Self-research chats

Open Humans self-research chats are weekly online videochats that grew out of the Steven Keating Memorial Self-Research Project on Open Humans. Discussion is informal and focuses on sharing self-research projects, tools, updates, insights, and questions.

We would like to document here any other self-research groups that regularly chat (if they exist!). Please feel free to edit this page to add information.

Meeting formatEdit

Meetings are an hour long and currently occur every Thursday at 10am PDT/PST (1pm EST/EDT, and typically 7pm CET/CEST). Attendance is open to anyone who would like to join. Attendees are expected to introduce themselves during the initial go-around. Information on how to join is available in the meeting information and notes document.

Discussion topicsEdit

Topics for discussion are generated ad hoc through an initial go-around.

During go-around, each individual speaks during an initial go-around, briefly noting whether they have something they would like to share or discuss. Once someone has spoken, they name the next person to speak (i.e. anyone who has not yet spoken). It is NOT required to have something to share or discuss: attendees typically initiate discussion topics in a subset of the chats they attend.

Topics collected during the go-around are then discussed, as prompted by the meeting lead. Discussion prioritizes personal projects (ideas, advice, updates, and results), but can also include other topics of potential interest: tools, news, community ideas, etc.

Meeting highlightsEdit

Highlights from some recent meetings are shared below, along with a link to that section of our notes.


Date	Attending	Summary	Link to notes
2022-08-04	Mad Ball DG Eric Jain Joyce Waterhouse	Eric Jain chatted a bit about his ongoing temperature tracking & observations with a kinsa thermometer (oral). Nothing particularly surprising: he observed heat waves didn’t seem to result in higher temperatures, although “cold” environments had lower readings (e.g. sleeping outdoors) — as did exercise (ironically? maybe due to breathing?). He’s thinking about trying a skin sensor; we reflected that there’s not great options for easy, accurate core temperature… for male anatomy, at least (vaginal sensors not an option). DG shared some analysis of his Anki metrics, looking at an individual card data (attempt # vs. time between attempts, correctness, speed), and was thinking about if / how to detect a given practice period was more effective with learning and/or recall.	2022-08-04 Notes
2022-07-28	Mad Ball Bastian Greshake Tzovaras Katharina Richard Sprague	Personal self-research: Richard shared a visualization he made of his oral microbiome data over time, which he’s also posted on Twitter Katharina shared experiences with using an activity tracker for the first time (note: a fairly old one!) — her main insight was that she hadn’t realized her running pace wasn’t at an optimal heart rate, and now wants to have a device to monitor heart rate when running in the future. (Also wondered what device would be best.) Bastian shared his adaptation of flic button as a one-button tracker for smoking: he clicks the button to track when he’s using a cigarette, and the new timepoint is automatically copied into a google spreadsheet. Bastian also shared experimenting with NFCs to record when he’s drinking coffee (scan bottom of the cup → phone records caffeine consumption in Apple Health) General items of interest: Bastian shared news that the Oura gen3 ring now has SpO2 sensing. (finally.) Richard shared a new feature of potential interest in the SleepSpace app: stimulating deep sleep with sound	2022-07-28 notes

Tagged meeting notes in this wikiEdit

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