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Posts Tagged ‘knowledge’

Why You Are Like a Zebrafish

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2026| 5 Comments »

Photo: Max Planck Institute for Biology.
Although zebrafish don’t have eyelids, light does disrupt their sleep, and, like humans, they have four stages of sleep.

Many creatures on Planet Earth have things in common that you’d never suspect. Today we learn about research showing that the humble zebrafish has sleep patterns almost identical to human sleep stages.

Sara Novak writes at the New York Times, “Whether tucked away in a colony of coral, hidden in the darkness of an aquatic cave or floating catatonic just above the ocean floor, fish take opportunities for rest and recovery, just as we do.

“Like humans, most fish are diurnal, meaning they sleep mostly at night; while they don’t have eyelids, and therefore can’t shut out the darkness, light does disrupt their sleep. And just like us, when they snooze they’re motionless and slow to respond to environmental stimuli. If you deprive them of sleep, they will make up for the loss by sleeping longer the next night.

“Now, a new study, released this month in Nature Communications, shows just how much fish sleep really does resemble our own. By tracking eye movements of zebrafish, the researchers were able to identify four different substates of sleep. …

“ ‘There’s complexity to their sleep structure,’ said Jennifer Mengbo Li, a co-author of the study and a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany.

“Three of the four substates happen at night, lasting a total of 10 hours. The first — and deepest — is characterized by a stone-cold stare. As the waking hours near, a second, lighter substate sets in: The zebrafish’s eyes twitch, sideways in the same direction, before moving slowly back to center. In the third substate, entered as morning approaches, both eyes turn to the same side and stay there.

“During the fourth and final substate, which takes place in brief bursts during the day, the zebrafish’s eyes move back and forth, as if sweeping the surroundings for potential risks. But the eyes can be deceiving:

These five-to-10-minute naps are deep enough that much of the brain activity is suppressed, and the zebrafish are hard to wake up. …

“As part of the study, researchers were able to follow the fish using what’s best described as a self-driving autonomous microscope and camera system. Designed by Drew Robson, another co-author of the study and a fellow Max Planck neuroscientist, the scope and camera followed 105 fish around the tank as they swam, hunted and slept.

“ ‘This is the first time we can record the whole brain of a freely moving animal,’ said the lead study author, Vikash Choudhary, a Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute. …

“ ‘Researchers were able to show that zebrafish do have specific sleep states and that certain populations of neurons are activated and might be markers for these sleep states,’ said David Prober, a biologist at the California Institute of Technology who was not involved in this study.

“Dr. Prober contends that the zebrafish brain — though smaller and simpler than a human brain — can still help identify the most essential mechanisms associated with sleep. His lab has found that many of the genes, neurons and drugs that regulate sleep in humans and other mammals have similar effects in fish.

“Michael Heithaus, a marine ecologist at Florida International University who was not involved in the study, said that it’s thrilling that scientists have begun teasing these different sleep states apart and trying to understand their purpose.”

More at the Times, here. What a shame it would be for the US to lose funding for this type of science and the scientists who pursue it! It seems obscure, but it adds to our knowledge of the planet we call home and often helps us understand ourselves better.

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Diversifying the Crossword

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 8, 2022| 4 Comments »

Photo: Wikipedia.

The problem with crossword puzzles is like the problem with academic entrance exams: they assume a cultural knowledge common to the creators’ identity groups. An older woman who doesn’t read Harry Potter books is not going to know what a young crossword creator is hinting about owls. Recent Latin American immigrants may never have heard of John Paul, George, and Ringo. And it may depend on your family life if you know anything about Marian Anderson, W. E. B. Du Bois, or Bayard Rustin.

Read what African American crossword puzzle creator Portia Lundie has to say about that at the Washington Post.

“I’m a Black woman who creates crossword puzzles. That’s rare, but it shouldn’t be. … Margaret Farrar, who became the founding puzzle editor of the New York Times in 1942, is credited with popularizing daily crosswords. But despite the impressive distinction, she only published the work of a handful of women.

“That’s perhaps unsurprising in a world dominated by White men; when I published my debut 15-by-15 crossword in the New York Times during Black History Month last year, I didn’t know of any crosswords constructed by Black women in America’s crossword gold standard.

“Before last year, I’d made dozens of 9-by-9 grids, or ‘midis,’ for the New York Times crossword app. I knew that my pop culture-themed puzzles were among the most popular on that platform, but I didn’t know what publishing my first crossword on a major newspaper site would be like — that it would open me up to a wave of subculture criticism.

“When it was announced that the Times would feature a week of Black constructors for Black History Month, there were myriad opinions on popular crossword blogs: ‘I prefer puzzles to be fun, not dry activist treatises that promote political ideology,’ wrote one commenter in response to the word ‘REPARATIONS’ in a puzzle by Erik Agard. …

“Yet, finally, I found some relief. ‘Must admit to knowing very little about Marcus Garvey. … Thanks to crosswords … for leading me there,’ one enthusiast said. When it came to learning the name of a horse racing champion or their jockey, I was more like this last commenter — excited that a puzzle introduced me to something new. This attitude, while seemingly compatible with a love for testing your trivial knowledge, is actually rare in the world of crossword critics.

