Simon Lee                                                                     Approximately  200 Word

Shl5@geneseo.edu

Scientific Writing 105-19

Postcards From the Edge of Consciousness

Meehan Crist tries her first float. During the float, one’s sense slowly start to fade out. Whats interesting is that after Crist’s sensations were gone, she was able to connect with her own body a lot more. Crist said after her session ended her sense were extremely heightened. Although sensory deprivation is slowly making a come back, when it was first discovered it was considered taboo. Sensory derivation had such negative connotation because of the fact that it was used as a torture method. Sensory deprivation wasn’t directly the torture, however, it was the over stimulation that came after.

This article definitely reminded me about an article i read about night terrors. Night terror is a kind of sleeping disorder in which the person mind is conscious; however, the person has no control over their own body. From what I read, the body is tricked into sleeping because the body gives our cues such as an itch and it expects a response. However if it doesn’t it believes the mind is asleep and will shut down. After that the mind can run wild bring out the worst nightmare a person can have into life and the person can do nothing but suffer through it until it passes. This article definitely made me respect how complex the mind is.

Rachael Natoli                                                                                                  10/30/16

INTD 105-19: Scientific Writing                                         About 230 Words

In “The Therapeutic Effects of Singing in Neurological Disorders” by Catherine Y. Wan, Theodor Rüber, Anja Hohmann, and Gottfried Schlaug, the benefits of singing on different neurological disorders were discussed. The article was broken up into sections of Stuttering, Parkinson’s Disease, aphasia, and autism are all disorders that affect language and these disorders can be helped by singing treatment. In the article it describes studies that were done involving singing treatments such as LSVT and MIT, These treatments are meant to improve specific aspects of speech such as respiration, phonation, articulation, and resonance. Many patients involved in these studies were said to have major improvements in certain areas of speech depending on the specific study. However it was also said that these studies were often small and uncontrolled making them unreliable, yet under the right conditions the researchers believe a controlled study would yield similar results.

There is a very strong correlation between the arts and sciences in this article. Singing and making music is an art form that can actually help diminish the results of a medical condition. In the aphasia section of the article there was information about the difference between fluent and non fluent aphasia depending on where the lesion is located in the brain. The two different types both cause speech issues but these issues are very different and I would be interested in researching why this is.

Emma Cooke                                                                 Approximately 150 words

erc8@geneseo.edu

INTD 105 Science Writing

“The Therapeutic Effects of Singing on Neurological Disorders”

            This article discussed the effects of singing on neurological disorders, specifically: stuttering, Parkinson’s disease, Aphasia and autism. It has been discovered that singing “can ameliorate some speech deficits” associated with these conditions and potentially lead to the development of specialized treatments for people suffering from these disorders. Discoveries such as this form an important connection between the arts and the science. Many forms of music therapy for various diseases and conditions beyond those discussed in this article have been successfully used for years.

I connected this to my younger brother, who suffered from complications when he was born which led to years of problems with many basic skills. One of the most difficult things for him was speech. He went through two years of speech therapy and I remember one of the techniques his therapist used most often was music. It was always easier for him to sing than it was for him to speak. He has since overcome his speech problems which can be credited to the specialized music therapy.

Alexis Baer                                                                                         about 150 words
anb8@geneseo.edu

Student, INTD 105-19: Writing Science

Music and Stuttering Response
by Alexis Baer

Recent studies proved that being involved in music, either singing or playing an instrument, has helped treat certain medical conditions. The main point of this article is to help readers understand how singing contributed to a stronger motor production, muscle strength, and control within individuals who suffer from speech abnormalities. Researchers have tested several experiments based on different theories in search of answers, some of which involve the affects of vocal function exercises, pulmonary functions of sick individuals, and the different changes in systems. This article relates to the arts and sciences by giving individuals who face difficulty with Stuttering, Parkinson’s disease, Aphasia, or Autism a chance to actively learn, express their emotions, and increase their speech-motor skills. I found this article to be interesting because it is similar to my own experience where I worked with children who have different conditions, they participated in group singing, sign language, and crafts on a daily basis. Music is something everyone can relate to and although it does have multiple beneficial factors, the main one is to give each of them a voice.

Mike Emanuele    11/1/16

me12@geneseo.edu about 200 words        INTD-105 Science Writing

In “Postcards From the Edge of Consciousness,” Meehan Crist sheds light on sensory deprivation: a process in which someone loses sight or sound for an extended period of time. In this article, Christ mentions how sensory deprivation can be used for exceeded rest. The rest gained from the sensory deprivation is more than a normal bed night’s sleep. During this deprivation, the user is set in a pitch black room and sustained in a bed of water. This gives the user a feeling of flotation, feeling nothing but the line of water against his or her skin. According to research, this is a form of restricted environmental stimulation therapy, or REST. REST is often used by sports athletes because of it’s benefits in performance and reduction in stress. In some cases, users exposed to Sensory Deprivation for too long start losing cognitive skills and experiencing powerful hallucinations, giving a feeling of unease.   

