From the creative to the unconventional: the evolutionary future of computing

Scanning the list of papers in the International Journal of Bio-inspired Computation, a few strange phrases jump out. ‘Neuro-fuzzy-based’, ‘cuckoo search’ and ‘bat algorithm’ are particularly good examples. Swarming appears to happen quite frequently. And even more intriguingly, I’ve just noticed a paper about slime. It appears that computing, stereotypically the domain of the digital, has acquired a life of its own.

Bio-inspired computing is not, however, a new discipline, with founding father Alan Turing basing his work on the fundamental question of whether a computer could ever think like a human. The idea that evolution could provide a framework for computational problem solving has been around since the 1950s. Less of a strict field than a philosophy, bio-inspired computing refers to a network of interrelated areas of study including robotics, artificial intelligence and evolutionary computation. These areas and the people who study them are blurring the boundaries between nature and computer.

In this field, it is the computer that takes control. Rather than the programmer telling the computer what to do (the top-down approach), a bottom-up, decentralised system allows computing systems to employ ‘survival of the fittest’ principles to create their own solutions to problems.

Which brings us back to slime. Andrew Adamatzky is from the appropriately-named International Centre for Unconventional Computing at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, where in a recently published paper he showed that the slime mould Physarum polycephalum can be used to help calculate the shape of a polygon linking on a surface. This task is essential for the development of sophisticated graphics in gaming and films.

Using ‘Kalms’ sleeping tablets as an unusual attractant for the slime to spread its tentacle-like protrusions across a plastic plate, the slime has to use as little expenditure as possible to cover as many points as it can – essentially, the mould is playing a game of connect the dots that can be translated into computational efficiency. ‘Plasmodium’s foraging behaviour can be interpreted as computation,’ explains Adamatzky in a recent press release, ‘when data are represented by spatial configurations of attractants and repellents, and results by structures of protoplasmic network.’

It seems that computational systems derived from biological principles have found their niche in the graphics, art and gaming spheres. Various scientists have used the principles of evolutionary computation for aesthetic effect, from Maarten H. Lamers, whose ‘hybrid biological-digital’ games integrate real biological organisms inside computer games, to Simon Colton at the Computational Creativity Group at Imperial College, London. Colton’s work, recently featured on the BBC’s Horizon, showed that computers could be used to make artwork so complex it appeared to have been created by a human. The main aim of the group at Imperial is in fact to create software that can take on ‘creative responsibility’, either autonomously or in collaboration with humans, to create art and science projects.

However there are many other applications for this rapidly diverging discipline. As research fellow Cameron Browne, from the Computational Creativity Group explains, ‘Computational creativity applies to any creative field. At the International Computational Creativity Conference (ICCC) in Dublin a couple of weeks ago, we saw all sorts of applications including computer-generated poetry, jokes, Mexican legends with automatically illustrated codices, even automatically generated recipes’.

It is an easy scaremongering tactic to employ that the closer we get to true artificial intelligence the bigger the risk that the machines will turn against their makers. However it seems that as we use natural mechanisms to improve the efficiency of computing, art and cultural products made by computers may become the norm. As Adamatzky puts it, ‘”Unconventionality” is relative. What is “unconventional” today will be “conventional” tomorrow.’

 

Butterflies get boost from climate

As featured in Felix:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that global warming is a bad thing. Icebergs are melting, seas are rising and holidays to the Maldives may become relegated to wistful anecdotes of the iPod generation. However for species such as the Aricia agestis or Brown Argus butterfly, warmer autumns such as the one the UK experienced in 2011 are providing an opportunity for them to spread their wings and multiply.

Research at the University of York showed that rather than constraining the habitat of the butterfly, the warmer climate in recent years has changed the diet of the Brown Argus, allowing caterpillar development to take place in much more northerly locations than ever before.  “While it [the Brown Argus] was previously restricted to using Rockrose, it’s now been able to incorporate Geranium species into its diet – and we don’t think its been an evolutionary switch,” says Rachel Pateman, lead author of the study.  Rachel and her team believe that the butterflies have always had the capacity to complete their life cycle using the widespread Geranium species, but only when the weather is warmer. Now that climate change has increased summer temperatures, the Brown Argus can use this common species to lay their eggs in more geographically distinct areas.

