Vsauce2"So, with a final blast of rhetorical trumpets, was interred the name and literary reputation of one of the pivotal figures in the history of American science fiction -- until now." -Sam Moskowitz on Edward Page Mitchell (1973)
*** SOURCES AND LINKS ***
The Crystal Man: Stories By Edward Page Mitchell (Sam Moskowitz) goo.gl/xE6x3W
The Invention of Science FictionVsauce22016-10-05 | "So, with a final blast of rhetorical trumpets, was interred the name and literary reputation of one of the pivotal figures in the history of American science fiction -- until now." -Sam Moskowitz on Edward Page Mitchell (1973)
*** SOURCES AND LINKS ***
The Crystal Man: Stories By Edward Page Mitchell (Sam Moskowitz) goo.gl/xE6x3W
The Curiosity Box curiositybox.comThe Feral Child Tied To A Toilet For 13 YearsVsauce22024-06-14 | [This is a censored re-upload because YouTube has once again targeted Vsauce2 and Age-Restricted the previous upload which essentially shadowbans it.] Let our sponsor BetterHelp connect you to a therapist who can support you - all from the comfort of your own home. Visit betterhelp.com/vsauce and enjoy a special 10% discount on your first month.
Genie Wiley was found in California in 1970, a feral child subjected to 13 years of horrors at the hands of her father -- and her tragic story blurs the line between research and true crime. It's part psychology, part biology, part linguistics... and all a chapter in the dark history of science.
Genie presented an incredible opportunity to study the limits of and potential for language acquisition at a time when Noam Chomsky's "Syntactic Structures" dominated linguistic debates. But was it even possible to help an abused girl and study her at the same time? That depends on who you ask -- but the result was limited scientific knowledge and a broken life.
FURTHER READING / VIEWING:
"Genie: A Scientific Tragedy" by Russ Rymer
NOVA: "Genie, The Secret of the Wild Child" (1994)
This video is for educational, artistic, and documentary purposes.
#psychology #weirdhistory #truecrimestoriesThe Lost Genius of Roald DahlVsauce22024-05-10 | Let our sponsor BetterHelp connect you to a therapist who can support you - all from the comfort of your own home. Visit betterhelp.com/vsauce and enjoy a special 10% discount on your first month.
Everyone knows Roald Dahl’s stories, and several generations have grown up on Willy Wonka, Matilda, and more. But lurking behind the Oompa Loompas and the giant peaches is the life of a scientist, an inventor, and a medical pioneer so important that his work has saved thousands of lives worldwide -- and Dahl did his best to make sure you didn’t know it.
The bizarre life of Roald Dahl is a true story full of twists, turns, and tragedies. He survived his own traumatic brain injury in a World War II plane crash, and it might have done him a bit of good as a creator. But years later when his infant son was hit by a taxi, Roald harnessed his surprisingly deep medical and scientific knowledge to help create a cerebral valve that would benefit generations of children… all while keeping his own involvement quiet.
His most significant contribution to medicine may have come after that when his wife Patricia Neal suffered a series of strokes. Roald Dahl wasn’t a neurology expert, and he had no special expertise in brain injury or stroke recovery. What he did have was a creative mind, and the regimen he invented to rehabilitate Pat’s brain and body became the standard for our treatment of strokes.
Was Roald Dahl a fantastic artist, or was he a talented scientist? The answer is… yes. And that begs the question: is there even a difference?
#roalddahl #neuroscience #neurologyThe Insane Cult Leader Who Lived Inside The EarthVsauce22024-04-04 | Subscribe to Popular Science: youtube.com/@popularscience
As the 20th century approached, our understanding of the natural world and of the cosmos was increasing at a more rapid pace than any time in the history of science. We were building on our knowledge of asteroids, the discovery of Neptune, and understanding the transit of Venus, and science fiction like Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was taking our imagination deep inside our own planet.
But one man rejected the long march of seemingly-irrefutable scientific progress. The cult leader Cyrus Teed was convinced that we weren't living amidst a complex solar system, and that we weren't on top of the Earth at all. Cyrus Teed thought that we were living inside the Earth.
Teed's Koreshan movement focused on the concept of a hollow earth, and he set out to prove scientifically that we were living on a concave surface inside of a giant hollow ball. From the religious awakenings of Upstate New York to Chicago to a swamp in Florida, Cyrus Teed gained converts who believed in his science and his religion. But did the rectilineator Teed built to conduct his painstaking measurements prove that we're really living inside, or did they just prove that Teed and his followers were insane?
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The life, death, and legacy of Russian geneticist Nikolai Vavilov isn’t just one of the most compelling science stories of the 20th century -- it’s a combination of scientific progress, human resilience, and a celebration of both the scientific and human spirits.
Vavilov’s tumultuous career in biology and genetics flowed from Vladimir Lenin’s support to Trofim Lysenko’s hostility to Joseph Stalin’s outright persecution. And while Vavilov himself succumbed to Stalin’s scapegoating and purges, his groundbreaking efforts to create a global seedbank for the betterment of mankind inspired his peers to endure suffering beyond comprehension in the service of science.
The staff of Vavilov’s plant institute endured the nearly 3-year Siege of Leningrad: no heat, no safety, and most importantly, no sustenance. But while the rest of the city struggled to survive in conditions of starvation, Vavilov’s peers and staff were actually surrounded by the one thing that would keep them alive: food.
Dozens of scientists met their deaths to protect Vavilov’s vision despite protecting tons of the exact material that would keep them alive.
They did it for Vavilov, they did it for humanity, and they did it for science.
*** FURTHER READING/VIEWING ***
"The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov" by Peter Pringle: amzn.to/3RPfCrf
"Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy" by Simon Ings: amzn.to/3GSOukP
#science #scientist #historyThe Man Who Killed Millions Trying To Grow Food In SnowVsauce22023-12-07 | If you’re struggling, consider therapy with our sponsor BetterHelp. Click betterhelp.com/vsauce for a 10% discount on your first month of therapy with a licensed professional specific to your needs.
There’s more to the story of Trofim Lysenko and the Soviet Union’s most disastrous era of science than you probably realize. Everyone knows of “Lysenkoism” regarding the USSR’s failed theories of genetics, but Trofim Lysenko’s lifelong body work was driven by a perfect combination of history, revolution, political theory, power, and personalities.
