Sometimes it's just gotta be about Science: Museum of Natural History Brain Exhibit!

I'm back! Well I hope I'm back. Working has really gotten in the way of my wandering and my writing (mainly my writing, I still wander). You have missed out on some good stuff :/ but hopefully at some point I'll go back into my notes and my photos and tell you about some of the things I've done in the last errr two months? Eeps. I'm gonna try to be better.

So last last weekend I finally hitup the museum exhibit I've been excited for since October: The Natural History Museum's BRAIN exhibit: The Inside Story. This exhibit takes you through the ins and outs of the brain, first going through our senses, how we process touch, sound, sight, next onto our emotions and how they come about, how we process information, how we move, a whole super cool section on language, and tons more. It's definitely information overload, but what museum isn't? And every individual will take away their own fun facts to share with others. I wrote a few down myself to share :) 

I know I'm a bit of a science nerd so it's not surprising that I enjoyed this exhibit so much, but really they break everything down into small chunks of info that are easy to understand...I mean they cater to people of all ages, so you can really just delve into whatever layer suits you. The font sizes on each of the displays get smaller the more detail they get into, so you can really just pick your size and go with it! Definitely towards the end when my brain and my feet were aching a bit, I started to skip over the small font. It happens. Museums are tiring! 

When you walk into the exhibit they blast you with a crazy visual, it's like a laser light show that's supposed to simulate all the neurons in your brain doing a million things at once. It was cool I guess...but really it was just a bunch of wires and a light show that I'm pretty sure is designed to get oohs and ahhs and slow people down so the actual exhibit doesn't get too crowded.

This is just an example of one of the
giant models they have on display
(The Inside of the Brain)

Once you actually get in they have this great overview video that follows a girl going through a dance audition (I know...why did they pick this? It seems random, but it works). They talk about her movements, senses, and emotions. And all the while next to the screen they have a giant brain model that highlights different parts of the brain when they are in use by the girl. It's a nice intro before you get into the detailed stuff.

I won't really go into much detail, except to tell you about some of the cool fun facts that I picked up while I was there. Hopefully it'll give you enough of a taste to get you interested in going. I really really recommend it for a fun intellectual day.

What do drugs really do? Part of the exhibit focused on drugs/medicines and what goes on in the brain to cause certain reactions. They basically explain that in your brain different chemicals are produced that stimulate your body in different ways (like that whole bit everyone always talks about  how exercise releases endorphins and that makes you happy and gives you energy etc etc.)...and so drugs just basically cause chemicals to be released or inhibited. So they gave another example that I thought was relevant to probably everyone I know -- coffee. Coffee, as we know, contains caffeine (arguably a "drug") and we all know that caffeine makes you less tired...but why? Welllll it's because caffeine blocks the natural neurotransmitter adenosine (just want to make a sidenote to people who know what I'm talking about...seeing the word adenosine totally brought us to yell "ATP!" in seconds) -- anyway so adenosine triggers receptors that make you sleepy...so since caffeine blocks adenosine, it essentially blocks sleepiness and keeps you awake. I thought that was kinda cool to learn...that caffeine doesn't actually give you energy, it just inhibits tiredness. Same effect...different route! 

Mixing up our senses? We also learned about Synethesia, a "condition in which stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences with a second sensory pathway." A common form of synesthesia causes people to literally see different numbers or letters as different colors...like this image to the right: 

Can you imagine that?

In fact, although this condition is not super common, some researchers say many have a mild version of synethesia based on the fact that we often do associate "sights, sounds and other sensations that have simliar qualities" -- the example they gave was: imagine you were given two shapes, one rounded and one pointed and were told one is called "kiki" and the other is called "booba" and you have to figure out which is which. Most people think "kiki", with its sharp sound is a better name for the pointy figure and "booba" a soft, round-sounding word (like boob? yea I thought this was a little obvious) makes more sense for the rounded shape. Think about that. There are a lot of other forms of synesthesia that are really interesting also, so checkout the wikipedia page for more detail (or just checkout the exhibit!!):  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

