Hi Reddit, My name is Lars Chittka and I am a professor of sensory and behavioural ecology at Queen Mary University of London. My research focuses on the learning processes, the sensory organs and the social behaviour of bees, and their interactions with flowers. I recently published a study titled “Associative Mechanisms Allow for Social Learning and Cultural Transmission of String Pulling in an Insect” in PLOS Biology. In this study, we discovered that bumblebees can solve a string-pulling puzzle, where they had to pull on a thread to retrieve a reward from an artificial flowers that was presented under a glass table, so that bees could see it but not reach without pulling the thread. Moreover, we found that inexperienced bees could learn the technique from experienced ones, so that the skill spread rapidly to a majority of colony members, in a manner similar to the cultural spread of new innovations found in humans. I will be answering your questions at 1pm ET – Ask Me Anything! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @LChittka!

Thanks for your awesome questions, everyone! We’re going to start winding things down now. We had a ton of fun! We’re scientists from Rice University and University of Iowa, and we recently described a new example of parasite manipulation of host phenotype, in which a previously undescribed parasitoid (Euderus set) manipulates the behavior of its cynipid gall wasp host (Bassettia pallida), which is itself a parasite of sand live oaks. The host, B. pallida, induces the formation of a crypt in sand live oaks, and undergoes development in these crypts. Upon becoming an adult, B. pallida excavate an emergence hole and emerge from the crypt. When B. pallida are infected by E. set, they excavate an incomplete emergence hole, block the hole with their head capsule, and then die. While many examples of apparent parasite manipulation of host behavior exist, in only a subset of these systems do we have strong evidence that the host’s infected behavioral phenotype actually increases the fitness of the parasite. We experimentally demonstrated that this modified behavior benefits the parasitoid, as E. set that have to excavate their own emergence hole are about 3 times more likely to die trapped in the crypt relative to parasitoids that only need to emerge through their host’s head capsule. Additionally, this system represents a novel case of hypermanipulation – where a parasite manipulates the phenotype of a host that is itself a parasitic manipulator. The parasitoid is also new to science! The parasitoid fell in the genus Euderus, and we decided to name the species Euderus set, after the Egyptian god Set. Set was the god of evil and chaos, and had control over evil animals like serpents. We thought this was fitting since E. set is the parasite of a parasite (which mirrors an evil being controlling another evil being). Additionally, E. set kills its host in a crypt, consumes the host’s internal organs, and then scatters the exoskeleton of its host around the crypt. The Egyptian God Set trapped Osiris (his brother) in a crypt, and later chopped his body into small pieces. We gave the parasitoid the common name the crypt-keeper wasp. We’re definitely biased, but we think the parasitoid is beautiful! The paper in which we describe the new parasitoid species and the paper where we document the manipulation are both Open Access. Here is artwork from the amazing Boulet that describes the system. We’re happy to answer questions about gall-forming insects, identifying new species, and parasite manipulation of host behavior. We’re excited to talk to you! We’ll be back at 12:30 EST to answer your questions. Ask us anything! Follow us on Twitter: Kelly Weinersmith: @FuSchmu Andrew Forbes: @Lord_Forbington *Edited to include link to our paper, link to Boulet’s artwork, and our twitter account info.

