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77.4 - Summer 2004
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> Summer 2004 > From the editor

Celebration of the Senses
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By HyoJin Rosaria Chiang

This issue goes to print as the class of 2004 prepares for imminent departure from Yale and the class of 2008 awaits the first taste of college life. Yalies come from diverse backgrounds and share four years together before going their separate ways after commencement. Whether we admit it or not, our experiences at Yale help shape who we are today and who we will be.

Yale’s vibrant campus bombards us with noteworthy sensations. We see the gothic architecture, hear a concerto reverberate through Sprague Hall, taste various ethnic cuisines at one of New Haven’s great restaurants, smell that inexplicable Sunday morning stench at Toad’s, and dance with a wonderful (or not so wonderful) screw date. But have you ever stopped to wonder how you perceive these sensations? To answer this question, the Yale Scientific Magazine celebrates the senses as the theme of this issue.

The centerfold article, “Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind,” presents how our mind processes what we see — or do not see. The discussion of vision continues in “Electronic Eyes, Silicon Brain” with computational vision and its various applications. Computational vision, however, is not the only method by which robots can “see”; in the Kuc lab, robots use sonar to detect objects (“Getting Back to Nature”).

But vision, as significantly as it contributes to our experiences, is not the only sense we rely on. For hearing, the Scientific explores the relationship between mathematics and music (“Melody + Mathematics”); for taste, studies on super-tasters (“From ‘Supertasters’ to Taste-blind”); and for smell, olfactory research (“Chemicals in Translation”).

In addition, this issue presents an article on the shark’s sixth sense (“The Sixth Sense”) and wraps up with a discussion of synesthesia (“Hearing Colors and Tasting Shapes”).

The Scientific congratulates the class of 2004, particularly Peter Anthony, Oladapo Babatunde, Cristian Boboila, Mohsen Nasr, and Srinivas Viswanathan. We thank them for their contributions to the Scientific and wish the best for their future. May the graduating seniors use their Yale experiences to the fullest in society, and may the class of 2008 make the most of what Yale has to offer.

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