“The experience came with other revelations. My dad worked for his uncle’s newspaper in Guyana when he was a teen, reading submissions and judging the crossword competition. But he didn’t tell me about his experience with crosswords until after mine was published in the Times. He revealed he was ’embarrassed’ that he wasn’t as good at crosswords when he immigrated to America. Turns out, I was robbed of a chance to learn about crosswords at a young age in part because crossword culture does not encourage learning — rather, it rewards already knowing.

“I ended up being introduced to crosswords in my early 20s while dating a constructor. Of course, I had attempted them before, but no one ever walked me through the rules. [For example] studying words that are used much more in crosswords than real life — words like ‘ESTOP’ and ‘STE’ and ‘ERE,’ which are usually used for their vowel placements. …

“I ultimately used practice, dictionary obsession and occasional cheating to get better. Constructing and cluing my own crosswords made me even better at recognizing the patterns — not to mention, it allowed me to assert my particular voice and trivial knowledge of 1990s cartoon characters.

“But most crosswords, I’ve found, still reflect the majority of creators. Like so many other hallmarks of culture, crosswords as we know them were standardized by a profound woman, yet the authority on language still seems to be in the hands of a few White men. In my opinion, there’s no such thing as a view from nowhere, and I’m glad to play a small role in giving crossword enthusiasts a view from someone who isn’t White, and isn’t a man.”

More at the Post, here.

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Law Mandates Reading Time for Employees

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 26, 2016| 4 Comments »

Sheikh Khalifa believes the United Arab Emirates would benefit in multiple ways if people there had more time to read. So he saw to it that a law got passed requiring employers to do their bit.

The National reports, “Employees will be given time off work to read under a law that was passed [in October], which also exempts reading material from taxes and fees.

“The President, Sheikh Khalifa, announced the law, which is aimed at achieving the country’s vision of a knowledge-based economy. …

“As part of the law, the Government will give a ‘knowledge briefcase’ to the families of newborns.

“Schools will be obliged to encourage reading among pupils, as well as a respect for books. Books that are no longer wanted must not be destroyed, but preserved, reused or donated, Sheikh Mohammed said.

“Fees and taxes for distributing, publishing and printing reading material will be scrapped, and facilities for authors, editors and publishing houses will be provided. Sheikh Mohammed said the law would consolidate ‘the cultural image of books in our society, and oblige coffee shops in shopping malls to offer reading material for customers.’ …

“A national fund will be set up to support reading initiatives and assist media organisations to advertise the importance of books. The fund will also be used organise a month dedicated each year to promoting literature.”

More here.

It’s an unusual approach, but it seems OK as long as there is freedom to choose what gets read. Lately, I’ve been immersed in the beautiful, wrenching autobiography of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca and learning all over again how literacy gives people wings. Baca learned to read in prison at around age 20 and it transformed his life.

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Daily Life as a School

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 15, 2012| 10 Comments »

A reason that poor children are sometimes unprepared for school is that the words they are starting to read in books may not convey meaning to them. What does it mean to park a car if you have never ridden in a car?

The NY Times has a lovely article about one NYC school’s unusual field trips, designed to fill some gaps in knowledge that textbook writers take for granted.

Michael Winerip writes, “Experiences that are routine in middle-class homes are not for P.S. 142 children. When Dao Krings, a second-grade teacher, asked her students recently how many had never been inside a car, several, including Tyler Rodriguez, raised their hands. ‘I’ve been inside a bus,’ Tyler said. ‘Does that count?’

“When a new shipment of books arrives, Rhonda Levy, the principal, frets. Reading with comprehension assumes a shared prior knowledge, and cars are not the only gap at P.S. 142. Many of the children have never been to a zoo or to New Jersey. Some think the emergency room of New York Downtown Hospital is the doctor’s office. …

“Working with Renée Dinnerstein, an early childhood specialist, [Ms. Levy] has made real life experiences the center of academic lessons, in hopes of improving reading and math skills by broadening children’s frames of reference.

“The goal is to make learning more fun for younger children. … While many schools have removed stations for play from kindergarten, Ms. Levy has added them in first and second grades. [And] several times a month they take what are known as field trips to the sidewalk. In early February the second graders went around the block to study Muni-Meters and parking signs. They learned new vocabulary words, like ‘parking,’ ‘violations’ and ‘bureau.’ JenLee Zhong calculated that if Ms. Krings put 50 cents in the Muni-Meter and could park for 10 minutes, for 40 minutes she would have to put in $2. They discovered that a sign that says ‘No Standing Any Time’ is not intended for kids like them on the sidewalk.” Read more.

One thinks of all the small daily interactions one has with one’s own children and the learning occurring without forethought. There are interactions and learning in poor families, too, but if the words and concepts are not what they kids will encounter in school, I think these excursions can be very helpful.

Photograph: Librado Romero, NY Times

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