with what she’s saying, which is my “revelation,” but I was still finding myself at another point. Being the progressive thinker Darwin was, shouldn’t he have seen that within his society women were not allowed to become “powerful in body and mind?” Men are typically built bigger than women, so I will cut a little slack for the “powerful in body” aspect. But the mind? Female authors had to be published under male pseudonyms to even be considered! Women couldn’t really train to become doctors or scientists until around his time, so how could they prove that they were just as powerful in mind as men? I guess I just can’t completely, 100% agree that he wasn’t a little bit sexist.

This just proves that Darwin can’t be taken as an objective source to our species. Well, duh! Of course, he’s human too. So when I say my revelation is “that we cannot completely observe our own species without some sort of bias or influence from our culture/society,” I mean I didn’t understand it completely until I got to know Darwin’s work a little better; I didn’t realize how much of an effect an outside source can have on even scientific observations. I would like to think we are as close to being objective as we can today, but who knows? Maybe one hundred years from now, another college student will be writing about the same thing…

Darwin, Charles. “Selections from Darwin’s Work.” pp 67-254 in Darwin. 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed . New York: W.W.Norton, 2001.

Richards, Evelleen. “Darwin and the Descent of Women.” in Darwin. 3rd ed. Philip Appleman, ed . New York: W.W.Norton, 2001.

The Bionic Contact Lens

Still in development, the bionic contact lens (would be) a contact lens that gives the sensor the perception of augmented reality.

What is "augmented reality?" A gizmag.com article explains: “Unlike Virtual Reality, where the user’s field of view is completely replaced with an artificial visual environment, Augmented Reality uses head tracking in conjunction with augmented vision to overlay complimentary information on the user’s view.” Basically, augmented reality is when our vision is enanced, adding elements to what we already see, as opposed to replacing it. Below is a video from National Geographic:



Within the past couple of years, a team of engineers at the University of Washington have been working on making bionic contact lenses a reality. The project is being lead by Babak Parviz, an assistant professor of electrical engineering. The research was formally introduced to the public in early 2008. See the YouTube video below:



To see a concept of the lens, click here.

Parvitz and his team were able to build a display into the lens based on an array of LED (light-emitting didode) pixels. Laser beams have also been considered as a light source, because it diverges less than LED light, which could make images sharper.

The lens’ LEDs can be powered wirelessly with radio frequency. (There would have to be some sort of external device to power the lens.) It would have integrated control circuits, communication circuits, and miniature antennas.

The LEDs would create an image on the back of the retina (the light-sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye), which the viewer would see overlaid onto their natural view of the world.

Reported as of spring 2009, the team has only been able to develop a lens with
 one pixel.

One of the problems the team has run into is getting the weight and size small enough for the human eye, while also being biocompatible and safe. They are grateful for nanotechnology, which helps resolve the issue of size. The tiny LEDS are reported to fit a possible 100 in an inch (resembling the look of powder!). They were able to coat the toxic materials with a biocompatable substance. Prototypes have been tested on lab rabbits, which, within a 20-minute period of wear, did not show any adverse effects.

Another issue was being able to design a surface where the electronic components wouldn’t block vision. Parvitz says the solution to this is to “place most of the minute components in areas over the eye’s natural blind spots.”

They also need/ed to figure out how to push the image away from the cornea (powerful part of the eye that works with the lens to refract light). The normal focal distance for seeing objects clearly is about 25 centimeters in front of a person’s eye. Parvitz claims that a way to work around this would be to “employ an array of even smaller lenses placed on the surface of the contact lens.” Also, the angle of incoming light could be adjusted to make up for the cornea not being able to focus.

So what are the benefits of this crazy eyepiece? A bionic contact lens could allow someone to see better than he or she does already, meaning even a person with good/“perfect” vision would see things differently. Biosensors on the lens could be designed to send a signal when a particular molecule is detected, providing an easier and non-invasive way to monitor health. The lens could inlfluence the gaming industry, creating new experiences for players. It could also affect the tourism industry, providing access to information.

Sources

Eisenberg, Anne. “Inside These Lenses, a Digital Dimension.” The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 25 Apr. 2009. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

Hanlon, Mike. “Electronic Contact Lens promises bionic capabilities for everyone.” Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine. 21 Jan. 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

Jackson, Joab. “”Bionic” Contact Lens May Create Tiny Personal Displays.” National Geographic News. 29 Jan. 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

Nelson, Bryn. “The vision of the future seen in bionic contact lens.” Msnbc.com. 21 Jan. 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

Parviz, Babak A. “Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens.” IEEE Spectrum Online: Technology, Engineering, and Science News. Sept. 2009. Web. 06 Dec. 2009. .

What Do Guts Have to Do With It?

Have you ever tried to think of what your core body cavity would look like if it were portrayed as food? If not, we will be giving you that chance on Monday, as our group will be presenting the ideas and concepts researched by Andreas Vesalius. Vesalius grew up to be a pharmacist but earned his medical degree in 1537. He was most interested in looking more into Galen’s theories and studies on the body, which lead to him write many books. One of them titled, De Humani Corporis Fabrica. This novel went into much more detailed description of human anatomy than any one before him. We will be going over diagrams such as click here. These types of diagrams will be explained in greater detail throughout our presentation. Another important concept that will be explained is the history of Vesalius and why he did his diagrams and researched the way he did. Here is a small video that will only begin to explain the great things this scientist was involved in, click here . Even though it may seem strange now, more details will be discussed, explained and shown on Monday.

Technology, Entertainment, and the Rise of the Internet

We all know that our advances in technology -and our growing dependence on the internet- have drastically changed the way we find entertainment. Both the music and film industries have seen giant movements in the way music is produced and shared. Today, anyone can go on the internet and usually find what they're looking for- and it doesn't have to come at a price. Torrent websites/clients and other file sharing programs have made it easy for people to download movies, music, games...just about anything, for free. But, if doing stuff legally is more of someone's thing, he or she can also purchase what they want in a digital format, like mp3s on iTunes.

So what about one of the oldest sources of entertainment...books? Books are also seeing a "2.0" kind of future, as mentioned in this article: "Books are being pushed aside for digital learning centers and gaming areas. 'Loud rooms' that promote public discourse and group projects are taking over the bookish quiet. Hipster staffers who blog, chat on Twitter and care little about the Dewey Decimal System are edging out old-school librarians."

I love listening to vinyl (a gramophone record). Not only are most of my favorite pieces of music/albums from the 1960s & '70s, but the sometimes scratchy, crackly, vintage sound can give the music authenticity, and shows the listener how it was originally played by people (which I think is wicked cool). Vinyl has become somewhat of a trendy kind of thing nowadays, where there are younger people such as myself wanting to "bring back" an old way of doing something; there are also many independent artists who release their albums (LPs!) on vinyl in addition to a compact disc to keep with the trend. Now, I also love reading BOOKS, too. Reading something on a screen is okay, but it's definitely not something I like to do for hours on end. So I'm curious...will books phase out like a gramophone record? Will the Kindle become the new iPod? What will happen to publishing companies? Personally, I would be devastated if books almost became non-existent. I don't see it happening for a while...but the possibility is always there.

"The future of libraries, with our without books." John D. Sutter. CNN, 2009. Web. 7 Sept. 2009.