Charged Magazine

Day: November 27, 2025

  • Strange Insect Encounter: The Human Instinct

    Strange Insect Encounter: The Human Instinct

    Labor Day Encounter

    On Labor Day this year, I visited West Point Dam, Georgia for a small family picnic. It’s supposedly a good spot for fishing, but I didn’t catch any. However, an uninvited guest took a liking to my fishing rod. It was a fellow Yellow Jacket, or so I thought!

     

    Figure 1. Encounter at West Point Dam, Georgia. Video by Diemmy Dang, 2025.

    From my survival instinct, half of me wanted to shoo the strange-looking guest away; The other half of me took over and let the guest take the free ride. Perhaps sensing my intense glare, the guest left after approximately fifteen minutes. I guessed it is a bee based on the obvious appearance traits: the black and yellow stripes. The surrounding withered flower fields also contribute to this thought. However, what is it to be exact? Surely, there are so many species of them. 

    Figure 2. Zoomed in Image of Encounter at West Point Dam, Georgia. Image by Diemmy Dang, 2025.

    A Small Investigation

    My best friend – Google, helped me get started on the investigation. I used the inefficient and brute-force way to search for “bee” and keep looking at the ones that strike the familiarity. The closest one I have gotten to is Hoverfly (flower fly). Hoverfly is a beneficial insect for ecosystems, pollinating plants and eating pests. As their round shapes suggested, Hoverfly are friendly and harmless to humans, and they are unable to sting. However, the guest never struck me as a friendly type.

    As the investigation continued, Kayla – a fellow member of STEMComm VIP team, introduced me to Google Lens. Surprisingly, it gave me a solid answer right away – Robber fly. To be more exact, the guest belongs to the species Promachus rufipes (red-footed cannibalfly).

    Figure 3. Flipped image horizontally from File:Promachus rufipes 314724260.jpg by Anne, 2023, Wikimedia Commons. CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

    Despite the rhyme names with Hoverfly, Robber fly is an insect hunter. They are beneficial to the ecosystem by controlling pest populations, but they are also aggressive predators. Robber flies can cause painful bites if they feel threatened by humans. 

    As the fun investigation came to an end, I was left with curiosity. Why did I have conflicted reactions and emotions that day?

    The Negative Human Emotion

    A potential cause is that human instincts regarding insects have been passed down from ancestors. Fear of contamination, fear of being bitten, and fear of infestation can manifest into disgust as an emotional adaptation to help humans increase likelihood of survival (Jose, 2019). Small stings and bites can trigger an unknown allergy to a minority of people, threatening a good health body. 

    Growing up in the countryside, I was once chased by a group of wasps (?) when I was a child. Though the painful experience doesn’t last long in my memory, I have learned to avoid messing with bee kinds. Lockwood (2013) stated that “people consistently overestimate the likelihood that fear-relevant stimuli (e.g, an image of a spider) will be associated with a painful experience (e.g, an electric shock) compared to neutral stimuli” (p. 23). Humans survive by learning to avoid dangers. Survival of the fittest theory is still holding strongly.

    Surprisingly, appearances can also contribute to human’s negative emotions toward insects. In cartoons, dangerous wild animals are commonly represented as cute creatures. Unlike them, small and harmless insects are usually depicted as ugly, visually unappealing, and sometimes villainous (Jose, 2019). According to psychologists, fear can be triggered by visual cues: “the ugliness of antennae … the oddly proportioned eyes and bodies, … discomfort of hairiness and sliminess … the more divergent a creature is from the human form, the greater its capacity to evoke fear” (Lockwood, 2013, p. 23). Jose (2019) suggests this has something to do with rejection response, which is a mechanism to keep human safe. The presence of insects has been associated with the threat of sickness, and disgust seems to be an evolutionary response to disease’s prevention. This idea is tied back to the survival of fitness theory.

    The Positive Human Reaction

    So, was my decision of letting the guest stay purely due to fear and disgust?

    Despite the fear of an unknown insect, my original impression of the guest is a bee – an insect providing well known benefits. An experiment with different age groups, with the youngest in elementary school, and expert beekeepers found that all subgroups perceive bees as useful and worthy of conservation (Schönfelder & Bogner, 2017). Bee products and the importance of pollination for the ecosystem are remarked upon. Perhaps I was just letting a friendly insect take a break on Labor Day.

