Charged 2026

Author: Sachit Swaminathan

  • Why some individuals were more likely to believe

  • Why did so many people not comply with evidence – based guidelines and precautions set during the Pandemic? Science implies that it may be due to Mirror Neurons!

    Do you remember those days of the Covid – 19 Pandemic? Schools were shut down. Zoom meetings were the norm. Graduation parties, birthdays, and weddings all felt like another era. But, worst of all, the number of people who succumbed to this virus and lost their lives was just horrific. More people died from Covid, than during 9/11 or World War 2. Those people were brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, and uncles. Each of them meant something special to someone else. Perhaps, the saddest part of it is that each of these deaths could have been prevented if some simple measures had been taken, such as social distancing and mask wearing. However, for many reasons, a significant portion of Americans did not take these precautions. Now research has come up with a reason for why that might be the case, Mirror Neurons!

    Mirror Neurons are not always talked about as frequently as certain other types of neurons. However, the reality is that they are actually quite significant. For instance, did you know that Mirror Neurons are the reason why we flinch when someone gets a papercut? Did you know that they are the reason why we cringe when someone does something embarrassing on stage or makes a mistake during a presentation? Did you know that they are the reason why a baby cries when another baby in the room also cries? Have you ever wondered why we feel like giving someone a hug when they are having a tough day, and are distraught and dejected about something? The answer is, once again, Mirror Neurons! The point is that Mirror Neurons are extremely significant, when it comes to feeling empathy for other people, and stepping into other people’s shoes. They are the gateway that enables us to get out of our own world, and experience another person’s world in the way in which they see it!

    However, as with everything, you can imagine that there are problems when this Mirror Neuron System does not work. There are a multitude of factors that can cause someone’s Mirror Neurons to be wired differently, such as genetics, culture, circumstances in the environment (i.e, the family or the school environment), etc. One of the most prominent examples of a change in the Mirror Neuron network has been in those with Autism spectrum disorder. For instance, those with Autism have defects in their network of Mirror Neurons that cause the neurons to work differently or transmit messages to each other, in a different way. The authors of this research study on Autism believe that this could be a possible reason, as to why people with Autism are not able to understand and connect with other people’s’ problems as well, and have as much emotional attachment.

    From other studies and a bit of extrapolation, it has been speculated that this same change in the Mirror Neuron Network explains a majority of Americans lackadaisical attitude towards the Pandemic. The only difference is that the Neuron Networks do not differ due to genetic factors, but simply due to cultural and environmental factors. Scientists speculate that because many Americans live in a country, where there has not always been so much hardship, where there has been significant freedom, where getting clean food and water has not been a worry, where getting quality education has not been a worry, their Mirror Neurons are wired to fire in a specific way, or a specific sequence that is different from those who have had to live through many tough times, and have had to have the courage to deal with extremely tough times! Put another way, scientists think that because many Americans have not had to encounter as significant levels of hardship as other individuals living in other parts of the world, the neural pathways in their brain have been programmed in such a way that they never think about the situations and hardships that other people in society have. They compare it to muscle memory. For instance, when you type on a computer enough you learn to type certain words and sentences without even looking at the keyboard anymore. They believe that the same concept applies to the brain’s Mirror Neurons. When exposed to more challenges, the Mirror Neurons learn to deal with those challenges more effectively. On the other hand, when life is going mostly good and challenges are suddenly thrown, those Mirror Neurons have an extremely difficult time accustoming to that whole reality.

    So don’t get me wrong, there still are likely many explanations for why America’s response to the Pandemic was significantly less of a success than other countries around the world. It could have been due to the example set by our government. It could have been due to America’s individualist vs collectivist culture. It could have been due to how polarized this country is. However, I hope you left this article with another perspective, and understood that their likely is a biological basis to it to. Many Americans living in these generations simply did not have to deal with significant challenge until now, and their brains just had a difficult time figuring out how to deal with it and cope with it!

  • Did the Covid Pandemic shock you? The next one is right around the corner, if we don’t get our act together!

