Experiment with electric fish

Here are some of the latest images from the Enki project…

The main view of the experiment chamber. The Enki installation at Cornerhouse is now up and running. There are experiments by appointment every 15mins, and all the data is being collected.

It has taken me ages to make these comms units, they contain16 interconnecting cables within a noise reducing or shielded structure.

The Table has two monitors one from the fish room and one from the human room. You can speak to the person in the experiment via a mic.

Inside the sound proofed room for the human there is a chair and the sensor interface.

There is a window into the fish room on the side of the chamber

The room containing the fish is electrically shielded.

Brain waves

In preperation for the next ENKi event, me and Greg spent the day testing the neuro-graphic interface; as an experiment we patched a strong frequency via MIDI to a MAX patch so our brains were modulating all kinds of strange sounds. I dont yet fully understand MIDI – but Later this will combine with the enki interface as a form of feedback.  In this image you can see the  graphics of the brain activity and the  receiver boxes – the sensors are wireless and stuck to our foreheads.

Robo-fin

These projects investigate numerous applications of Neurophysiology, Sensor based motion guidance, experimental methods include measurement of the propulsion capabilities of robotic models of electric fish “We’ve developed a hypothesis regarding why active sensing animals such as electric fish, bats, and rats tend to have highly accurate spatial maps of their surround. We are testing this hypothesis using fish mazes.”

the robo-fin is a robot based on the sinusoidal fin movements of the knife fish.

“Our research group pursues both empirical and modeling efforts in mechanics and neurobiology, integrating the two together within simulation environments.”

http://www.neuromech.northwestern.edu/uropatagium/

neurostimulation and fish

The earliest recorded human effort at neuro-stimulation appears to have been that of the Mesopotamian healer Scribonius Largus 47AD (?) who used electrical currents to produce transient pain relief.

By either the direct application of electrical torpedo fish (eels, of the type shown below) to the human body or by placing painful extremities into a pool of water containing torpedo fish the resulting electrical shocks stunned the nervous system allowing an immediate and residual numbness in the extremity.

In this application electrical torpedo fish were the very first means of achieving transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for therapeutic purposes. This form of treatment was particularly popular for the treatment of gouty arthritis.

Pliny (AD 61-113) commented on the fact that while the torpedo fish was not itself sluggish, it could induce sluggishness in other fish. He also detailed how to extract the medicinal magic of the torpedo fish into oils and ointments used for various ailments, or more popularly either to cool lust or to induce love.

In Plato’s (428-348 BC) dialoge Meno Socrates is told “you seem both in appearance and in your power over others to be like a torpedo fish, who torpifies those who come near him, as you have now torpified me, I think. For my soul and my tongue are really torpid and I do not know how to answer you.”

The affects of a shock from the electric Torpedo Fish, which lived in the Mediterranean, were well known. What caused of the affects was not. Aristotle (384-322 BC) said that the torpedo fish “narcotize” its prey.

The Institute of Science in Society

Dr Mae-Wan Ho is director of ISIS and among some really interesting research has developed a way of imaging living organisms as ‘liquid-crystal’ and other holistic approaches to looking at the organismn & has done a lot of research into finding a scientific basis for acupuncture; this looks at the relationship of collegen in cells, and the phenomenon of ‘ordered water’.

Live first instar Drosophila larva observed with a noninvasive imaging technique that produces interference colours in its tissues depending on the birefringent, liquid crystalline order of the constituent molecules.(1)

“The Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) founded by Mae-Wan Ho and Peter Saunders to work for social responsibility and sustainable approaches in science. A major part of our work is to promote critical public understanding of science and to engage both scientists and the public in open debate and discussion. ISIS has been providing inputs into the GM debate that would have been conspicuously lacking otherwise.”
www.i-sis.org.uk
“Science is intrinsically honest, open and pluralistic, and disagreements must be openly and democratically debated.”

Shielded Tents

Shielded Tents are based on the Faraday cage principle and are used to cut out electromagnetic interference – (wif, phone signals etc)

I have been considering using one of these to put people in while they interface with the fish. People have been making foil lined clothes to block out RFID scanners – so I am thinking I will need to make my own cage using a foil lining. as these cages are well expensive.
http://www.hollandshielding.com/faraday/shieldedtents.php

Neuromechanical Design

Any one keeping electric fish will note the particular and strange way they float around the tank swimming backwards and rolling from side to side – this research presents some interesting Neuromechanical explanations and visualizations of this…
http://www.cnse.caltech.edu/Research/reports/maciver-full.html

What is neuroethology?

[ by Carl Hopkins] “Neuroethology is the biological approach to the study of the neural basis of behavior. Thus, the focus is on the role of the nervous system in behavior, but the perspective is that which is called ‘ethological’. The ethological approach emphasizes the causation, the development, the evolution, and the function of behavior and neuroethologists seek to understand this in terms of neural circuits. Neuroethology is the study of natural behavior, which, in the older scientific literature, was called “instinctive behavior” or “innate behavior”. Neuroethologists base their studies on behavioral studies that often are done in the field on the animal’s own turf.”

electrical tracking systems

I found this article on http://www.jyi.org/news/nb.php?id=905 JYI, Inc. is a exciting, student-led initiative to broaden the scope of the undergraduate scientific experience. The experiment sounds quite interesting. The evolution of the mono-fin is apparently to minimize distortion if the fishes body while swimming (tis is one theory anyway) – and this suggests that it can also compensate for the swaying movements of plants purely through sensory response?

“Electric” Fish Illuminate How Brain Directs Movement
“Two properties of the fish, called glass knifefish, made them ideal for motion studies. First, the nocturnal fish “see” in the dark by emitting weak electric signals and gathering feedback through special electroreceptors in their brain cells. Second, the fish are capable of moving back and forth in a small tube, a behavior crucial to the study design.

The researchers used robotics to move a small plastic tube back and forth with increasing frequency. The fish, which used the tube as a hiding place, performed an electrical tracking technique to stay hidden in the tube as it moved. But the fish could only process the speed of the moving tube below a frequency of one motion per second (1Hz), a quality scientists describe as “low-pass” since receptors in brain cells only detect frequencies lower than a certain limit.

electro-sensitivity in sharks

The hammer head shark has to be the best looking of the sharks – I have only seen them on the “Blue planet” series – I was intrigued at the massive shoals where they seem to perform this odd twitch where the body flexes almost like a spasm – i was wandering if this has anything to do with generating a pulse of electricity that other sharks can detect? as thses sharks are not electrically active – but can only detect the electrical signals of muscle activity – such as small creatures under the sand….

“The ampullae of Lorenzini give the shark electrosense. The ampullae consist of small clusters of electrically sensitive receptor cells positioned under the skin in the shark’s head. These cells are connected to pores on the skin’s surface via small jelly-filled tubes. Scientists still don’t yet understand everything about these ampullary organs, but they do know the sensors let sharks “see” the weak electrical fields generated by living organisms. The range of electrosense seems to be fairly limited — a few feet in front of the shark’s nose — but this is enough to seek out fish and other prey hiding on the ocean floor.”

http://science.howstuffworks.com/shark2.htm

Electro-location in fish

Nelson Lab is one of the best recourses for information on the electric fish – it has also the most advanced computer visualizations of EOD discharge during prey capture…

“Computer reconstruction of electrosensory images
By combining the physical principles of electrosensory image formation and our knowledge of the response properties of electrosensory afferent nerve fibers, we can use computer models to reconstruct electrosensory images observed by the fish during electrolocation. The figure below shows a computer reconstructed image sequence from our prey capture studies. “

Fish Perform Spatial Pattern Recognition and Abstraction

I have been fascinated by this project – Part 2 of the ENKI project will be based around this particular experiment…