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Hi Reddit, My name is Joel Frohlich and I am a neuroscience PhD student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the lab of Dr. Shafali Jeste. My research uses “brain waves” or neural oscillations to identify quantitative, biological markers (biomarkers) of autism and neurodevelopmental disorders. These biomarkers can be used to guide treatment or inform outcomes in patients. Our lab places electrodes on the scalp to measure neural oscillations in children, a technique known as EEG. My name is Charlotte DiStefano and I am a postdoctoral fellow and clinical instructor at UCLA. My research focuses on cognitive and language development in children with neurodevelopment disorders, including autism spectrum disorder and related neurogenetic disorders. We recently published a paper titled “A Quantitative Electrophysiological Biomarker of Duplication 15q11.2-q13.1 Syndrome” in PLOS ONE. Dup15q syndrome is a neurogenetic disorder caused by partial duplications of chromosome 15. It is one of the most common genetic duplications that causes autism spectrum disorder, and it also confers high risk for epilepsy (i.e., seizures) and intellectual disability (ID). We used EEG to measure a particular frequency of neural oscillation called beta in children with Dup15q syndrome and found that beta oscillations distinguish children with the disorder from other children with autism and ID, as well as healthy children. Remarkably, this EEG signature looks just like the EEG signature seen when a person takes benzodiazepine drugs that bind to and modulate inhibitory neurotransmitter receptors called GABA_A receptors. Because several genes that encode these receptors are duplicated in Dup15q syndrome, we think that this EEG signature might be indicative of GABA_A receptor subunit expression. For this reason, the EEG signature we’ve identified might be useful for guiding clinical trials that target these neurotransmitter receptors. My colleagues and I will be answering your questions at 1pm EST (10am PST). We’re looking forward to discussing our work with these awesome kids. Ask Us Anything! Don’t forget to follow Joel Frohlich on Twitter @joel_frohlich.

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Hi Reddit! I really do build intelligent systems. I worked as a programmer in the 1980s but got three graduate degrees (in AI & Psychology from Edinburgh and MIT) in the 1990s. I myself mostly use AI to build models for understanding human behavior, but my students use it for building robots and game AI and I’ve done that myself in the past. But while I was doing my PhD I noticed people were way too eager to say that a robot – just because it was shaped like a human – must be owed human obligations. This is basically nuts; people think it’s about the intelligence, but smart phones are smarter than the vast majority of robots and no one thinks they are people. I am now consulting for IEEE, the European Parliament and the OECD about AI and human society, particularly the economy. I’m happy to talk to you about anything to do with the science, (systems) engineering (not the math :-), and especially the ethics of AI. I’m a professor, I like to teach. But even more importantly I need to learn from you want your concerns are and which of my arguments make any sense to you. And of course I love learning anything I don’t already know about AI and society! So let’s talk… I will be back at 3 pm ET to answer your questions, ask me anything!

ACS AMA Hi Reddit! I’m Adam Boyd, the Program Director for AACT (https://teachchemistry.org/). I have a background in chemistry and business. I work with our extremely talented staff and teacher leaders throughout the country to help provide resources, networking opportunities, and professional development for K–12 teachers of chemistry. And I’m Jenn Parsons, Education Resource Specialist for AACT. I spent 9 years teaching high school chemistry and forensic chemistry in northern Virginia. Now I help develop chemistry resources for use in K–12 classrooms and teachers of chemistry. I have led teacher content-writing teams in partnership with the Dow Chemical Company, as well as the Ford Motor Company. I also lead professional development sessions at science education conferences. Additionally I am the editor of our quarterly periodical, Chemistry Solutions (https://teachchemistry.org/periodical/issues). I’m always looking for contributors for our publication—interested? Or do you know someone who is? Let me know! We’re happy to answer any questions you may have about chemistry education or AACT. We’re eager to work with new teachers, as well as help K–8 teachers integrate more chemistry into their science curriculum. Ask us anything about these topics, we’re here to help! We will be back at 1pm ET (10am PT, 6pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything! We’re here and happy to answer your questions about chemistry education or AACT. We’re eager to work with new teachers, as well as help K–8 teachers integrate more chemistry into their science curriculum. Ask us anything about these topics, we’re here to help! Thanks so much for all of your questions! We have to get back to work, but we will try to check back later if we can. Thanks again, all!

