http://geektyrant.com/news/2012/10/10/american-horror-story-asylum-watch-the-first-5-minutes.html The release date of this production by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk is October 7th 2015 on FX, with specials running in time for Halloween. To add to the thrill of the show, American Horror Story may be basing episodes on events that occurred in the Cecil Hotel, built in the 1920s in Los Angeles (now dubbed Stay on Main, an ineffective attempt to shift the focus from the hotel's gory past). In 2013, a UBC student died mysteriously in the Cecil Hotel - her name was Elisa Lam, and the circumstances of her death are definitely enough to inspire American Horror Story. Some other comments and footage point towards the Cecil Hotel being in the forefront of the season - according to popsugar.com, Ryan Murphy commented to the Television Critics Association that the hotel in the show, Hotel Cortez, is also set in downtown Los Angeles, while designntrend.com states 'the idea for "Hotel" was inspired by a surveillance video from a Los Angeles-based hotel that surfaced in 2013' and that 'the footage showed a girl in an elevator who was never seen again.' Now, I don't know about you, but I'm a skeptic when it comes to the paranormal. However, what really makes something creepy for me is when it's relatable or seems probable. The fact that this happened to a UBC student (like myself) in Los Angeles (where I vacationed this summer) makes this series of events, and possibly the American Horror Story Season 5, that much more creepy. Now that I've freaked myself out, I want you to decide what you think, based on the information I can give you about the show and the case. First, to start with Elisa Lam, a link to UBC. While she was staying at the Cecil Hotel (now Stay on Main), she was filmed acting bizarrely in an elevator. She proceeds to exit and enter the elevator with choppy movements, presses all of the buttons in the elevator, gestures mysteriously with her hands, and may have a conversation with someone (or something) down the hotel hallway... and later is found dead in the water tank on the roof of the Cecil Hotel. Elisa Lam was found several days after her death, and therefore the guests of the Cecil Hotel (Stay on Main) drank contaminated water for days. Oddly enough, the autopsy later revealed that Elisa had no drugs or alcohol in her system. Some are sure there must have been a paranormal or cursed event to make her act this way, while others are adamant that her bipolar disorder and history of depression caused the episode. However, the unexplained remains that the roof was both alarmed and locked by an 'employees only' key, and firefighters had to saw open the water tank she was found in in order to get her out - how did Elisa Lam close the cover on herself, let alone get in?
Beyond the Elisa Lam case, the Cecil Hotel (Stay on Main) has numerous gory occurrences for American Horror Story to incorporate into 'Hotel.' According to roadtrippers.com, the Cecil Hotel housed 'The Night Stalker', serial killer Richard Ramirez, who murdered 13 women in 1984-1985. A copycat, Jack Unterweger, also killed while staying at the Cecil Hotel - he murdered a total of 3 female prostitutes. Furthermore, news.com.au and Splash News Australia note other grim events at the Cecil Hotel. These include the suicide of Pauline Otton out of her window in the hotel is one, and this resulted in the death of George Giannini, the man she landed on. In addition, nicknamed the 'Pigeon Woman', Goldie Osgood was found stabbed, strangled and raped in her room of the Cecil Hotel. Now, some of this could be a consequence of the location of the Cecil Hotel (this building is located near Skid Row, an area of Los Angeles associated with poverty and high crime rates) but something cursed or paranormal could also be the case. ^ if you aren't convinced According to IMDb, the cast for American Horror Story 'Hotel' will have an impressive list of actors. This includes Lady Gaga, rumoured to have contacted Ryan Murphy and asked to be a part of the show, Matt Boman, American Horror Story veterans Evan Peters and Sarah Paulson, as well as many others; the talent (but allegedly no singing) will be present this season. Will Hypodermic Sally be based on transients from Skid Row housed at the Cecil Hotel? Will the serial killers/killers to be investigated by character John Lowe resemble Richard Ramirez or Jack Unterweger? I guess we'll see on October 7th! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Horror_Story:_Hotel
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What would you do if you won the lottery? My ideal may be different from yours, but many answers involve a moment's splurge as well as some wild and wonderful travel adventure. I asked a friend what he would do, and near the top of his list was to enjoy Tesla - they are a splurge, and travelling with Tesla is an electric-fuelled, autopilot optioned, technologically rich breeze. A Brief Background on the CEO
A Long Story Short: One Of Tesla's Models (Tesla Model S P85D) Includes:
Supercharger Stations http://www.teslamotors.com/en_CA/supercharger Locations in Vancouver http://www.teslamotors.com/en_CA/
http://www.teslamotors.com/en_CA/models
An astonishing number of insects, protozoans and other organisms have created or become the closest thing Earth has to Hollywood's version of zombies.
