Author Archives: stephnelli

April 01

The plastic brain

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[En español] We are born with roughly 100 billion neurons, more neurons than we’ll ever have again. It’s still a ton of neurons; they could wrap around the earth 3-4 times. Plus, each of these 100 billion neurons has a couple hundred to thousand connections with other neurons. But as we age, our brains also change. Regions of the brain key for memory […]

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January 14

Life (™), the Game

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I emerged from the haze of 2015’s consumer season with “FitBit”, one of the biggest names in wearable technology, staring at me from my bank statement. Turns out, my brother’s job, like many others, has monthly competitions, awarding prizes to the employee averaging the most daily steps. Never one to be beat, my sister in law requested one for the holidays, which […]

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September 03

Who wants to be an astronaut?

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Sensory deprivation. Cultural isolation. Physical confinement. Throw in relearning every menial task for microgravity, the lack of privacy and the disturbed sleep-wake cycle, and you can be sure your life will never be the same (1,2). Yeah, the job description for being an astronaut is a little intense. Especially since you also need to be intelligent, physically fit, and, […]

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March 26

Telepathy, possibly?

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Imagine a world where our thoughts could be instantly transmitted to machines, computers and other people’s brains. One important application of thought transmission would be creating sophisticated neuroprosthetics for people with a variety of disorders, a goal that has sparked exciting research that aims to connect brains with machines, computers (BMI/BCI) and other brains (brain-to-brain interfacing, BTBI). Large-scale BTBI would allow professors to broadcast lectures telepathically, doctors to communicate with patients […]

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January 29

time keeps on slippin’

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A few nights ago I made the mistake of baking lasagna while extremely hungry. Each tick of the timer reverberated inside my skull for what seemed like hours, and the cheese just refused to melt. Later that same night I accidentally stayed up until 2 in the morning absentmindedly watching hours of YouTube videos that […]

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September 19

this, that and the Other

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The recent shooting in Ferguson, Missouri has thrown our society’s tendency to binarize people into mainstream awareness. News outlets have been criticized for incriminating Michael Brown by selecting pictures where he fulfills black stereotypes instead of pictures in which he looks like one of Us.  Police rely on the same superficial binaries in racial profiling, […]

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