A great team effort in COMAP!

 COMAP is an applied mathematicians organization that runs an international math modeling competition. One of our teams, consisting of juniors Brynn Litus, Keira Beaudoin, Emma Reese, and Chloe Ross, were rated as a Finalist team. This goes to the teams around the world that place in the top 5% - and there are only 8 US teams that placed this high - so it's a big deal! This is out of 1100 papers in the competition, which is now dominated by Chinese high school teams since they have some focus on real-world math modeling in their math curriculum. This is something I've been wanting in US math classes for the last 20 years, but that's another story. 

Anyhow, see an Evanston Now news story about the team here! Congratulations to them, as they now prepare for both the International Math Modeling Competition (IMMC), and the MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge in the next month!

Identifying Deep Fake images and videos: Human vs AI

 A recent study found that AI algorithms identify Deep Fake images quite a bit better than humans. Humans identified them basically at 50%, which is just chance level, while an AI correctly distinguished between the images as high as 97% accuracy. However, humans still identify Deep Fake videos better than the AIs that were used in the study - the AIs were only around chance level, but humans were correct nearly two-thirds of the time. 

With this being an election year, everyone is anticipating the use of Deep Fakes will spike. We should be working in unison with AI algorithms to hopefully weed-out as many of these as possible, as it will be an ongoing battle as long as these technologies exist. Let's try to maintain as much reality in our lives as possible, as we continue on into the age of mis- and dis-information. It is becoming more challenging to pick out real from fake, to be sure. 

Which image below (of a NU professor) is real, which is fake??? 

Left is real...he put himself in battle gear on the right. Here is an article about his work. 

Effects of Social Media on Teenage Brains

 This is a NIH summary of both the benefits and harm social media has on the teen brain. Teens are at a stage of human development where the brain is active and maturing, with things like risk-taking peaking, mental health conditions like depression beginning to develop, and social consciousness and self-worth are being formed. 

It is worth checking out. One finding is that teens who spend an average of 3 hours or more per day on social media platforms are TWICE as likely as teens who don't of developing symptoms of anxiety and depression. It begins to reduce one's attention span. It makes one less social, of course, in terms of human interaction, which we need to socialize and develop skills that are necessary for our lifetime. By 2021, the average number of hours for children grades 8-10 were already at 3.5 hours. Online bullying, drops in self-esteem and body image, loss of sleep, drops in attention span and comprehension in school, and eating disorders are all rising with the increased use of social media. 

Let's try to LIVE our OWN lives a little more, by watching and reading about OTHERS living their lives a little LESS - it will bring more joy to your life!