Law and Order: Social Media UnitThe San Francisco Police Department may have an "Instagram officer," but other forces are trolling social media for criminal activity too

By Emily Matchar

SMITHSONIAN.COM August 19, 2015

Earlier this month, the public learned that the San Francisco Police Department has a dedicated “Instagram officer” who patrols the popular photo share site in search of illegal activities. The officer, Eduard Ochoa, had nabbed a minor for illegal firearm possession after the defendant posted pictures of himself carrying a gun on his Instagram page, under the username “40glock.” Ochoa used the pictures as grounds to search 40glock’s house, leading to his conviction. Ochoa’s (unofficial) job title as Instagram officer came to light as part of the court filings.

The story was reported by a number of media outlets in a tone of surprise—the police use Instagram?! But those who follow trends in criminal justice know that San Francisco is hardly unique.  

Police use of the internet and social media has been growing rapidly in the past several years, and using Instagram to catch criminal activity is only the tip of the iceberg. According to a 2013 survey from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, nearly 96 percent of the 500 law enforcement agencies in America surveyed use social media in some capacity. The most commonly used social media sites are Facebook

(92.1 percent), Twitter (64.8 percent) and YouTube (42.9 percent). Some 80 percent say social media has helped them solve crimes.

There are probably many officers like Ochoa, though police departments generally don’t advertise that fact, says Lori Brainard, a professor of public policy and public administration at George Washington University, who studies police use of social media. “I think it’s probably common among very large police departments,” she says.

Even departments without dedicated social media officers commonly use Facebook or YouTube to seek the public’s help in identifying or apprehending suspects. A decade or two ago, police might have sent security camera footage of suspected bank robbers or muggers to the local news to ask viewers for tips. Now they’re likely to also post the footage on YouTube or their department’s Facebook page.

Police also monitor social media sites in search of postings about illegal activities. Some law-breakers, especially young ones, seem to forget social media is public or semi-public. They post pictures of drug use on Facebook or pose for selfies wearing stolen clothes or jewelry. A young woman in Texas robbed a bank, then posted a YouTube video bragging about the experience. She was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. A searched-for robbery suspect checked in to a strip club on Facebook, leading officers straight to his location.

Community members can purposely or inadvertently draw police by using hashtags in social media posts. Police might, for example, follow the hashtag #StateBasketballRules after a local college basketball game. If a picture of an illegal celebratory street bonfire shows up with the hashtag, police could go to the location and arrest the revelers. Police have searched hashtags like #420 or #weedstagram to nab drug users. Citizens also sometimes tweet pictures of vandalism or other minor crimes at police departments as a way of reporting problems without calling 911.

While Facebook and Instagram are common places to search for criminal activity and information about suspects, an increasing number of police departments are also using Pinterest, that bastion of cookie recipes and baby shower decoration ideas. In the past year or so, a number of departments have created Pinterest pages to use as virtual lost-and-founds. A peek at the Gloucester Township, New Jersey’s recovered property board shows several pairs of earrings and glasses, two sets of car keys and a cell phone. The unclaimed property board from the Dover, Delaware PD is heavy on purses and wallets. Mountain View, California’s lost and found board has several dozen bikes (appropriate for a city designed to be a “bicycle friendly community”). Dallas breaks its board into subcategories: bicycles, jewelry, electronics, sporting goods, equipment/hardware and miscellaneous.

Other departments use Pinterest as a virtual “wanted” poster. The unsolved cases board of State College, Pennsylvania includes pictures of suspected law-breakers: several Walmart thieves, a couple of young women who used a karaoke room without paying and "two college aged white males along with two college aged white females" who stole a floor sign from a Taco Bell.

Social media can also help police reach out to non-English-speaking residents. In 2013, the police department of Alhambra, California, where more than half the residents are of Chinese descent, became the first PD in the country to start a Weibo, or “Chinese Twitter,” page. Many of the posts are merely translations of the PD’s Facebook posts, while some are specifically directed at the Chinese community, giving information or looking for help solving crimes. Earlier this year, the police department of

Aurora, Colorado, where some 28 percent of residents are Hispanic, created a Spanish-language Twitter account.

But police attempts to use social media to gather community support can easily backfire, especially in the current atmosphere of anger about police killings of unarmed black citizens. Last year, the NYPD asked people to tweet photos of themselves with officers using the hashtag #myNYPD. While some people posted what the department had been hoping for—shots of themselves smiling with officers at picnics or parades—many used the hashtag to tweet pictures of police brutality.

Unfortunately, Brainard says, it’s incredibly difficult for police departments to use social media to both catch suspects and build a sense of community. Residents who feel they’re being watched on social media are less likely to want to share information with the police. The feeling of being spied on engenders mistrust. “It has a very chilling effect on people’s inclination to engage with the police on social media,” she says.

Posting information about suspects online can be problematic too, Brainard says. People are innocent until proven guilty. But when a video of you supposedly committing a crime gets online, it will follow you forever, even if you’re found not guilty.

“In the old days, if you slapped someone’s 'wanted' poster in the newspaper [and] wanted to find that years later, you’d have to look through microfilm at the library,” Brainard says. “[The internet] has reputation-damaging potential in a way old-fashioned media didn’t.”

Five Paralyzed Men Move Their Legs Again in a UCLA StudyAs electrodes on the skin stimulated their spines, the study participants made "step-like" motions

By Emily Matchar

SMITHSONIAN.COM August 17, 2015

The five men had each been paralyzed below the waist for at least two years. Some had suffered sports injuries; others had been in car accidents. Their legs were completely motionless, unresponsive to any internal or external stimuli.  

