Welcome to our new semi-regular Science Issues Discussion. This month, the discussion topic is net neutrality and potential impacts on science, science communication, education, and and informed citizenry. Some example concerns are: How will this impact scientists’ abilities to collaborate on projects? How will this impact citizen science initiatives? Will this exacerbate the relationship between income levels and access to scientific knowledge? How will this impact science communication and journals - especially open access journals? How will this impact start-ups and smaller private scientific enterprises? To guide us in this discussion we have invited Ryan Singel (u/ryansingel2) who is a Media and Strategy Fellow at Stanford Law School and represented start-ups at a meeting with then FCC chairman Tom Wheeler about net neutrality. Ryan Singel covered net neutrality (and more) for Wired from 2002 to 2012. He left Wired to found Contextly, an engagement platform for publishers. He’s now a Media and Strategy Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society focussing on net neutrality and the CEO of Contextly. You are welcome to ask Ryan questions directly but we also invite him to engage with ongoing discussions where he can lend his expertise and share his thoughts. Science Issue Discussions are more relaxed formats than AMAs. We encourage you to bring your own personal experience - especially those of you who have flair in our sub and can speak to how this topic impacts your own field of study. Anecdotes and personal narratives are permitted. However, we still maintain strict rules about commenting and we do not permit rudeness, hateful or angry comments, bigotry, doxing, or witch hunts. Your comments should be related to the topic of the discussion and not jokes, memes, or pop culture references. No pseudoscience and this is not the place for grandstanding or big political arguments. Failure to adhere to these rules will have your comments removed and you risk being banned.

First and foremost, full disclosure: I am the CEO of Posit Science, which is a company that develops BrainHQ, a brain training program. I joined Posit Science at its inception because I believed it was essential to form a company to help the basic science of brain plasticity become an applied science that could improve human lives. I am also a neuroscientist by training, earning my Ph.D. from UCSF in the lab of recent Kavli Prize Laureate Dr. Michael Merzenich, who was (and still is!) a pioneer in the discovery and characterization of adult brain plasticity. You may have seen his recent AMA here. Today, join me to talk about a recent paper – hot off the (digital) press – showing that speed of processing training – a specific type of brain training – uniquely and significantly reduces the risk of healthy adults going on to dementia. This is the first randomized controlled trial of any intervention – pharmaceutical, physical exercise, mindfulness, or nutrition – to show an effect on the risk of dementia. These results come from the ACTIVE study, an NIH-funded multi-site trial, and is authored by independent researchers, including Drs. Jerri Edwards and Fred Unverzagt from the University of South Florida and Indiana University. I’ve worked with both Dr. Edwards and Dr. Unverzagt, and I’m very familiar with the ACTIVE study in general and these results in particular. Check out the paper here and ask me anything! About the ACTIVE study, dementia, the field of brain training as a whole, what near transfer/far transfer/generalization really means, my favorite aspects of clinical trial design and analysis (handling missing data, of course), brain plasticity, and video games. Or take a left turn and ask me about being ranked silver in Overwatch (the struggle is real), your and my favorite vermouths and amari, what it’s like to go from academia to the private sector, and the best burrito in San Francisco. Proof Edit: Hi folks - thanks for all the great questions about brain training - how it works, what’s been shown, and who it can help. It was really fun to talk about these issues with you. I’ll keep an eye on the AMA for the rest of today and tomorrow, and answer any further questions that get posted.

