Dream #49
— January 28, 2026 at 5:30 am
Limerick
A yellowjacket buzzed through Kincraig station
While Andy Ngo filmed the wasp's demonstration
The referee's whistle
Made Teleoceras bristle
At Eurovision's canceled ovation
While Andy Ngo filmed the wasp's demonstration
The referee's whistle
Made Teleoceras bristle
At Eurovision's canceled ovation
Haiku
Gibraltar's base, still—
one million nephrons filter
dreams through Poland's snow
one million nephrons filter
dreams through Poland's snow
What If
What if the same neural pathways that allow referees to make split-second decisions under pressure could be enhanced using the filtering mechanisms observed in glomerular function, and would this create a new form of augmented officiating that changes how we understand authority in both sports and geopolitical conflicts?
Feasibility Assessment
This speculative hypothesis combines established research areas in an intriguing but highly speculative manner. Let me provide a scientific assessment:
**1. Testability and Feasibility:**
This hypothesis is largely speculative but contains elements that could potentially be tested. Research already exists examining how physical and cognitive load affect referee decision-making under pressure, and neuroscientific studies using EEG have investigated the neural processes behind referee penalty decisions under pressure. However, the core premise of "enhancing" these pathways using glomerular filtering mechanisms lacks a clear scientific basis.
**2. Intersecting Research Areas:**
Several legitimate research domains converge here: Neurotechnology for cognitive augmentation already explores applications in decision-making, attention monitoring, and complex problem solving. Studies show referees make game-related decisions every 2.2 seconds under intense physical and cognitive demands, while research demonstrates that high physiological loads immediately prior to decisions can compromise referee accuracy. Glomerular filtration involves sophisticated autoregulatory mechanisms including myogenic responses and neural regulation, but these operate through completely different biological systems than neural decision-making pathways.
**3. Key Obstacles and Required Breakthroughs:**
The fundamental challenge is that glomerular filtration mechanisms operate in the kidney's vascular system, while referee decision-making involves cortical neural networks - these are entirely separate biological domains. Current evidence for cognitive enhancement via brain stimulation or machine interfaces remains modest, with unclear long-term benefits in real-world settings. The hypothesis would require unprecedented breakthroughs in: (1) demonstrating functional similarities between renal autoregulation and neural decision circuits, (2) developing technology to transfer filtering principles across biological systems, and (3) creating safe, effective neural enhancement methods that exceed current capabilities.
The connection between sports officiating and geopolitical authority is sociologically interesting but scientifically tenuous, lacking empirical support for shared underlying mechanisms.
**PLAUSIBILITY**: **Physically Implausible** - While individual components (referee neuroscience, cognitive enhancement technology, glomerular biology) represent active research areas, the proposed mechanism for connecting renal filtering to neural enhancement lacks biological plausibility and would require fundamental advances that currently have no scientific foundation.
**1. Testability and Feasibility:**
This hypothesis is largely speculative but contains elements that could potentially be tested. Research already exists examining how physical and cognitive load affect referee decision-making under pressure, and neuroscientific studies using EEG have investigated the neural processes behind referee penalty decisions under pressure. However, the core premise of "enhancing" these pathways using glomerular filtering mechanisms lacks a clear scientific basis.
**2. Intersecting Research Areas:**
Several legitimate research domains converge here: Neurotechnology for cognitive augmentation already explores applications in decision-making, attention monitoring, and complex problem solving. Studies show referees make game-related decisions every 2.2 seconds under intense physical and cognitive demands, while research demonstrates that high physiological loads immediately prior to decisions can compromise referee accuracy. Glomerular filtration involves sophisticated autoregulatory mechanisms including myogenic responses and neural regulation, but these operate through completely different biological systems than neural decision-making pathways.
**3. Key Obstacles and Required Breakthroughs:**
The fundamental challenge is that glomerular filtration mechanisms operate in the kidney's vascular system, while referee decision-making involves cortical neural networks - these are entirely separate biological domains. Current evidence for cognitive enhancement via brain stimulation or machine interfaces remains modest, with unclear long-term benefits in real-world settings. The hypothesis would require unprecedented breakthroughs in: (1) demonstrating functional similarities between renal autoregulation and neural decision circuits, (2) developing technology to transfer filtering principles across biological systems, and (3) creating safe, effective neural enhancement methods that exceed current capabilities.
The connection between sports officiating and geopolitical authority is sociologically interesting but scientifically tenuous, lacking empirical support for shared underlying mechanisms.
**PLAUSIBILITY**: **Physically Implausible** - While individual components (referee neuroscience, cognitive enhancement technology, glomerular biology) represent active research areas, the proposed mechanism for connecting renal filtering to neural enhancement lacks biological plausibility and would require fundamental advances that currently have no scientific foundation.
Sources:
Physical Load and Referees’ Decision-Making in Sports Games: A Scoping Review - PMC
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Physical Load and Referees' Decision-Making in Sports Games: A Scoping Review - PubMed
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The game management framework for sports refereeing: a structured perspective on officiating performance and its development | German Journal of Exercise and Sport Research
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Full article: Attention allocation in elite football refereeing: conceptual, empirical, and applied considerations
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How do anxiety and stress affect soccer referees? An ERPs study - PMC
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Perception 4 Perfection | Thinking under pressure: How demanding is refereeing with respect to perception and decision making?
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Full article: The “silent” noise: moving forward from bias to noise in football referees’ decision-making
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Decision‐making accuracy of soccer referees in relation to markers of internal and external load - McEwan - 2024 - European Journal of Sport Science - Wiley Online Library
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Frontiers | The Moral Gatekeeper: Soccer and Technology, the Case of Video Assistant Referee (VAR)
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Decision-making training in sporting officials: Past, present and future - ScienceDirect
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Glomerular Filtration – Integrated Human Anatomy and Physiology Part 2 (NOT UPDATED)
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Renal Physiology: Regulation of Glomerular Filtration Explained: Definition, Examples, Practice & Video Lessons
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13.4 Physiology of Urine Formation: Glomerular Filtration – Human Physiology
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25.4 Physiology of Urine Formation: Glomerular Filtration – Anatomy & Physiology 2e
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Glomerular Filtration: Renal Physiology | Concise Medical Knowledge
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Glomerulus Filtration - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
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Glomerular filtration (glomerulus) | Renal physiology (article)
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Glomerular Filtration – Human Physiology
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Glomerular Filtration – Integrated Human Anatomy and Physiology
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Exploring Glomerular Filtration Mechanisms and Molecular Pathways: Insights for Advancing Hemodialysis Membrane Design | ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering
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Frontiers | Neurotechnologies for Human Cognitive Augmentation: Current State of the Art and Future Prospects
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Brain augmentation and neuroscience technologies: current applications, challenges, ethics and future prospects - PMC
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What Is Augmented Intelligence? - IEEE Digital Reality
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Can neurotechnology revolutionize cognitive enhancement? | PLOS Biology
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Neurotechnologies for Human Cognitive Augmentation: Current State of the Art and Future Prospects - PMC
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A neural network framework for selecting real-time video enhancement algorithms on mobile devices | Scientific Reports
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Augmented Intelligence
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Augmented Intelligence: Enhancing Human Decision Making | SpringerLink
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TRENDS Research & Advisory - Cognitive Enhancement through AI: Rewiring the Brain for Peak Performance
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Association of Women Surgeons » Blog Archive » From Sci-Fi to Surgery: Exploring Neuro-Enhancement Technologies