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Sean Nash

Race car drivers tend to blink at the same places in each lap - 2 views

www.sciencenews.org/...ula-one-race-car-drivers-blink

ArduinoScienceJournal app driving blinking vision research potential research idea biology engineering HSR HSR-2023 science statistical analysis car auto safety civilengineering blink HSR-2025 behavioralscience

shared by Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • The world goes dark for about one-fifth of a second every time you blink, a fraction of an instant that’s hardly noticeable to most people. But for a Formula One race car driver traveling up to 354 kilometers per hour, that one-fifth means almost 20 meters of lost vision
  • People are often thought to blink at random intervals, but researchers found that wasn’t the case for three Formula drivers.
  • the drivers tended to blink at the same parts of the course during each lap, cognitive neuroscientist Ryota Nishizono and colleagues report in the May 19 iScience
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      Interesting. So, do we do the same thing while driving around town? Could you design a method to record eye blinks as people drive known routes around town? We could simultaneously use the Arduino Science Journal app on the iPhone to also correlate physical data in a moving car like acceleration/deceleration, motion in X, Y, Z directions, etc. I wonder if we could find a correlation in everyday driving that could help from a safety perspective?
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • He was surprised to find almost no literature on blinking behavior in active humans even though under extreme conditions like motor racing or cycling
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      Ok.... this screams "potential research idea."
  • “We think of blinking as this nothing behavior,” he says, “but it’s not just wiping the eyes. Blinking is a part of our visual system.”
  • Where the drivers blinked was surprisingly predictable, the team found. The drivers had a shared pattern of blinking that had a strong connection with acceleration, such that drivers tended not to blink while changing speed or direction — like while on a curve in the track — but did blink while on relatively safer straightaways.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      What sort of implications does this have for driving in key, known, busy interchanges in KC? Could we potentially provide data to show certain stretches of highway need more signage, etc? That could have civil engineering implications.
  • Nishizono and colleagues mounted eye trackers on the helmets of three drivers and had them drive three Formula circuits
  • Nishizono next wants to explore what processes in the brain allow or inhibit blinking in a given moment, he says, and is also interested in how blinking behavior varies among the general population.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      While the "brain" part might move beyond our feasibility, the potential of finding real correlations to driving patterns or routes is a completely different spin-off and one that could have really practical suggestive applications for city planners, etc.
nataliegomes

Potential Pain in Fish and Decapods: Similar Experimental Approaches and Similar Result... - 1 views

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...PMC8093373

HSR HSR-2025 science behavioralscience invertebrates crabs potential research idea

shared by nataliegomes on 19 Jun 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • how they provided guidance on general methods that could be applied to other animals such as decapod crustaceans.
  • indicate that responses of both go beyond those expected of mere nociceptive reflex.
    • nataliegomes
      nataliegomes on 19 Jun 24
       
      Where is the limit between a reflex and a cognitive response?
  • Sean Nash on 01 Jul 24
     
    I really like this topic, and it is one that is getting some current attention. so, we obviously cannot discern cellular-level factors with the nervous system of animals (and obviously- especially when dealing with pain response, we would have to work exclusively with invertebrates and the experimental design would have to be very well thought out. That said, behavioral studies where you have a really tight experimental design set up.... and you're recording behavioral changes... is likely feasible. If this is interesting, keep digging into pain vs. reflex studies, and also begin to look at invertebrate models that we can both successfully raise... and that have interesting behavioral responses we can readily discern in the lab.
Sean Nash

Scientists develop visual tool to help people group foods based on their levels of proc... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240530182042.htm

images photos data VirginiaTech visual tools food biomedical health diet group people tool scientists potential research idea behavioralscience biology chemistry HSR-2025 HSR science