    Do you remember those early days of the Covid-19 Pandemic? Schools were shut down. Zoom meetings were the norm. Graduation parties, birthdays, and weddings all felt like another era. But, worst of all, the number of people who succumbed to this virus and lost their lives was just horrific. More people died from Covid than during 9/11 or World War 2. Those people were brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, and uncles. Each of them meant something special to someone else. We put our hope in the scientists and researchers, and don’t get me wrong they were amazing! But every step of the way, the virus stymied and defied even the best scientists. Scientists initially thought that once vaccines came along, our relationship with the virus would be significantly different. They thought that by summer 2021, life would return entirely to normal and that Covid would be a thing of the past. However, the virus turned out to be much more formidable than many of them imagined, and in some ways, even now, the world does not have a good handle on this virus, and we are still living by its command. There is no ability to clearly tell what is going to come next. Some suspect that there will be another winter wave, but that the impact on hospitals will be significantly lower than the last two years. Others think that there will not be a winter surge at all. The most pessimistic of experts, though, suggest that hospitals could be in for a tough few months as we head into the holidays. But, if you want to hear the even more sobering news folks, keep this in mind. This will not be the last pandemic that shakes up the world like this. In this post, I hope to inform you about why we should not be complacent into thinking that this was a one time tragedy, how we keep making ourselves more and more prone to pandemics, and what we might be able to do to better be prepared.

    So you might be wondering, what type of virus is fit to become a pandemic? When do we know that we’ve got a pandemic on our hands? To put it simply, a pandemic is a worldwide epidemic. An epidemic is when there is the exponential growth of a disease in a certain country. A pandemic is when a disease has been able to grow exponentially in multiple countries. This concept of exponential growth is key. There have been so many diseases that have spread to multiple countries. SARS spread to about 30 countries. Ebola spread to 7 countries outside of the continent of Africa. But do you know what the difference was? Do you know what the saving grace was? Countries were quickly able to get a handle on who was carrying the disease and who was sick, so they could isolate them before they were able to spread it to anyone else. You can think of diseases like SARS and Ebola like the villian, Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter. Voldemort was cruel and terrible, but he made it clear from day one that he hated Harry, and that he would do whatever it took to kill him. SARS and Ebola were like that as well. They were extremely nasty illnesses, but it was extremely clear when someone had it because their peak viral load or the time that they would be most likely to transmit the infection to other people would be when they were having symptoms. Covid-19; however, was completely different. Most of the spread occurred when people did not even know that they had the virus. There were people walking around, who were positive that felt perfectly fine. For god sakes, some of them did not even have a runny nose! This raises the question, how do you fight something when you do not even know what you are fighting? How do you fight off an enemy, when you do not even know that that enemy exists? This is precisely where the problem laid. By the time, health authorities figured out that a person had the virus, he/she had already passed it to 4 other people, and those 4 people had passed it to 4 other people, and so on. You can quickly see how 1 infection can become a 100 and a 1000 in just the course of a few days. Plus, to add to the issue, no one had any preexisting immunity to this virus. So, we were essentially facing an invisible enemy without even any armor. Plus, Covid was also deceptive, where, even when a person had symptoms, those symptoms coincided with other diseases that we have learned to accept as part of our daily existence. All this created the perfect storm for a devastating global pandemic. So, to recap, there are really three things that increase the risk that a virus will have the capability to cause a pandemic. First of all, it has the capability to spread in a way that cannot be easily detected/kept up with. Second of all, the symptoms that it causes are not easily distinguishable from other diseases. But, third, and most importantly, no one in the population has any form of immunity to it.