The data, collected by volunteers from the UK charity Butterfly Conservation and published in the journal Science, highlights the disparity between the traditional view of climate change as a catastrophic problem and the finer details of its effects. However the authors of the study are careful to highlight that the Brown Argus is just one positive result in a plethora of data. “There’ll be winners and losers from climate change,” says Rachel Pateman. And it isn’t just other species that may be threatened from the effects of a warmer climate. The Brown Argus has only been studied in the UK so far. “We don’t know what’s going on in other parts of its range, because its distributed throughout Europe and through to North Africa, so it might be that in those places its getting too warm for it and its doing badly there,” Rachel cautions.

The issue of global warming is set to stir up interesting findings and debate in the future. While rising temperatures are good news for the Brown Argus butterfly, it is important to remember those species that may not get their day in the sun.

rural science

There we were, strolling along the railway path, when I noticed stripes beneath my feet.

My interest piqued, (who doesn’t like a good stripe?) I followed the sequence until I reached this little sign. Apologies about the crappy picture quality.

‘As you walk or cycle over these stripes you will be traversing a portion of your own genome.’

It turns out that these stripes, each colour representing a base (adenine, thymine, cytosine or guanine), are arranged in the sequence coding for BRCA2, a gene that when mutated can predispose individuals to breast cancer. This series is a collaboration between Sustrans National Art Coordinator Katy Hallett and the Wellcome Trust.

It was a really nice surprise to find this sequence in the middle of nowhere and brought home to me that never mind grandly talking about the separation of science and society: you can’t separate science from everyday life. Or countryside walks.

i think i’m lopsided

I think I’m lopsided. It all started the other night, when I was brushing my teeth. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I realised that under my side parting, my left eye is slightly more closed than my right. Having noticed this before but never really thought about it, I quickly reassured myself that I wasn’t suffering from a stroke, and other crooked coincidences sprung to mind. My left foot is definitely bigger than my right. For some inexplicable reason, I wear one rucksack strap shorter than the other. As a literate human, I can only write with one hand. So why are we so wonky?

Symmetry has long been an important topic in scientific discussions about attractiveness. Apparently, women are more attracted to symmetrical faces, have more orgasms with symmetrical men and those who are evenly distributed between left and right are more fertile. But this outward symmetry is hiding an uneven interior. Under the skin, vital organs like the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys all display asymmetry around the midline of the body. The heart (with its asymmetric ventricles) is on the left side, the liver on the right. That is unless you suffer from situs invertus, a condition affecting about 1 in 10,000 people where the normal orientation of organs in inverted.

The intrinsic arrangement of internal organs is determined during embryonic development, when we are made up of just a few cells. These cells arrange around a structure called the primitive streak, the first factor in creating the bilateral symmetry of the human body. Once the midline has been established, genes and the proteins they code for determine whether an organ develops to the left or right of this midline. A key protein in this process is called Nodal – when it is mutated normal asymmetry is lost. Nodal is only expressed on the left hand side of the body, following an increase in calcium during development which causes a signalling pathway called Notch to be turned on. This cascade of events allow the Nodal gene to be turned on, enabling the familiar and functional arrangements of our insides to develop.

ticking over nicely

afternoon, loyal blog readers. its time (i.e. 3 weeks too late) for the helenexplainsit review of 2011/preview of 2012.

last year, i mainly:

blogged over at i, science: http://www.isciencemag.co.uk/category/blog/5pm-girl/

enjoyed things organised neatly: http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/archive

tweeted using @helenexplainsit

studied this: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/humanities/sciencecommunicationgroup/masters/mscinsciencecommunication

and went here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States

 

in 2012, i hope to continue the above, in addition to:

adding more photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/62488449@N03/

listening to this: http://www.icradio.com/shows/680/

helping out here: http://www.lottolab.org/

and getting one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job

as well as writing more, right here.

 

Happy 2012!

 

a tale of hashtag distraction

On Tuesday, me and a group of my SciComm coursemates attended Index on Censorship’s debate on transparency on science. Chaired by Jo Glanville, the debate featured Baroness Onora O’Neill, George Monbiot, Sir Mark Walport and David Colquhoun. While they exchanged intelligent banter (more on this later) I was engrossed with a discussion of another kind – the whispered undertones of the debate on Twitter at #datadebate.

I probably wouldn’t even have looked at Twitter if the introduction to the evening hadn’t mentioned it, being the relatively inexperienced Tweeter that I am. However I’m easily distracted, and following the reactions of the audience was, to be honest, more interesting than the debate itself. Except when Baroness O’Neill looked like she might, in the words of Monbiot himself, ‘nut’ him.

Watching the constant thought stream did however make me think about a few things that have definitely changed in the world of public events, even in the last few years.

