Dan dennet real patterns.
Daniel C. Dennett, Real Patterns, The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 88, No. 1 (Jan., 1991), pp. 27–51.
Category: education – Page 2
Leading A Government-Wide Response To Long COVID — Dr. Ian Simon, Ph.D. — Director, Office of Long COVID Research and Practice, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Dr. Ian Simon, Ph.D. is the Director for the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice (https://www.hhs.gov/longcovid/index.html), in the Office of Science and Medicine, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health \& Human Services.
The Office of Science and Medicine harnesses the power of collaboration, scientific analysis, data-driven innovation, and emerging technologies for advancing initiatives across the Department, including not just Long COVID, but in the areas of behavioral health, health equity, kidney disease, infection-associated chronic conditions, mother-infant dyad, sickle cell disease, and traumatic brain injury.
Researchers discovered that electrical synapses filter sensory signals in animals, enabling context-specific decision-making—a finding with broad implications for neuroscience.
Scientists from Yale University
Established in 1701, Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and twelve professional schools. It is named after British East India Company governor Elihu Yale.
The next generations of AI will not only do more, they’ll also be more rooted in trusted sources of information. This will make them accurate and reliable at a whole new level. By demarcating boundaries and fostering trust, we can create AI companions that are safe, reliable, and deeply integrated into our personal and professional lives; AIs that begin to address those wider societal issues. We have all got used to the idea that AI might help with productivity applications, but we need to realize that, alongside this, AI can be an emotional support as well.
This is not about replacing human relationships. It’s about opening previously unimaginable new spaces and possibilities. It’s about overhauling a broken system of addictive technologies. After another year of AI hype and of increased questions about the direction of innovation, at a time when looking at our emails, our bills, or a news item can deliver an unwanted spike of adrenaline, we need a better vision for what will be the most transformative technology of all. In this context, the AI companion is both a call to action—this is what we need to build—and also a prediction: this is the direction the technology is now decisively taking.
Too many people have gotten stuck in an outdated view of AI. Let’s embrace a future that is at once far more real, and far richer, than the popular narratives suggest. Get AI right and it will be a profound new source of education, support, entertainment, and information. But it will also be something way beyond just a tool—it will be a companion in the fullest sense.
Researchers at the university of pennsylvania.
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) is a prestigious private Ivy League research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin, Penn is one of the oldest universities in the United States. It is renowned for its strong emphasis on interdisciplinary education and its professional schools, including the Wharton School, one of the leading business schools globally. The university offers a wide range of undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs across various fields such as law, medicine, engineering, and arts and sciences. Penn is also known for its significant contributions to research, innovative teaching methods, and active campus life, making it a hub of academic and extracurricular activity.
We crafted our first rodent car from a plastic cereal container. After trial and error, my colleagues and I found that rats could learn to drive forward by grasping a small wire that acted like a gas pedal. Before long, they were steering with surprising precision to reach a Froot Loop treat.
As expected, rats housed in enriched environments – complete with toys, space and companions – learned to drive faster than those in standard cages. This finding supported the idea that complex environments enhance neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to change across the lifespan in response to environmental demands.
After we published our research, the story of driving rats went viral in the media. The project continues in my lab with new, improved rat-operated vehicles, or ROVs, designed by robotics professor John McManus and his students. These upgraded electrical ROVs – featuring rat-proof wiring, indestructible tires and ergonomic driving levers – are akin to a rodent version of Tesla’s Cybertruck.
Exploring the most important questions we face as we age.
Dr. Debra Whitman, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President and Chief Public Policy Officer, at AARP (https://www.aarp.org/) where she leads policy development, analysis and research, as well as global thought leadership supporting and advancing the interests of individuals age 50-plus and their families. She oversees AARP’s Public Policy Institute, AARP Research, Office of Policy Development and Integration, Thought Leadership, and AARP International.
Dr. Whitman is an authority on aging issues with extensive experience in national policy making, domestic and international research, and the political process. An economist, she is a strategic thinker whose career has been dedicated to solving problems affecting economic and health security, and other issues related to population aging.
Improving Global Resilience Against Emerging Infectious Threats — Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, MD — Founding Director, Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases (CEID), Boston University.
Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, MD, MALD is a board-certified infectious diseases physician who is the Founding Director of BU Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases (https://www.bu.edu/ceid/about-the-cen…) as well an Associate Professor at the BU School of Medicine. She served the Senior Policy Advisor for Global COVID-19 Response for the White House COVID-19 Response Team in 2022–2023, where she coordinated the interagency programs for global COVID-19 vaccine donations from the United States and was the policy lead for Project NextGen, $5B HHS program aimed at developing next generation vaccines and treatments for pandemic prone coronaviruses. She also served as the interim Testing Coordinator for the White House MPOX Response Team. She is the Director and co-founder of Biothreats Emergence, Analysis and Communications Network (BEACON), an open source outbreak surveillance program.
Between 2011–2021, Dr. Bhadelia helped develop and then served as the medical director of the Special Pathogens Unit (SPU) at Boston Medical Center, a medical unit designed to care for patients with highly communicable diseases, and a state designated Ebola Treatment Center. She was previously an associate director for BU’s maximum containment research program, the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories. She has provided direct patient care and been part of outbreak response and medical countermeasures research during multiple Ebola virus disease outbreaks in West and East Africa between 2014–2019. She was the clinical lead for a DoD-funded viral hemorrhagic fever clinical research unit in Uganda, entitled Joint Mobile Emerging Disease Intervention Clinical Capability (JMEDICC) program between 2017 and 2022. Currently, she is a co-director of Fogarty funded, BU-University of Liberia Emerging and Epidemic Viruses Research training program. She was a member of the World Health Organization(WHO)’s Technical Advisory Group on Universal Health and Preparedness Review (UHPR). She currently serves as a member of the National Academies Forum on Microbial Threats and previously served as the chair of the National Academies Workshop Committee for Potential Research Priorities to Inform Readiness and Response to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A (H5N1) and member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Current State of Research, Development, and Stockpiling of Smallpox Medical Countermeasures.
We work with a growing database of values-aligned specialists from across the world. These include scientific researchers, educators, thought-leaders, artists, companies, and nonprofits. Together, we co-create, accelerate, and amplify the impact of select projects. These projects are interdisciplinary in nature—often incorporating art, education, and research components to reach more diverse audiences, scale broader impacts, and deliver rapid change. These projects are frequently participatory, with the goal of democratizing the process of exploration and increasing the accessibility of findings, materials, and teachings. These projects are unique and may result in peer-reviewed research findings, open-source books, art exhibits, lesson plans, or innovative commercial products.
Students from the Toms River School District in New Jersey will have the chance to connect with NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Butch Wilmore as they answer prerecorded science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related questions from aboard the International Space Station.
Watch the 20-minute space-to-Earth call in collaboration with Science Friday at 10 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Jan. 14, on NASA+ and learn how to watch NASA content on various platforms, including social media.
Science Friday is a nonprofit dedicated to sharing science with the public through storytelling, educational programs, and connections with audiences. Middle school students will use their knowledge from the educational downlink to address environmental problems in their communities.