http://thewrap.com/images/files/Night%20of%20the%20Living%20Dead%20poster_1.jpg
During this post, I also used information from two other sources to write my introduction (trust me, they have a lot more to say on the topic), and if you'd like to view them, click the following two buttons.
We have yet to release our next mentor spotlight - but see if you can guess who they are from these clues! This time, we've talked to an Integrated Sciences student about medicine, his research, and joining ISCI under a short deadline. With tips, comments and quips, we bring you Jason - a translation for his name, "he who heals," couldn't be more accurate for this UBC student's aspirations. There was no specific drug, or illness, that you wanted to research, going into [a potential degree in] pharmacology?
Knowing that Dr. ******* is as good as she is with people, asking questions, and answering them, would you believe that her PhD was in organic chemistry, physical chemistry, education or business? J: I know her educational background. So she got a BSc in chemistry, a Master’s in wood chemistry I believe, and a PhD in education. Did you know about Dr. ******* educational background before you picked her for a mentor? J: I don’t exactly remember when I realized she had a PhD in education… I think I might have [known]. The story of how I picked her as my mentor, I think it was [began] the end of last semester, like when we were done exams and everything. I went back to review my exam, I was chatting, talking about the semester and the course, and [I told her] that I might be interested in Integrated Sciences. She said “oh, I’m a mentor for Integrated Sciences, did you know that?” and I said “no, I didn’t,” and we got to talking. So at that time I was thinking of switching to Integrated, and I remembered the deadline was February 1st , and it was January, I think it was a week before the deadline and I thought “how am I going to do this” – and she said did you know there was a mentor/mentored session later that evening? I didn’t know that either, but when she asked what I wanted to do, I gave her sort of what I want to do in university, and she said it sounded pretty interesting, that she already knew me, and offered to be my mentor. S: Oh okay, well that was lucky. J: Yeah! I was completely out of luck, and then I... asked around a bit, did a bit more research, and I said yeah, I’ll take you up on your offer.
What [specific information] do you know about your pharmacology integration then? J: From what I hear from friends, that they just go through a couple hundred drugs, and learn what they do - the mechanism of action... they memorize drugs. Apparently in their labs, they get to work with certain drugs on certain animals... I’m not actually going to do the labs because I’m integrating. Otherwise, it’s generally about the study of drugs and drug development.
I’ve heard of a lot of Integrated Sciences students with a physiology integration. Do you think it would be possible to completely match an alumni or an upper years with the same integration, or do you think it would be okay to match one of the branches? J: I think one would be okay. Just someone who you can see an example of a proposal from, and just someone you can ask questions about certain courses.
Looking back, what’s the biggest difference, moving from 1st year to 2nd? And from 2nd to 3rd, if you want to mention both? J: I think the biggest difference is from first to second is about narrowing things down, I think when you come into university a lot of times you’re exploring really random things – I think your courses reflect that. Like this year, I didn’t take any math or physics courses, and I love both of those subjects. I did more chemistry/biology/biochemistry... Like 1st year you do really broad topics, and in upper years you really specialize more. I think that’s the same with your life, and your extracurricular life too. In 1st year I joined a lot of random clubs... it’s not that I’m not exploring in 2nd and 3rd year. Rather, I think it’s more of a honed process this time. What do you think your integration has to do with your long term goals? Do you think it’s the best plan you could have had? J: I think my long-term goal is to be a doctor, and I think the integration [physiology and pharmacology] is a helpful idea for me. Particularly, I wanted to focus on pharmacology, and getting the history of drugs and their involvement in society.
