Merrick B.

9/17/26

I went with my Brainrot inquirer pitch and still waiting on Megan with the fish for the tank.

9/15/26

It’s been a couple of days since my last entry, but I think I decided on brainrot for my inquirier. This means the impacts of these highly overloading videos that are online are called “Brainrot,” and I want to show the science behind how it is actually hurting your mind.

9/10/26

I thought of two more ideas for the inquirer. I might want to research blue light and see if blue light glasses actually help? (Or this could be a lab idea) And maybe how conspiracies come to fruition. Like anti-vaccine people and why they don’t change their opinion even when blatant evidence proves them wrong. This can also involve my ideas of talking about misinformation about autism because I can talk about the idea of “Vaccines cause Autism”, which they don't, and how claims like that create stigma and distrust in medicine. Also, I talked to Ronan the tank water is at a proper temperature, so now we are just waiting for the animals from the LAX Aquarium.

9/2/26

Still ruimnating over what to do for my inquirer. I came up with a new idea maybe talk about media and how we look for opinions that validate our own opinion. Like the natural human urge is to make sure we are in the right and how people see out places that fit with their beliefs. This also connects to news stations and where you collect your media from correlatates to your beliefs.

9/1/26

The other day, I finished my lab interest document, and I’m going to try to help with some other people’s labs. I want to learn as much as possible, also Eugene’s particle accelerator, I want to learn the science behind it. I have to think of my inquirer, I might do something about cognitive dissonance or I might do something about Autism and the Stigma around it. I mean it’s a topic very close to me, I might look at the reality TV show “Love on the Spectrum”, because I feel it seems to make fun of these people. I feel it seems to show the extreme of the spectrum so that it pushes a sterotype that shows autism as this extreme instead of the full spectrum people are on. So I want to maybe write and research about the negative impact of the show or something around that topic.

8/31/26

I’m going to join Ronan to rebuild the saltwater tank. He and I are waiting for Megan to collect the resources from the store, and next week we should be able to start piecing it together. I’m eager to learn how to regulate salinity and how to balance the food chain in the tank. Last week, I was also helping Ronan scrape the tanks for algae.

8/27/26

My second week in WIRSD, and I’m still trying to figure out where I’m headed today. I might join Ronan in his lab to research urchins and follow cell growth. I’m waiting for the mixer, but I’m eager to learn from all of these bright people. In the first week, I tested out a new hot knife and broke apart Jonah’s wave machine. I might want to learn how to use the emotiv to maybe do a lab about food and how it affects the brain.

2026-27

First day in WISRD!

Statement of interest from WISRD application: