Preliminary evidence for past life on Mars

Scientists have wondered for a long time about the possibility of past life on Mars. The Perseverence probe, which has been on Mars since 2021, detected organic materials, normally associated with life as we know it, in new rock samples in July, 2024. Of course, this will be studied as thoroughly as possible, and is encouraging scientists to setup missions that will bring rock samples back to earth for more detailed chemical analysis. Check out this article for more details!

A Research Program: Lumiere Research Scholar Program

A FYI I received:

 Create an independent research paper. Work with top researchers 

The Lumiere Research Scholar Program helps high school students work one-on-one with a scholar on an independent research project. At the end of the program, you'll develop an independent research paper that you could use for college admissions or future studies. Our mentors are PhD scholars from top research universities such as Harvard, MIT,  Stanford, Yale, Duke and LSE. The program was founded by a Harvard & Oxford PhD who met as undergraduates at Harvard.  

 

The program is rigorous and fully virtual. We offer need based financial aid for students who qualify. You can find the application in the brochure! To learn more, you can reach out to our Head of Growth and Partnerships, Maya Novak-Herzog, at maya.novak-herzog@lumiere.education or go to lumiere-education.com.

The early bird deadline for application to the Fall cohort is July 30th, 2024.

 

Link to the application: Lumiere Research Scholar Application.

Next level of AI developed at U. of Illinois - CyberOctopus

 Using the way an octopus thinks about and navigates spatially, and also in time, researchers have created the next level of AI 'thinking' and processing information in its environment. This is episodic memory, and allows an AI to have better remembrances of past events it was involved in, learn from it, and have better thought out solutions to future problems based on those past events. It allows AI to be more animal-like rather than machine-like. Researchers have taken the leap from a sea slug brain, which is very simple, and made it more like an octopus brain...the evolution of this will ultimately, they think, to how a human brain operates, remembers, thinks things through, react to internal 'feelings', predict, and have creative, original thoughts. 

What are your thoughts about where AI is and where it will go? What should the ethics of creating and using AI's be? Who should make those decisions about AI? What are the consequences of more and more advanced AI in our human world, such as how will it change and replace humans jobs and careers? These are all vital questions we all should be thinking about, because AI is affecting most jobs and aspects of life already! 

Rebel Human study in Doc V's classes - effectiveness on mental health of our students

 This summarizes the study results of the effectiveness of Rebel Human school resources on the mental health of my students, who were juniors and seniors in 3 and 4 Chem/Phys AP Physics classes. The RH resources have been used exclusively at ETHS in Physical Education classes for the last 3 years, for nearly all students in the building, grades 9-12. This is part of an effort to begin exposing and teaching students some critical social-emotional learning (SEL) skills, and SEL is one of the 4 primary goals of ETHS. If it helps, rearrange the letters and let's call this ELS, ESSENTIAL LIFE SKILLS - this is what we're really talking about when you hear or read SEL!! 

We wanted to go outside of PE classes, and do a formal study on RH impact on the mental health of my students. We had enough sections of juniors and seniors to have two control sections and three intervention sections. Despite limited sample sizes and limited time (December 2023 - April 2024) of exposure to the deep breathing methods to help manage stress and one's emotions in a healthy way, we were honestly surprised to find statistically significant results for some of the measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as the use of eustress (the positive use of stress for things like motivation, emotional control, reduction of stress, etc.). Check out a summary of the entire study, including dozens of anonymous positive comments from students in the intervention sections. The more students used and talked about the RH methods and SEL skills, the more they saw the relevance and importance of making use of them in classes, in relationships, in athletics, and generally in life, to help manage stress and their mental health.

Keep in mind that healthy students learn more, show better behavior, get along with each other better, and find more growth, happiness, and success in life. This is the essence of being strong in SEL skills, and is why this is a primary goal of ETHS!

Hurricane Beryl - a monster for this early in the hurricane season

 The first major hurricane of the season, Hurricane Beryl, is hitting the Caribbean, and is now a category 5 (the strongest category) monster. This is a good article with an expert who says conditions for this year's season are unprecedented. In fact, this is the strongest storm on record this early in the season, due to the record high temperatures of the oceans and Gulf of Mexico. Remember, warm, moist air is the fuel for any storm, including hurricanes/cyclones, which is why the strengths of storms and amount of rain they release has been steadily rising the last couple decades. 

Old photo of Hurricane Florence (Wikipedia)