- Hashtags for an event give it a certain element of universality. With contributions from the organisers of the event as well as the uncensored responses of the audience, anyone, anywhere can take part. In an age of (and a very specific event relating to) questioning access to data, it is encouraging that this sort of public engagement is open to all. Get a topic trending, and people who wouldn’t even think about attending the event are suddenly drawn into the stream of discussion.

- Would the people who voiced the most vociferous opinions on Twitter have stood up and asked the panel their questions? There is an element of anonymity on Twitter, even if you are well known, as you are hiding behind the protection of the internet where anything you say can be deleted (at least superficially). I was surprised that this debate didn’t have a single question from the Twittersphere, especially when the hashtag was mentioned. Is this just another way of doing lip service to public engagement rather than integrating it into serious discussion?

- Twitter is very prone to what I like to call Facebook syndrome. Throughout the debate I found myself looking for witty and amusing Tweets to retweet and share with my friends. When a stranger replied to a comment I made (about a person sketching a few rows in front of me) an unwarranted sense of smugness washed over me. I can’t help but feel like most of the tweets sent during #datadebate were trying to make an impact more than further discussion.

Yet again I don’t really know how to wrap up my thoughts on this one. Perhaps the appropriate sentiment would be #moretocome.

on being a science communication student, 2 months in

Its been hard for me to process what I want to say in this post. I’m still not sure really, so I’m just going to put it out there.

 

Being a science communication student is weird, and like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Since school I have been taught in a very formulaic style, with lecture or class notes that I wrote down, put into bullet points and regurgitated a few months later for exams every January and June. While this type of learning isn’t to be scoffed at, I don’t feel like I really learned why I was memorising these arbitrary facts.

 

Since starting at Imperial, the teaching and learning style has been somewhat different. Although we only have 6 compulsory hours a week, these hours are just the start. There’s reading to be done, assignments to be written and a plethora of extra curricular activities to get involved in. But this  still isn’t the point I’m trying to make – incidentally, speaking in front of a room of 40 people also has the ability to make me stumble over and forget the insightful comments I thought of when I raised my hand in class.

 

Science communication is hard to explain when people ask me what I study. In some ways its easy: the explanation I have down pat now is basically that I study the theory – philosophy, sociology and history of scientific thought – and practical – tv, radio, print and museum – aspects of science communication, or sometimes to save time I tell people I study science journalism. But science communication is more than that. The parts that I find tricky are when it seems like we are as my course friend put it, ‘thinking for thinking’s sake’ – as someone who has never studied or ever really thought about philosophy it does sometimes seem a bit pointless. Similarly other friends find semiotic analysis of adverts equally ridiculous.

 

But this new, critical, reflective way of thinking about science is making me see the world in a different way. I’m constantly amazed by how I have never before considered things we discuss in class, from the construction of news to how the media frame stories. I can never read a paper or look at an advert in the same way again.

 

Studying and being immersed in science communication has also turned me into a bit of a snob. A friend was telling me how she wants to work in PR and I scoffed at the pointlessness of promoting lifestyle products for a living. ‘Not everyone can be a science communicator, Helen’ was my friend’s response. While she has a point, the reason I am taking this course is to learn more about attitudes like this, of my friends and the public. Why is science (and by that reasoning) science communication put on some kind of pedestal of authority? I don’t know the answer. But this new direction in my life is helping me work it out.

helenexplainsitall…the wilderness years

You may have been wondering where I disappeared to for over 6 months of 2011. As with most things in life, there is a long answer and a short answer. I’ll start with the easy one.

Between May and July I spent 9 weeks travelling in North America, from New York to San Francisco via 14 states and 2 Canadian provinces. I won’t bore you with the gap year details, but a whale of a time was had. In fact so much so that when I saw a woman on the Tube this morning on her way to Heathrow to catch a plane to JFK, I felt such a pang of jealousy I almost grabbed the ticket out of her hand.

How I came to be on the Tube is a part of the long answer to the question at hand and also explains the future direction of my blog. During my period of absence I have been applying for and subsequently accepted onto Imperial College’s MSc in Science Communication. This involved frantic hours of aptitude assessment writing, CV polishing and double guessing what admissions tutors want, and culminated in 20 minutes in an office in South Kensington during which I was sure I’d blown my chances by rambling for far too long about how I thought (and still think, prove me wrong) that TV scientist and all round goody two shoes Dr Alice Roberts is really annoying.