Hello, Reddit! My name is Aydogan Ozcan, and I am currently a Chancellor’s Professor at UCLA, in Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Bioengineering. I am also an HHMI Professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, an Associate Director of the California NanoSystems Institute, and a Fellow of SPIE, IEEE, OSA, AIMBE, RSC and the Guggenheim Foundation. My research focuses on the use of computation/algorithms to create new optical microscopy, sensing, and diagnostic techniques, significantly improving measurement existing tools for probing micro- and nano-objects while also simplifying the designs of these analysis tools. Some examples include smartphone-based microscopes, cell counters, diagnostic test readers, bacteria sensors, blood analyzers, allergen detectors, heavy metal sensors among others. I have authored, and will be presenting, multiple papers on these technologies at SPIE Photonics West in February 2018. More information about this conference can be found here. Let’s get the discussion started. I’ll be back at 2 pm Et to answer your questions, Ask me anything

ACS AMA Hi Reddit, I’m Terri Woods! I am an Associate Professor of Geological Sciences at East Carolina University (ECU). In 1971 I entered the University of Delaware with the goal of teaching high-school Spanish. Instead I became fascinated by how things work in the geological world and changed my major. While working on an MS at Arizona, I worked for the Anaconda Copper Company in Tucson and did mineral exploration with them in Montana. My thesis involved microprobe and fluid-inclusion work on a garnet skarn. I interviewed with mining/oil companies but got turned off by comments from interviewers such as; “We are looking for a few good gals”. Luckily, I got another offer from the USGS in Reston, Virginia to work on the epithermal sulfide deposit at Creede, Colorado. I worked there for 3 years but my husband and I got tired of the DC area and went cruising on our 43-foot wooden sailboat. We ran out of money in St. Petersburg, Florida at a time when geology employment was hard to come by so I worked minimum-wage jobs until Bob Garrels (USF-Marine Science) asked me to run his lab. For the next 5 years I helped Bob with projects such as copper corrosion in sulfate, carbonate and chloride solutions; water chemistry in equilibrium with Australian BIF; C and S cycling through geological time, and compilation of thermodynamic data. I got my Ph.D. in 1988. That fall I started as a faculty member at ECU. I did lab work on copper corrosion, but students were into hydro-environmental studies so I began investigating the chemistry of water from local aquifers. That research continues, but I have also worked on the impact of reverse-osmosis brine discharge into Albemarle Sound, chemistry of nearby streams, and petrology of aquifer materials. I’ve devoted a lot of time to science outreach. Most recently, I have investigated a technology that helps people understand surficial processes and topographic maps - the Augmented Reality Sandbox: short demo video https://mediasite.ecu.edu/MS/Play/ba30d1a13a684667ab155bfa58fd782a1d longer educational video https://mediasite.ecu.edu/MS/Play/e579f009dbca41e79f0d84d7207a714a1d This past spring (2017), I was happy to serve as the scientific consultant for the ACS Reactions video “Why is the Statue of Liberty Green?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZSLrXtg1-o So, Reddit, ask me anything about aqueous geochemistry, copper corrosion, or using augmented reality to teach surface geology. I’ll be back to start answering your questions at 12pm EST (9am PST; 5pm UTC).

Hi, we’re NASA engineers working on space communications technologies that will help create an interplanetary internet. When data travels vast distances like the 30+ million miles to Mars, the potential for delay or disruption is significant! Network disruption in space can happen because of limited contact time and atmospheric effects. NASA communications technology called ‘disruption-tolerant networking’ (DTN) allows for temporary disruptions and long delays, unlike the familiar computer to computer IP connection. DTN can also provide tremendous benefits to missions closer to Earth and terrestrial applications. That’s what we’re working on, and it has the potential to improve data transmission for virtually all of NASA’s missions. We are: Vint Cerf, Distinguished Visiting Scientist, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Dave Israel, Exploration and Space Communications Architect, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Adam Schlesinger, Technical Lead, Advanced Exploration Systems Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking Project, NASA’s Johnson Space Center Scott Burleigh, Principal Engineer, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Kelvin Nichols, International Space Station ground systems engineer, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Dr. Keith Scott, The MITRE Corporation For more information on disruption-tolerant networking, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/content/dtn Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter at @NASA_TDRS, @NASALasercomm and @NASASCaN!