Lysenko’s impact on Russian biology was a direct result of crafting science -- and scientists -- in service of Vladimir Lenin’s new Soviet man at a time when the international scientific community was making tremendous progress on genetics and biology. But to Lysenko and Josef Stalin, the real science was in the potential of plants and animals to behave like Soviet citizens.
That led Russia and its scientists down a path that derailed progress for decades. But what if Lysenko’s theories on the inheritance of acquired traits actually have merit? A resurgence of support for Lysenko has gone beyond the grim history of science to look at what we know about altering the expression of DNA and how a human’s experiences in life can even affect their grandchildren. The truth is that modern genetics has little to nothing to do with Lysenko, but the specter of his pseudoscience continues to haunt the disciplines of genetics and biology -- and science as a whole.
*** SOURCES / ADDITIONAL READING ***
“Lysenko’s Ghost: Epigenetics and Russia” by Loren Graham: bit.ly/3ReCEpT
“A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924” by Orlando Figes: bit.ly/4a8Ti32
“Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy” by Simon Ings: amzn.to/3RwD5NE
#science #scientist #historyThe Man Who Wants Us DeadVsauce22023-10-30 | The biggest bomb doesn't explode how you would think. Let's explore the population bomb. Subscribe to the Foundation for Economic Education: bit.ly/feeyt The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich: amzn.to/3Mo3lH5
10 Reasons We’re Wrong About the World by Hans Rosling: amzn.to/3FELJDc
The most pressing threat to civilization is us -- and paradoxically, we’re also the solution. When Paul Ehrlich published “The Population Bomb” in 1968, he ushered in an era of doomsday predictions that we’re still in. There are more than twice as many people in the world now than when his book came out, and Ehrlich insists that the population bomb just hasn’t gone off yet.
But optimists like Julian Simon see something else happening. They acknowledge that man-made threats of destruction are not only challenges we can solve -- and that we’re in a better position every day to eliminate our problems -- but that we’re also better off for it.
The philosophical differences between Ehrlich and Simon led to the most famous bet in the world, a bet over natural resources that was really a bet about the future of the human race. And as wrong as Paul Ehrlich has proven to be, we’re so hard-wired to think like him that it’s actually perfectly reasonable to conclude we’re perpetually facing disaster.
What did you think about the population theory of The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich? Subscribe for more science, history, and education videos every month! #Education #Science #Vsauce #History #doomsday #Humanity #populationbombThe Man Killed For Saving The WorldVsauce22023-09-03 | Use code VSAUCE250 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3mG5rbL
When we look back on the history of science and scientific progress, we celebrate the pioneers who dared to make life-changing discoveries. The truth is that the first people to introduce a paradigm-shift almost always face persecution, and many are overshadowed by the less-controversial minds who follow them.
Such is the case of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor who fought a lifelong battle against a disease he couldn’t see and that the medical establishment repeatedly told him wasn’t real. How does a scientist or doctor combat bacteria when they don’t even know it exists? The epidemics bacteria, viruses, and germs brought to innocent hospital patients wracked hospitals of the day, but the history of medicine is as much one of complacency and cosmic explanations as it is about breakthroughs.
Ignaz Semmelweis used incredible powers of logic and deductive reasoning to isolate a problem so complex that it stymied all the scientific minds of continental Europe, first by examining data within the clinics of his own hospital, and then identifying the source of infection. Through years of refining an antiseptic regimen that would end up saving an incalculable number of lives -- and paving the way for better-known scientific giants like Lister and Pasteur -- Semmelweis compiled one of the era’s great medical texts, one that would change healthcare worldwide.
And for that, he was ridiculed, criticized, fired, dismissed, institutionalized, and beaten to de*th. The shocking story of Ignaz Semmelweis is the real story of scientific progress.
#semmelweis #history #medicine #surgery #germsThe Baby Bum - Mind BlowVsauce22023-08-23 | Thanks to Storyblocks for sponsoring this video! Download unlimited stock media at one set price with Storyblocks: storyblocks.com/Vsauce2
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Brent Tiggelaar, Ian Fabs, Jonathan Hawk, Markus Fleischer, NullBlox.ZachryWilsn, Thomas Kaminski, Wolfgang Hutton
You discover a new species of succulent. It’s composed of two tiny butt cheeks. What do you call it? BABY BUM. And there’s really no possible alternative, because this is Mind Blow. An array of 100 robotic muscles that can flex 50 times per second is like a giant fluid trampoline with haptic response that can move and sort objects and also generate images. It’s like a waterbed mixed with a computer. What more could you need?
We talk a lot about AI in art, but we’re making fantastic progress in using AI to fuel neural bypass connections -- like an electronic brain-body-spinal cord bridge that has brought back movement and sensation in the limbs of a man with quadriplegia.
A full decade ago, Mind Blow highlighted the weirdly anti-bacterial wings of the clanger cicada. By analyzing the nanostructure of the wings, we finally know how the nanopillars on the wings kill bacteria and clean the surface -- and it has tremendous implications for sanitizing the surfaces of medical devices.
A 600-pound asteroid is coming directly for your head… sort of. It’s 13 million miles away, which means it’s classified as a “potentially hazardous asteroid,” and it’s tracked twice a day with a 3,200 megapixel camera. They say you never hear the one that gets you.
Spiders are incredible at pulling moisture from the air, and they do it by constructing webs on which droplets collect easily and efficiently. Replicating their process allows water collection to happen without expending energy. Science smarter, not harder.
What if tattoos could be functional instead of purely aesthetic? Nanotech’s got it covered, starting with individual cells. 3-D bioprinting technology can place a flexible tattoo that functions as a data collection and warning system for the body.
40 years ago we discovered fantastic fossils of the immortal jellyfish… and no one bothered to look at them until now, because sometimes science news takes a couple generations to develop. But the Canadian fossils are so detailed that some even reveal an animal’s last meal. They show that jellyfish as we know them today are even older than we thought -- but they’re still an aquatic whippersnapper compared to the sea sponge.