Most sensitive parts of the body: The section on senses was definitely one of the more interesting ones since it involves the most basic part of everyday life. Early on in the exhibit we learned about sensory receptors and how, when stimulated, they send messages to the touch center of the brain, causing us to have the appropriate reaction...basically so we know when something feels smooth or rough, hot or cold, etc. So there was a wacky statue of a man and his face and hands were blown up bigger than the rest of him and next to it it said that the bodyparts were englarged based upon how many sensory receptors were concentrated in that body part, which basically is directly related to how sensitive the different parts of our body are.  For instance the thumb has more sensory receptors than the index finger so the thumb was bigger on the statue and it is more sensitive to sensations than the index finger.  So, although alllll body parts were not depicted in the statue, they were listed in a chart nearby, comparing the concentration of these receptors on different parts of the body. And just by chance I happened to notice, it turns out that the lips  actually have a higher concentration of sensory receptors than the genitalia...aka they are technically more sensitive to touch. Did ya know that? In the words of Bill Nye the Science Guy, Nowwwww you knowwww. Just a little fun fact to share with your friends. :) PS--this would be one of those things that's in verrrry small font next to the other, more child-friendly and probably more useful, largely written fun facts.

And here's one of the very helpful visuals on what parts of the brain control what:

CLICK TO ENLARGE

That rounds out my fun facts, but here are some other little tips if you're thinking of hitting up the AMNH. When you get there...do not be overwhelmed by all the idiot tourists who are waiting on the long line to buy their tickets from a human. There is always a super short electronic kiosk line to the left when you walk in and you can also choose to get a student ticket and no one will know that you graduated 2 years ago :-O Yea I did it, I scammed the museum out of 8 dollars. And I feel ok about it. Just consider it your refund from the city for having to pay the new ridiculous raised price for monthly metrocards. 

Oh and one more last tip...more like a morsel of information. The D train is an EXPRESS. You WILL end up in Harlem if you get on this train. Take the B or C and all will be peachy. 

Hope this post made sense...was accurate (I tried my best!)...and got some people interested in checking out the exhibit. There is really so much cool stuff to learn and everyone can take away as much or as little as they want. Do ittttttttttttt.

Peace out! Hopefully I'll be able to post again soon!

An "Intellect-Tickling" Day at the New Museum

Finally…a real post! And a museum post! Woohoo! Actually don’t get too excited, this is probably going to be one of the few museum visits for me, at least art museums. I’m confident enough in my general intelligence to admit that I’m not really intellectual enough for contemporary and modern art. Science museums though, I’m all over that. (There is a seriously cool exhibit coming up at the AMNH this month that you will SURELY hear about) But anyway, I still enjoy the ~25% of art museums that I understand. And I was really interested in checking out the New Museum after I got a Groupon email about it. I was initially drawn to the picture of the museum’s exterior--it’s a really great piece of art in itself: a stack of different sized boxes shifted around a central axis. It’s like a modern leaning tower of Pisa! Sort of. So I went on to read the description, which said the museum "showcases intellect-tickling contemporary art from adventurous artists," and I though...Alright, I'm down with some tickling of the intellect on a Sunday afternoon.

The museum is down in the Bowery and very easy to pick out on a street with few modern buildings. As I said, a lot of the pieces were over my head, but the ones I did understand, I was totally into. So I’m going to recap what was most memorable of what my feeble engineering mind could grasp.

The ground floor has a fun little exhibit called “Voice and Wind” and is referred to as a “meditative installation”, where the artist uses venetian blinds and scent atomizers that hang from the ceiling as “sensorial stimuli infusing the installation with subtle tactile and olfactory experiences that call upon the visitor’s subjectivity as a key element in the meaning of the work.” << Kinda heavy right? Well to me it was a fun colorful maze where you can walk up to the fan devices and guess the scents coming from each one, lots of earthy aromas. Ask the guard what they are when you’re done to see how you do! We got most of ‘em :) It was fun. Interactive is ALWAYS fun. I’m not so sure what I learned though…

The exhibit I was most excited for was “Free”, which is built upon the idea of free culture, “a social movement that acknowledges the revolution the internet has caused in industries like music and print publishing, and argues that it be dealt with as an opportunity for creating, sharing and distribution of knowledge, rather than a threat.” So the artists are all exploring how people and society have changed with the expansion of the public space and how they’ve adjusted to a world where information is so easily accessible. As I’ve been looking into digital media and marketing as a career path, I’ve been learning a lot about how growth in the digital space has really affected the way the whole world works. (I’m currently reading Googled, the story of google…and it really puts the massive disruptive effect of their creations into perspective. Very cool story if you’ve got the time, but warning: there is a lot of detail in there.) So since this has been at the forefront of my intellectual and professional curiosity recently, I was pumped.