The mods of /r/philosophy are pleased to announce an upcoming AMA by Rivka Weinberg, Professor of Philosophy at Scripps College, who works on procreative ethics, bioethics and the metaphysics of life and death. She is the author of The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When, and Why Procreation Might Be Permissible (OUP, 2015). Professor Weinberg will be joining us on Monday November 27th at 1PM EST to discuss issues in procreative ethics, bioethics and more. Hear it from her: Rivka Weinberg I’m Professor of Philosophy at Scripps College, which is one of the Claremont Colleges, in way too sunny California. I grew up in Brooklyn (before it was cool), worked my way through Brooklyn College as a paralegal, and got my PhD. from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. Most of my philosophical work has focused on the ethics and metaphysics of creating people. It still surprises me that so many people just go ahead and create an entire new human without really thinking through what they are doing to that person. It surprises me even more that so many people seem to think that life is inherently good and that living is a privilege and a treat. I find that outlook very hard to understand, though I haven’t given up trying. My book, The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When, and Why Procreation May Be Permissible, is a culmination of my many years of thinking about what we are doing when we create a person. As the title reveals, I think we are imposing life’s risks on that person, and I consider when and why that set of risks may be permissible to impose. Although it might seem foreign to think about having a baby as imposing life’s risks on someone, I don’t think it’s as counterintuitive a conception of procreation as it might initially seem. It’s not odd to think that a teenager shouldn’t have a baby because that baby will have lots of disadvantages, i.e., face the high degree of significant life risks that are associated with being born to teen parents. It’s not unusual to think that people who carry genes for terrible diseases, such as Tay Sachs, should try to make sure that they don’t partner with another carrier and bear a child who will have to suffer so terribly. Many people think that they shouldn’t have children who would be at a high risk for a life of abject poverty. And those are all ways of thinking about whether the life risks we impose on those we create are permissible for us to impose. So that is my framework for thinking about procreative ethics. Within that framework, I think about what kind of act procreation is, whether it is always wrong, whether metaphysical puzzles such as Parfit’s famous non-identity problem make it almost always permissible (short answer: so not!), and what makes someone parentally responsible. In my book, I arrive at principles of procreative permissibility based on a broadly contractualist framework of permissible risk imposition. I am currently finishing up some papers on whether parental responsibility has a set endpoint, or indeed any endpoint; and on some aspects of risk imposition that are unique to, and uniquely problematic for, procreative acts. I am also thinking a lot about pointlessness, about how life is not the kind of thing that can have a point or purpose, and whether we can rationally find that disappointing or even tragic. I probably should have thought that through before I had children who now have to live pointless lives, like everyone else. Ah well. Fun fact: I have two children, and ten siblings. Links of Interest: Her book: The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When, and Why Procreation Might Be Permissible An article reviewing David Benatar’s antinalist book (Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence): “Is Having Children Always Wrong?” NewBooksNetwork podcast interview on her book “The Moral Complexity of Sperm Donation” Short piece in Quartz: “Is it unethical to have children in the era of climate change?” Another short piece in Quartz: “When is it immoral to have children?” AMA Please feel free to post questions for Professor Weinbreg here. She will look at this thread before she starts and begin with some questions from here while the initial questions in the new thread come in. Please join us in welcoming Professor Rivka Weinberg to our community!