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#MindBlow #Vsauce #ScienceNews #science #Education #science #scienceshorts #shortsShould You Be A Psychopath?Vsauce22023-07-31 | Use code VSAUCE250 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3mG5rbL
You almost certainly know a psychopath in real life… and you may very well be one yourself. And that might even be a good thing.
We’ve recognized psychopathy in science and culture for thousands of years, yet we still don’t know what to do about it. Yet we use the word itself now more than ever, so much that the meaning of the word “psychopath” has become diluted in popular culture. As we increasingly learn more about the science of psychopathy, we should get better at deploying the term more accurately -- but instead, it’s become a catch-all for unconscionable human behavior and a mainstay of true crime stories.
Psychopaths are much more complex than that… for better and worse.
In reality, a psychopath’s brain creates and perpetually reinforces a moral code that is defined more by what it lacks than what it contains. From a total absence of anxiety to a simple utilitarian worldview that can do tremendous harm to others, the psychopath is a mix of brute force and the most subtle manipulation. And this is where it gets really complicated: you actually want the ruthlessness of a psychopath to run your company, you want the charm of a psychopath for investigative journalism, and you want the fearlessness of a psychopath to respond to medical emergencies.
Can we harness the biological and psychological forces that create dangerous, destructive psychopaths to improve humanity? And if we could cure or eliminate psychopathy… would we even want to?
#psychology #truecrime #psychopath #mentalhealth #scienceHand Smell Predicts Gender? - Mind BlowVsauce22023-07-24 | Thanks to Storyblocks for sponsoring this video! Download unlimited stock media at one set price with Storyblocks: storyblocks.com/Vsauce2
This science research doesn’t just pass the sniff test -- it IS the sniff test. Our olfactory abilities are so refined that our noses can identify a person’s gender with over 96% accuracy from the smell of their… hands?!
Robotics is advancing past clumsy limbs and brute force by getting better at both -- this rolling robot that can make deliveries, throw objects, and dynamically adjust its application of force.
Sometimes our most advanced scientific discoveries already exist in nature -- like a tiny pill modeled after the pangolin that can roll up to be deployed in internal medicine applications. Oh, and it’s moved around your body by a magnet.
A scientific breakthrough has been sitting at the bottom of a canyon for decades -- and despite it being over 100 meters high, we’re only just seeing Asia’s tallest tree.
Birds are once again dominating the science news cycle, and this time it’s by thumbing their beaks at our efforts to deter them from public spaces. It seems like anti-bird spikes actually make great bird castles.
Until recently, bionic limbs have been rudimentary with little fine motor control -- but harnessing AI algorithms, neuroscience, and osseointegration may allow for natural motions in bionic hands and fingers.
The dark side of the Moon continues to keep secrets, like why there’s a giant slab of thorium and uranium resulting from a billion-year old moon volcano.
A giant 300,000 year old flint axe has been discovered in England, and it either hurt people, hunted animals, or just looked awesome.
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#mindblow #vsauce #science #robotics #technology #sciencefactsGamers Will Live Forever - Mind BlowVsauce22023-06-28 | Check out guard.io/Vsauce2 for a 7-day trial and 20% off your subscription + the ability to protect 5 family members from hackers and scammers!
Could one of the staples of a gamer’s diet actually improve physiological health the same way it has for mice and worms? Is it possible to harness plant photosynthesis with a synthetic leaf that mirrors the same chemical process to replace fossil fuels? Will small armies of robot cartographers replace Google Street View cars -- and eventually explore the unknowns of Earth’s oceans? How long have hominins existed in Greece, and are our Mediterranean ancestors hundreds of thousands of years older than we think?
The James Webb Space Telescope has just captured images of molecules over 12 billion light years away -- but are they just specks of matter, or are they the building blocks of stars? Han Solo’s nap in carbonite might just be a part of your own future now that mice have been induced into a state of torpor -- and it has implications for improving emergency medicine. The idea of inducing torpor was first proposed to reduce the physical demands of space travel, and when you finally cruise to Mars, who knows how many arms and legs you’ll have? Researchers at MIT have tacked on a pair of supernumerary limbs that gets us one step closer to being space octopuses. The future of science and technology gets more exciting by the day, but we continue to uncover amazing elements of our past -- like a 3,000 year old sword in Bavaria that has been preserved so well that its blade still shines. Past. Present. Future. Mind Blow!
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EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Brent Tiggelaar, Ian Fabs, Jonathan Hawk, Markus Fleischer, NullBlox.ZachryWilsn, Thomas Kaminski, Wolfgang Hutton
When we think of the human experience, we tend to focus on the good things: love, happiness, and progress. But what if the most important part of our lives is actually one of the worst? Our relationship with pain stretches back further than any other sensation, and it turns out that pain has been and continues to be our most important teacher. We paradoxically need something awful to survive. Vsauce2 explores the science and psychology of pain going all the way back to our four-legged ancestors.
Despite pain dictating daily life for millions of years, we’ve only come to understand exactly how it works fairly recently. We now know the exact physiological mechanisms of how pain works within our bodies -- which evolved from rudimentary scientific theories from Descartes and others -- but we’re still figuring out how it works within our minds. And as we navigate the science of it all, from neuroscience to psychology, we uncover more questions than ever. Should we eliminate pain, or should we learn to live with it? What happens to our identities when we take all the pain away, and is it worth the cost to ourselves? What is society’s responsibility to relieve pain, and how does politics factor in? How much of your pain is real and how much pain is essentially imagined?
On the surface it seems like an ideal world would be one completely devoid of pain, with strong mental health in conjunction with physical wellness. But the reality is more complex, and it’s worth thinking about the implications of the convoluted link between pain and suffering that we can’t live with… and can’t live without.
#MindBlow #Vsauce #ScienceNews #science #EducationGROWING Computers In Your Backyard? Mind BlowVsauce22023-05-30 | FUTO Fellows applications are open until June 5th. Learn more at futo.org/fellows and send your idea to grantapps@futo.org
In this episode of Mind Blow on Vsauce2: the ruins of Ancient Rome reveal interesting medical devices, a new humanoid robot learns to be just like you, scientists develop a neural brain implant that works like an octopus, Team Trees might have accidentally grown 20 million computers with wood transistors, Stone Age architectural plans reveal sophisticated abstract cognitive abilities, olfactory virtual reality now includes scents and smells, the Titanic gets 3D mapped with over 700,000 images, which may reveal clues about how the Titanic sank, and the glassy-winged sharpshooter contributes to our biological understanding of fluid dynamics with its built-in butt catapult.