    Assuming you read that, you’re probably wondering, “Okay, I understand that certain viruses are capable of causing pandemics, but how do these powerful viruses even make it to the human population in the first place? How are they even spread to humans in the first place? Where do these viruses originate from? I can understand the curiosity. It seems mysterious how a virus that did not even exist before 2019 suddenly made its way to humans. However, I’m here to tell you that the answer is not as mysterious as you think. The answer to that is simple! Covid likely came from an animal reservoir. You might be thinking, “Wait, how? We don’t even have that much contact with animals on a daily basis?” What you have to remember, though, is that it only talks one source of contact. All it takes is one unlucky encounter, and the virus can jump to humans. Given the wrong circumstances, it is possible, and then once that human spreads it to another human, you have begun the stage of community transmission. In fact, recent research has even shown that there are multiple stages of zoonotic transmission, where in each stage, the viruses involved not only get better in transmitting from animals to humans, but also get better equipped to stay in the human population. For instance, research by Brian Pike and others suggests that there are about five stages of zoonotic transmission. According to them, viruses that are in stage 1 are solely present in humans, while diseases viruses that are in stage 5 are solely present in animals. Put another way, stage 1, a virus is solely present in animals. When that virus has gained the ability to jump to a human, it is in stage 2. However, that still does not mean that it is time to be concerned yet. Viruses at stage 2 are still not guaranteed to cause a pandemic because they are not able to transmit readily between humans. They have just been passed on from an animal reservoir. When you reach stage 3 and 4; however, things are much more concerning. At stage 3, the virus is not only present in humans, but it has actually gained the ability to spread from one human to another. Put another way, it has become fit enough to spread between humans. Stage 4 takes it up a notch because the frequency of this human to human transmission only increases, as the virus transmits more and more periodically from person to person, without even the involvement of an animal host. For instance, if you think about the Influenza virus, it is a stage 4 virus because it is transmitted significantly on a periodic basis during the winter between humans, and there are no animal reservoirs involved (Pike et al., 2010). Think about it, you do not get the Flu from an animal! You get it from another person. Additionally, this other fact comes to mind. Viruses that are in stage 4 are more and more likely to mutate. This also helps to explain how the Covid Pandemic kickstarted itself. Initially, Covid may not have been the most fit. However, by continuously spreading from person to person, it reached a point where it essentially begun to learn how to become smarter and more fit so ask to skirt any developed immunity and infect more people at once. Viruses obviously cannot mutate to obtain an advantage if they are not able to replicate, which also sheds insight as to why stage 3 and 4 viruses are significantly more dangerous and more prone to cause pandemics.

    You have probably reached the point, where you’re thinking to yourself, Sachit, this is great information, but how is any of this important? How is any of this remotely optimistic or positive? Why am I telling you all this information? What I am here to tell you is that this information, while stressful and terrible, is actually extremely positive. Given that so many pandemics start when a virus is transmitted from an animal to a human, this also shows that we are not helpless and that there are many ways that we can help to prevent future pandemics. Many of them unsurprisingly come down to changing the way our relationship with the environment works. For instance, according to research done by Brian Pike, HIV became such a significant problem for the human population because of the significant amount of primate hunting and butchering that was going on in the early 20th century. Perhaps, even more surprisingly, the researchers found that there were a group of viruses that had not even been previously found to have had the ability to infect humans that humans had antibodies too. For instance, one of the most noteworthy facts that the researchers found was that there were individuals, living a Cameroonian village who had antibodies to the Simian virus. This is usually a virus that only affects monkeys, so the fact that it had obtained the ability to affect humans was astounding (Pike et al., 2010). SARS was thought to have arose from bats in a wet market that were captured. The H1N1 Pandemic, also known as Swine Flu was thought to originate because different flu viruses, typically only found in pigs essentially recombined to form a super fit strain that could infect humans. Guess how humans came into contact with pigs? Well, the answer is that it was the same way in individuals in the Cameroonian village came into contact with monkeys. It was through hunting them and butchering them. Sometimes, though, contact may not even come through hunting and capturing a given species. Contact may occur in circumstances in which an individual does not have any control. For instance, Lassa Fever is a devastating disease that spreads between humans who are in close contact with rats. Hence, many individuals who are in a situation where they live in crowded, congregate housing conditions are at significantly increased risk of catching a disease like Lassa Fever (Pike et al., 2010).

    So, you might be thinking the solution is to just prevent human contact with animals, and that that will solve the problem. However, I want to tell you that that view fails to look at the full picture. There are other factors that make pandemics more likely to occur, other than just what I talked below. Activities that we do as humans, such as cut down trees may not seem harmful to us, but they kill species, and impact the diversity of our environment. This makes it much more likely for the perfect storm to occur for a virus to cause a pandemic. Have any of you seen the movie Contagion? Do you remember the ending scene where trees were cut down in the Macao forest, causing bats to fly out in droves? Pigs were exposed to the feces of these bats, causing them to become infected with the virus, and then when humans decided to butcher the pigs, they were exposed. It seems like an extremely far-fetched event, and it seems like something that would be unlikely to happen. However, the things that humans did ended up making something that was far-fetched all the more set to happen. If you don’t believe in movies, I can even give you a similar example of something eerily similar that happened in real life. In 1998, deforestation occurred, which caused a full livestock of pig to be exposed to fruit bats. Once a group of farm workers in Malaysia were exposed to these specific pigs, that was it. The situation was finished! (Pike et al., 2010).