shared by Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • Scientists studying ultra-processed foods have created a new tool for assessing the rewarding and reinforcing properties of foods that make up 58 percent of calories consumed in the United States. The foods have been linked to a wide range of negative health outcomes.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      I couldn't locate this imageset and associated tools online, but I am willing to bet they might make it available to us, and the generation of more future research in this area is a key purpose of this work.
  • provides a collection of carefully curated images of minimally processed and ultra-processed foods matched on 26 characteristics, including macronutrients, sodium, dietary fiber, calories, price, and visual characteristics such as a color and portion size
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      Perhaps we just need to get the full journal article to get the raw materials (images) created and used.
  • The scale has its detractors. "A major criticism of the NOVA scale is that it's difficult to use or that foods are classified differently by different people," said Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, corresponding author and assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. "We found that people with education in nutrition generally agreed on the food classifications, providing some data that it might not be a valid criticism."
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      See... this is the sort of thing I see as an opportunity. If the scale has detractors or isn't yet perfect, perhaps there is an opening here for a project. Perhaps there is even an opening to create something focused on teens (who I would argue are at most risk for the consumption of ultra-processed foods). This is an interesting area to me, not only behavioral science, but human diet in general.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • To develop the picture set, a team of psychologists, neuroscientists, and registered dietitians selected foods to represent either minimally processed or ultra-processed foods.
  • The foods were prepared in a lab, visually represented through professional photography, and controlled for consistency. Researchers also gathered price, food weights, and nutritional information -- calories, macronutrients, sodium, and dietary fiber -- for the food in each image.
  • researchers recruited 67 nutrition professionals and asked them to classify the foods as minimally or ultra-processed
  • "There is very little experimental research on ultra-processed foods, and part of what's been holding us back is better tools for measuring and assessing their effects,"
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      Another big GREEN flag that this is an area ripe for new and creative approaches!
  • The Virginia Tech team is making the pictures and associated data accessible through the Virginia Tech Data Repository of the Virginia Tech University Libraries. This will allow scientists to test hypotheses in behavioral economic and neuroimaging studies.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      This states that the images/research tools WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE (if not already). This is very cool. So, could the already-existing tool be leveraged in a novel way compared to what the researchers used it for, or does this provide somewhat of a template for someone to create a better or more-helpful tool perhaps for teens?
  • Story Source: Materials provided by Virginia Tech. Original written by Leigh Anne Kelley. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
  • Journal Reference: Zach Hutelin, Monica Ahrens, Mary Elizabeth Baugh, Mary E. Oster, Alexandra L. Hanlon, Alexandra G. DiFeliceantonio. Creation and validation of a NOVA scored picture set to evaluate ultra-processed foods.. Appetite, 2024; 198: 107358 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107358
Sean Nash

Study explores what motivates people to watch footage of disasters and extreme weather ... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240702135537.htm

disaster media video socialmedia extreme weather HSR HSR-2025 science questions statistical analysis potential research idea behavioralscience

shared by Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24
     
    Yes. This is science. Behavioral science. Sometimes it looks like this.......
nataliegomes

Control of behavioral decisions is similar in insects and mammals | ScienceDaily - 2 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...230831142835.htm

HSR HSR-2025 science biology behavioralscience invertebrates

shared by nataliegomes on 07 May 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • Sean Nash on 07 May 24
     
    I wonder what sort of electronics were needed to accomplish this. I also wonder how difficult it would be to attach those to a living insect without sacrificing it.
Sean Nash

Study traces an infectious language epidemic | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240513105214.htm

LLM ChatGPT language trace cause & effect study Reddit COVID words potential research idea computer science statistical analysis mathematic behavioralscience questions HSR HSR-2025 science

shared by Sean Nash on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • Rho's work is grounded in a social science framework called Fuzzy Trace Theory that was pioneered by Valerie Reyna, a Cornell University professor of psychology and a collaborator on this Virginia Tech project. Reyna has shown that individuals learn and recall information better when it is expressed in a cause and effect relationship, and not just as rote information. This holds true even if the information is inaccurate or the implied connection is weak. Reyna calls this cause-and-effect construction a "gist."
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 May 24
       
      Fuzzy Trace Theory looks interesting for this, and perhaps many other reasons. I want to learn more about this myself, and I'm wondering if this theory could be put to work in other potential behavioral science projects. What do you think?
emmarrogers

(PDF) Assessing the effect of different light conditions on crayfish welfare using a da... - 1 views

www.researchgate.net/...g_a_dark-light_preference_maze

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea science crayfish

shared by emmarrogers on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • (weak light: 38 lux; bright light: 761 lux) with 3 different light spectrums (cold white (CCT ≈ 5500K), warm white (CCT ≈ 2600 K) and neutral (CCT ≈ 3800 K)) over a period of six months
emmarrogers