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#MindBlow #Vsauce #ScienceNews #science #Education #shorts #science #scienceshortsDoes Happiness Make You Happy?Vsauce22023-05-13 | Check out piavpn.com/Vsauce2 for an 83% discount on Private Internet Access! That’s $2.03 a month and get 4 extra months free!
Vsauce2 dives into the fundamental meaning behind the concept of "happy" and how our twisted modern take on happiness is making things measurably worse. What is the paradox of chasing happiness? And how to things we think will make us happy actually lead to depression?
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#vsauce #psychology #science #mentalhealthWhy Bugs Are Attracted To Light SOLVED - Mind BlowVsauce22023-04-29 | Use code VSAUCE250 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3mG5rbL! Thanks to Factor for sponsoring Vsauce2.
In this episode of Mind Blow on Vsauce2: scientists have a new hypothesis for why bugs fly around light bulbs, we learn of secret science new virus hiding in baby diapers, in space news Einstein helped discover a massive black hole, a simple drought solution, fruit helping recycle batteries, an ancient Egyptian gifting custom now has physical evidence, a massive leap in MRI brain scan technology, and bioadhesives just got stronger and safer for surgery. The type of science news found only on Mind Blow by Vsauce2.
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EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Brent Tiggelaar, Ian Fabs, Wolfgang Hutton, NullBlox.ZachryWilsn, Jonathan Hawk, Markus Fleischer, Thomas Kaminski
Structure-guided engineering of a receptor-agonist pair for inducible activation of the ABA adaptive response to drought (2:08) science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade9948
Brain Images Just Got 64 Million Times Sharper (3:49) https://today.duke.edu/2023/04/brain-images-just-got-64-million-times-sharper
NTU Singapore and Se-cure Waste Management build pilot recycling plant to tackle lithium-ion battery waste with biomass waste (4:30) eurekalert.org/news-releases/984142
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#MindBlow #Vsauce #ScienceNews #science #EducationThe Line Between Smart and CrazyVsauce22023-04-08 | Click my trainwell (formerly CoPilot) link go.trainwell.net/VSauce2-cp to get 14 days FREE with your own expert personal trainer!
How does herd mentality go wrong and lead to the madness of crowds? How can we harness it for the wisdom of crowds? Vsauce2 explores the fine line between group smart and group crazy.
The age of mass communication has brought with it mass psychogenic illness alongside opportunities to crowdsource solutions that improve the world. It's a delicate science we're trying to navigate. Are we smart enough to make use of our herd mentality or we will succumb to the madness of the crowd?
#vsauce #psychology #scienceThe Self-Healing Robot - Mind BlowVsauce22023-03-26 | Install Raid for Free IOS/ANDROID/PC: clcr.me/Vsauce2 and get a special starter pack with an Epic champion Kellan the Shrike for this week's Vsauce Mind Blow! Join RAID’s 4th Anniversary celebration, use the Promo Codes below to get special B-day gifts: 4YEARSRAID (includes Legendary Skill Tomes) - Available for ALL users FIRESTARTER (includes an Epic champion Ultimate Galek) - Available for New users Tip for New players: get Kellan the Shrike using the link above and enter the promo code FIRESTARTER to grab Ultimate Galek and gain two topnotch champions at once Note that only 1 Promo code can be used within 24 hours
This week on Vsauce2 Mind Blow: Mussels with ridiculous distance, some science education under a fluorescent microscope, and: has science finally come up with a hangover cure?
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#MindBlow #Vsauce #ScienceNews #scienceThe Joel Miller Conspiracy #shortsVsauce22023-03-09 | Joel Miller's origin story begins in a kiddie pool filled with oatmeal.
The Last of Us HBO series and the video game tell us a little bit about Joel's past. We know he's from Texas, we know when he was born, we know he hates carbs. But where did his hardened, rugged personality come from? Why is he so irascible?
It all started when he drank from the firehose.
Joel Miller in Weird Al's UHF is the SAME Joel Miller in The Last of Us. CHANGE MY MIND.
#thelastofus #lastofusThe Insane Data of Car ChasesVsauce22023-03-08 | Signup for your FREE trial to Wondrium here: http://ow.ly/B4OR50N4T7e Thanks to Wondrium for sponsoring this video!
Nothing is more exciting than a high speed car chase -- and it turns out that almost nothing is more dangerous, too. Suspects, innocent pedestrians, and even the police themselves are subject to everything that makes watching movies like Fast & Furious or playing Grand Theft Auto a seriously entertaining experience. For thousands of people every year, that means serious injury and even death.
But the crazy thing is that we know exactly how to solve the problem, and no one seems to care.
I analyzed the data and even found an anonymous source inside a state police department who was willing to tell me how car chases really work. The result? We’re doing something that’s bad for everyone, usually for unimportant reasons, with life-changing consequences.
And why do we keep doing it? The benefits are minor and the consequences are major. But if all the data suggests the tradeoffs we make when we engage in car chases isn’t worth it, why don’t we just stop? That’s the problem here… and no one cares.
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Hunting and processing of straight-tusked elephants 125.000 years ago: Implications for Neanderthal behavior (1:00) science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add8186
Hericerin derivatives activates a pan-neurotrophic pathway in central hippocampal neurons converging to ERK1/2 signaling enhancing spatial memory (3:56) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jnc.15767
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#MindBlow #Vsauce #ScienceNews #scienceThe Game Theory of SnitchingVsauce22023-02-14 | Download Fishing Clash on your iOS/Android device for free: https://fishingclash.link/Vsauce2 Use my gift code VSAUCE2 to get an awesome reward for a total value of $20, and share your biggest catch in the pinned comment!
From career mafia rats to kindergarten tattle-tales, no one likes a snitch. Every society reviles the informant -- but why? And how can game theory analysis reveal what’s actually happening when society rewards a snitch?
Despite teeming with serious problems, snitch culture is so deeply-engrained in law enforcement that it’s sentenced countless innocent people over centuries -- including convicting men of murder when no one was even killed at all. Why does snitching go so wrong so often?
