A leaked OpenAI project code-named ‘Strawberry’ is stirring excitement in the AI community. First reported by Reuters, Project Strawberry represents OpenAI’s latest endeavor in enhancing AI capabilities. While details remain scarce, insider reports suggest that this closely guarded secret project is designed to dramatically improve AI…
A Deep Dive Into BioWare’s Companion Design Philosophy In Dragon Age: The Veilguard
During my visit to BioWare in its Edmonton, Canada, office earlier this year for the current Game Informer cover story on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I heard a sentiment repeated throughout the day from the game’s leads: in past Dragon Age games, BioWare stumbled onto great companions, but with Veilguard, it’s the first game where the studio feels it purposefully and intentionally created great companions. As such, those companions are key to everything happening in Veilguard.
With such a significant emphasis on these characters, I spoke to some of the game’s leads to learn precisely about BioWare’s philosophy on companions in Veilguard.
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“No, that is the case,” BioWare general manager Gary McKay tells me when I ask if he agrees with the stumbled-onto-greatness sentiment. “I would first start with Dragon Age – each installment in this franchise has been different, so we didn’t set out to make a game that was a sequel or the same game as before. We really wanted to do something different and we did push the envelope in a couple of areas, companions being one of them. Once we got knee deep into it, we really realized we had something special with these companions, again, around the motivations, the story arc, and it really started to become the centerpiece for this game.”
The Philosophy Behind Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Companions
Game director Corinne Busche agrees, adding that Veilguard’s companions are “the most fully realized complex companions we’ve ever crafted.” She also believes they’re the Dragon Age series’ best. “They’re complicated, they have complicated problems, and that’s what’s interesting,” she continues. “As much as I adore the companions and the journeys I’ve been on with them in past Dragon Age titles – previously, it feels like companions are going on an adventure with me, the main character, whether it’s the Hero of Ferelden or Hawke, you name it. But in [Veilguard], in many ways, the companions are so fleshed out that it feels as though I’m going on a journey with them. I’m exploring how they think and feel; I’m helping them through their problems. We’re working through their unique character arcs. They feel like my dear friends, and I absolutely adore them.”
Busche says these companions participate in the game’s darker and more optimistic parts. “We’ve really moved into a place where you can have the highest of highs, and it can be colorful, it can be optimistic, but also, you can have the lowest of lows where it gets gritty, it gets painful, it gets quite dark. But throughout it all, there is a sense of optimism. And it creates this delightful throughline throughout the game.”
When I ask creative director John Epler about BioWare’s philosophy behind Veilguard’s companions, he reveals a phrase the studio uses: Dragon Age is about characters, not causes.
“What that means for us is […] let’s take the Grey Wardens, for example – the Grey Wardens are an interesting faction but by themselves, they don’t tell a story, but there are characters within that faction that do,” he tells me. “And the same thing with other characters in the story. They represent these factions, they show the face of the other parts of Thedas and of the storytelling we really want to do, which, again, shows Thedas as this large, diverse living world that has things going on when you’re not there.”
Epler says one of BioWare’s principles when creating Veilguard was that the world exists even when you – Rook – are not around. There are things, ancient conflicts, grudges, and more, that happen even when Rook isn’t participating in them, he says.
“You kind of come in ‘in media res’ in some of these, so that’s where we wanted to go with the companions,” he says. “They have stories of their own. Where can Rook come into these stories, and what interesting ways can those stories develop not just based on themselves but also based on Rook’s presence within them?”
Dragon Age series art director Matt Rhodes adds that companions are the load-bearing pillars for everything in Veilguard, so “when you’re designing them, it’s not just designing a character; they’re the face for their faction, the face for, in [some cases like Bellara Lutara], an entire area of the world.” From his aesthetic-forward part of developing companions in Veilguard as the game’s art director, he tells me Veilguard’s characters are (hopefully) going to give cosplayers a challenge.