Jason has also mentioned that, within his integration, he wants to explore the different systems of the human body and how they interact with drugs. He believes that expertise in these two fields of knowledge will definitely come in handy. Steven Ngo, an extremely accomplished alumnus of UBC Integrated Sciences and practicing lawyer, was humorous and friendly in interview about his achievements and involvement. Conversation had laughs interspersed throughout as we managed a three-way Skype interview; ultimately, Steven had a lot to say about where Integrated Sciences, travel and his determination has taken him.
[Discrepancy in the news article: Steven graduated in science not commerce – he did a minor in commerce] Our introductory questions for Steven were primarily about his goals going into his BSc - medicine, medicine, medicine. http://img3.findthebest.com/sites/default/files/728/media/images/t2/University_of_British_Columbia_Faculty_of_Medicine_260294.jpg Then we got into the Integrated Sciences questions because, you know, it is the ISSA blog and all.
A little bit about Dr. Hendrik Blok, (better known as Rik) - Steven gave him (and a course he ran) a great review. Beyond the ISCI retreat and general good memories, we asked Steven about the specifics of his integration.
We were curious about Steven successful opening of the Alberta chapter of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL), as well as the amount of value he places on mentorship, including and beyond the support of professors received within Integrated Sciences.
After all of our questions directly related to ISCI, we asked about Steven's foundation that he started and continues to run.
Learning about Steven's travels, exchange and experiences outside of Canada during and after is BSc makes exploring the world even more tempting.
And we bring you... our second interview! Introducing Andrew Haack, a graduate student at the University of Utah and alumnus from Integrated Sciences, having integrated biopsychology and physiology. This question and answer series illuminates some of his research, his experiences at UBC, as well as his involvement within ISSA.
<- thanks to LinkedIn for this suave photo / https://www.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-haack/43/58a/9a8
1) Did you know about Integrated Sciences when you first started at UBC? If not, what was your original academic plan?
I didn’t know about ISCI when I first started at UBC. I think a lot of first years, including myself, start in science without really knowing what their interests are. I knew I was interested in biology and I wanted to see where my academic journey took me.
2) As an Integrated Sciences alumnus, you went through the rigorous application process to design your degree. What did you integrate, and why? Why did you choose Integrated Sciences over another undergraduate major?
I integrated biopsychology and physiology. I had always been very interested in psychology and my courses in my first two years at UBC gave me a taste of the idea that physiology has an effect on our behavior. Now looking back on it these two topics are more closely linked than I ever thought when I started. Some might say they are the same field!
3) Of the required ISSA courses, which was your favourite, and why?
8) In addition to your alumnus lecture, where has Integrated Sciences taken you, particularly in relation to any research/exciting experiences/career options?
4) For the application process, did you receive any advice that you found particularly valuable? What advice would you give individuals considering Integrated Sciences?
5) What first inspired us to try to contact you was your Integrated Sciences alumnus lecture, ‘What drives us to drink?’ that you gave on November 6th, 2014. We were wondering what inspired you to explore this topic?
I’ve been interested in the mechanisms of reward and addiction for some time, ever since I worked in a psychiatric facility for veterans one summer. After getting into Utah’s neuroscience program, I joined a lab that worked on the mechanisms of food-seeking behavior by recording the activity of neurons. My advisor at the time wanted to get his lab into voltammetry, which is a relatively new way to measure brain activity by quantifying how neurons communicate with each other. Getting voltammetry to work took years (not kidding) and the idea for the project took shape with discussions between my advisor and I during that time.
How does this topic relate to current research/projects you’re conducting? IE. We found you were an author on two very interesting papers:
Effects of zona incerta lesions on striatal neurochemistry and behavioural asymmetry in 6-hydroxydopamine-lesioned rats - from Journal of Neuroscience Research
7) Would you mind explaining what answers you are looking for in rat lesions that would help patients with Parkinson’s disease?