Hi Reddit! I’m Judy Baumhauer, a professor of Orthopaedics at the University of Rochester and medical director of PROMIS, a computerized assessement system that captures and tracks patients’ perspectives on their care. I am an Orthopaedic surgeon, and medical director of the University of Rochester’s program to incorporate PROMIS across our entire medical system. Our goal is to invite every patient to share their perspective on the effectiveness of their health care so we can learn from patients, and improve the overall quality of care we deliver. PROMIS is a National Institutes of Health-sponsored system that was developed at Northwestern University. It’s been shown to be a very accurate way to measure how well a patient is progressing. The system asks patients a variety of questions on their pain, physical function, and state of mind, or mood, to assess their health care outcomes. It uses smart testing and asks the following question based on the answer to the prior question. This way the patient does not get the same set of questions at the next patient visit. At the University of Rochester, 30 programs use PROMIS in their outpatient clinics and more programs are continuing to adopt it. We offer the assessment at every outpatient visit and participation is voluntary for patients. We hand patients a tablet when they check in for their appointment, and they spend less than 3 minutes answering multiple-choice questions about their pain level, mood, and ability to manage everyday tasks like walking, exercise and housework. When patients complete the survey, their scores go into their health record, and their health team can view that day’s results – plus their previous scores– on a computer before or during the patient appointment. Health teams use the patient input to assess how an individual patient is progressing; collectively, the data can yield insights on the benefits of particular therapeutic approaches. Patients’ input on what worked for them – and what didn’t – is building a kind of health care “trip advisor.” But rather than being an online reference for other patients, this tool will be a road map for health providers as they seek the best care pathways for future patients. Many health care organizations around the world are interested in the potential for patient-reported health assessments, but it can be challenging to add this activity to clinical environments that are already very busy. UR is one of the world leaders in designing a system that works well in a clinical setting, and puts patient insights to work in improving care. We’ve been benchmarked by academic medical centers from the U.S., Europe and Asia who are working to adopt PROMIS in their clinical environments. I’ll start answering questions at 1 p.m. EDT. AMA!

The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) is hosting the SETAC North America 38th annual meeting this week and we have tied this AMA to a specific session, “Pharmaceuticals in the environment: Potential environmental and human health impacts.” Experts from across academia, government and industry are here to answer questions on this topic. The research being presented at our meeting will cover topics such as how fish react when a variety of medicines get through wastewater treatment and into their environment, to what levels of detection in water is risky to human health, to how veterinary medicines given to cattle get into the environment, among others. Please do note that we are asking members of the society who represent researchers from a variety of disciplines and sectors; the answers are not official SETAC positions. We encourage discussion and debate! Just please keep it professional. For more information on SETAC see http://www.setac.org Post your question and the organizers of the conference will find someone to answer it as soon as possible. Answers to questions will be most active during the session break at 10AM-11AM EST and immediately following 12PM-2PM EST, ending at 2PM EST.

Hi Reddit, my name is Seth Blackshaw and I'm a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. My research focuses on identifying the network of genes that controls how different cell types in the hypothalamus are specified during embryonic development, and on using these findings to both identify how specific cell types regulate behavior and determine how they can be replaced in neurodegenerative disease. I became interested in this work because I am convinced that to understand how neural circuits work, we have to name and catalog their basic components -- the thousands of different cell types present in the brain. If we can figure out how these cell types are made, we can then understand which behaviors they regulate and how they do so. We study development of the hypothalamus because it is a master regulatory center for many interesting and medically important behaviors -- ranging from circadian timing to sleep to aggression. I recently published a paper on Nature describing newly identified brain cells in mice that play a major role in promoting sleep.. My team observed that a specialized type of neuron that had never been found in this area of the brain before appear to connect a part of the hypothalamus, called the zona incerta, to areas of the brain that control sleep and wakefulness. This discovery could lead to the development of new therapies to help people with sleep disorders, like insomnia and narcolepsy, which are caused by the dysfunction of similar sleep-regulating neurons. I look forward to answering your questions at 1pm ET

