Big Brains

New York University's Adam Alter shares tips on achieving breakthroughs, exploring why people feel stuck and ways to overcome it. Discusses knowing when to quit, embracing failure, and enhancing creativity through recombination of ideas.

University of Chicago psychologist Wilma Bainbridge discusses what makes things memorable, including the Mandela Effect. Her team created an AI tool, ResMem, to predict memorability in faces and artwork. They explore the impact of memorability on time perception and memories, with potential applications in education and healthcare.

If aliens landed on Earth tomorrow, how would we talk with them? Well, we already have a kind of creature on this planet we could attempt to talk to first, and in the last few years a team of renowned scientists have been exploring the ocean studying sperm whales to get that conversation going.David Gruber is a professor of biology and environmental science at CUNY and the founder of Project CETI, an interdisciplinary scientific initiative that is using the latest developments in AI to understand, and possibly communicate with, sperm whales. The day when we break the cross-species communication barrier may be here sooner than you think. Just this year CETI managed to decode what could be called a sperm whale “alphabet”.

Michael Wehner from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory discusses the need to add a Category 6 to measure extreme hurricanes due to climate change. He explores end-to-end attribution modeling to quantify the increasing damages caused by disastrous weather events.

Neuroscientist James Doty discusses manifestation and neuroscience in his book 'Mind Magic', emphasizing selflessness and caring for others to achieve happiness. Topics include childhood challenges, cognitive brain networks, selective attention, dopamine hits, forming deep connections, sympathetic vs. parasympathetic nervous systems, self-analysis, and altruism as methods for enhancing life.

Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan discusses aging, immortality, and the $30 billion longevity industry. Topics include DNA damage, telomeres, caloric restriction, stem cell reprogramming, and ethical considerations in anti-aging advancements.

Prof. Daniel Promislow discusses the Dog Aging Project, revealing how biology and environment impact dogs' health and lifespan. The study offers insights into human aging. Topics include the genetic basis of size, insulin growth factor one gene, cognitive dysfunction, and longevity enhancement with Rapa Mice.

For more than a century, scientists have been studying Alzheimer’s disease and developing theories about its underlying cause. The leading theory for decades has been that abnormal amyloid plaques in the brains of those who suffer from the disease are the central cause. But, according one renowned Alzheimer’s researcher, this myopic focus is not only flawed, but may be holding back our search for a cure. Neurobiologist Karl Herrup argues that we need to go back to the drawing board, redefine the disease and understand the many factors that could cause it before we can race for a cure. A professor of neurobiology and an investigator in the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Herrup is the author of How Not to Study a Disease: The Story of Alzheimer’s.Big Brains is sponsored by the Graham School for Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.

Mosquito-borne diseases are one of the greatest global health threats, infecting around 700 million people every year with Zika virus, dengue fever, malaria and yellow fever — which can all be deadly if left untreated. Unfortunately, the mosquito population is not slowing down, and factors like climate change and increased global travel are broadening the mosquito's range. The effort to stop the mosquito is not an easy task; insecticides and vaccines can't completely stop the spread of these diseases. But instead of trying to kill mosquitoes, one nonprofit is taking a unique approach.Scientist Scott O'Neill is founder and CEO of the World Mosquito Program, a nonprofit group with the goal of eliminating mosquito-borne diseases. The program is implementing a new method of inoculating the wild population of mosquitoes with a bacteria called Wolbachia, which is resistant to diseases. So far, the program has been rolled out in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Australia and Mexico – and has already seen success in reducing rates of disease.Link to the advertised Chicago Booth Review Podcast: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/podcast?source=cbr-sn-bbr-camp:podcast24-20240307Big Brains is sponsored by the Graham School for Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.

How do you stop a government from continuing to commit human rights abuses? You could take them to an international court of justice, or file a complaint at the UN. But none of those bodies have any enforcement power. Short of going to war, the only option on the table in most international situations is to name and shame. But is that strategy effective?In her new book, “The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works and When It Backfires,” University of Chicago political scientist Rochelle Terman argues that there is a real dilemma to international human rights pressure: Shaming is most common in situations where it is least likely to be effective; and, most troublingly, it can often make human rights abuses worse. Link to the advertised Chicago Booth Review Podcast:  https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/podcast?source=cbr-sn-bbr-camp:podcast24-20240222Big Brains is sponsored by the Graham School for Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.