About a decade ago, treatment of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) was revolutionized by Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). Here electrodes are implanted deep into the brain, targeting a very small region called the subthalamic nucleus. The application of constant electrical current causes a dramatic improvement in symptoms. This youtube video (see above) is a great demonstration of DBS and really shows how debilitating Parkinson’s is without treatment. Unfortunately, like many medical treatments, the way DBS works is not well understood nor can people agree on where the electrodes should be placed. My boss at the time had a collaborator who thought that the effect of DBS may also be from the effect of electrical current on an adjacent region, the zona incerta. We are able to model PD by delivering a neurotoxin in such a way that causes PD in a rat but only on one side. The lesions we gave to the zona incerta are thought to mimic the effect of electrical current in DBS. We found that we see some effect of zona incerta lesions, so the effect of DBS may be coming from action on the zona incerta rather than exclusively the subthalamic nucleus.
Task difficulty in the Morris water task influences the survival of new neurons in the dentate gyrus - from Hippocampus
6) What do we know so far about the hippocampus’ role in learning and memory, and how does the level of difficulty of the test run on rats connect to cell survival in that part of their brains?
10) During your undergraduate experience, what clubs/associations were you involved with on campus? (your favourite, or your first?) What motivates you to continue being involved with ISCI as an alumnus?
ISSA! I was fairly involved in ISSA and was a student exec for my last year. Likely, my only lasting contribution is registering the ubcissa.com address. Other than that my time was well divided between research and skiing at Whistler.
9) Who was your mentor/were your mentors during your time in the ISCI program? What was one thing your mentor believed/did that really influenced who you are today?
11) What was your relationship like with your peers in your program and do you still keep in contact with anybody, peer or mentor?
Reading week is wonderful, and everyone’s taking at least a little bit of time off to do something fun. Some people went home for the week, others are going exploring to find someplace new, there’s skiing, hiking, going out for dinner, enjoying a Netflix marathon (go watch How To Get Away With Murder), and pretty much doing whatever your heart desires (delaying thinking about midterms). Dare you to go explore Victoria, if you haven’t been yet! Or if you have, go again. It’s gorgeous. I want to mention some places out there that are my personal favourites, with a couple must-sees recommended from those at UVic. First of all, getting there from UBC: I usually take the 480, transfer to the 620, and then take the ferry. With a student bus pass, and a $16 or so fee to walk onto the Tsawwassen ferry to Swartz Bay, this’d be one of the cheaper (hooray for that student budget...) adventures to another city you’ll take. Hiking: Mount Douglas It’s a pretty easy hike, around half and hour should you choose to take the forest trails with a couple of switchbacks. You can drive to the top as well. If you hike up, chances are you’ll see a few trees covered almost entirely in lichen; they definitely reminded me of truffula trees from Dr. Suess’s book ‘The Lorax’, with their fuzzy look (but not their colour...) Anyways, from the top you can gaze over all of Victoria and out over the water, all in all a glorious reward for the walk (watch out for fog, it can come up quickly, and definitely did when I was up there). Hanging out: Interactivity Board Game Café This café downtown was absolutely wonderful, very quaint and cosy! I hadn’t seen anything like it. Upon entering, you feel as though you’re in a little kid’s paradise, as the walls are lined with board games of every kind. For $5, you can claim a table, and play any board game(s) for as long as you please, while refreshments you order simply go on your tab. I played an Ender’s Game battle board game, had a cookie dough milkshake, and found myself in heaven. This café would be my recommendation for visiting any friend/family member/lovely individual you want to catch up with, and it definitely stirs up competitive spirit in the best possible way. Nightlife: While I can’t say I’m recommending these ones from personal experience, I’m sure UVic students’ feedback on this one is flawless. Karaoke Thursdays at Felicita’s Campus Pub – If you’re around the beautiful UVic campus on a Thursday night, staying with a friend there, or just bored, these nights have a reputation for hilarity. This student night is similar to our Pit Wednesdays, so grab a friend or a drink or both and enjoy. Other recommendations include the Sticky Wicket Pub, (just ‘Sticky’ for short), for a few casual drinks with friends, as well as Sugar, a nightclub. Sugar’s having an event called ‘Rave of Thrones’ later this year, in April – a festivity with Hodor (Kristian Nairn, as the DJ for the evening) and a solid pun for the title, so of course I couldn’t resist putting a note in here about it. Accommodations:
I stayed with family, but rooming with a friend would also be ideal, I’m sure. If you go to Victoria and stay in a hotel/location you loved, I’d be stoked to see a comment from you on this post. I absolutely believe in aliens. Of course, you’re welcome to contradict me, but I look at it in terms of probability. Word is that our observable universe is currently about 13.8 billion light years, and that’s just the sphere that we can see. If one light year equates to 9,461,000,000,000 km, saying our universe is big is a massive (bigger-than-our-universe kind of huge) understatement. If a sphere that big doesn’t contain at least SOME kind of life, I’d be baffled.
