Today is when I proselytize about the new future that science is offering us.  I say offering because in the end that is all that we scientists can do.  We provide the human race with choices, and these can often be used for either good or bad.

But to make a long self-righteous moment short, I was looking at images in a spare moment today and came across this wonderful picture by Oli Scarff of Getty Images showing this rather cute little fellow named Leo.  Leo is nine months old and he is taking part in an experiment at the Birkbeck Babylab Center for Brain & Cognitive Development, in London.. Leo is outfitted with a halo of electroencephalogram electrodes (he’s even managed to pop one of them) to study brain activity while he examines various objects.

From the Birkbeck Baby lab’s website we have what that their mission is to learn:

•  how babies recognize faces
•  how babies learn to pay attention to some things and not others
•  how they learn to understand what other people do and think, and
•  how their language and understanding of the world develops

As a picture this photograph tells a wonderful story.  Baby Leo is happy.  The smile and the beautiful catch light tell us this. He is deeply involved in his work.  It is interesting how strong the association of pink with girls.  Because of the strong pink background, our first assumption is that Leo is a girl.  Of course, we wonder what he is thinking.  We even wonder how he is thinking.  And that after all is the whole point.