“The previous art director had the mindset we should make things easier for [cosplayers], which I think is a misunderstanding of cosplayers,” Rhodes says. “We’ve seen the kind of challenges they’re willing to take on, and so we’ve gone for, in some cases, a level of complexity and detail that I hope a lot of them are excited to rise to the challenge for.”
A Quick Detour: Neve Gallus
Companions, In And Out Of Combat
Rook’s companions in Veilguard have roles both in and out of combat, but since I only saw a few hours of this game (which is sure to be multiple dozens of hours long), I wanted to ask Busche about these roles and how they play out. Here’s what I learned:
In Combat
Bushce: “So companions as realized characters, we have to take that premise when we talk about how they show up in combat. These are their own people. They have their own behaviors; they have their own autonomy on the battlefield; they’ll pick their own targets. As their plots progress, they’ll learn how to use their abilities more competently, and it really feels like you’re fighting alongside these realized characters in battle. So I love that, I love the believability of it. It feels like we’re all in it together.
“But then when it comes time for the strategy, and the progression I might add, that’s where a sense of teamwork comes into play as the leader of this party as Rook. When I open the ability wheel, I almost feel like we’re huddling up. We’re coming up with a game plan together. I see all the abilities that Harding has, and I see all that Bellara is capable of, and sometimes I’m using vulnerabilities synergistically. Maybe I’m slowing time with Bellara so that I can unleash devastating attacks with Harding, knocking down the enemy, and then me as Rook, rushing in and capitalizing on this setup they’ve created for me. It is a game about creating this organic sense of teamwork.
“Now, there are more explicit synergies as well. We very much have intentional combos where your companions can play off each other, you can queue up abilities between them, and each of those abilities will go off and have their effect. But it results in this massive detonation where you get enhanced effects, debuff the entire battlefield, all because of planning and teamwork. What makes it really cool is you can introduce Rook into that equation as well. One of my favorite things to do is upgrade some of Harding’s abilities so she will automatically use some of these abilities that normally I’d have to instruct her to do. And she’ll actually set my character up to execute that combo that, again, has that detonation effect.”
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Outside Combat
Busche: “It’s one of my favorite topics. I talked about the idea that these are fully realized characters, that they’re very authentic and relatable. So outside of combat, what that means is they’re going to have their own concerns, fears, distractions, and indeed, even their own sanctuaries, their own personal spaces. In our base of operations this time, our player hub, the Lighthouse, each of the companions has their own room. And what I love about it is it becomes a reflection of who they are. The more time you spend with them, as the game develops as you work through their arc, their room and their personalities will evolve and flourish and become more complete as they trust you more and you understand them better.
“What’s interesting, you mentioned romance, the companions also develop romantically and I’m not just talking about with the main character Rook; I’m talking about each other. There are moments in the game where two of our companions fell in love with each other and I had to make some pretty challenging choices as it related to the quest we’re on. And it broke my heart, it absolutely did [Editor’s Note: I get the sense Busche is talking about a specific playthrough of Veilguard here – not a definitive sequence of events for every playthrough].
“So I would say, as you’re adventuring with them, as you’re returning to the Lighthouse and getting to know them – all these decisions and conversations and things you learn about them – it endears them to you in a way that I honestly haven’t experienced before. And sometimes that fills me with joy and sometimes it breaks my heart.”
For more about the game, including exclusive details, interviews, video features, and more, click the Dragon Age: The Veilguard hub button below.
Polina Anikeeva named head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Polina Anikeeva PhD ’09, the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor at MIT, has been named the new head of MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), effective July 1.
“Professor Anikeeva’s passion and dedication as both a researcher and educator, as well as her impressive network of connections across the wider Institute, make her incredibly well suited to lead DMSE,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, chief innovation and strategy officer, dean of engineering, and Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
In addition to serving as a professor in DMSE, Anikeeva is a professor of brain and cognitive sciences, director of the K. Lisa Yang Brain-Body Center, a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and associate director of MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics.