    Final thoughts

    Human instincts can be contributed by many factors. Although it’s not fair to fear insects differently from other wild animals, it’s important to keep oneself safe and healthy. Insect allergy can be severe, so if anyone is planning a trip to somewhere with a potential of bee family mass attack, wearing white or light-colored clothing might reduce the risk (Greene & Breisch, 2005).

    As I conclude this article, it happens to be Thanksgiving as well. Happy holidays and stay safe out there!

     

    References

    Anne. (2023). File:Promachus rufipes 314724260.jpg. [Photograph] Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved November 27, 2025, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Promachus_rufipes_314724260.jpg.

    Greene, A., & Breisch, N. L. (2005). Avoidance of bee and wasp stings: An entomological perspective. Current Opinion in Allergy & Clinical Immunology, 5(4), 337–341. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.all.0000173781.58154.53

    Jose, V. (2019). Why are humans so afraid of insects. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development, 3(2), 1027–1029. https://doi.org/10.31142/ijtsrd21564

    Lockwood, J. A. (2013). Chapter 2: Evolutionary Psychology: Survival of the Scaredest. In The infested mind: Why humans fear, loathe, and Love insects (pp. 20–34). essay, Oxford University Press.

    Schönfelder, M. L., & Bogner, F. X. (2017). Individual perception of bees: Between perceived danger and willingness to protect. PLOS ONE, 12(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0180168

  • The Future of Touch: How Neural Networks are Revolutionizing Prosthetics

    The Future of Touch: How Neural Networks are Revolutionizing Prosthetics

    You might be familiar with The Amazing Spiderman where Dr. Connors, the villain, has an amputated arm. He tests reptilian DNA to see how to regenerate tissue. Instead of simply regrowing his arm, he becomes the Lizard and terrorizes New York City. This story was focused on the dangers and corruption of greed, but also reflects a human desire and reveals a sympathetic side: to restore something that was lost. 

    Nowadays, scientists are following the same dream that Dr. Connors was pursuing, minus the whole turning into a villain issue. People are developing something even more incredible: bionic limbs that can think, feel, and move just like a biological limb can. Welcome to the world of neuroprosthetics, where the line between humans and machines is slowly merging. 

    What are Prosthetics and Why Do they Matter?

    Prosthetics are appliances designed to replace missing body structures for those who were born without or have gone through a traumatic experience. In history, prosthetics used to be purely mechanical and used available resources like wooden legs, hook hands, and other contraptions that are able to grab and hold objects. While these prosthetics had some functionality to it, they had many issues from skin irritation to pressure discomfort. Imagine trying to pick up an egg and you can’t feel how hard you are squeezing it. That is the feeling for millions of people suffering with this disability. 

    Now, the field is evolving rapidly. There has been new prosthetic research completely restoring the human experience of touch, movement, and sensation . Researchers and scientists are asking more questions to further the impact of this field like: Can we create limbs that directly interact with the brain? Can prosthetics perceive temperature, texture, and pressure?

    The answer is, increasingly, yes.

    Training Machines to Speak like the Brain

    The most exciting aspect of this new generation of prosthetics are neural networks. This includes our brains and AI systems that are still learning how to process similar thoughts and actions. At the core of the revolution are BCIs or brain-computer interfaces establishing a connection between neural signals and prosthetic devices.  

    How it works begins with our hands. Once we conduct a hand movement, our brain sends electrical impulses to our muscles and these nerves will always release to the according limb even if it is amputated. Today, scientists are developing brain-computer interface systems that can detect and interpret nerve impulses immediately (Willsey et al., 2025). With these methods, scientists were able to find that prosthetics were responsive and even reached 97-98% accuracy in individual finger and wrist motions using artificial intelligence agents (Diu et al., 2022). These results reveal a major step towards restoring the limb as an extension of the body through AI systems and actively work as a biological device again for the patient. 

    At Stanford’s Neural Prosthetics Translational Lab, scientists try to take their research to the next level where they attempt to translate neural activity to speech on the screen in front of them (NPTL, 2025). This kind of technology uses machine learning and advanced computational methods to learn the specific patient’s neural patterns and then creates a personal movement dictionary connecting the brain activity to the patient’s speech and movement.  

    Making Prosthetics Feel

    Going back to our Spiderman reference, Dr. Curt Connors was able to feel with his one hand. He could sense temperature, feel textures, and experience pressure, all of which he missed out on with his amputated limb. Early prosthetics lacked this sensory dimension, but now, the movement is changing that. 