The truth is that everyone involved in the snitch system is playing their own game. Police are the game masters and the house never truly loses. Informants are engaged in a form of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, while outside actors resort to tactics like witness intimidation to win their own game within a game.
The result is a perversion of justice so severe that everyone ends up worse off -- including the famously impartial blind bastion of justice.
*** ADDITIONAL READING ***
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "The Prisoner's Dilemma": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/
#education #vsauce #crimeThe Problem With Talking To PeopleVsauce22022-11-29 | If you can’t trust yourself, then who can you trust? Well… everyone and no one. The paradox of self-reporting in all manners of data collection, from basic census information to detailed stats about crime, makes it difficult for us to understand the problems we need to solve. Is it best to design experiments and carefully cull datasets to observe the information we need? Should we rely solely on testimony directly from people involved, and then trust that their answers are correct? Is the right answer a blend of the two?
The truth is that they all have serious problems that lead us down the wrong path for making sense of social behavior. But if they’re all awful, how can it possibly be useful to employ every strategy together?
To understand crime, we need to measure crime. To measure crime, we need to understand people. And all of it relies on a deep knowledge of individuals who employ malevolence, who are victims of flawed and biased systems, or who are just plain wrong in good faith.
In a way, it’s hopeless -- but in the morass of human social behavior, we manage to progress.
*** ADDITIONAL READING ***
“Survey of Prison and Jail Inmates: Background and Method,” Peterson, Chaiken, Ebener, Honig (1982): rand.org/pubs/notes/N1635.html
“Extent of Unrecorded Juvenile Delinquency: Tentative Conclusions,” Short and Nye (1959): https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol49/iss4/2/
“Measurement Error in Self-Reported Health Variables,” Butler, Burkhauser, Mitchell and Pincus (1987): jstor.org/stable/1935959
“A Comparison of Participant Observation and Survey Data,” Vidich and Shapiro (1955): jstor.org/stable/2088196
“Bias in Interviewing in Studies of Opinions, Attitudes, and Consumer Wants,” Hart (1948): jstor.org/stable/3143052
“Deception in Social Research I: Kinds of Deception and the Wrongs They May Involve.” Sieber (1982): jstor.org/stable/3564511
#education #vsauce #crimeCrime Stats Are A LieVsauce22022-11-21 | Get my Math Box: melscience.com/kevin Use code KEVIN for 50% off your first box
We’ve been collecting and analyzing social statistics for about 200 years now. In some ways, we’ve made a lot of progress -- but in others, we’re just as clueless now as when André-Michel Guerry first set forth his laws of tracking crime. Mixing math and morality introduces so many possible variables that our interpretations of the data can range from insightful to harmful. Comparisons of violent crime between Scotland, India, and Estonia show just how difficult it is to make sense of social statistics, especially if we try to judge them in relative terms.
A handful of additional problems plague our analysis: data and its inferences that are good today might not hold up in the future, and a study of Boston-area youth shows how surprising long-term outcomes can be. Perverse financial incentives, underreporting, and catching minor criminals instead of the major drivers of crime all make our understanding of antisocial behavior that much more tenuous. Throw in the media’s use of our social statistics and it feels like the more we know about crime, the less we understand.
*** ADDITIONAL READING ***
Analysis of A-M Guerry’s “Essay on the Moral Statistics of France,” by Michael Friendly: datavis.ca/gallery/guerry
“The Cambridge-Somerville Study: A Pioneering Longitudinal Experimental Study of Delinquency Prevention,” McCord, J. (1992). psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-98237-009
#education #vsauce #crimeMath That Gets You ArrestedVsauce22022-11-14 | One of the most significant developments in the history of policing is the use of statistics to track crime patterns and to determine how to react to them. New York City’s CompStat program has served as a model not just for cities around the United States, but also globally. And it makes sense, right? The better we track crimes and the more data we have, the more effectively we can allocate resources to improve public safety.
Unfortunately, New York City (and everyone else) has found that it isn’t that simple. Jack Maple’s bold vision for a statistics-based police department has been plagued by inconsistent application and perverse incentives that prioritize numbers over public safety. The perpetual conflict between good policing and good CompStat numbers has mitigated the program’s positive effects and magnified its criticism on civil rights grounds.
CompStat reinforces our biggest problem with statistics in public life: the numbers we increasingly depend on don’t lie, but we don’t always know which truth they’re telling us.
#education #vsauce #crimeThe Number That Gets You ShotVsauce22022-10-24 | Imagine a world in which everything about your life -- your friends, your family, which school you went to, your social media activity -- are reduced to a simple number used by police and the government to determine whether something bad will happen to you.
It sounds crazy, and almost paranoid, but algorithm-based initiatives have aided police from Chicago to London to help guide public safety interventions. In the case of Robert McDaniel, he was assigned a score that put him on Chicago’s “Heat List,” and he was told that he was likely to be involved in a shooting. But police didn’t know whether he’d be the shooter or the victim.
That resulted in the city offering him a range of services, but it also put him on the police’s radar -- and that began a chain of events that fulfilled a grim prophecy.
The promise of advanced math utilizing increasingly sophisticated data collection grows stronger by the year… but so do its potential perils. Can quantifying a person’s behavior actually tell us anything useful about them? And if it can, is it ethical?
The rise and fall of Chicago’s Heat List demonstrates not just how predictive policing works, but how it impacts individuals. And while the calculations themselves are a black box, there’s one thing we do know: once you’re on the list, you can’t get off.
MUST WATCH: Fantastic German documentary “Pre-Crime” (2017) by Matthias Heeder and Monika Hielscher. Pre-Crime delves into the details and implications of data-based policing and where the future is headed worldwide, available on Amazon and more: imdb.com/title/tt6998222
“Social Networks and the Risk of Gunshot Injury,” Papachristos, Andrew V et al. Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine vol. 89,6 (2012): 992-1003.
#education #vsauce #crimeWhy Mathematicians Wont Help CopsVsauce22022-09-07 | Algorithms are so amazing at predicting what you want that ads will be perfectly tailored to your interests and displayed to you just minutes after a complex system has basically mapped your mind. If that’s so easy, why can’t police predict crimes? A few companies claim they can -- but the truth is a lot more complex.
A decade ago, predictive policing algorithms were hailed as one of the most important inventions of our era. In just a few short years, thousands of mathematicians had publicly refused to work on predictive policing projects. What started a century ago in the concentric zone model of mapping urban areas and evolved into social disorganization theory has culminated in sophisticated algorithms that claim to pinpoint the place and type of crime well in advance.
The problem, though, is that algorithmic outcomes are only as good as the data going into them. Between flawed data collection/reporting, yet another black box algorithm, and a total inability to measure results effectively, the promise of predictive policing has come under scrutiny -- and the real question is how long we keep experimenting to get it right, and who we run those experiments on.
"Abraham Wald's work on aircraft survivability". Mangel and Samaniego. June 198, Journal of the American Statistical Association. 79 (386): 259–267: https://people.ucsc.edu/~msmangel/Wald.pdf
#education #vsauce #crimeSurround Yourself With SmartVsauce22022-08-23 | 50% off your first box with code: FAMILY (72 hours only) Curiosity Box: curiositybox.com MEL Science: melscience.com/curiosityboxAn Extremely Hard Easy Game #shortsVsauce22022-08-09 | The Knight’s Tour is a game that starts easily and becomes impossible. The idea is to make a grid of squares starting with a 3x3 arrangement and move your ‘Knight’ through the grid without crossing its own path. Whether your goal is to touch as many squares as possible, make the most efficient path, or find the Knight’s maximum number of moves on a given grid, the moment you solve the puzzle, it’s time to make it harder. You can extend the grid to keep its dimensions equal or you can extend it vertically or horizontally -- anything works.
But by the time you’re solving the Knight’s Tour with a grid of 8 or 9 squares on one side, the patterns become insanely difficult. Computers can calculate Knight’s Tours easily even with grids 10 or 12 squares wide -- but can you?
#education #vsauce #mathsYoure a Node #shortsVsauce22022-08-09 | Graph theory is a discipline that seems to get more important every day. It maps relationships between objects, and that has lots of practical uses. Graph theory is what determines your postal delivery worker’s most efficient route through a series of neighborhoods. It’s what tracks the spread of public health crises and undergirds every social media platform on the internet.
But one of the simplest problems in mathematics -- how to connect three utilities to three houses without crossing lines -- has proven to be impossible. Grab a sheet of paper and try it out. It won’t take long to realize you can get very close, but never solve the three utilities problem -- and you’ll see quickly that graph theory is a hidden force in everyday life.
#education #vsauce #mathsLets Play With Matches #shortsVsauce22022-08-08 | With just 8 matches (or pens or q-tips or anything straight), you can tie up your mind for hours, days, or WEEKS. The idea is to develop a basic understanding of graph theory, which focuses on the relationships between things -- and you can express those relationships visually. Each match consists of three parts: a ‘node’ on either end, and the line that connects them. There’s only 1 solution for a graph of 1 match… it just lays there. 2 matches? Also just 1 solution, two matches that form an angle (putting them end to end to form one line with a shared node in the middle is technically a solution, too).
The goal here is to keep making unique arrangements with increasing numbers of matches. By the time you’re using 8 matches, you’ll have over 200 possible ways to combine them to form a unique pattern of nodes and lines.
#education #vsauce #mathsThe Algebra Plant #shortsVsauce22022-08-07 | A tremendous amount of math is found in nature, and it's most obvious in Fibonacci/Golden Ratio patterns in the world's flora. But the Schumanniophyton problematicum plant's leaves are determined by algebra, and a simple equation can tell you exactly how many leaves it has or how long it's lived. The Schumanniophyton problematicum's leaves can be expressed by 12Y + 4, where Y is the number of years the plant has been alive. 4 years? 52 leaves.
And it gets more impressive. Schumanniophyton problematicum is one of four plants to contain rohitukine naturally, which has shown antiinflammatory properties and can combat leukemia and colon cancer cells.
#education #vsauce #math #factsJust Move The 4 #shortsVsauce22022-08-06 | The best way to divide a certain class of numbers is to use absolutely no math at all. WHAT?!
It’s true -- you can get the job done simply by transposing the first digit to the end of the number. 410,256 is a small, accessible number to try it. Just slide the 4 from the first digit to the last digit and you’re all set… and it works with some much larger numbers, too.
In terms of mathematical value, these quirky numbers probably don’t lay the foundation for a groundbreaking Fields Medal-worthy discovery. But this is what recreational mathematics is all about: pushing and pulling on numbers to recognize patterns and curiosities that facilitate your ability to handle heavier-duty work, sort of like how poetry plays with words to express thoughts that *could* be written much more simply. It’s beautiful. And it’s just plain interesting.
#vsauce #education #mathsSplit The Square Game #shortsVsauce22022-08-05 | This simple geometrical game requires you to divide equally and conquer, and it hearkens back to the most popular math game in the history of the world: Tetris, but in reverse. The object here is to come up with every possible way to divide a square grid into two perfectly symmetrical parts. Once you start by bisecting a 4x4 grid right down the middle, you’ve got to get creative -- especially as you advance to 5x5 and 6x6 grids. It’s a task that requires you to calculate, visualize, and apply rotations -- but with a bit of ingenuity and elbow grease, you can complete the entire table of possible solutions.
#vsauce #education #mathsSomeone Makes This A Necklace (emirp) #shortsVsauce22022-08-04 | Some recreational mathematicians call this sort of thing a "Digital Bracelet" because it's a circular arrangement of digits that has no clear beginning, end, or even direction. The digits 1, 9, 3, 9, 3, 9 can be progressively transposed to create a fluid circle of 6-digit prime numbers that works forward and backward.
You can start with any digit on this circle and move in either direction to generate a prime. The pattern is both simple and mathematically beautiful -- and THAT is why someone needs to make this into a necklace.
#vsauce #education #mathsSnowball Prime Numbers #shortsVsauce22022-08-04 | If we count 1 as a prime digit, you can start with 1, 2, 3, 5, or 7 and build Snowball Primes -- prime numbers that remain prime each time you add another digit. Start with 3? Add a 1, still prime. Start with 7? Add a 3, still prime. 73, add a 1? 731 -- STILL PRIME.