Anikeeva leads the MIT Bioelectronics Group, which focuses on developing magnetic and optoelectronic tools to study neural communication in health and disease. Her team applies magnetic nanomaterials and fiber-based devices to reveal physiological processes underlying brain-organ communication, with particular focus on gut-brain circuits. Their goal is to develop minimally invasive treatments for a range of neurological, psychiatric, and metabolic conditions.
Anikeeva’s research sits at the intersection of materials chemistry, electronics, and neurobiology. By bridging these disciplines, Anikeeva and her team are deepening our understanding and treatment of complex neurological disorders. Her approach has led to the creation of optoelectronic and magnetic devices that can record neural activity and stimulate neurons during behavioral studies.
Throughout her career, Anikeeva has been recognized with numerous awards for her groundbreaking research. Her honors include receiving an NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, and the Pioneer Award from the NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program. MIT Technology Review named her one of the 35 Innovators Under 35 and the Vilcek Foundation awarded her the Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science.
Her impact extends beyond the laboratory and into the classroom, where her dedication to education has earned her the Junior Bose Teaching Award, the MacVicar Faculty Fellowship, and an MITx Prize for Teaching and Learning in MOOCs. Her entrepreneurial spirit was acknowledged with a $100,000 prize in the inaugural MIT Faculty Founders Initiative Prize Competition, recognizing her pioneering work in neuroprosthetics.
In 2023, Anikeeva co-founded Neurobionics Inc., which develops flexible fibers that can interface with the brain — opening new opportunities for sensing and therapeutics. The team has presented their technologies at MIT delta v Demo Day and won $50,000 worth of lab space at the LabCentral Ignite Golden Ticket pitch competition. Anikeeva serves as the company’s scientific advisor.
Anikeeva earned her bachelor’s degree in physics at St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University in Russia. She continued her education at MIT, where she received her PhD in materials science and engineering. Vladimir Bulović, director of MIT.nano and the Fariborz Maseeh Chair in Emerging Technology, served as Anikeeva’s doctoral advisor. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, working on devices for optical stimulation and recording of neural activity, Anikeeva returned to MIT as a faculty member in 2011.
Anikeeva succeeds Caroline Ross, the Ford Professor of Engineering, who has served as interim department head since August 2023.
“Thanks to Professor Ross’s steadfast leadership, DMSE has continued to thrive during this period of transition. I’m incredibly grateful for her many contributions and long-standing commitment to strengthening the DMSE community,” adds Chandrakasan.
MIT OpenCourseWare “changed how I think about teaching and what a university is”
Bernardo Picão has been interested in online learning since the early days of YouTube, when his father showed him a TED Talk. But it was with MIT Open Learning that he realized just how transformational digital resources can be.
“YouTube was my first introduction to the idea that you can actually learn stuff via the internet,” Picão says. “So, when I became interested in mathematics and physics when I was 15 or 16, I turned to the internet and stumbled upon some playlists from MIT OpenCourseWare and went from there.”
OpenCourseWare, part of MIT Open Learning, offers free online educational resources from over 2,500 MIT undergraduate and graduate courses. Since discovering it, Picão has explored linear algebra with Gilbert Strang, professor emeritus of mathematics — whom Picão calls “a legend” — and courses on metaphysics, functional analysis, quantum field theory, and English. He has returned to OpenCourseWare throughout his educational journey, which includes undergraduate studies in France and Portugal. Some courses provided different perspectives on material he was learning in his classes, while others filled gaps in his knowledge or satisfied his curiosity.
Overall, Picão says that MIT resources made him a more robust scientist. He is currently completing a master’s degree in physics at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, where he researches prominent lattice quantum chromodynamics, an approach to the study of quarks that uses precise computer simulations. After completing his master’s degree, Picão says he will continue to a doctoral program in the field.