So now I’ve upped sticks and moved to London and am five weeks into the course. What a five weeks its been. Aside from the challenges of having to engage academically after over a year of living from one entry level job to the next, despite being an MSc my course is a million miles away from anything I’ve ever studied before. Gone are the days of memorising lecture notes to regurgitate in multiple choice exams – heaven forbid I’ve even had to write a philosophy essay. I only have 6 hours of contact time a week – I’ve become the arts student I used to despise!

From now on Helen will be doing less explaining of your questions (lets be honest, there weren’t a lot) and hopefully less referring to herself in the third person (in fact lets just stop that right now). Instead I’ll be blogging on reviews and news from the science communication sphere and the trials and tribulations of a BSc student in a humanities world. Fingers crossed…

 

Coming out of hibernation…with a TV review

So. A lot has changed since my last post. Although I do have pins and needles again. Some things never change.

I’ve moved house (and city), started a new course, and travelled all over America. But like the aforementioned neural consistency, me and the TV are still good friends. Which is why I decided to write a review of Channel 4s The Food Hospital. It was really rather good.

The Food Hospital: Tuesday 1^st November, Channel 4, 8pm

Channel 4’s latest culinary offering is a scientific blend of classics such as don’t-watch-it-with-your-parents Embarrassing Bodies and Supersize vs Superskinny. All three programmes feature C4’s basic ingredients of Grand Design-esque houses and arty long shots, grisly bodily close ups when you least expect them and celebrity doctors who seem to spend far too much time on TV and no time on the skiing holidays my GP frequently enjoys.

Where The Food Hospital differs is that its scientific content is (on the whole) well researched, rational and unsensational. While the makers of the programme did use the phrase ‘food as medicine’ perhaps a few too many times for my liking – you wonder how many viewers with the not uncommon diseases featured will now recklessly, if optimistically, throw out their medication and start stuffing their faces with vegetables and food replacement shakes, there were a lot of good messages and sensible science put across.

Most pertinent was the scene in which a breast cancer sufferer was offered advice on the recent changes she had made to her diet in the hope of preventing her cancer recurring. Perhaps Channel 4 have been rebuked over the advice given in the past by ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith, but they managed to sensitively handle the emotive issue of breast cancer and also firmly remind viewers that ‘We can’t cure cancer with food. We can’t.’ A number of subtly-inserted phrases such as ‘best evidence suggests’ were not used as caveats but instead as reasoning behind the opinions the panel of experts suggested, while a series-long randomized trial involving viewers gives the promise of an insight into a ‘real’ scientific study.

Followed the public response to the programme via the ever-ubiquitous hashtag revealed a mainly positive viewer response, with many Tweeters praising the considered opinions and calm tone of the hour-long programme, while others seemed disappointed that food wasn’t actually a replacement for conventional medicine.

Apart from the visual impact of diabetic phimosis in HD (I wouldn’t Google it), my only grievance with The Food Hospital was the clunkily engineered happy ending, involving a doctor using a small child’s drawings as a rudimentary pain scale. While ‘more research is needed’ is a forbidden phrase in the publishing world, I would definitely have like to see the results of these nutritional remedies over a longer time period. I’d also like to see if The Food Hospital keeps up the good work in terms of sensible science broadcasting.

What causes pins and needles?

When I was looking for a suitable picture for this post I was reminded about Molymods, the secondary school chemistry teachers favourite lesson plan. Many an hour has been spent making molecules with these bad boys under the pretence of learning about chemical structures.

Pins and needles are the bane of my life. Ever since I was little I’ve had this habit of sitting on my feet, crossing my legs or ending up in various seated positions which result in me thinking I’ve changed postures in the nick of time, but then stumbling away with one half dead leg and having to stamp it on the floor for ten minutes in order to regain my normal gait and feeling in my legs.

The phenomena is otherwise known as parasthesia, which certainly makes me falling over at work sound more serious. It is caused when pressure is continually applied to a nerve - for example when you sit cross legged - which decreases the function of the nerve cells. When the pressure is removed, the feeling of numbness is replaced by a tingling or pricking sensation as the neurons (the cells of our nervous system)wake up and begin to fire again, sending pain messages to the brain and central nervous system.

Pins and needles is not just an annoyance. It can also be a symptom of more serious conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome and sciatica, in which nerves are trapped and pinched by bones or tissue. In the case of carpal tunnel syndrome, the constant sensation of pins and needles (along with other symptoms) can be remedied by surgery to release the pressure on the nerve and allow it to function again.

I best be off. I’ve got to stand up again before my leg falls asleep.