Presumably, this also will make further research on patients in this state harder, since they are potentially savable and can be harmed by some interventions.
Whose brain is it anyway?
The tougher, ethical question is whether this actually would help the deceased person, or (assuming it works) even bring about a new person.
Personal identity is generally assumed to involve some form of continuity. For someone to survive, we are generally discontent with mere bodily survival, there has to be a person with some psychological continuity too.
Biography: Stuart Russell received his B.A. with first-class honours in physics from Oxford University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford in 1986. He then joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, where he is Professor (and formerly Chair) of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and holder of the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Neurological Surgery at UC San Francisco and Vice-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Council on AI and Robotics. He has published over 150 papers on a wide range of topics in artificial intelligence including machine learning, probabilistic reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, real-time decision making, multitarget tracking, computer vision, computational physiology, and global seismic monitoring. His books include “The Use of Knowledge in Analogy and Induction”, “Do the Right Thing: Studies in Limited Rationality” (with Eric Wefald), and “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach” (with Peter Norvig).
Abstract: Autonomous weapons systems select and engage targets without human intervention; they become lethal when those targets include humans. LAWS might include, for example, armed quadcopters that can search for and eliminate enemy combatants in a city, but do not include cruise missiles or remotely piloted drones for which humans make all targeting decisions. The artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics communities face an important ethical decision: whether to support or oppose the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS).
The UN has held three major meetings in Geneva under the auspices of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, or CCW, to discuss the possibility of a treaty banning autonomous weapons. There is at present broad agreement on the need for “meaningful human control” over selection of targets and decisions to apply deadly force. Much work remains to be done on refining the necessary definitions and identifying exactly what should or should not be included in any proposed treaty.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM (PDT)
While pregnant with her first child, Rhea Birusingh started experiencing blurry vision that her OB-GYN dismissed as an expected pregnancy-related change, but three months later, she went to her ophthalmologist, who discovered an inoperable 2-centimeter benign brain tumor behind her right eye. Now, nearly four months later, Birusingh’s son is healthy and her vision is normal, thanks to a powerful, precise radiation treatment.
“When you’re a pathologist and your eyes are a money maker, you start to get a little bit worried,” Birusingh, 37, of Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida, told FoxNews.com.
Doctors at UF Health Cancer Center – Orlando Health decided to use the treatment, called proton beam therapy, because Birusingh’s tumor was adjacent to her hippocampus, which is critical for short- and long-term memory and learning. Proton beam therapy works differently from conventional radiation treatments, which rely on X-rays. Birusingh was the first patient to undergo the treatment— which uses a three-story, 200,000 pound machine— at the hospital.
A specific type of immune cell, called microglia (green) can help contain amyloid plaques (magenta), the key hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, thus limiting their damage to surrounding brain cells.
But, Dr Jaime Grutzendler, associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at Yale, said that is no longer thought to be the case, and should signal a new.
He said: ‘It suggests we should be enhancing the function of these immune cells, not trying to suppress it.’
Harvard you’re wrong. Why? Harvard needs to explain to all the families with genetic mutations tied to various types of cancer, cancer survivors who carry a genetic mutation, or the workers who were exposed at work to radiation or carcinogens how their smoking caused their cancer when they never smoked in their entire life. However, how do you explain that to the countless million patients, survivors, and loved ones who lost someone to cancer that never smoked or were exposed to smoking.
As many as 40 percent of cancer cases, and half of cancer deaths, come down to things people could easily change, researchers said Thursday.
While Americans often worry about whether chemicals, pollution or other factors out of their control cause cancer, the new analysis shows otherwise: People are firmly in charge of much of their own risk of cancer.
Biologists have identified the one gene that caused the evolution of single-celled organisms into multicellularity, debunking previous theories that several genes were at play. The gene retinoblastoma is also the same gene that is found to be defective in cancer patients, and suppresses tumors.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., May 17, 2016 — A gene that scientific dogma insists is inactive in adults actually plays a vital role in preventing the underlying cause of most heart attacks and strokes, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined. The discovery opens a new avenue for battling those deadly conditions, and it raises the tantalizing prospect that doctors could use the gene to prevent or delay at least some of the effects of aging.
“Finding a way to augment the expression of this gene in adult cells may have profound implications for promoting health and possibly reversing some of the detrimental effects with aging,” said researcher Gary K. Owens, PhD, director of UVA’s Robert M. Berne Cardiovascular Research Center.
Interesting read on PTSD. Wonder how much this plays into DARPA’s own research around memory removal on PTSD patients. hmmm.
New research suggests that PTSD patients with a larger region of the brain that helps distinguish between safety and threat are more likely to respond to exposure-based therapy.
The study expands upon prior research that discovered having a smaller hippocampus is associated with increased risk of PTSD.
In the current study, researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), examined the relationship between hippocampus volume, and response to treatment in 50 participants with PTSD and 36 trauma-exposed healthy controls.