In just a few hours, you can build the entire roster of Snowball Primes up to 8 digits by hand. DO IT. Why not? This is recreational math. Your parents will be proud of you.
#vsauce #maths #educationThe Best 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 Combinations #shortsVsauce22022-08-03 | There's not much to simple combinations with no replacement... if we take the 10 digits from 0 to 9, we can arrange them nearly 4 MILLION ways by using 10!. When we take the subset of squared digits that result in a unique combination of those 10 digits? Now we're down to just 87 numbers n, all of which contain 5 digits.
You could find them all by hand, calculating every squared whole number until you got a value larger than 10 digits (and don't forget, all of them need to be unique), but over 50 years ago the IBM 1620 used its 1,200+ pound frame to work it all out. Do it by hand. What else do you have to do?
#maths #shorts #mathematicsThe Reason People Like 69 #shortsVsauce22022-08-02 | Strobogrammatic numbers go beyond quantity to harness rotational symmetry -- they have visual meaning, too. Numbers that use 6 and 9 are the most obvious examples, since flipping them upside down retains their full quantity and meaning… 69 is exactly the same right-side up or turned 180 degrees. And why does it matter? Why aren’t strobogrammatic numbers just a trivial curiosity?
There are questions about whether strobogrammatic properties reveal intrinsic value within numbers, but it also presents a pattern worth investigation -- including the subset of strobogrammatic primes. And when’s the next strobogrammatic YEAR? You probably didn’t live through the last one, and you’ve got about 4,000 years before the next one. GOOD LUCK.
#maths #shorts #mathematicsWhats a Magic Honeycomb? #shortsVsauce22022-08-01 | Magic squares are pretty amazing, but they're simple in the sense that the Magic Constant is constructed from the same quantity of spaces in every direction -- vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. A Magic Honeycomb? It can't have vertical paths to the constant because the spaces just don't connect that way... but there's an added element of difficulty in horizontal and diagonal paths being varying quantities of 3, 4, and 5.
But the real question is whether bees poop or vomit honey. And the answer is COMPLEX.
#vsauce #education #mathsThe Dangerous Math Used To Predict CriminalsVsauce22022-07-25 | The criminal justice system is overburdened and expensive. What if we could harness advances in social science and math to predict which criminals are most likely to re-offend? What if we had a better way to sentence criminals efficiently and appropriately, for both criminals and society as a whole?
That’s the idea behind risk assessment algorithms like COMPAS. And while the theory is excellent, we’ve hit a few stumbling blocks with accuracy and fairness. The data collection includes questions about an offender’s education, work history, family, friends, and attitudes toward society. We know that these elements correlate with anti-social behavior, so why can’t a complex algorithm using 137 different data points give us an accurate picture of who’s most dangerous?
The problem might be that it’s actually too complex -- which is why random groups of internet volunteers yield almost identical predictive results when given only a few simple pieces of information. Researchers have also concluded that a handful of basic questions are as predictive as the black box algorithm that made the Supreme Court shrug.
Is there a way to fine-tune these algorithms to be better than collective human judgment? Can math help to safeguard fairness in the sentencing process and improve outcomes in criminal justice? And if we did develop an accurate math-based model to predict recidivism, how ethical is it to blame current criminals for potential future crimes?
#education #vsauce #crimePermute Pi To Make PhiVsauce22022-07-14 | There are only a handful of truly legendary numbers, like 0, 1, and Euler's Number. And there are only 10 digits from 0-9, so it would make sense that we can shift them around to see some interesting things... right?
Sometimes it feels like too much of a coincidence, like being able to take the reciprocal of Pi and permute its digits into the reciprocal of the Golden Ratio. Not enough for you? Tack on another Pi digit and throw it in front of the reciprocal of Phi and you'll get the actual Golden Ratio's digits.
HOW CAN THIS BE A COINCIDENCE?!
#math #mathematics #vsauceAdult Magic SquareVsauce22022-07-12 | One of the most interesting puzzles in recreational mathematics is the construction of a Magic Square, an arrangement of numbers in which every single row, column, and main diagonal add to the exact same number. The classic introductory magic square is of Order 3, meaning there are 9 total spots in a 3x3 grid, with each line adding to a Magic Constant of 15. But why stop there?
As long as you count 1 as prime (which it was considered in the past), you can construct a massive 15 x 15 (Order 15) magic square out of the first 225 odd consecutive prime numbers ranging from 1 to 1,427 with a Magic Constant of 9,635? YEP, HERE IT IS.
#maths #vsauce #mathematicsThe Man Who Invented ZeroVsauce22022-07-06 | It's taken thousands of years for humans to decide what zero is, and also what zero isn't. It's a strange concept to think about what nothing really means in relation to other numbers, but giving zero meaning beyond a simple placeholder was one of the most important advances in mathematics. Indian mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta was likely the first to codify the rules involving computation with zero -- and in his master work Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta, he delved into quadratic equations, calculating square roots, and rules for positive and negative numbers.
The remarkable thing is that the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta contained no mathematical notation. It was only prose, and Brahmagupta still managed to be the first to describe the solution to quadratic equations. But what about dividing 0 by 0?!
#maths #shorts #mathematicsThe Bad Math Used To Punish CriminalsVsauce22022-06-20 | Documentaries, television and movies are obsessed with crime. Is the accused actually guilty? If not, who is? If so, will they get away with it? All these questions matter -- but the most important question might be what happens when a criminal is sentenced.
Determining a fair and just sentence for an offender is a delicate balance of punishment, rehabilitation and protection. From Aristotle to restorative justice initiatives, we’ve spent thousands of years developing theories of sentencing and striving for better ways to implement them. But no matter how refined our concept of justice becomes, it’s also subject to overt biases and both conscious and unconscious discrimination based on any number of factors, from age and race to completely unrelated societal forces. Does that mean real justice is impossible? And can we combat the failings of the human mind by replacing people with mandated algorithms?