My lovely friend is an exuberant speaker, loud, emphatic and hilarious. Getting her talking aliens is always entertaining, she truly believes that they’ve been to Earth and have been instrumental in most of mankind’s great accomplishments. The pyramids? Aliens. The Renaissance? Aliens. Stonehenge? Aliens. Personally, I don’t know if I can give extraterrestrial life that much credit, but this story from my friend surprised me with its complete conviction. Now you’ve heard something like this stuff before, I’m sure. But the part that really got me was listening to a friend of mine tell me about her experience with aliens.
Take it or leave it, but I still believe.
For someone who describes themselves casually as, “..theoretical statistical physicist by training and a complexologist by nature,” “just call me Rik” Dr. Hendrik Blok was remarkably modest and affable in interview, and definitely didn’t need any icebreakers to clear the tension; there was none to begin with. And so we present: Rik Blok on Calvin and Hobbes, being a complexologist (reductionism just isn’t enough), and of course, on his research and involvement with Integrated Sciences.
Rik: (laughs) Uhm, what do I love most? I guess I love how Calvin is like kinda precocious and crazy and stuff and Hobbes is so calm. And he sees the craziness in Calvin and can reflect on it in a really nice way; and totally spins things around and takes it out of the context of a comic strip and sees it kind of in a bigger picture. When asked if Rik ever related Calvin and Hobbes to his research: Rik: … I think that Hobbes kind of provides that scientific perspective in a sense, like he’ll look at something that Calvin is building and be able to see it from a very different perspective and that gives it a different meaning. Different perspectives are essential in effective scientific research and feedback, and one unusual perspective we didn’t know much about was complexology.. so of course we had to ask.
A brief, further clarification of complexology and it’s relevance to himself, according to Rik: “It’s just a matter of what you’re idealizing and what details you’re throwing away; instead of throwing away the details of the connections, now you’re throwing away all the details of the internal workings of those parts… for my PhD, I looked at the stock market and why it behaves the way it does and in that case, it seems… that it is the interactions between the pieces that makes so much difference.” Upon learning that Rik’s PhD was involved with the stock market, and that he’s been very focused on math, physics and computer science, we asked him to do a some predicting for us on some research he’d mentioned on his site: We were surprised to find a lot of biology-based research here, despite his previously mentioned interests, and Sarah: ...we were surprised about all [the] statistical physics with all the biology. So we were wondering, which one of these predictions you think would be… the most likely to turn out?
