Measuring Intelligence

In a lot of ways, I'm considered smart. I have a Ph.D. in organometallic chemistry, brain teasers are my idea of fun, and I'm currently reading the Decameron just because I've never read it. In a lot of other ways, I am (to put it politely) dumber than a dust-bunny. About once a week, I lose important things (keys, wallet, phone). I recently poked myself in the eye with a knitting needle while trying to make a scarf. I've been known to pass out simply because I forgot to eat for several days.

So I definitely understand the idea that intelligence is hard to define and incredibly hard to quantify. I view IQ tests suspiciously, and I don't find them helpful in terms of helping me understand how I think, or how most people think.

However, that was before I saw the UK Medical Research Council's Ultimate Intelligence Test. These prominent neuroscientists have identified 12 "Pillars of Wisdom" (including visiospatial memory, planning, verbal reasoning, etc). They are analyzing all sorts of things; how these different kinds of thinking fit together, how test performance relates to brain activity (functional MRI), the correlation between smoking or being left-handed and test performance, etc.

The tests are simple (like True/False: the circle is bigger than the square) but much more challenging than most  versions I've seen. Many are free, and if you register you can take part in the study. This is much more useful than most "Learning Styles inventories" I've used. It provides actual measures of what you're best at, which can be really useful when thinking about how you learn. Go play with them here.

The awesomeness of bacteria

io9 (Gawker's science blog) has a fun list today of things bacteria can do that humans can't. Essentially, the list points out that bacteria can evolve to handle extreme environments and competitive pressures. But Ingles-Arkell's  writing is clever, snarky, and straightforward. My textbooks never made claims as thought-provoking as  "Humans shrink from Uranium. Bacteria pick it up and use it as armor" or "That's right. The goop in your stomach fought cancer today. And what did you do?"

What is citizen science?

"Citizen science" is the latest buzzword in science education circles. Professional science has become highly compartmentalized (my degree isn't in "science", it's in "physical inorganic mechanistic chemistry"). But non-specialists can contribute meaningfully to the scientific process. There have been recent articles in the NY Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, NPR's Science Friday and so on. Most projects consist of using amateur scientists for data collection (like counting birds or measuring snow). Others like those from Zooiverse involve data analysis and looking at really pretty space pictures. The "largest science experiment in the world" is starting up as UNESCO tries to get people all over the world involved in measuring and thinking about water quality. Bard College just started requiring all of their students to take Citizen Science as a course, and there are three entire journals devoted to the topic. The goal of this movement is to get 'normal people' to realize that science isn't just a technical, scary endeavor conducted by nerds in lab coats. Science is a way of asking questions about the natural world that can be enjoyed by anyone, even those without 8 years of specialized training.

Journal of Young Investigators

JYI gives new meaning to "peer review". This is a journal entirely by undergraduates. Undergraduates are the only allowed authors, undergraduates do all the reviewing, undergraduates are the editors, etc.
The coverage is extensive, addressing  topics from detecting bioterrorist bacteria to electroshock treatments, jellyfish poisonings to extrasolar planets. All STEM fields and even social sciences are addressed. It seems like many of the publications are capstone theses reviewing a subject with a few research projects mixed in, and the writing is higher quality than many of the "third-tier" traditional journals. If you are looking for a foothold to learn about science publishing, or a place to publish that awesome essay you just finished, you should definitely check them out.

The Latest, Coolest Trend in Science Fair Projects

Taking "near space" images (left) seems to be the latest fad in hard core science projects. This guy managed to capture the trip of a camera into the stratosphere for $148. This director was inspired by his 7 year old to make a movie of their experiment that has been viewed over 40,000 on YouTube.  And this class sent a potato up in their "Spudnik 2" craft.

This project isn't for the faint of heart - it requires FAA approval to be sure your balloon won't cross any flight paths. But the equipment (helium, balloon, a camera, a GRP and insulation) is all pretty easy to find and you get amazing images out of it. Although all of these projects seem to be just asking just "will this work?" there are a lot of interesting questions to ask about the atmosphere, like "How do to the temperature and pressure change as you go up?" or "How fast does the camera fall after the balloon pops?"

Thinking on their feet?

One of my favorite animals has 3 hearts, blue (copper-based) blood, the ability to change color to camouflage itself , a strong beak, and most of its brains not in its head.

No, it's not a  Wise Tomet or any other fantastic fictional creation.
This is an animal most pre-schoolers are familiar with, although I think most people never learn how amazing it is.
Pliny the Elder wrote about it in 77 AD,  the first known instance of the legend about this animal climbing trees. These animals have been known to be impressive sports oracles, and expert escape artists, and have their own magazine.

They are octopuses (not octopi, apparently) and there are all sorts of cool tricks they can do. But the reason that I'm thinking about them today is that I just saw this article about a philosophy professor at Harvard who seems to think that each tentacle might have independent thoughts. About two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are in its arms, so it sort of makes sense. Defining and testing intelligence is always really tricky, even in humans. No one seems to have come up with a reliable way to evaluate it yet in animals that think so differently from the way we do. Designing meaningful experiments can be really hard, especially when your test subject could easily be mistaken for either a space alien, rock, or modern art.

The cost of college

Almost 2 years ago, the NY Times published this scary looking graphic (left) about college fees are skyrocketing out of control (taken from this report), along with an article about how most people won't be able to afford college soon.

So I was kind of impressed playing around the the Chronicle's interactive graphic  (right) published a couple of weeks ago. It's fun to see how the cost of one school have changed over 12 years and how they compare to other schools. But what really stood out for me is that the interactive data really doesn't look scary at all. Sure, you can find one school here and there that had a cost spike in one particular year, but there's no pattern of precipitous climbs or exponential rises.


Why is that? Both sources are supposedly comparing the same data, the total cost of college (tuition and fees, not counting any financial aid) and both are looking at a fairly comprehensive sample of schools. So why does one generate attention-grabbing national headlines while  the other is read only by specialists? We often tend to gloss over the idea that data aren't really impartial facts. They are evidence we scientists (economics is the "dismal science") use to tell a story. This is a good example of how you can use the same evidence to support various conclusions. Even when you're not overtly biased, you have to bring a personal interpretation in going from raw data collection to results. In this case, the first study took the increase from  1982 to 1984 and calculated the % change relative to this. The second study shows the % change between only adjacent years (or the actual costs or a range of years). The change from 2009 to 2010 is smaller than from 1982 to 2002, which isn't at all surprising.