Hi reddit! My name is Warren Grill and I’ve spent the past 15 years trying to understand how deep brain stimulation treats symptoms in persons with Parkinson’s disease. This understanding will allow us to make the treatment better. A few years ago, we discovered that the effects of deep brain stimulation depend on the timing of the stimulation pulses. We then used a process based on the principles of evolution to design temporal patterns of stimulation that work better than traditional stimulation at a single high frequency. I’ve been trying to build on that discovery ever since. Our work recently earned a Javits Neuroscience Award from the National Institutes of Health, providing $4 million over the next seven years to fund my laboratory at Duke University. In our experimental work to test the theory that regularization of neural activity was required for deep brain stimulation (DBS) to relieve symptoms, we delivered different random patterns of DBS all at the same average high frequency. The results indeed showed that random patterns were not effective, and of importance to the current work, that the effects of DBS were dependent on the temporal pattern of stimulation. This inspired the idea of designing patterns of stimulation to be more effective and efficient. In one example, we developed a series of temporal patterns that were intended to act as probes for the potential mechanisms of DBS and found that specific patterns were more effective at relieving symptoms than conventional high frequency DBS. These patterns were also more effective at suppressing low frequency oscillatory neural activity. The current work demonstrates the design of patterns that are more efficient than conventional high frequency DBS. One critical aspect of our work is the novel paradigm that we developed to conduct studies during the surgical replacement of the implanted DBS pulse generator due to depleted batteries, as this enabled early translational studies in human subjects. A second key innovation was the design of an electronic system that enabled us to record very small amplitude brain signals in the presence of large artifacts generated by the application of DBS. I’ll be back at 10:30 AM EST to answer your questions. AMA!

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Hey Reddit, I’m Liz Davison, a graduate student at Princeton University in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. My research centers on development and application of analytical and computational methods from network science and engineering to study complex dynamical systems, including the human brain. And I’m Ben Turner, and I’m a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the University of California, Santa Barbara. My research focuses on using functional magnetic resonance imaging to better understand human memory. We recently published a paper titled “Individual Differences in Dynamic Functional Brain Connectivity Structure Across the Lifespan” in PLOS Computational Biology. This paper applied a method for characterizing how connections between brain regions change together over time (see our earlier article published in PLOS Computational Biology to a group of people including young and older adults. Using different methods, other researchers have shown that the neural activity in parts of the brain that belong to the same “network” in young adults tends to become less similar by older adulthood. Our results extend this previous result by showing that when brain regions are put in groups based on how their connections change together over time, older adults have a larger number of groups relative to young adults, indicating less-cohesive changes in connectivity. We’ll be here at 1pm to answer your questions – Ask Us Anything! And feel free to follow Ben on Twitter @neurobot01.

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Hi reddit, I’m Greta Shum, and I work as a science communicator at Climate Central. I’m out here on a boat off the coast of Antarctica with other scientists who are studying different aspects of the Southern Ocean. In my usual work, I try to communicate the facts about climate change (causes and effects) at Climate Central. As part of that mission, I’m following three science projects that are focused on the state of the Southern Ocean and how it will change in the future. One group is studying ocean physics along the shelf of the Amundsen Sea; one group studies the microbiology and consequent evolution of the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean, and one group (SOCCOM) studies the carbon chemistry of the Southern Ocean and how it will change in the future. With me are the following scientists: Professor Stephen Riser is a Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of Washington, interested in the ocean’s role in climate, and in deducing the general circulation of the ocean and ocean/atmosphere/ice interactions through direct observations of the ocean circulation. Caitlin Whalen, PhD of the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) is an expert in ocean mixing. Professor Tatiana Rynearson from U. of Rhode Island: My area of research is in marine genomics and population genetics. My goals are to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes shaping genetic diversity in the plankton and to examine how those processes affect plankton community structure, function and productivity in coastal regions. My approach is to identify and exploit the genetic variation that exists within and between individuals to examine how plankton respond to their environment. Professor Sinead Collins from the U. of Edinburgh: I’m interested in how large populations of small organisms adapt to complex environmental changes. Since that’s a bit too vague, I focus on how marine phytoplankton adapt to ocean acidification. I use experimental evolution in the lab to figure out the basic theory involved, and then head off to collaborate with oceanographers to apply it to marine systems. We’ll be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything! Thanks for all the excellent questions! We had a terrific time! If you’re looking to keep following us online, check out our blogs here or here.