At a recent symposium in Lisbon, Picão attended a lecture given by someone he had first seen in an OpenCourseWare video — Krishna Rajagopal, the William A. M. Burden Professor of Physics and former dean for digital learning at MIT Open Learning. There, he took the opportunity to thank Rajagopal for his support of OpenCourseWare, which Picão says is an important part of MIT’s mission as a leader in education.
In addition to the range of subjects covered by OpenCourseWare, Picão praises the variety of instructors. All the courses are well-constructed, he says, but sometimes learners will connect with certain instructors or benefit from a particular presentation style. Since OpenCourseWare and other Open Learning programs offer such a wide range of free educational resources from MIT, learners can explore similar courses from different instructors to get new perspectives and round out their knowledge.
While he enjoys his research, Picão’s passion is teaching. OpenCourseWare has helped him with that too, by providing models for how to teach math and science and how to connect with learners of different abilities and backgrounds.
“I’m a very philosophical person,” he says. “I used to think that knowledge was intrinsically secluded in the large bindings of books, beyond the classroom walls, or inside the idiosyncratic minds of professors. OpenCourseWare changed how I think about teaching and what a university is — the point is not to keep knowledge inside of it, but to spread it.”
Picão, now a teaching assistant at his institution, has been teaching since his days as a high school student tutoring his classmates or talking with members of his family.
“I spent my youth sharing my knowledge with my grandmother and my extended family, including people who weren’t able to attend school past the fourth grade,” he says. “Seeing them get excited about knowledge is the coolest thing. Open Learning scales that up to the rest of the world and that can have an incredible impact.”
The ability to learn from MIT experts has benefited Picão, deepening his understanding of the complex subjects that interest him. But, he acknowledges, he is a person who has access to high-quality instruction even without Open Learning. For learners who do not have that access, Open Learning is invaluable.
“It’s hard to overstate the importance of such a project. MIT’s OpenCourseware and Open Learning profoundly shift how students all over the world can perceive their relationship with education: Besides an internet connection, the only requirement is the curiosity to explore the hundreds of expertly crafted courses and worksheets, perfect for self-studying,” says Picão.
He continues, “People may find OpenCourseWare and think it is too good to be true. Why would such a prestigious institution break down the barriers to scientific education and commit to open-access, free resources? I want people to know: There is no catch. Sharing is the point.”
The Fight to Own Your Creative Content – Speckyboy
As a platform, the web caters to creators. It’s a place to publish and share whatever we want. We’ve used it to fuel the rise of everything from blogs to influencer videos.
The results are impressive. Think of all the careers kickstarted by online publishing. I am living proof. Writing and web design have provided me with income and a platform. I’m forever grateful.
However, the rules of content ownership seem to be changing before our eyes. And it’s not the familiar trope of a spammer copying your text and images.
These days, large companies are trying to stake a claim. Social media has been doing this for years. And now artificial intelligence (AI) is putting the practice into overdrive.
Not everyone wants to own our content outright. Various platforms are looking to profit from what we create, though. Let’s take a look at what’s happening and what it means.
A Misunderstanding That Made Creators Think
Imagine a tool that helps you create compelling content. It then takes your content and profits from it. A recent change to Adobe’s Terms of Use seemed like it might do just that.
Users were up in arms regarding the revised language in the agreement:
“4.2 Licenses to Your Content. Solely for the purposes of operating or improving the Services and Software, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free sublicensable, license, to use, reproduce, publicly display, distribute, modify, create derivative works based on, publicly perform, and translate the Content. For example, we may sublicense our right to the Content to our service providers or to other users to allow the Services and Software to operate as intended, such as enabling you to share photos with others. Separately, section 4.6 (Feedback) below covers any Feedback that you provide to us.”
I’m no lawyer or legal expert. But it sounds like the company is permitting itself to use your content. Theoretically, Adobe could use content created in Photoshop to feed its AI model.