Science: Crayfish Can Be Calmed With Anti-Anxiety Medication | American Association for... - 0 views

www.aaas.org/...calmed-anti-anxiety-medication

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea science crayfish

shared by emmarrogers on 07 May 24 - No Cached
  • "There have been very few studies of the crayfish brain,"
  • crayfish normally prefer darkness,
  • non-shocked, non-stressed crayfish did.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • chlordiazepoxide
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 21 May 24
       
      Do other drugs also work to calm the crayfish's anxiety. Also, in the future, could tests on crayfish be used to find more/ different anxiety medicines in humans. Also, do they show side affects just like humans, or similar that we could document the side affects?
emmarrogers

Anxiety medication: List, types, and side effects - 0 views

www.medicalnewstoday.com/...323666

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea science crayfish

shared by emmarrogers on 21 May 24 - No Cached
  • chlordiazepoxide (Librium)
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 21 May 24
       
      This is the same medication used in a different study (https://www.aaas.org/news/science-crayfish-can-be-calmed-anti-anxiety-medication) Do only this group of Anti-anxiety medications work in crayfish?
emmarrogers

Acute fluoxetine exposure alters crab anxiety-like behaviour, but not aggressiveness | ... - 0 views

www.nature.com/...srep19850

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea science crayfish behavioralscience

shared by emmarrogers on 21 May 24 - No Cached
  • fluoxetine
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 21 May 24
       
      This is an anxiety medicine in the Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
nataliegomes

Crab's Brain Encodes Complex Memories | Scientific American - 1 views

www.scientificamerican.com/...clever-crustaceans

HSR HSR-2025 science behavioralscience invertebrates crabs biology

shared by nataliegomes on 28 May 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 04 Jun 24
     
    Two reasons to like this one... both invertebrates & learning/behavioral science tend to be feasible areas for research at our level. Keep reading... more deeply AND more broadly.
emmarrogers

Frequent mowing puts poisonous weed into survival mode | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240603195751.htm

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea botany

shared by emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • The taproot went down further
  • More spikes popped out on the stem
  • The flowers became more toxic
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Although studies have often highlighted weed fitness and defense traits resulting from disturbances like mowing, most were limited to foliar, or leaf, defenses, Kariyat said. That changed when Vasquez and fellow master's biology students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley monitored fields of mowed, unmowed and frequently mowed silverleaf nightshade in and around Edinburg, Texas.
  • "Alejandro's question was, 'how do these flowers differ between mowed and unmowed plants?'"
  • "You are trying to mow these plants so that the plants are getting eliminated," Kariyat said. "But what you are actually doing here, you are making them much worse, much stronger."
  • The observations of mowed, unmowed and frequently mowed areas with silverleaf nightshade provide evidence that could prompt further studies by weed scientists on best management practices, Kariyat said.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 04 Jun 24
       
      Again... when you see a callout like this for more research in an area... especially one that might be feasible with some serious planning/organization... you might be on to something.
  • the study does provide more insight into the defensive capabilities of plants pitted against human disturbance
  • "Continuous mowing differentially affects floral defenses in the noxious and invasive weed Solanum elaeagnifolium in its native range."
  • Journal Reference: Alejandro Vasquez, Alexa Alaniz, Robert Dearth, Rupesh Kariyat. Continuous mowing differentially affects floral defenses in the noxious and invasive weed Solanum elaeagnifolium in its native range. Scientific Reports, 2024; 14 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-58672-w
  • Solanum ptychanthum or black nightshade, and Solanum carolinense, or Carolina horsenettle, also produce toxic berries and are native to Arkansas.
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      Could we possibly research different types of weeds similar to the silver Nightshade, like one of these plants?
  • Sean Nash on 04 Jun 24
     
    There is a TON of data that can be measured & analyzed in a study like this. Easier to do in a less time-dependent way in the lab, but easier and more realistic (in vivo) to do if you have access to similar fields that are mowed and unmowed to differing extents. So many variables to examine and consider here for how plants may change physiologically based upon how we interact with them. This goes beyond that analogy I always use for fast evolution in Honors Biology: how dandelion populations become shorter based upon frequent mowing. This gets into the physiological responses. Very cool methinks.
emmarrogers

