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Predicting Human Brain Activity Associated with the Meanings of NounsScience 30 May 2008

Spoken language is perhaps the most notable marker of our species. Our ability to call forth words with universal meaning is so natural that we take it for granted, and yet scientists still know very little about how it works, or from where the ability derives.

Because current neuroimaging technologies have relatively low resolution, it has been extremely difficult to study language in human subjects. Researchers have generally relied on observational models from linguistics to try to predict how the brain represents the meaning of words.

Recently, a team of researchers used a creative methodology to get past these technological hurdles by using a text corpus, a linguistics tool that shows how often certain words co-occur with other words. By combining information from the text corpus with previous fMRI data gathered while subjects thought of specific nouns, a model was able to predict patterns of brain computational activation with remarkable accuracy for words that had never before been imaged.
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Model & Photograph: Alice Cho

On July 21, 1969, after landing in the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted an American flag and spent almost three hours exploring the lunar terrain. The Moon’s airless, inert surface should preserve their footprints and equipment for millions of years. But new robotic rovers due to begin visiting the Moon next summer threaten to radically accelerate the site’s decay, prompting preservationists to ask how best to protect off-world archaeological sites as the heritage of future generations.

The impetus behind the robotic voyage is the Google Lunar X Prize, which could pay $20 million or more to the first team to successfully land a rover on the Moon and accomplish a set list of tasks. Fourteen teams from around the world have registered, but only one, Astrobotic Technology, has publicly announced its planned itinerary: a trip to the Apollo 11 site next summer, shortly after the first mission’s 40th anniversary. Astrobotic Tech representative David Gump says their rover will land far from the Apollo 11 site and will be able to recognize and circumvent footprints and artifacts on the lunar surface, but not everyone shares this op-timism. John Logsdon, director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, believes the team should first perform trial runs on Earth.

“I’d like to see them demonstrate their ability to do a precision landing someplace else before they try it next to the Apollo 11 site,” Logsdon says. “You wouldn’t have to be very far off to come down on top of the flag or something dramatic like that.” Precision landings are further complicated by the fact that most sites are known to accuracies of only, at best, tens of meters. New Mexico State University anthropologist Beth O’Leary proposes that NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launching this October, be used to survey these sites before any landings are attempted.
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Predicting Human Brain Activity Associated with the Meanings of NounsScience 30 May 2008

Spoken language is perhaps the most notable marker of our species. Our ability to call forth words with universal meaning is so natural that we take it for granted, and yet scientists still know very little about how it works, or from where the ability derives.

Because current neuroimaging technologies have relatively low resolution, it has been extremely difficult to study language in human subjects. Researchers have generally relied on observational models from linguistics to try to predict how the brain represents the meaning of words.

Recently, a team of researchers used a creative methodology to get past these technological hurdles by using a text corpus, a linguistics tool that shows how often certain words co-occur with other words. By combining information from the text corpus with previous fMRI data gathered while subjects thought of specific nouns, a model was able to predict patterns of brain computational activation with remarkable accuracy for words that had never before been imaged.
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Seed’s inaugural edition of the State of Science explores the current scientific landscape and its emergent hotspots — along with the motivations and ambitions of the individuals charting its future.
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Model & Photograph: Alice Cho

On July 21, 1969, after landing in the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted an American flag and spent almost three hours exploring the lunar terrain. The Moon’s airless, inert surface should preserve their footprints and equipment for millions of years. But new robotic rovers due to begin visiting the Moon next summer threaten to radically accelerate the site’s decay, prompting preservationists to ask how best to protect off-world archaeological sites as the heritage of future generations.

The impetus behind the robotic voyage is the Google Lunar X Prize, which could pay $20 million or more to the first team to successfully land a rover on the Moon and accomplish a set list of tasks. Fourteen teams from around the world have registered, but only one, Astrobotic Technology, has publicly announced its planned itinerary: a trip to the Apollo 11 site next summer, shortly after the first mission’s 40th anniversary. Astrobotic Tech representative David Gump says their rover will land far from the Apollo 11 site and will be able to recognize and circumvent footprints and artifacts on the lunar surface, but not everyone shares this op-timism. John Logsdon, director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, believes the team should first perform trial runs on Earth.

“I’d like to see them demonstrate their ability to do a precision landing someplace else before they try it next to the Apollo 11 site,” Logsdon says. “You wouldn’t have to be very far off to come down on top of the flag or something dramatic like that.” Precision landings are further complicated by the fact that most sites are known to accuracies of only, at best, tens of meters. New Mexico State University anthropologist Beth O’Leary proposes that NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launching this October, be used to survey these sites before any landings are attempted.
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Seed’s inaugural edition of the State of Science explores the current scientific landscape and its emergent hotspots — along with the motivations and ambitions of the individuals charting its future.
it should be interested what change will this make

Guhonda, a Silverback gorilla from the Sabyinyo tribe of gorillas who occupy the Virunga valley on the border of Rwanda and Uganda. Photograph courtesy of youngrobv.

Two major legal developments in the past few months are deepening a schism between leading primatologists, biologists, and ethicists around the world. A pending Spanish law that would grant unprecedented protections to great apes, and a recent extension to a Swiss law that protects the “dignity” of organisms, are the latest fronts in a battle to redefine the meaning of human rights, and indeed whether such rights are the exclusive domain of humans.

At the forefront of the battle is the Great Ape Project (GAP). Established in 1993, it demands a basic set of moral and legal rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans. This June, GAP persuaded the Spanish Parliament’s environmental committee to approve a resolution supporting those goals.

Other countries, including the United Kingdom and New Zealand, have taken steps to protect great apes from experimentation, but this is the first time that actual rights would be extended to apes. The resolution establishes a set of laws based on GAP’s principles, which Spain promises to implement by the end of the year. Those laws would ban the use of apes in experiments or entertainment or commercial ventures, and they would set higher standards for their conditions in captivity. The message is clear: These animals are not property. “It’s a historic breakthrough in reducing the barrier between humans and nonhuman animals,” says Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher and the head of GAP.
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