HRS177|Spring2012

Extra Credit: Lejla Kucukalic: Biotech to Biopunk: Science Fiction’s Visions of Genetics

Scientists are often portrayed in a stereotypic manner in a literature and media where they are usually described us people with thick eyeglasses and bunch of tubes who basically live their whole life in the laboratory.
This portrayal creates certain stereotypes that about scientist which today it is almost impossible to break.

Final: Amplified Natural Intelligence

In our modern society technological advances are not shocking anymore. It is expected for the various electronics to be further developed in order to achieve better device capabilities. However, while on the path creating Artificial Intelligence, we tend to neglect our own intellectual development.
 
Behavioral modifications, particularly education, do tend to improve the level of human intelligence. However, this process is slow and requires constant work.

Extra-Credit Blog: Biopunk Lecture

I attended Lejla Kucukalic’s lecture on Biotech to Biopunk: Science Fiction’s Visions of Genetics. Her lecture highlighted the reasons for the stereotypical portrayal of scientists in literature and media throughout history. In addition, her lecture discussed the push and pull relationship between science fiction and science, the controversy of biopunk, and more.

Extra-Credit Blog: Kathy Brew's Going Grey Exhibit

I found Kathy Brew’s “Going Grey” exhibit to be quite intriguing. Her exhibit highlighted society’s attitude towards aging and the lack of embrace for aging.  I did some research to trace the cause of grey hair and discovered that it is caused be a decrease in pigment produced by hair follicles called melanin whose rate is determined by genetics. As you age the amount of melanin you produce decreases and replaced with colorless air bubbles leading to grey hair.

Week8 Turing Symposium--Shiwei

On Friday, I went to the Turing symposium and heard the talk from Jon Beaupre. The title is “Some Speculations on the Effects of Machine Language on News Delivery Credibility.” Beaupre first introduced us the concept of avatar, which is a virtual representation of the user. Avatar can be two dimensional in online communities or three dimensional in online gaming. Avatars can also be embodied with artificial intelligence. For instance, many websites provide customers with services from artificial assistant with AI.

177 Finals Update

Dear HRS 177 Students,

As you already know you have to upload three items related to finals:

1. Compile all the blogs you have written during the quarter and organize them into one document and save as a pdf. Create and place a title page (Make sure to identify with your name, major, date, class, professor) at the front and a short summary at the end. Naming convention: LAST_F_177_Final.pdf (Jane Doe would be: DOE_J_177_Final.pdf)

To upload the blog compilation: 
a. Create a new blog entry.

Extra Credit: Biotech to Biopunk- JING (Sophie) Xia

Last Thursday, Lejla Kucukalic delivered this speech to highlight the great impacts Science Fiction and literature have on science. She presented a variety of different types of science fiction literature and movies and explained how they influenced and perhaps motivated scientists of their times. Kucukalic also suggested that science fiction books and movies often are a step ahead of the science at the time and predict what is about to come in the field of science. Through the lecture, she also summarized genetic types of scientists.

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