Biodegradation of polyethylene by the marine fungus Parengyodontium album - ScienceDirect - 1 views

www.sciencedirect.com/...S0048969724029668

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea botany

shared by emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • UV light
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      If we were to use X or Gamma rays, would that speed up the process?
  • Graphical abstract
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      Why does it need the 9 day incubation period? Could we lower that
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      So, could we just do this with a plastic bottle?
  • degradation
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Other important plastic types afloat in the sea are polypropylene (PP) and to a lesser degree polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      Does/ Could this fungi degrade these as well
  • Zalerion maritimum (Paço et al., 2017), Alternaria alternata FB1 (Gao et al., 2022) and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa (Vaksmaa et al., 2023a), while Cladosporium halotolerans 6UPA1 was shown to degrade PUR (Zhang et al., 2022).
  • Sean Nash on 05 Jun 24
     
    Strange.... when I go to this article, I can see your highlights, but I cannot see your comments. Usually, when I can see those, I can comment back right there as opposed to saving it myself. Grrrr...
  • Sean Nash on 05 Jun 24
     
    Super interesting topic (I saw this one last week). The work with isotopes they did here is well beyond feasibility for us, but that doesn't mean there isn't something here that could be done. You'd have to work through the set up of marine environments (tanks) and acquisition of these fungal strains. I'm betting the one they recently recovered from biofilm on plastic trash in the ocean would be super difficult to get our hands on, but they do mention several others that have previously been found to degrade plastics. perhaps those are more easily obtained. (?) Degredation fo plastic by microbes is EXACTLY what the cheater-guy did in lasy year's winning ISEF project, but like this article says, most of this work has been done with bacteria, not eukaryotic organisms like fungi. I also thing the area of biofilms is super interesting. The analysis (beyond weighing the plastic pre/post) is rather instrumental and that might be difficult depending upon our ability to find someone to help us analyze instrumentally. I like the idea, but feasibility is unknown at the moment. You might want to keep reading down this area. It is certainly interesting and important. Keep an eye on feasibility as you go forward.
Sean Nash

Airplane Noise Exposure May Increase Risk of Chronic Disease | SPH - 0 views

www.bu.edu/...crease-risk-of-chronic-disease

HSR HSR-2025 airplane noise disease environmental science questions statistical analysis mathematics computer science potential research idea behavioralscience

shared by Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • people who were exposed to higher levels of noise from aircraft were more likely to have a higher body mass index, an indicator for obesity that can lead to stroke or hypertension. The findings highlight how the environment—and environmental injustices—can shape health outcomes
  • self-reported body mass index (BMI)
  • The study is the first to explore a connection between aircraft noise exposure and obesity nationwide in the United States; past studies on this subject have focused on European populations, and results have varied
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      It would be interesting to see how these studied varied. I would bet that there are other, stronger factors overlying this effect, and it would be challenging to tease out this signal from other socioeconomic factors, but I very much like this concept.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “Prior research has shown that aircraft noise can elevate stress responses and disturb sleep, but there has been mixed evidence of any links with body mass index,” says study lead and corresponding author Matthew Bozigar, assistant professor of epidemiology at OSU and a former postdoctoral associate at SPH. “We were surprised to see a fairly robust link between aircraft noise and higher body mass index among women across the US.”
  • These new findings underscore the role of the environment on one’s risk of chronic disease.
  • Junenette Peters, associate professor of environmental health, and colleagues examined airplane noise exposure and self-reported BMI and other individual characteristics among nearly 75,000 participants living around 90 of the major US airports
  • The team examined aircraft noise levels every five years from 1995 to 2010, using a day-night estimate (DNL) that captures the average noise level over a 24-hour period and applies a 10 dB adjustment for aircraft noise occurring at night, when background noise is low.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      I'm sure there are low-powered data loggers that measure dB that we could plant in various places (varying distances from airports (or other things... even just distances from population centers in general). This would allow us to not only work with and search for correlations between data points already collected, but also to generate more specific data on our own. The human data might not necessarily have to be collected by us. The challenge might be just to find databases that have already been collected for various reasons. Much science is done in this way, where instead of generating a ton of data to analyze, the researcher used previously collected data to ask new and interesting questions of.
  • Although the team acknowledges that BMI is a suboptimal metric, the independent and strong association between more aircraft noise exposure and higher BMI that they observed is notable.
  • “We can only hypothesize about why we saw these regional variations, but one reason may relate to the era of regional development, building characteristics, and climate which may affect factors such as housing age, design, and level of insulation,” says Peters. “Regional differences in temperature and humidity may influence behaviors such as window opening, so perhaps study participants living in the West were more exposed to aircraft noise due to open windows or housing type, which allowed more noise to penetrate.”
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      The really interesting work here would be teasing interesting patterns out of really complex data sets. For example, people living near airports typically live in housing that is less expensive due to the lesser desirability of living in that area. That tends to correlate with lower socio-economic status found near airports. However, this is interesting because the major flightpaths to the KCI airport do not exactly line up in this way. For example, three of the school districts in Missouri that line up with KCI runways (Park Hill Schools - where we live, Platte County Schools, Kearney Schools, Smithville Schools, and the northern part of North Kansas City Schools) are all of a higher than average socioeconomic status than outlying areas closer to the city. This is unusual in major metropolitan areas.
  • Previous data suggest that Black, Hispanic, and low-income populations are disproportionately exposed to aircraft noise. The participants in the NHS study groups were primarily White and of mid-level socioeconomic status. 
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      Again, this is a bit different than around most airports. The area immediately surrounding KCI is rather white and mid-to-upper SES.
  • “We need to study the potential health impacts of environmental injustices in transportation noise exposures alongside other environmental drivers of poor health outcomes” Bozigar says. “There is a lot more to figure out, but this study adds evidence to a growing body of literature that noise negatively impacts health.”
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      What other environmental factors can be studied either by direct measurement, or by querying previously-collected data to ask/answer questions about environmental health?
Sean Nash