But, during a groundbreaking new study conducted at UCLA, all five men moved their legs with the aid of transcutaneous stimulation, or the application of electrodes to the skin. It’s the first time such results have been achieved without surgery to implant electrodes beneath the skin.

"Until a year ago, if you had a spinal cord injury and you were completely paralyzed, you had no hope of recovery," says Roderic Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the research. "That is no longer the case."

Over the course of 18 weeks, the five men in the study had weekly treatments. Doctors placed electrodes on the participants' lower backs and near their tailbones. Then, for 45 minutes, the men were suspended by braces from the ceiling, to take the weight off their legs, while electrical currents stimulated their spines. The stimulation produced a “step-like” motion, like walking on air.

“[Transcutaneous stimulation] permits us to stimulate the spinal cord in a manner that can activate circuits that reconnect the brain to the neurons that control muscles,” says V. Reggie Edgerton, senior author of the research and a UCLA distinguished professor of integrative biology and physiology, neurobiology and neurosurgery.

Previous studies looked at what’s known as epidural stimulation, where patients have electrodes surgically implanted in their spinal cords. Those studies showed great promise—subjects with the implants were able to voluntarily move their legs. But epidural stimulation is invasive, and it’s difficult to modify the electrodes once they’re implanted. With transcutaneous stimulation, the electrodes can be moved around as needed. The treatment is also "simpler to do, cheaper to do and easier to do," Pettigrew says. Researchers say the stimulation methods could eventually be used together to optimize treatment.

Conventional wisdom in paralysis research has long been that neurological circuits are completely dead. But since the test subjects recovered motion so quickly, it’s likely the circuits were simply “asleep.” This research is especially exciting, Edgerton says, because it suggests that the electrical current is helping reawaken these dormant circuits. The results of the research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, the Walkabout Foundation and the Russian Scientific Fund, were reported in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

Researchers caution that the movement achieved in the study is not walking. The study subjects were tested while lying down, so no weight was put on their legs. “It will take considerably more improvement to reach a stage where complete weight bearing can be achieved,” Edgerton says.

Future studies will look at whether subjects can indeed learn to stand on their own with transcutaneous stimulation. The team also plans to study whether the treatment can help paralyzed people regain bodily functions often lost due to paralysis, such as sexual function and bladder and bowel control.

“We feel that we’re just scratching the surface, and it’s going to take a number of experiments over time,” Edgerton says.

Preliminary research suggests transcutaneous stimulation could also be useful for stroke victims and those with Parkinson’s disease. Studies are also beginning to investigate whether transcutaneous stimulation can help quadriplegics—people paralyzed in both their arms and their legs. This presents additional challenges, as quadriplegics' injuries often involve a greater degree of autonomic nervous system problems, as well as difficulty controlling breathing. 

With proper funding, Edgerton says a transcutaneous stimulation device based on his team's research could be widely available in as little as two years. About 6 million Americans are affected by paralysis; 1.3 million of those have spinal cords injuries.

Russ Weitl, 45, was paralyzed below the waist in a rodeo accident in 2011. From the earliest days after his injury, he was determined to find some kind of treatment that worked. But a year of intensive physical therapy produced few results. Then, he joined the UCLA study. 

"After not moving my legs for two years, to have control of my legs and be able to move them was unreal," he says. 

Weitl even, jokingly, tried to kick one of the students assisting in the study. To his surprise, it almost worked. Though the study treatments didn't leave him with lasting movement once the electrodes were removed, he does have increased sensation. 

"The important thing is that [the research] was a proof of concept," he says. "Now they know it works." 

SMARTNEWS Keeping you current

Humans Evolved to Be Moved by ArtNew research shows that while people respond to art for very different reasons, the ability to be moved in the first place is universal

SMITHSONIAN.COM AUGUST 10, 2015

There’s a lot going on in the brain of a person experiencing a painting, movie or other piece of art. But it doesn’t matter whether the art in question is aesthetically pleasing: in fact, sometimes that’s why art is enjoyable. Now, writes Jessica Herrington for   SciArt in America, researchers have found evidence that humans evolved to be moved by art — whether they like it or not.

Aesthetic taste presents a conundrum for neuroscientists: Most seek out some kind of artistic experience in their life, even if it’s as basic as having a favorite band. However, the many ways in which people engage with art are subjective, coming down to individual tastes.

Intrigued by these differences, writes Herrington, a group of neuroscientists at New York University took a look at what happens in the brain when people look at art by examining the neurological pathways responsible for taste.

“Differences in subjective experience may arise not only from differences in the emotions that a given artwork evokes, but also from how different individuals weigh these emotions,” researchers Edward A. Vessel, G. Gabrielle Starr and Nava Rubin write in the study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

The team showed subjects a variety of art as their brains were scanned. While participants’ feelings about the art ranged from joy to disgust, the study found that many of them showed similar levels of brain activity, especially if they felt personally connected to the art, Herrington writes. Researchers concluded that while people are moved by art for very different reasons, the ability to be moved in the first place is universal.

While more research needs to be done to figure out why people’s artistic tastes vary so much, the new research lends credence to the theory that humans evolved to seek out art for its emotional rush. Now, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience is putting out a call for more research that studies why people have such disparate experiences with art. There may soon be scientific evidence for why artists from Georges Seurat to Taylor Swift have the power to make people grit their teeth in agony — or smile in delight.