“I don’t think it was a matter of choosing Integrated Sciences, it was more of a matter of falling into it, you know? It’s not like I said “This is what I want to do with my life,” but it’s more like “Now I’m doing this thing; I really like this thing!” I don’t know if there’s a lesson there, because maybe, a lot of what happens in our lives isn’t stuff that we planned, it’s just stuff that happens to us. And it’s just a matter of recognizing whether it’s a good thing or we need to move on.” Kathleen: Right so, you talked a lot about how for Integrated Sciences, you kind of fell into that opportunity. If the Integrated Sciences program was around when you were still an undergraduate, which courses would you combine/integrate? Rik: I probably would have done an Integrated Sciences degree, and I would have been interested in physics, computers, and math. And physics and math go together in a pretty straight-forward way, but I think computers could kind of bring a new perspective in. Now it’s pretty common to use computers in simulations and stuff in physics, but I guess, twenty something years ago, when I was an undergrad, it wasn’t so common, and it was a little bit of an unusual thing to do. I had one teacher [Dr. Birger Bergersen] who I did a kind of computer simulation project with us as an undergrad and that kind of opened things up for me because he became my masters and PhD supervisor. And I think yeah, to bring that computer angle in, that’s what I would have done. Sarah: “...we were also wondering how do you think it’s [Integrated Sciences has] changed and where do you think it’ll go?
Sarah: Do you think you’ll be able to keep accommodating more integrated sciences students, or do you think there’ll be a cap? Rik: We’re kinda at our maximum with our current capacity and the way we’re running - but it’s the structure that’s pretty flexible… basically we just need more teachers and more advisors - with that we could grow… without bounds. Kathleen: Okay, so I was looking at - I’m not in this program, I’m only in first year - Rik: Mhm, but you’re planning to take it? Kathleen: Yeah, I’m interested! (nods of approval all around, Kathleen has finally infiltrated the IntSci program and is becoming one of them, one of them, one of them) Rik: Good. Kathleen: I was looking at the Integrated Sciences program website and there were in the Frequently Asked Questions, what is the difference between going into Integrated Sciences and getting a double major? One of the responses I found pretty interesting was: “The difference between a Double Major and an Integrated Science degree as I see it can best be described by using an analogy to colours. For example, if we say that a Microbiology degree is blue and that a Chemistry degree is yellow, then a Double Major student would have both colours on their palette, but they would be divided one from the other and would be used separately. An Integrated Science degree on the other hand would combine elements of both the blue and the yellow degrees, focusing not only on the separate elements but also on the interactions between those elements and as a result a new field (or at least a new focus) of study is created; green in this analogy.” Why do you think it’s so important for students to have the option to blend colours compared to just having two different colours on their palette? Rik: So I think there’s two things. Upon asking if he is involved with or teaches ISCI classes off of UBC Campus, in Iceland and more... Rik: “Not the Iceland trip, but I do teach the Pemberton retreat. So that’s ISCI 320. And that’s a blast.” Kathleen: What is that one about?
An example: Julia Amerongen Madisson was a student of Rik’s on this retreat; she extended a project from the class to develop work examining the spread of culture and what makes an idea catchy. Julia took her scientific knowledge and applied it to examining graffiti on desks in the Koerner library and how they evolved/have evolved over time. Advice for potential Integrated Sciences students, and interested researchers: Rik: I think it would be pursue your passion. It’s a pretty simple message, so here’s an opportunity to basically study almost anything… you have a chance to create your own degree. So here’s four years of your life like do it - make the most of it, and make it into something memorable for yourself. And so, finally, Kathleen: One more thing - what is the most rewarding part of being in this program for you?
Just to give you guys a headsup, this past Monday, Sarah and I met up (for the first time!) and had a chat with A-Professor-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (for now). It was eye-opening, it was inspiring, and it went admittedly a bit over my head, especially when we were discussing his research. (Almost as if there would be a gaping knowledge gap between what undergraduate students could grasp and the academic works created for a PhD; nevertheless, extremely interesting and we all tried, with rather entertaining results - you'll see!). Most of all, it was a blast and we're grateful for the opportunity to learn so much about the program and about both a lecturer and mentor in it! Coming soon to a phone or computer screen near you, The Interview: A Blog Collab and Not The James Franco and Seth Rogen Movie That Caused North Korea To Declare War On the United States, But They Will Probably Be Released Around the Same Time, With the Latter Doing Significantly Better in the Box Office. Here's a sneak peek, and coincidentally, a hint to our interviewee's identity: our first, icebreaker question- We noticed the first thing we see when we click to your home page is a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. What do you love most about them, how did they inspire you as a kid, as an adult, and how do they compare to other comics for you? |
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