Are plants intelligent? It depends on the definition | ScienceDaily - 1 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240612113314.htm

plants science HSR-2025 HSR environmental botany biology potential research idea behavioralscience

shared by Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • When leaf beetle larvae eat goldenrod leaves, the plant emits a chemical that informs the insect that the plant is damaged and is a poor source of food. These airborne chemicals, called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), are also picked up by neighboring goldenrod plants, prompting them to produce their own defenses against the beetle larvae. In this way, goldenrod move herbivores on to neighbors, and distribute damage.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24
       
      Are these VOCs (volatile organic compounds) detectable by us? If not detectable, they can we identify them... and then produce or purchase those chemicals to test their effects on plant responses?
  • start producing defensive compounds that help the plants fight off insect pests.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24
       
      It seems to me that I remember hydrogen peroxide being one of these signaling chemicals (at least from one part of a plant to another).
  • When no neighbors are present, the plants don't resort to accelerated growth when eaten and the chemical responses to herbivores are markedly different, though they still tolerate quite high amounts of herbivory.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Neighboring goldenrod also exhibit intelligence when they perceive VOCs that signal the presence of a pest. "The volatile emission coming from a neighbor is predictive of future herbivory," Kessler said. "They can use an environmental cue to predict a future situation, and then act on that."
  • Applying the concept of intelligence to plants can inspire fresh hypotheses about the mechanisms and functions of plant chemical communication, while also shifting people's thinking about what intelligence really means, Kessler said.
  • "What that means is, the brain in the plant is the entire plant without the need of central coordination," Kessler said.
  • "They can smell out their environment very precisely; every single cell can do it, as far as we know,"
  • André Kessler, Michael B. Mueller. Induced resistance to herbivory and the intelligent plant. Plant Signaling & Behavior, 2024; 19 (1) DOI: 10.1080/15592324.2024.2345985
  • Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24
     
    "When goldenrod is eaten by herbivores, it adapts its response based on whether or not another plant is nearby."
Kylie John

A high-fat diet may fuel anxiety | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240617173547.htm

HSR HSR-2025 biology human behavioralscience

shared by Kylie John on 16 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • The study found that in animals, a high-fat diet disrupts resident gut bacteria, alters behavior and, through a complex pathway connecting the gut to the brain, influences brain chemicals in ways that fuel anxiety.
  • "To think that just a high-fat diet could alter expression of these genes in the brain is extraordinary," said Lowry. "The high-fat group essentially had the molecular signature of a high anxiety state in their brain."
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