Adobe has since clarified that this is not the case. The changes relate to allowing their cloud-based AI tools to modify your content – at your request. Furthermore, the language is there to facilitate the sharing of files via Adobe apps.
Perhaps it was all an honest misunderstanding. But can you blame anyone for being suspicious of the change?
Content Isn’t Just for User Consumption
The relentless pace of AI is making some people uncomfortable. Tools are scraping our websites to feed their models. Opting out isn’t straightforward.
It’s also different from social media. The workaround there has been to create content on a platform you control (a website) and promote that content on social media. We’re merely funneling traffic from a proprietary platform—not allowing it to own our creations.
AI has changed the game. The platforms are meeting us where we are. They’re indexing what we’ve published to improve their product.
All of this happens in the background. It may not be a big deal to some. If you can’t see it happening, what’s the harm?
We may not immediately see the effects. But the long-term ramifications could be significant.
What happens when a company chooses AI instead of a copywriter? Or let ChatGPT generate all of its custom code? Or replace a graphic artist with a text-to-image tool?
These things are already happening. Maybe they haven’t impacted you just yet. But pessimists will see this as feeding the machine that will take your place.
Rethinking the Role of Apps in Content Creation
I can’t say that I ever considered the role apps play in what I create. For example, I’ve used Photoshop since the 1990s. It was a great tool that helped me accomplish my goals. It still is.
The misunderstanding surrounding its Terms of Use has me wondering. How far will an app go to serve us and itself?
It’s no longer paranoia to think a software company would use our content for profit. And governing bodies can’t act swiftly enough to stop it. It’s the wild west out there. Companies will experiment and go as far as they can.
So, perhaps it’s no longer about using the most powerful tool for the job. Now, it’s about using tools that respect users.
App developers should be clear about their intentions. And, if they are feeding content to AI models, they should allow users to opt out. The process for doing so should be simple.
There’s a market for apps with a privacy-first focus. We see this with web browsers like Firefox and DuckDuckGo. That’s a roadmap for creative apps and publishing platforms to follow.
The New Reality of Content Creation
There’s always been some risk when publishing online. Anyone could copy your work and call it their own. Or they could redistribute your work in an unapproved manner. It’s frustrating, for sure. But we’ve learned to live with it.
These days, the concern is how and where we create. Do we own our content – or are we expected to share ownership? What rights do we have? What does all of the legalese in the Terms of Service mean?
The answers may deter some of us from publishing. That’s a shame because the internet is the perfect medium for sharing ideas.
In reality, we should think twice before using a tool or platform. As creators, we need to know what we’re getting into.
The situation also underscores the importance of free, open-source software (FOSS). Platforms like WordPress ensure content ownership and portability. Integration with AI is optional – even if blocking content scrapers isn’t automatic.
The bottom line is to do your homework. Find tools that respect your privacy and rights to ownership, and avoid the ones that go too far.
We can’t control everything in this industry, but we can make informed choices. For now, it’s our best option.
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Takeda Joins The Mortal Kombat 1 Roster Next Week, First Gameplay Revealed
Mortal Kombat 1’s final Year 1 DLC fighter arrives next week, and it’s Takeda Takahashi. The young Shirai Ryu warrior makes only his second appearance in a Mortal Kombat game and looks every bit as capable as his older clanmates, Scorpion and Smoke.
Although Takeda was Kenshi’s son in his debut appearance, Mortal Kombat X, the remixed timeline of Mortal Kombt 1 has changed him to Kenshi’s cousin. Like Kenshi, Takeda grew up a Yakuza but was more faithful to the clan than his cousin. As such, the Yakuza tasked Takeda with killing Kenshi, and the two battled, with the latter coming emerging victorious. Takeda was mortally wounded in the battle and rushed to the aid of the Shirai Ryu, where Kenshi protected him from being killed by the Yakuza for failing his mission. This causes Takeda to have a change of heart and join the Shirai Ryu to wage war against Earthrrealm’s criminal underground and, eventually, the evil forces of Outworld.