    Reading all this, I hope you understand, when you ask the question, who is responsible for a pandemic, there is no one answer to that question. No single person or group of individuals is responsible for a pandemic happening.  Instead, what I hope you have gained from this post is the understanding that there are truly things that we can do to not only reduce the risk of another pandemic occurring, but ultimately make the impact of the next one much lower. For instance, trying to encourage communities that participate in hunting a lot to use best hygiene practices, such as cleaning injuries, scratches, and bites with soap can go a long way. Additionally, if someone does have an injury, avoiding contact with an animal via hunting or butchering can also go a significantly long way (Pike et al.,2010). Similarly, not chopping trees and putting the health of the environment over the health of corporations likely will help to serve us in the long – term. However, it is understood that not every cause is preventable. In the cases where contact between animals and humans is not preventable, such as in congregate settings, there is no easy solution. However, perhaps maybe some sort of genomic surveillance can be instituted to monitor what types of viruses are most likely to spread in such populations on a daily basis. Maybe vaccines can be formulated and administered ahead of time, and given to these populations based on which viruses are most likely to spread in a given community at a given time. At the very least, what needs to be understood is that doing nothing is not going to get us anywhere. Pretending like we, in some way, as humans did not contribute to the Covid – 19 Pandemic and that it was out of our control is ridiculous. There are practices that we can institute right now that will reduce the likelihood that this will happen again. What those things are are not entirely clear, yet, but if we come out of this crisis as sitting ducks, we are making ourselves ground zero for an even more horrible pandemic in the future. Most of all, I hope this post equips you with information as to what you can do as an individual to make the next pandemic less likely because as much as we don’t like to hear it, all of us are at fault in some way or another! We need to stop pretending like we have control over Mother Nature. Mother Nature has control over us!

    References:

    Pike, B. L., Saylors, K. E., Fair, J. N., LeBreton, M., Tamoufe, U., Djoko, C. F., Rimoin, A. W., & Wolfe, N. D. (2010). The origin and prevention of pandemics. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 50(12), 1636–1640. https://doi.org/10.1086/652860

     

     

  • Never Heard of Biomedical Engineering? Let me tell you what it’s all about!

    For anyone interested in going into Engineering, there are no shortage of disciplines that you can go into at Georgia Tech. You could major in Computer Engineering, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and any other type of engineering that comes to your mind, you can bet that we have it. Plus, we are a top-ranked school for any major that you have heard of! I, however, am not here to run a promotion commercial for Georgia Tech. I am sure that you have already seen and heard plenty about this school! Rather, I am here to tell you about why I chose Biomedical Engineering, and why I love what I do and the major that I am in! I am sure that many of you are either at the exciting point in your life, where you are getting ready to apply to college and wondering what you want to do, or are parents of kids and wondering what is an efficient way to spend your money! Whoever you are, I hope that you leave this post, gaining some more insight and with more information to be better prepared for your first day as an engineer at Georgia Tech, and, hopefully, a Biomedical Engineer!

    First of all, you are probably wondering, what the heck is Biomedical Engineering, and why should you consider it? If you read the name of the major, you are probably thinking, “Well, it has something to do with Biology and Medicine, and how the two interact!” If this is you, then I am here to tell you that you are on the right track! In fact, broadly speaking, what we do is try to find better solutions for common medical problems facing tons of individuals in the United States, and globally, using principles that we learn in math classes, biology, chemistry, etc. But, there is so much more to it than that! With BME, there is never a wrong answer to a problem! You are probably thinking, “Is he crazy?” No, you read that right, there is never a wrong answer to a problem! Unlike Civil Engineering or Mechanical Engineering, where you may have to perform calculations, many of the problems that you are faced with in Biomedical Engineering are more personal and the choices that you make and the perspectives that you bring can profoundly change their lives for the better, or for the worse! In Biomedical Engineering, you truly get the opportunity to think outside of the box, which is something that I really think you don’t have in other majors. Are you intrigued yet? Wait till you read more!

    So you may still be wondering, is this the right major for me? Specifically, you might be wondering, what type of person is a good fit for this major? My answer to those questions is that there is no such person as an ideal or a perfect fit for this major. Rather, you have to ask yourself, do you have a vested interest in having a personal impact on people’s’ lives?. This is not like Computer Science, or Mathematics where the work that you do is all theoretical, and involves sitting in a cubicle all day. This major is truly different from all the other majors because it is extremely practical in nature. If you go into this major, keep in mind that the majority of the time you spend is going to be thinking through scenario – based problems that do not have perfect answers. This may seem scary! However, I can assure you that that will make you better prepared for the real world. You grow the most when you are pushed outside of your comfort zone, and that is what will happen in this major.

