This past week, I had the honor of listening to Dr. Siddharth Ramakrishnan’s talk on perception, visualization, and the different ways that we make associations between things. Over the course of this quarter, we all have had the opportunity to blog about similar, if not identical topics.
Blog Review
I was very excited to have our guest lecturer, Dr. Siddarth Ramakrishnan, speak to us this past week as I’m majoring in neuroscience, so the neural networks underlying how we perceive are of great interest to me. I have always been fascinated with how we, as individuals, perceive ourselves versus how we perceive others, which has had a large influence in the route I have taken in my education by adding a society and genetics minor.
Upon reflecting on my blogs for the past 7 weeks, I have found that my entries often focused on similar ideas. I found that I often create associations relating COVID-19, a scientific problem, and an artistic simplification or interpretation of this topic. The two main themes I found in my entries included:
As we are currently living through a pandemic, which has caused radical changes to our lifestyle, my blogs have revolved around the data, the science, and the impact of this disease. Since we are living in a world where we have such rapid transmission of information a lot of information that gets shared can be inaccurate.
I enjoyed looking over my previous blogs as I began brainstorming on my final. At first glance there didn’t seem to be an underlying theme between each blog; however, I realized that each week I had reflected on how individuals react and deal with COVID-19 in relation to that specific weekly topic. I believe that this common theme ties well with my final, as I am focusing on the social psychology of individuals during COVID-19.
This week, I had the opportunity to listen to a TEDx talk by Cathal Garvey on “Bringing biotechnology into the home” (Garvey “Bringing biotechnology into the home”). Cathal Garvey wants to bring biotechnology to the homes of individuals, outside of the traditional laboratory setting. He is the first licensed individual for genetic engineering in Ireland, and the creator of the blog Indie Biotech (Garvey "Indie Biotech").
I. Introduction
a. Motivation behind researching the relationship between climate change and infectious disease
b. How the environment has changed in recent years
c. How the total number of disease spreading and outbreaks has changed in recent years
II. Warming Climate
a. Increasing temperature enables mosquitos to migrate to different regions and spread disease
b. Increasing procreation rate for the virus and mosquitos
Synthesizing Past Blog Posts
Looking over past blog posts there are a few notable patterns. As a Cognitive Science major, one of my academic interests is how humans process information and interact with the environment around them. One common trend that I have noticed within my blog posts has been a focus on how humans process and interact with other biological things.
Upon reading my previous blog posts, I found that on the surface, there was not much in common. In one post, I talk about cleaner air and Covid19 and the following week I move onto how the coronavirus has affected religious festivities. While these topics range from Renaissance art, to tigers, to capitalism, the over-arching theme in all of my posts is my desire for science to be a more common conversation among non-scientists. All too often, the conversation of science and how it affects our world is left to the scientists.
Introduction
Goal: to research the economic impact of Covid-19, particularly on the Biotech industry, and examine any potential effects on virtual reality art and augmented reality art
Reflecting on my past blogs, I’ve noticed that many of my blogs have centered around mental health and ways to increase positivity and mental stimulation in your everyday life.
After revisiting my blogs, I found that the theme of societal perception in relation to COVID-19 is cemented in all of my topic explorations for this class. After listening to Dr. Siddarth Ramkrishnan on his interesting studies of human perception based on one’s cultural upbringing, I found myself deeply invested in this topic which solidified my choice for the final.
Scientific Racism Final Paper Outline:
After this week’s presentation by Dr. Siddharth Ramakrishnan, I went through all of my blogs, since the beginning of the quarter to search for overarching themes, in my associations, between the various topics that we explored. Interestingly enough I found some noteworthy ideas that I explored and focused on, across all of my blogs, as common motivations.