Takeda still utilizes the Shirai Ryu fighting style, including his signature pair of bladed whips. He also sports shurikens, a barrage of teleporting flame attacks, and an aerial grapple best described as mid-air corkscrew piledriver. Check Takeda out below.
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Takeda will be available on July 23, both as a standalone purchase and as a free download for Kombat Pack owners. The same day also sees previously revealed Kameo fighter Ferra become available to buy. Both Takeda and Ferra will be playable for the first time during Evo 2025 this weekend.
For more on Mortal Kombat 1, check out our review as well as the trailers for previous DLC fighters Homelander, Omni-Man, Ermac, Peacemaker, and Quan-Chi.
Study reveals how an anesthesia drug induces unconsciousness
There are many drugs that anesthesiologists can use to induce unconsciousness in patients. Exactly how these drugs cause the brain to lose consciousness has been a longstanding question, but MIT neuroscientists have now answered that question for one commonly used anesthesia drug.
Using a novel technique for analyzing neuron activity, the researchers discovered that the drug propofol induces unconsciousness by disrupting the brain’s normal balance between stability and excitability. The drug causes brain activity to become increasingly unstable, until the brain loses consciousness.
“The brain has to operate on this knife’s edge between excitability and chaos. It’s got to be excitable enough for its neurons to influence one another, but if it gets too excitable, it spins off into chaos. Propofol seems to disrupt the mechanisms that keep the brain in that narrow operating range,” says Earl K. Miller, the Picower Professor of Neuroscience and a member of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.
The new findings, reported today in Neuron, could help researchers develop better tools for monitoring patients as they undergo general anesthesia.
Miller and Ila Fiete, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences, the director of the K. Lisa Yang Integrative Computational Neuroscience Center (ICoN), and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, are the senior authors of the new study. MIT graduate student Adam Eisen and MIT postdoc Leo Kozachkov are the lead authors of the paper.
Losing consciousness
Propofol is a drug that binds to GABA receptors in the brain, inhibiting neurons that have those receptors. Other anesthesia drugs act on different types of receptors, and the mechanism for how all of these drugs produce unconsciousness is not fully understood.
Miller, Fiete, and their students hypothesized that propofol, and possibly other anesthesia drugs, interfere with a brain state known as “dynamic stability.” In this state, neurons have enough excitability to respond to new input, but the brain is able to quickly regain control and prevent them from becoming overly excited.
Previous studies of how anesthesia drugs affect this balance have found conflicting results: Some suggested that during anesthesia, the brain shifts toward becoming too stable and unresponsive, which leads to loss of consciousness. Others found that the brain becomes too excitable, leading to a chaotic state that results in unconsciousness.
Part of the reason for these conflicting results is that it has been difficult to accurately measure dynamic stability in the brain. Measuring dynamic stability as consciousness is lost would help researchers determine if unconsciousness results from too much stability or too little stability.
In this study, the researchers analyzed electrical recordings made in the brains of animals that received propofol over an hour-long period, during which they gradually lost consciousness. The recordings were made in four areas of the brain that are involved in vision, sound processing, spatial awareness, and executive function.
These recordings covered only a tiny fraction of the brain’s overall activity, so to overcome that, the researchers used a technique called delay embedding. This technique allows researchers to characterize dynamical systems from limited measurements by augmenting each measurement with measurements that were recorded previously.
Using this method, the researchers were able to quantify how the brain responds to sensory inputs, such as sounds, or to spontaneous perturbations of neural activity.
In the normal, awake state, neural activity spikes after any input, then returns to its baseline activity level. However, once propofol dosing began, the brain started taking longer to return to its baseline after these inputs, remaining in an overly excited state. This effect became more and more pronounced until the animals lost consciousness.
This suggests that propofol’s inhibition of neuron activity leads to escalating instability, which causes the brain to lose consciousness, the researchers say.
