State House student interns took a spin Friday, but not in a souped-up Ford Mustang or a Porsche Carrera. They didn't even have to leave the building.
At Brandeis University's Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory, students stepped into the world of astronaut training.
"I was interested by the rotating room and the concept that you could walk up the walls as easy as you could walk along the ground," said Olivia Lynch, 16, an intern spending the summer with state Rep. Kay Khan.
Research at the laboratory including studying the effects of environmental forces, like zero gravity, on the human brain's control of movement, posture, and perceived orientation of the body. The purpose is to help solve practical problems in aeronautics and astronautics and in clinical populations, such as those with debilitating motor diseases.
The interns' visit was arranged between Khan and Janna Kaplan, senior research associate at the lab.
The reason for visit was twofold: To teach the interns about scientific work going on close to home and to link politics and science.
"Although we do very different things ... we can actually benefit each other," Kaplan said. "By understanding how scientific research is done and understanding how government works, (it's good) because they are the ones that will fund us eventually."
Said Kaplan: "Each of us is trying to reach out to the next generation of people who will be the leaders of our fields."
The pair met at a Brandeis University Hanukkah party hosted by university President Jehuda Reinharz.
"I was just having a conversation with her and she told me how she studies space and weightlessness," Khan said. "I was fascinated by that."
Kaplan studies the effects of motion on human bodies for NASA and other organizations.
Khan, her six interns and a group of researchers made their way through the depths of Graybiel Lab, an environment similar in appearance to a 1960s science fiction movie.
Work areas are overloaded with wires connected to various machines and contraptions in the basement facility. New computers and old technologies share spaces at individual stations. The lab includes a spinning room which creates a sense of artificial gravity for researchers to study motion sickness and human motion in space for the purpose of surviving long periods of space flight.
At one station, Kaplan placed one of Khan's interns in a spinning metal tube which produces the illusion of movement.
"I feel very fortunate that I have young people interested in government. When they come to me in the summer I like to take them out of the State House," Khan said. "It seemed it would be something interesting ... I can see today there is a relation here to what they study here and what we do in the Legislature ... there's a lot of interest in science and technology."
Kaplan has been working in the lab for 25 years.
"One could say all the elements of (space flight) are available in any moving environment on Earth," Kaplan said. "We don't have to go into space to study space."
The laboratory opened in 1982 and is named after Ashton Graybiel, whose scientific studies helped prepare America's astronauts for space flight. Graybiel died in 1995 at 92.
The laboratory is staffed by more than 20 faculty members, researchers, and students drawn from a variety of disciplines.
Kaplan said research accomplished at the laboratory has influenced the study and understanding the effects of different movement on the human body.
Jeff Gilbride can be reached at 781-398-8005 or at jgilbrid@cnc.com