Hi Reddit, The mammalian immune system is fascinatingly complex. Our understanding of how the immune system recognizes and responds to foreign pathogens has increased tremendously in the last 100 years, however, we still have a great deal to discover. This point is highlighted by the recent discovery of a heterogenous family of tissue-resident lymphocytes (white blood cells) called innate lymphocytes (ILCs), which have been reported to regulate fundamental processes such as host metabolism, wound healing, and host defense. Given the importance of ILCs in these processes, my research focuses on the molecular and cellular signals that activate and sustain certain types of ILCs (Group 1 ILCs) in specific contexts. Understanding these mechanisms could have implications for the treatment of cancer, viral infection, and type II diabetes. While research from the past few decades has revealed that the immune system bridges virtually all physiological systems as a central regulator of host homeostasis, the general public (as well as scientists in other fields) only have vague ideas about immune function. Specialized jargon rampant in the field represents a barrier for the understanding of important advances in immunology, and for public consensus on its translation to the clinic (e.g. vaccination). Therefore, Immunologists need to make their work more accessible by presenting it in public forums and communicating their studies in a clear manner to try and eliminate these barriers. I think that Reddit AMAs present an excellent opportunity to highlight exciting findings in Immunology, and demystify academic science through informed discussion! I am happy to answer questions about the immune system, innate lymphocytes, and the implications for tissue-resident immunity in health and disease. I’m also happy to answer any questions about our most recent work http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)31183-2. Edit 1: Hi all! I’ll start answering questions at 3pm ET!! Edit 2: Thanks again everyone for your excellent questions! Hopefully I have satisfactorily answered them. I’m signing off for now, but if you have further questions you can contact me through www.osullivanlab.com

Hi, we’re Drs. Ben Poulter (NASA), Thomas Gumbricht (CIFOR), David Olefeldt (University of Alberta) and Etienne Fluet-Chouinard (University of Wisconsin) — we study techniques to map wetlands around the world, how they change over time, and how this information can be used to understand how wetlands function and provide ecosystem services to people. Wetlands can be mapped using a variety of techniques, from sending people out into the field using inventory techniques to taking advantage of satellites in orbit around the Earth and using the electromagnetic spectrum. Recently, a new map of tropical wetlands was published by Thomas Gumbricht as well as a high-resolution map of global surface inundation by Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, both databases are being used for a variety of purposes, including to understand how wetland affect climate change by emitting methane. Join our AMA to find out how satellites are helping in the quest to learn more about where wetlands are located, how human activities affect wetland area, and how climate change is affecting methane emissions from wetlands. We’ll be back at 12 pm ET to answer your questions, AMA! Mapping tropical wetlands http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13689/full High-resolution global wetland mapping http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425714004258 Understanding wetlands and methane emissions http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa8391/pdf

Hello Reddit, I’m Michael S. Okun. I received my M.D. from the University of Florida and was also trained at Emory University, one of the world’s leading centers for movement disorders research. I am currently chairman of neurology, professor and co-director of the Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration at the University of Florida College of Medicine. The center, which is part of the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases and the McKnight Brain Institute, is unique in that it is comprised of 40+ interdisciplinary faculty members from diverse areas of campus, all of whom are dedicated to care, outreach, education and research. I helped construct a one-stop, patient-centered clinical-research experience for national and international patients seen at the University of Florida. In 2015, I was recognized at the White House for being a Champion of Change for Parkinson’s Disease. I serve as national medical director for the Parkinson’s Foundation and have been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Smallwood Foundation, the Tourette Syndrome Association, the Parkinson Alliance, the Bachmann-Strauss Foundation, the Parkinson’s Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. During my research career, I have explored non-motor basal ganglia brain features and I currently hold two NIH R01 grants on deep brain stimulation. I’ve been an integral part of pioneering studies exploring the cognitive, behavioral and mood effects of brain stimulation. I hold the Adelaide Lackner Professorship in Neurology and have published over 350 peer-reviewed articles. I’m a poet (“Lessons From the Bedside,” 1995) and my book “Parkinson’s Treatment: 10 Secrets to a Happier Life” was translated into over 20 languages. My latest book, “Tourette Syndrome: 10 Secrets to a Happier Life” was recently published. I’ll be answering your questions about Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders at 1 p.m. EST. Ask me anything! Thank you for spending an hour with me. It was a lot of fun and your questions were great. Here are some recent articles that you may be interested in reading: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2650798 https://theconversation.com/parkinsons-disease-new-drugs-and-treatments-but-where-are-the-doctors-83334 Michael S. Okun, M.D.