This article surprises me with it’s amount of benefits, but at the same time frighten me due to it’s side effects. I’ve always wondered why the body needs to shut itself down for eight hours at a time, and what causes the mind to dream. These are things that I would like to look more into.

Justin D’Souza                                                                      About 200 words INTD 105 Science Writing                                                                                        SUNY Geneseo

Musical Ice: How Science and the Arts Collide

by Justin D’Souza

Today’s climate change puts ice shelves in risk of breaking up in the warming temperatures. Large ocean swells can stretch and crack the ice, leading to more fracturing of ice shelves. Peter Bromirski aims to understand this ocean-ice relationship by studying the effect of infragravity waves on ice. These waves, which form from the energy released when storms hit a coastline, have a larger wavelength than normal “wind waves,” and are shown to stress ice much more. Bromirski uses seismic stations in various parts of the Ross Ice Shelf to monitor the forces on the ice. Professor Glenn McClure hopes to turn the data collected by these stations into music, to “give the ice a voice.”

While the focus of the research is understanding ice shelf disintegration through scientific analysis, the project connects with artists like Dr. McClure to transform technical science into hopefully beautiful music that can be spread to the public.  As we know, good science writing allows the layman to easily understand even highly technical issues, which is represented here by Dr. McClure’s work. Therefore, I wonder to what degree can various artistic mediums (audio, video, photos, drawings, etc.) be used to convey science to the public, and what effect can they have on our understanding?

Hunter Cowles                                                                                              183 Words

hc17@geneseo.edu

105-19 INTD: Science Writing

In Kim Tingley’s article, “Whisper of Wild”, she discusses how the acoustic integrity of nature has been destroyed by human inventions  such as roads, planes, and railroads. The astonishing aspect of this article that one can even hear the noise of transportation over the sound of runoff from the snow from icecaps and mountains.  In Leornardo Dicaprio’s National Geographic documentary “Before the Flood”, the impact of emissions from vehicles has a significant impact on our planets climate change. While he was filming his blockbuster movie, The Revenant, the film crew had to relocate all the way across the planet because their original set (which was located in northern Canada) all the ice melted. In the coming years, the sounds of our cars will be drained out by the roaring currents of the run-off.  We all need to be be increasingly more conscientious of our human footprint and start investing in alternative forms of energy. The noises we hear in nature will be a relatively trivial issue if there is no nature to return to in the beginning.

Aubrie Cross

INTD: Science Writing

About 150 words

In “Whisper of the Wind” by Kim Tingley, she begins to describe her trip to the ridge above Hines Creek. She mentions that the purpose of their trip was to capture the acoustic data of raw nature. However, this was going to be a difficult task because of the disruptive noises coming from themselves. Tingley then states that this aroma of “natural sound” is all disrupted due to the civilization of humans. We have planted ourselves across the world and have been focused on living through jobs and school that we forget to take a minute to stop and listen to the pure sounds of nature. Tingley says “…scientists have so little information about what landscapes should sound like without human interference…” after this she goes to explain that in order to really understand the pure sound of nature we have to separate our sounds from natures.

Emma Cooke                                                                 Approximately 150 words

erc8@geneseo.edu

INTD 105 Science Writing

“Whisper of the Wild”

Kim Tingley discusses the research of Davyd Betchkal, a sound catcher focused in Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Betchkal is studying natural soundscapes of areas like Denali, and how human sound pollution is effecting the species within the park and the soundscape itself. Tingley focuses on the adverse effects of plane, cars and other human noise on the inhabitants of these habitats. For example, “the droning of the freeway traffic and the 24/7 rumbling of natural-gas-pipeline compressors directly harm the ability of birds nesting nearby to reproduce” (Tingley, 9).

I connect Tingley’s experience in Denali to my own experiences in the Adirondack National Park. When you’re standing on top of a mountain or canoeing out in the middle of a lake, you don’t hear the sound of cars and there aren’t many people. It is peaceful and that is one of the reasons why it is so beautiful. However, moments later you might hear the roar of a plane over head or of a boat on the water and it breaks the silence. Noises that effect humans and their perception of the land must certainly have an even greater effect on the species that live there, which forces us to wonder why we don’t do more to protect natural soundscapes.

Paul Weissfellner

Prof. Fenn

INTD 105-19: Science Writing

October 31, 2016

Whisper of the Wild Response

In her article “Whisper of the Wild,” Kim Tingley describes an expedition in Denali national park that she took part in to record the soundscapes of nature with no human intervention, and the scientific background for such an experiment. She recounts some of the findings from the newly christened field of “soundscape ecology”: that the noise that is constantly emitted by humans and human activities can change the course of natural selection and reduce reproductive fitness, in some cases. Regardless of where one is, sound follows; even in rooms specifically designed to be silent, you would be able to hear blood moving inside your body.

As a musician, this emphasis on the ubiquity of sound resonates with me. When setting up my recording equipment for the first time, I noticed that, even when the room is silent, there is sound being picked up by the microphone. Originally this annoyed me; I wanted each take to be as clean as possible. However, as I recorded in more places, I realized that each location had it’s own unique background sound, the presence of which was a kind of intangible watermark, framing the music I make in the context in which I made it.