TED Community » Swetha Chandrasekar

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Biodesign, nanobiorobotics and targeted drug delivery; Taking the science of bioengineering and coating it with the art of design to create new innovative platforms for idea generation in engineering

Talk to me about

biorobotics, drug delivery devices, bioMEMS, henna/mehendhi, a cappella, fusion indian dance, my terrible cooking and chocolate!

People don't know that I'm good at

approaching problems with a design perspective, making movies in my head, Christmas decorating and henna

Comments

• TEDCred score: +1.40 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: Will mind-reading eventually become a reality and what are the implications for humanity?

  Apr 23 2013: Hi Hindi and Danger Lampost!
  
  I think I agree with Hindi on the dangerous implications of "back-up"able or reproducible memories. By providing access to people's memories, a new door is opened for false fabrication. For example, with every new social media site that comes up on the internet, there is a new set of hackers ready to exploit the information of its users. Likewise, the implementation of a memory "materializer" could result in those that exploit the figments of our imagination that were once personal and special. Materialization in this sense does not have to be physical. Data held in the cloud still has a "physical" form because we are still able to extract the information and modify it.
  
  Hindi, I LOVE your thought on how this could be the start to a dystopian society! With every new bit of knowledge we gain, we hit new forks in the road that demand the direction we wish to take our society. I completely agree that the disadvantages of mind-reading are horrifying, but the advantages could reinvent medicine, politics, education, etc in such a positive way!

• A reply on Conversation: How can we better harness our human capabilities to develop medical technology?

  Apr 9 2013: Hi George and Alison!
  
  I believe the other component of human perception that should be "bottled" and reproduced should be the ability to make mistakes. Machines are built to replicate perfection, however the betterment of human nature comes from learning from one's mistakes. If machines were allowed to make mistakes, wouldn't they be able to teach themselves and work towards perfection?
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  A reply on Conversation: How can we better harness our human capabilities to develop medical technology?

  Apr 9 2013: Hi Lauren! I completely agree with you, as well as George and Joseph! You all bring up really great points. I think Alison posed a good question about what can we innovate and develop to allow us to further medical capabilities. I don't believe that innovation lies with technology. Technology development recently has been geared towards automation, replication, and humanization. This began with the belief that human error is an error worth eliminating. Though, in some cases, this is valid, in the medical field, it may prove to be futile in the years to come. As discussed in Neema Aggarwal's TED Conversation last week, with the automation of medical diagnoses and practice, comes the desensitization of medicine and its traditional principles.
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  A reply on Conversation: Do we rely too heavily on technology for medical diagnosis?

  Apr 1 2013: Hi Mark
  
  Thank you for your thoughts! Do you work in the medical field?
  
  Out of no experience, only opinion, I also agree that we rely too heavily on technology for medical diagnoses. Apart from the misdiagnoses and lawsuits and money settlements, the loss of personal care and and custom patient diagnostics is getting lost in the wires of technology. Medicine is no longer about understanding the patient, the story and the symptoms, but about being able to control a machine and read what it pops out. This isn't to say that medicine has lost the need for skill and education, but I fear that push-a-button technology makes room for much error and turns medicine into more of a business than an honorable profession.
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  A reply on Conversation: What good is being able to control our dreams?

  Apr 1 2013: Hi Kyung!
  
  I completely agree with you! Dreams allow a passage into one's subconscious mind. What we learn and retain during the daytime, manifests themselves in our dreams. This must mean that our brains reprocess information that we collected during the day. "I'll sleep on it" is a very common saying for those that need more time and a clearer mind to make a decision or understand a concept. Similarly, it is said that if you read before bed, or review a to-do list for the next day, you will wake up the next morning with a clearer, more organized thought process. Therefore, a lot happens in our brains while we rest!
  
  Being able to interpret and control our dreams opens a doorway into understanding in more detail, how the brain retains, processes and organizes information, even how to help those that have problems with retention or processing, like Alzheimer's and autism patients, and people with ADD/ADHD or learning disabilities. Understanding how their brains work differently or similarly helps get us closer to developing greater medicine and providing people with the faith and reassurance that everyone is equally equipped and capable to do great things.
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  A reply on Conversation: Would a separation of Science and State help or hinder Innovation and scientific discovery?

  Feb 19 2013: Osaze,
  
  I agree with everything you said here. Thank you for putting it so clearly! I believe that the best of scientific research is done with freedom of imagination. The beauty of government funded research is the scientific freedom. Industry research is tainted with thoughts of revenue, profit and consumerism. Like it has been mentioned on this thread before, a company will not fund a project unless it will result in profits for them. Often times a promising project has been rejected because of financial reasons. I believe that government funded research remains untainted and has the best intentions and yields the most applicable results.

• A reply on Conversation: Will humankind ever achieve an end to science history?

  Feb 19 2013: Hi Joseph and Neema!
  
  I completely agree with both of you. I believe that there is an ever expanding list of questions that are yet be answered, and that it grows with every new discovery made. If I were to describe what I imagine to be the "end" of scientific discovery, I would bring up two concepts: mimicry and regeneration. It is said that only truly know a subject or a concept when you can teach it to someone else. Likewise, I think the end of science will arrive when every system can be reproduced artificially or not. Being able to regenerate or build any existing system (this includes neural signals, digestive and circulatory systems, etc in organisms) means that ultimate understanding of the system.
  Even at that point, the never ended search for ultimate efficiency begins where a system can be redefined and rebuilt over and over again to achieve the highest efficiency model. There is always more work to be done!

• A reply on Conversation: Is science just imagination in a straitjacket?

  Feb 10 2013: Theodore
  
  I think you're right. Over this conversation and that video I think the question has changed from, "Is science imagination in a straitjacket?" to "How can we preserve the imagination behind science and not feel constricted?" How do we allow ourselves to dream and explore without feeling like a question cannot be answered. The worst idea would be to say "We can't build an anti-gravity machine because physics says no." Instead, we should be saying, "Anti-gravity machine? Challenge accepted! Let's see how we can reform our definition of gravity and work towards making something novel!" Imagination is a precursor for science!

• A reply on Conversation: Is science just imagination in a straitjacket?

  Feb 8 2013: Theodore
  
  Thank you for posting this! I forgot to do so in my initial post. I hope you enjoyed the interview.
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  A reply on Conversation: Is science just imagination in a straitjacket?

  Feb 8 2013: Thank you so much for your input. I completely agree with both of your ideas! I am making it a point to watch more Feynman lectures after hearing the TED community's input. I hope to pick up on his philosophies. So much to learn from!