Christian Graff, Gwenaël Kaminski, Michael Gresty, and Théophile Ohlmann

“We presented the fishes with different spatial structures, each consisting of a similar tube of insulating material, with eight electrodes set into the inside surface of the tube and wired to a switchboard outside the tank. Depending on the way electrodes were externally interconnected, these assemblies created different “shapes” in space. The shapes were 3D patterns of distortion in the electrical flux issuing from the fish’s electric organ. They formed virtual objects or places that could not be distinguished by visual, mechanical, or chemical means but only existed through electricity, similar to the way in which virtual objects or places on a TV screen only exist through light. In order to perform our tasks, the fish had to actively explore the maze by “scanning” with its electrical field and sensing distortion patterns caused by sinks and sources of flux.”

http://www.sciencedirect.com Current Biology
Volume 14, Issue 9, 4 May 2004, Pages 818-823

God helmet – Michael Persinger

neurologist Michael Persinger created a helmet modified with electrical coils that can create electromagnetic fields in the wearer’s temporal lobes that induces “religious” experiences in the people who put it on. I think the low-fi experimental devises he has made are excellent – I have seen several different types and it seems that some people are making these to order – although they seem relatively easy to recreate.
http://www.geocities.com/satanicus_2/GodHelmet.html

“This is a device to investigate whether religious, spiritual, and mystical experiences had a natural rather than a supernatural source. He speculates that we are somehow programmed so that they can generate religious experiences via our brain’s internal processes. He had noted that there were many points of similarity between seizures experienced by some individuals who suffered from epilepsy, and the types of mental and spiritual experiences that St. Paul, Moses, and many religious mystics had reported. 3 Persinger wondered if visions, a sense of the immediate presence of God, and other mystical experiences could be artificially created in the laboratory by magnetically inducing changes in the temporal lobes of a person’s brain.”

electrical life – andrew crosse

This is one of my favorite tales of strange science – I have tried to recreate this experiment after finding these same ‘acari’ spontaneously generating from cups of moldy coffee I was observing for several months as part of an exhibition…

Crosse was from somerset and had a laboratory with a large copper antenna, apparently for attracting lightning.

(This following text and images taken from this excellent site http://www.rexresearch.com/1index.htm )

Andrew CROSSE: Abiogenesis of Acari

In 1837, Andrew Crosse reported to the London electrical Society concerning the accidental spontaneous generation of life in the form of Acurus genus insects while he was conducting experiments on the formation of artificial crystals by means of prolonged exposure to weak electric current. Throughout numerous strict experiments under a wide variety of conditions utterly inimical to life as we know it, the insects continued to manifest. The great Michael Faraday also reported to the Royal Institute that he had replicated the experiment. Soon afterwards, all notice of this phenomenon ceased to be reported, and the matter has not been resolved since then.

(and this text from http://bizarrelabs.com/acarix.htm )

This is Acarus electricus, a mite first noticed by Andrew Crosse in 1837. Crosse was an amateur scientist, and was conducting experiments on the growth of crystals by subjecting certain minerals to long term, low level electric currents. The mineral sample, an iron oxide, was imbibed with a toxic mixture of hydrochloric acid and a silicate of potash solution, and continuously electrified by means of a battery. Several weeks into the experiment, filaments began to appear on the stone, which apparently resembled insects. Eventually, Crosse noticed movement, and detected a great number of living mites on the sample. He repeated the experiment under closely monitored conditions using sterilized and sealed equipment. Again, the mites appeared. Word soon got out, and popular opinion was that living creatures had been synthesized from inorganic matter. Crosse was called everything from a blasphemer to a Frankenstein, despite the fact that he never made any claims that he had created life, or even discovered a new species. In fact, he never attempted to explain the phenomenon, other than hazarding a guess that they may have hatched from airborne eggs deposited before the device was sealed.