Better anesthesia control
To see if they could replicate this effect in a computational model, the researchers created a simple neural network. When they increased the inhibition of certain nodes in the network, as propofol does in the brain, network activity became destabilized, similar to the unstable activity the researchers saw in the brains of animals that received propofol.
“We looked at a simple circuit model of interconnected neurons, and when we turned up inhibition in that, we saw a destabilization. So, one of the things we’re suggesting is that an increase in inhibition can generate instability, and that is subsequently tied to loss of consciousness,” Eisen says.
As Fiete explains, “This paradoxical effect, in which boosting inhibition destabilizes the network rather than silencing or stabilizing it, occurs because of disinhibition. When propofol boosts the inhibitory drive, this drive inhibits other inhibitory neurons, and the result is an overall increase in brain activity.”
The researchers suspect that other anesthetic drugs, which act on different types of neurons and receptors, may converge on the same effect through different mechanisms — a possibility that they are now exploring.
If this turns out to be true, it could be helpful to the researchers’ ongoing efforts to develop ways to more precisely control the level of anesthesia that a patient is experiencing. These systems, which Miller is working on with Emery Brown, the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering at MIT, work by measuring the brain’s dynamics and then adjusting drug dosages accordingly, in real-time.
“If you find common mechanisms at work across different anesthetics, you can make them all safer by tweaking a few knobs, instead of having to develop safety protocols for all the different anesthetics one at a time,” Miller says. “You don’t want a different system for every anesthetic they’re going to use in the operating room. You want one that’ll do it all.”
The researchers also plan to apply their technique for measuring dynamic stability to other brain states, including neuropsychiatric disorders.
“This method is pretty powerful, and I think it’s going to be very exciting to apply it to different brain states, different types of anesthetics, and also other neuropsychiatric conditions like depression and schizophrenia,” Fiete says.
The research was funded by the Office of Naval Research, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Science Foundation Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, the Simons Center for the Social Brain, the Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain, the JPB Foundation, the McGovern Institute, and the Picower Institute.
Deutsche Telekom turns to AI to support legal departments
Deutsche Telekom, one of Europe’s leading telecoms companies, has unveiled a new AI-powered software-as-a-service solution called “Law Monitor” aimed at supporting corporate legal departments in quickly identifying changes to national and international laws. In an era of increasingly complex regulatory environments, companies across all industries are…
Q&A: Helping young readers explore curiosity about rocks through discovery and play
It’s no secret that children love rocks: playing on them, stacking them, even sneaking them home in pockets. This universal curiosity about the world around us is what inspires psychotherapist and author Lisa Varchol Perron when writing books for young readers.
While in talks with publishers, an editor asked if she’d be interested in co-authoring a book with her husband, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Taylor Perron. The result was the picture book “All the Rocks We Love,” with illustrations by David Scheirer. The book introduces the many rocks showcased in it through play and discovery, two aspects that were part of the story since its inception. While aimed at readers aged 3-6, the book also includes back matter explainers about the rocks in the story to give older readers a chance to learn more.
Lisa and Taylor took a moment to talk about the writing process, working together, and tapping into our innate sense of curiosity as a means of education.
Q: Were either of you the kind of kid who had to pick up all the rocks you saw?
Lisa: Absolutely. I’ve always been intrigued by rocks. Our kids are, too; they love exploring, scrambling on rocks, looking on pebble beaches.
Taylor: That means we end up needing to check pockets before we put things in the laundry. Often my pockets.
Q: What has it been like formally collaborating on something?
Lisa: We’ve really enjoyed it. We started by brainstorming the rocks that we would cover in the book, and we wanted to emphasize the universality of kids’ love for rocks. So we decided not to have a main character, but to have a variety of kids each interacting with a different rock in a special way.
Taylor: Which is a natural thing to do, because we wanted to have a wide variety of rocks that are not necessarily always found in the same place. It made sense to have a lot of different geographic settings from around the world with different kids in all of those places.