    Okay, so you’ve read this far, and thought to yourself, “Yes, this major is for me!”, then you are probably wondering, “I don’t really understand how and where science comes into Biomedical Engineering! All he has talked about is working in teams, on real – world and practical problems. However, I promise you that all the concepts that you learn in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics come to use here. Just this past school year, I had to work on making a Pulse Oximeter, using Arduino to better measure Oxygen Saturation Levels in users with Dementia who had Long Covid. I remember that, at first, I was so confused where to even start. However, then, by using the knowledge that I learned about the Respiratory system from my systems physiology, and biology classes, I was able to dramatically simplify the problem, and start at a much more basic level. This also was true for a project I did about creating a mathematical model to predict the likelihood that a woman would develop Endometriosis. At first, it seemed way too complex for me with my skill level to make such a sophisticated model. However, when I thought about the role of Bayes’ Rule, which I had learned in my Biology class, and its uses, I realized how excellently I could apply it to my project at hand, even if it was not necessarily a mathematics – related project. You will also be at the forefront of research, and projects where you apply science directly. For example, many of my friends are research assistants in the Laboratory for Synthetic Immunity, led by Dr. Gabe Kwong. They use some of the information that they learned in Introductory Biology, such as how T-cells work to fight off an infection to utilize the body’s own immune powers to fight off cancer cells! In Dr. Krishnendu Roy’s lab, another lab run by a prominent BME professor who teaches Biomaterials, you perform research on how to speed up the process of delivering important therapeutics to those who need them, using principles you learned in Biology, Chemistry, Biomaterials, etc! In the BME Design Shop, you can apply the principles of torque and rotational motion that you have learned in Physics to create some extremely sophisticated physical prototypes! No, I’m not talking those stick figure drawings or those simple foam prototypes! You can create real, elegant prototypes that show the mechanics of how your design would work in practice. You can use programs, such as Fusion 360 to create 3D models of your design ideas using principles that you literally learned in Geometry and Differential Calculus! My point is that, the science aspect may not always be so obvious! You may have to really do some soul searching to find where the science aspect comes into your work. However, I can assure you that it is there. Sometimes, you really just have to think outside of the box. 

    However, with choosing any major comes tradeoffs. The tradeoff with BME is that the classes are extremely challenging, and they require you to truly apply different principles from different disciplines, rather than just regurgitate information. In classes like BMED 2110, or Conservation Principles in Biomedical Engineering, you have to learn how to take a poorly defined system, or a poorly defined problem, and uses the principles you know, such as the Conservation of Mass, the Conservation of Energy, the Conservation of Moles etc., and the equations you learned in Physics or Chemistry to deduce and obtain information that you do not easily have access to. Similarly, in BMED 2250, Problems in Biomedical Engineering, you are going to have to take the skills that you have learned in classes, such as Intro to Matlab, General Chemistry, and Statistics to figure out how you can solve an otherwise time consuming problem, much more rapidly. In BMED 2310, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering Design, you take that to the next level. You have to ask yourself, how can the principles that I have learned be used to create a better solution to a problem, as compared to the existing present solution? Put another way, how can my use of Matlab, or linear regression, or circuits be used to create a more efficient solution that better solves the problem for the user, or the various stakeholders that are affected by a problem? This may all seem daunting, but I promise you that you will be extremely thankful at the end! These skills prepare you for a career in Research, Manufacturing, Product Development, and whatever else you may dream of!

    I sincerely hope that by reading this article, you have developed the same passion for Biomedical Engineering that I have! Just kidding, I don’t expect you to have gotten that invested! However, I do encourage you to truly consider the field. One of the nice things about Biomedical Engineering is, you do not need to know immediately if you enjoy it or if it is what you want to do! There is no timeline for when you have to decide! One of the nice things about Biomedical Engineering is that it is becoming so well sought after because healthcare, and better solutions for common healthcare problems are at the forefront of many peoples’ values, and what many stakeholders want. I truly believe that there is a place for anyone who is interested as a Biomedical Engineer, so if you choose to go into this major, I guarantee that you will find what you are passionate about!