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Aug 7, 2019

Position Statement 56: Mental Health Treatment in Correctional Facilities

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, law enforcement, neuroscience

“Over the past 50 years [America has] gone from institutionalizing people with mental illnesses, often in subhuman conditions, [in state mental health hospitals] to incarcerating them at unprecedented and appalling rates—putting recovery out of reach for millions of Americans […] On any given day, between 300,000 and 400,000 people with mental illnesses are incarcerated in jails and prisons across the United States, and more than 500,000 people with mental illnesses are under correctional control in the community.” [1] Mental Health America (MHA) supports effective, accessible mental health treatment for all people who need it who are confined in adult or juvenile correctional facilities or under correctional control. People with mental health and substance use conditions also need an effective classification system to protect vulnerable prisoners and preserve their human rights. [2] Notwithstanding their loss of their liberty, prisoners with mental health and substance use conditions retain all other rights, and these must be zealously defended.

Background

In the past decade, America has been locking up increasing numbers of individuals with mental health conditions. [3] MHA is both concerned by and opposed to the increasing use of criminal sanctions and incarceration, replacing the state mental hospitals with much more drastic curtailment of personal liberty and preclusion of community integration and community-based treatment. [4] Prisoners with mental health conditions are especially vulnerable to the difficult and sometimes deplorable conditions that prevail in jails, prisons, and other correctional facilities. Overcrowding often contributes to inadequacy of mental health services and to ineffective classification and separation of prisoner classes. It can both increase vulnerability and exacerbate mental illnesses. For these and other reasons, MHA supports maximum reasonable diversion. [5].

Aug 7, 2019

Mentally Ill Inmates Are Routinely Physically Abused, Study Says

Posted by in category: futurism

A Human Rights Watch review finds that mistreatment by guards, including the use of chemical sprays and electronic stun guns, has led to a number of deaths.

Aug 7, 2019

Crashed spacecraft may have left creatures on the moon

Posted by in categories: astronomy, biological, science, space, space travel

Continue reading “Crashed spacecraft may have left creatures on the moon” »

Aug 7, 2019

IBM just made its cancer-fighting AI projects open-source

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

IBM recently developed three artificial intelligence tools that could help medical researchers fight cancer.

Now, the company has decided to make all three tools open-source, meaning scientists will be able to use them in their research whenever they please, according to ZDNet. The tools are designed to streamline the cancer drug development process and help scientists stay on top of newly-published research — so, if they prove useful, it could mean more cancer treatments coming through the pipeline more rapidly than before.

Aug 7, 2019

Allele specific repair of splicing mutations in cystic fibrosis through AsCas12a genome editing

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an autosomal recessive disease caused by mutations in the CFTR gene. The 3272–26AG and 3849+10kbCT CFTR mutations alter the correct splicing of the CFTR gene, generating new acceptor and donor splice sites respectively. Here we develop a genome editing approach to permanently correct these genetic defects, using a single crRNA and the Acidaminococcus sp. BV3L6, AsCas12a. This genetic repair strategy is highly precise, showing very strong discrimination between the wild-type and mutant sequence and a complete absence of detectable off-targets. The efficacy of this gene correction strategy is verified in intestinal organoids and airway epithelial cells derived from CF patients carrying the 3272–26AG or 3849+10kbCT mutations, showing efficient repair and complete functional recovery of the CFTR channel. These results demonstrate that allele-specific genome editing with AsCas12a can correct aberrant CFTR splicing mutations, paving the way for a permanent splicing correction in genetic diseases.

Aug 7, 2019

The Biggest Telescopes In The World

Posted by in category: space

The world’s largest telescope in the Canary Islands of Spain has an aperture, or opening through which light comes through, of 409 inches.

Aug 7, 2019

Sony is using AI to replace drummers, one beat at a time

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Sony developed an AI system that can generate kickdrum beats based on other instruments used in a song.

Aug 7, 2019

Heart Inflammation Causes a Shift in Cell Fate Distribution

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

A study on animals with autoimmune myocarditis was recently released in the journal Cell Reports [1], showing the impact of heart inflammation on the types of immune cell that are formed in the heart. This could have a significant impact on our understanding of cardiac aging.

What is myocarditis and how is it relevant to aging?

Myocarditis is a disease involving inflammation of the heart. It mainly influences people between the ages of 20 and 51 [2] [3]; however, the elderly are still affected to some degree. The disease has been known to cause serious complications, such as heart attack and heart failure.

Aug 7, 2019

Mouse Genetics Shape the Gut Microbiome More than Their Environment

Posted by in categories: biological, genetics

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Genetics hold far more sway over the mouse microbiome than transient environmental exposures, researchers reported July 26 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The results appear to contradict previous studies in humans that have found environmental factors to be more influential than genetics, and they add to an ongoing dialogue in the microbiome research community over how much control we hold over the bacterial communities in our guts.

Hila Korach-Rechtman, a microbiologist at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, set out to identify the microbes in mice that become a fixture in the gut after being introduced through the environment. “We really wanted to find these bacteria that can be transferred and remain in the host, even though they have different genetics,” she says.

Aug 7, 2019

DARPA Is Taking On the Deepfake Problem

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, security

The Defense Department is looking to build tools that can quickly detect deepfakes and other manipulated media amid the growing threat of “large-scale, automated disinformation attacks.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on Tuesday announced it would host a proposers day for an upcoming initiative focused on curbing the spread of malicious deepfakes, shockingly realistic but forged images, audio and videos generated by artificial intelligence. Under the Semantic Forensics program, or SemaFor, researchers aim to help computers use common sense and logical reasoning to detect manipulated media.

As global adversaries enhance their technological capabilities, deepfakes and other advanced disinformation tactics are becoming a top concern for the national security community. Russia already showed the potential of fake media to sway public opinion during the 2016 election, and as deepfake tools become more advanced and readily available, experts worry bad actors will use the tech to fuel increasingly powerful influence campaigns.