    Prosthetics today directly connect with brains to provide live sensory data. Studies show that they are able to recreate the nuanced feeling of hands through electrical stimulation (Greenspon et al., 2024). Researchers conduct these experiments by placing electrodes in certain parts of the brain in order to trigger the response for sensation and tactile feedback in the respective limbs. This is revolutionary for patients as it proves to reduce phantom limb pain for patients, where they still feel pain sensation despite the loss of a limb. The future of neuroprosthetics aims to make artificial touch as immersive and intuitive as possible and now scientists are on the path to finding a way. 

    Osseointegration

    Perhaps the most impressive breakthrough in this field is figuring out how to implement this into the body for it to coexist with the patient comfortably. Conventional prosthetics often cause discomfort, limited control and even skin irritation. Osseointegration is the integration of titanium implants into the skeletal tissue, a method to attach artificial limbs without discomfort and allows for machine learning control through embedded electrodes and sensors (Ortiz-Catalán et al., 2023). This innovation is crucial for pushing towards products that are more viable for daily use among patients. 

    In a critical clinical trial, researchers experimented on a patient with a traumatic injury to her right hand. Surgeons implemented a prosthesis which then attached the bionic hand to her forearm bones by placing the titanium implants directly on there. The result proved successful allowing the patient to control all five phantom fingers at a completion rate of 95% in the post motion test given (Ortiz-Catalán et al., 2023). Additionally, her sensations prompted consistent neural responses revealing exceptional sensory feedback. This surgery proved to be very helpful as it substantially reduced patient pain as phantom limb pain decreased as well as discomfort from the prosthetics. This allowed the patient to use the prosthesis for over three years improving her overall quality of life and independence. 

    Conclusions

    Scientists from so many varied fields are merging to accomplish something incredible in the field of neuroprosthetics, going above and beyond biological capabilities. The goal is to design something that doesn’t wear out, use sensors and processors, and beautifully blend human and computer communication. 

    This has shown how possibilities are endless and can immensely improve the lives of those struggling without body parts. Dr. Connors was wrong to turn the whole city into lizards, but his pain and suffering can be empathized with across the world. Advanced technology today is able to help amputees and paraplegics communicate with others, move again, and reestablish their neural networks. 

    In the future, prosthetics may even become so progressive that its biological counterparts will be indistinguishable. Machines will be controlled by our thoughts and actions in the split of a second and move so effortlessly that people will forget they are even wearing a prosthetic. Restoring something so significant in our daily lives is truly life-changing for these individuals and merging it with technology can help us achieve that goal faster and make movement more accessible everywhere. 

     

    References

    Diu, K., Luu, Nguyen, A., Jiang, M., Drealan, M., Xu, J., Wu, T., Tam, W.-K., Zhao, W., Lim, B., Overstreet, C., Zhao, Q., Cheng, J., Keefer, E., & Yang, Z. (3 C.E.). Artificial Intelligence Enables Real-Time and Intuitive Control of Prostheses via Nerve Interface.

    Greenspon, C. M., Valle, G., Shelchkova, N. D., Hobbs, T. G., Ceci Verbaarschot, Callier, T., Berger-Wolf, E. I., Okorokova, E. V., Hutchison, B. C., Efe Dogruoz, Sobinov, A. R., Jordan, P. M., Weiss, J. M., Fitzgerald, E. E., Prasad, D., Driesche, A. V., He, Q., Liu, F., Kirsch, R. F., & Miller, J. P. (2024). Evoking stable and precise tactile sensations via multi-electrode intracortical microstimulation of the somatosensory cortex. Nature Biomedical Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-024-01299-z

    NPTL. (2025). NPTL; Stanford University. https://nptl.stanford.edu/

    Ortiz-Catalán, M., Zbinden, J., Millenaar, J., D’Accolti, D., Controzzi, M., Clemente, F., Cappello, L., Earley, E. J., Enzo Mastinu, Justyna Kolankowska, Munoz-Novoa, M., Stewe Jönsson, Njel, C., Paolo Sassu, & Rickard Brånemark. (2023). A highly integrated bionic hand with neural control and feedback for use in daily life. Science Robotics, 8(83). https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.adf7360

    Willsey, M. S., Shah, N. P., Avansino, D. T., Hahn, N. V., Jamiolkowski, R. M., Kamdar, F. B., Hochberg, L. R., Willett, F. R., & Henderson, J. M. (2025). A high-performance brain–computer interface for finger decoding and quadcopter game control in an individual with paralysis. Nature Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03341-8