Lisa: We spent a lot of time talking about where that would be, what those rocks would be, and what was appealing about different rocks, both in terms of play and their appearance. We wanted visual variability to help readers differentiate the rocks presented. The illustrator, David Scheirer, does such beautiful watercolors. It’s like you can reach in and pick up some of the rocks from the book, because they have this incredible, tangible quality.
Q: Going into that creative process, Taylor, what was it like working with the artist, finding that balance between accuracy and artistic expression?
Taylor: That was an interesting process. Something that not everyone realizes about picture books is that you’re not necessarily creating the text and the art at the same time; in this case, the text was there first and art came later. David is such an amazing artist of natural materials that I think things worked out really, really well. For example, there’s a line that says that mica schist sparkles in the sun, and so you want to make sure that you can see that in the illustration, and I think David did that wonderfully. We had an opportunity to provide some feedback and iterate to refine some of the geological details in a few spots.
Q: Lisa, you focus a lot on nature and science in your books. Why focus on these topics in children’s literature?
Lisa: We spend a lot of time outside, and I always have questions. One of the great things about being married to Taylor is that I have a walking encyclopedia about earth science. I really enjoy sharing that sense of wonder with kids through school visits or library read-alouds. I love seeing how much they know, how delighted they are in sharing what they know, or what questions they have.
Taylor: Most of the time when I think about education, it’s university education. I taught our introductory geology class for about 10 years with [Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences professor] Oli Jagoutz, and so had a lot of opportunities to interact with students who were coming out of a wide variety of secondary education circumstances in the U.S. and elsewhere. And that made me think a lot about what we could do to introduce students to earth sciences even earlier and give them more excitement at a younger age. [The book] presented a really nice opportunity to have a reach into educational environments beyond what I do in the classroom.
Q: Informal education like this is important for students coming into research and academia. Taylor, how has it influenced your own research and teaching?
Taylor: At first glance, it seems pretty different. And yet, going back to that initial discussion we had with the editors about what this book should be, one theme that clearly emerged from that was the joy of discovery and the joy of play.
In the classroom, joy of discovery is still very much something that can excite people at any age. And so, teaching students, even MIT students who already know a lot, showing them new things either in the classroom or in the field, is something that I’ll remember to prioritize even more in the future.
And, while not exactly the joy of play, students at MIT love hands-on, project-based learning; something that’s beyond seeing it on a slide, or that helps the picture leap off the page.
Q: Would you two consider working together again on a project?
Taylor: Yes, absolutely. We collaborate all the time: we collaborate on dinner, collaborate on kid pickups and drop-offs …
Lisa: [Laughing] On a picture book, as well, we would definitely love to collaborate again. We’re always brainstorming ideas; I think we have fun doing that.
Taylor: Going through the process once has made it clear how complementary our skills are. We’re excited to get started on the next one.
Q: Who are you hoping reads the book?
Lisa: Anyone interested in learning more about rocks or tapping into their love of exploring outdoors. At all ages, we can continue to cultivate a sense of curiosity. And I hope the book gives whoever reads it an increased appreciation for the earth, because that is the first step in really caring for our planet.
Taylor: I would be happy if children and their parents read it and are inspired to discover something outdoors or in nature that they might have overlooked before, whether or not that’s rocks. Sometimes you can look over a landscape and think that it’s mundane, but there’s almost always a story there, either in the rocks, the other natural forces that have shaped it, or biological processes occurring there.
Q: The most important question, and this is for both of you: Which rock in the book is your favorite?
Lisa: I am fascinated by fossils, so I would say limestone with fossils. I feel like I’m looking back through time.
Taylor: It’s a tough one; the mica schist reminds me of where I grew up in the Green Mountains of Vermont. So that’s my favorite for sentimental reasons.
The book is available for purchase on July 16 through most major booksellers. Lisa reminds people to also consider checking it out from their local library.