I’ll talk about my favorite piece: 19:30. I really LOVED this display, by a Yugoslavian woman who wanted to show how (and this is in the simplest terms, must check it out for the full effect), prior to the expansion of the internet into the country--which happened to occur simultaneously with the collapse of socialism--the 8:30pm (or 19:30) news was considered a “unifying social norm,” since the whole country would sit down to view the broadcast. But as the country fell apart and internet access allowed people to get their news at any time, this unifying event disappeared. Then in the ‘90s, electronic dance music came into popularity and young people would gather in these huge groups to basically get down and rave. The message of the piece is that: when information can be accessed at any time, the nightly news loses its power to unite a large group, but a live event like a rave, can still bring large groups together. To show this, the artist has a projection of two parallel screens, the left showing news broadcasts and the right showing videos of Yugoslavians dancing and raving, with perfectly coordinated typical “news music” combined with techno-electronica music in the background. I recorded a short clip of the action to give you an idea (and introduce some video into the blog), but it really does not do the display justice. I came back twice to listen to techno and watch the globes rotating and news broadcasters at the same time as crazy raving with smoke and lasers. The music really fit perfectly and I thought the message was pretty cool. Access to the internet completely changed routine.

The main exhibit right now, which takes up 3 floors of the museum, is the “Last Newspaper” which explores the "ways artists approach the news and respond to the stories and images that command the headlines." This is a pretty broad concept so there were a lot of different types of pieces in the exhibit.

One of the more memorable pieces, “Eulogies to One and Another” compares the news coverage of two coworkers involved in a car bombing in Iraq. An American woman and Iraqi man who worked with a non-profit in Iraq, both died in the car bombing, but received very different levels of remembrance in the press. These two pictures show the same news articles, the first set of frames highlights all of the news surrounding the deaths, but the second set highlights only the statements about to the Iraqi man killed in the bombing. You can see that the frames are almost empty in this set. Pretty sad. I mean there is something to say about the fact that American and UK news sources would be more interested in the death of an American than an Iraqi, but the difference in degree of mention of the American and Iraqi in all of the news articles is pretty drastic. It was just kind of a “wow” moment. Click the pics to enlarge and get a better idea.  

Also there was a particularly disturbing display, of which you will not get the full effect if you don’t read the description. On first glance you see about 8 newspaper covers with pictures of Saddam Hussein with statements that chronicle his downfall, all covered with splatters of glitter. So I’m thinking ok…this is some sort of “I hate Sadaam” display…covering his face with paint, that happens to have glitter in it? As I was standing there eyeing the papers, searching deep inside my head for something really intellectual, my museum buddy goes “OH GROSS” and tells me I have to read the description. It’s jizz, people. Yea, semen. The artist has ejaculated onto the newspapers and then sprinkled them with glitter to show his "response to the hysterical headlines and comment on the brutally transient nature of celebrity." ...I don't know what to say...way to really stick it to Saddam, buddy...?

So if all of the intellectual art has drained you, once you're done you can kick up your blood-sugar levels with a delicious Birdbath by City Bakery chocolate chip cookie and a coffee! Everyone knows it’s tiring to walk around a museum all day, so a cookie and a coffee and a little bit of rest for your feet is a perfect end to a great day. That cookie was clutch. (Somehow even when the post/activity has nothing to do with food I manage to find a way to bring it in haha…)

There is SO much in this museum that I didn’t even begin to touch on. Check the “Pics from my Trips” on the sidebar to the right to see some more pictures from my visit. And I definitely recommend the New Museum if you want an intellectual afternoon complete with some eye-opening moments (and a cookie on top).


- The Wandering New Yorker