The answer is yes -- and no. When Marvin Frankel conceived of a justice system that would remove bias and variations in sentencing from United States federal sentencing, he was convinced that he’d ushered in a new, fairer regime of sentencing. In a way, he had… when Congress passed the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, criminal sentencing became significantly more consistent. But it also opened the door to even more sinister discrimination with mandatory minimums and disparate impacts on minorities -- precisely some of the problems the sentencing reform was meant to address. It also rendered useless the professional experience of judges and ran complex crimes, and their victims, through a dispassionate algorithm that failed to tailor results to specific circumstances.
Justice is hard, and we continue to figure out how to do it right. Maybe it can be based on numbers. Maybe it should be based on feelings. And maybe it’s just impossible to achieve perfect justice.
“Measuring Interjudge Sentencing Disparity: Before and After the Federal Sentencing Guidelines,” The Journal of Law & Economics, 1999: jstor.org/stable/10.1086/467426
#education #vsauce #crimeYou Cant Move #shortsVsauce22022-06-14 | How many times have you heard that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? What if it's actually... the longest distance? What if it's an infinite distance? What if it's impossible to move at all?!
That's the theory behind Zeno's thought experiment on movement. If every distance can be divided up into smaller parts, and traversing every part takes a non-zero amount of time, then how can we make any progress at all in a finite amount of time?
This is obviously wrong, since you can walk to the mailbox and back every day without facing an existential or physics-based crisis. The tale of Achilles and the Tortoise has a certain logic to it that took thousands of years to unravel -- but once we understood the power of the convergent series, the paradox disappeared.
#maths #education #mathematicsPascals Coin Flipping Cheat Sheet #shortsVsauce22022-06-07 | Blaise Pascal's Triangle displays the array of binomial coefficients in a triangle that holds a different meaning from seemingly every angle. From the odd numbers creating a fractal similar to the Sierpinski triangle to generating a full Fibonacci Sequence, Pascal's triangle portrays mathematical beauty -- and also keeps track of coin flips. Buried in the layers is a perfect expansion of probabilities of binomial outcomes that goes on forever.
And although we refer to it as Pascal's Triangle, it's not actually Pascal's. Mathematicians in China, India, Persia, and even France centuries before Pascal completed his Treatise on Arithmetical Triangle in 1665.
GET FLIPPING.
#education #mathss #shortsHow Many Colors Do Maps Need? #shortsVsauce22022-06-02 | As borders twist and turn through geographic features and political realities, maps get complex quickly. But no matter how many bodies are being mapped, it's only necessary to use 4 different colors to make sure that no two that are touching share the same color. Given how intricate and complicated maps can be, how can we not need more than 4?!
#vsauce #educationThe $3 Million Math Mistake #shortsVsauce22022-05-23 | The world's smallest skyscraper wasn't supposed to be that way... depending on who you ask. When the Newby–McMahon Building in Wichita Falls, Texas was completed in 1919, investors were shocked. They'd put the equivalent of $3 million today into what was meant to be a 480-foot building. Instead, they got a 480-inch building, and it was their own fault. J.D. McMahon's blueprints used the symbol for inches in place of the symbol for feet, but signatories never bothered to check. He delivered on his promise to build a 480-inch skyscraper and legal challenges failed. When it comes to numbers, details matter.
#shorts #vsauce #educationThe Tip of Pascals Iceberg #shortsVsauce22022-05-16 | Blaise Pascal may have published Traité du triangle arithmétique in 1665, but the world knew about his triangle centuries before. Scholars in India, Persia, China, and even Germany played with the possibilities of a pattern of binomial coefficients, but Pascal brought it to the broader world. Pascal’s Triangle is easy to construct by hand; just start with 1 and do the arithmetic.
As Pascal’s Triangle expands, it reveals mathematical patterns we value elsewhere, from the simple whole number line and the primacy of 1 to a succession of the powers of 2 and the digits of 11’s exponential sequence. And lurking within is a classic Fibonacci sequence in which each successive digit is the sum of its two predecessors.
But one of the most interesting elements of Pascal’s Triangle is the way it lays bare the possible outcomes of any series of simple coin flips. Like everything else in Pascal’s Triangle, it’s in there if you know where to look.
#shorts #vsauce #mathsHow Witnesses Get It Wrong #shortsVsauce22022-04-26 | Police lineups are notoriously difficult to get right, and a huge part of that is your brain's fault. When you're presented with a lineup that shows someone similar, but not the same, as the suspect, your brain tends to fill in the gaps. It basically selects the next best option to the truth, but it feels to you like it *is* the truth. And by the time that similar choice comes up again, you've conditioned yourself to believe that this replacement is the real suspect.
Witnesses often make accurate identifications, but it's not hard to see how they can very easily get it exactly wrong.
#education #vsauce #truecrimeThe Bad Science of EyewitnessesVsauce22022-04-20 | Jennifer Thompson was the perfect witness. She was smart, perceptive, and alert during her attack. She made a conscious effort to note every little detail to help police identify the man who assaulted her. She identified him with 100% confidence in a photo lineup, then during an in-person lineup, and again at the trial. 11 years later, DNA evidence proved that Ronald Cotton, who had been sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years, was entirely innocent. How could she get it so wrong? Why do so many eyewitnesses make mistakes that result in innocent people going to prison for a crime they never committed?
A number of factors conspire to erode the truth. From biological realities of memory and the brain’s propensity to fill in gaps with fiction to procedural errors that unintentionally reinforce a false narrative, it’s hard for witnesses to get it right. All the flaws in eyewitness testimony seem obvious, and most of them are. What’s interesting is how long we’ve known and largely ignored them.
More than a century ago, psychologist Hugo Münsterberg wrote detailed essays about the problems with witnesses, including eviscerating his own memory of being a crime victim. And before that, Hermann Ebbinghaus explained the “forgetting curve” that shows how memory deteriorates and how spaced repetition -- of both fact and fiction -- can cement what’s in our minds.
Despite generations of knowledge about the fragility of eyewitness identification and testimony, there’s still nothing more powerful and persuasive than a witness pointing a finger at a defendant in court. In the end, forensic science saved Ronald Cotton. But for an immeasurable number of victims of eyewitness error throughout humanity’s pursuit of justice, the result has been imprisonment and death -- and the truth is that the problem can’t ever be solved completely.
*** SOURCES & READING ***
“Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption,” by Erin Torneo, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, and Ronald Cotton: pickingcottonbook.com