据英国媒体近日报道，一项虚拟现实实验“爱丽丝仙境”使人能够产生一种错觉，变成了芭比大小或者是长大成4米高的巨人。就像爱丽丝喝酒或者吃下奇怪的东西之后身体变大变小一样，实验的被试志愿者们也在实验中“变身”了。瑞典卡罗林斯卡研究所的科学家们在早期关于身体交换研究的基础上加以调整，进行了这项实验。 |
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Scientists say this may path ways for treating human's post traumatic diseases.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/25/false-memory-implanted-mouse-brain
The person who speaks holds the microphone which converts the voice message into electric static
signals flows back thru the hand of the speaker. Now the speaker's body has the electric static signals.
The speaker then touch another person's ear with a finger tip, the electric static signals flows
to that second person who receive the signals as in hearing the voice message.
http://www.disneyresearch.com/project/ishin-den-shin/ (youtube embedded)
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50155552n (video)
Intel has created a robot that can be customized to the individual owner's needs that will cost well under $1,000. Intel futurist Brian David Johnson joins "CBS This Morning: Saturday" to discuss this remarkable scientific achievement.
BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23590756
Turkey Today's Zaman
Major General Boris Ratnikov was in charge of Federal Security Dept in Russia which involves psychotronic weapons usage and psychic personnels during Boris Yeltsin presidency, after USSR collapsed.
I suppose he, in this video, was interviewed about psychotronic weapons technology in Russia,
but I don't know Russian. Hopefully someone who knows Russian can help to translate by adding
English subtitle.
http://www.zaobao.com/edu/pages5/edunews111208.shtml
用脑电波来操作电器，不再那么难以想象。
继去年研发出用脑电波来操控轮椅后，共和理工学院（Republic Polytechnic）学生今年把范围拓展至电器和病床，让年长者和住院病患也能获益。
使用者只需戴上一个感应器，待电脑语音系统念出“开关电灯”、“开关电风扇”、“开关电视”或“调整床的角度”的指示后，针对其中一个指示集中思考。数秒后，iPhone应用程序接收到脑电波信号，把它传到控制系统，就能让年长与行动不便者轻松开关家里的电器，或是让住院病患调整病床的倾斜幅度。
研发出这个科技的是工程系生物医药电子文凭课程的四名学生，他们昨天在“共和理工学院科技日”上呈献他们的这个毕业作业。
负责研究的姜力军博士说：“目前虽然已有iPhone应用程序可以开关电器，不过使用脑电波相信是世界首创。”
参与研究的学生之一李自腾说，研发过程中最大的挑战是iPhone程序的编写，因为修读工程的他们，对资讯科技方面一窍不通，必须找参考书来读。
这套系统，不包括iPhone的价格，器材费用不超过500元。据了解，有公共医院对这个研究项目感兴趣，正在检讨新科技是否适合引进医院使用。
至于之前另一组学生研发的轮椅项目，姜力军博士说：“虽然有商家来接洽，不过我们觉得成品还有可以改进的空间。例如我们过后就加了紧急刹车的功能，保障使用者的安全。”
昨天参展的其他作品，还包括添加促进消化的人体有益菌的冰淇淋。
研发小组发现市场上声称有添加益生菌（probiotic）的冰淇淋，经过他们的验证后，不是含量太少，不足以达到任何作用，就是完全不存在。至于益生菌的助生剂益生元（prebiotic），市场上并没有冰淇淋含有这个成份。
两组学生分别研发出含有益生菌的蜜糖口味冰淇淋，以及含有益生元的香草口味冰淇淋。他们虽然分开进行研究，但成品口感却非常接近，不输市场上现有的冰淇淋。研发益生菌冰淇淋的组员之一王康耀说，最困难的是如何调配出最迎合大众口味的冰淇淋口感。
http://www.stanford.edu/group/neurostudents/cgi-bin/wordpress/?p=1197
First up for me this morning: Hank Greely’s talk entitled The Neuroscience Revolution and Society.
For those of you not familiar with Hank Greely, he is a law professor at Stanford University who is (to quote his faculty website), a “leading expert on the legal, ethical, and social issues surrounding health law and the biosciences” who specializes in the”implications of new biomedical technologies, especially those related to neuroscience, genetics, and stem cell research.” I have heard Greely speak 2 times previously, discussing the implications of neuroscience (in particular fMRI technology) for society and the law. Last month, Greely chaired a discussion panel on neuroscience evidence in the courtroom – my blog coverage of the event can be read at the link.
He will talk about the ethical challenges that neuroscience raises, and what we, as scientists can do about it. Greely takes us back to 1969, what he calls the peaking of the first modern neuroscience ethics panic, during which the public came together in concern over many neuroscience themes, including neuroscience’s ability to control minds. He notes that concern over mind control led to many regulations being put in to place, based purely on speculative science. Greely fast forwards to today, where he sees the same trend towards public concern, whereas now the panic is caused by science that is actually available, as opposed to the more speculative nature of the science that was causing concern in 1969.
Greely discusses the problem with public policy being established based upon science that isn’t very good – for example eugenics programs based on our knowledge of genetics. He notes that in the case of genetics, fair and responsible public polities are well established, and the maturity of this process is about 10 years ahead of neuroscience.
What are the issues raised by neuroscience? Greely notes we are in a golden age of neuroscience, we are learning a phenomenon amount about neuroscience, and we care a great deal, both at the individual and the social level, about neuroscience given the close association between our brains and our minds. As we learn more about the brain, we will learn more about human thought and motivations. The ethical issues being raised fall into several categories. The first one of these is research ethics – as we learn more about the neuroscience, we will begin to consider questions regarding the ethics of doing research. For instance, what are the ethics regarding incidental information gathered during experiments – for instance tumors discovered during fMRI studies. Alternatively, ethical issues generated by storing brain images of participants in a database – can those images be used to advance information in ways the participants disagree with?
Greely turns to the question of how neuroscience will change our society, including changing education, medical care, and the law. Greely will talk about 6 different ways that neuroscience will impact the society – prediction, mind-reading, responsibility, consciousness, treatment and enhancement.
Prediction: neuroscience is helping us predict better things about people’s behavior. Sometimes, this involves predicting future disease states – neuroimaging or genetic predictions of who will develop Alzheimer’s. Now, this seems like a good thing, but what are the implications. If our ability to predict Alzheimer’s was coupled with a treatment, this would be fantastic. But as in the case of many genetic predictions, we often are able to predict despite being unable to prevent the occurrence of the disease. Greely notes that we are protected under federal law from discrimination based on genetic predispositions, but not predictions based upon brain scans. Predictive information is not just information – it has consequences, both good and bad. Greely poses the question of who will be responsible for producing the predictions (doctors, companies), and who will be able to have access to the information, beyond the patient. He wonders what we would do with information that predicted with 100% accuracy which 8/1000 children will develop schizophrenia, or make accurate predictions on future criminal/violent behavior. He states that if we can ask the question (what do we do with the information), someone will want to answer it.
Mind-Reading: Greely repeats a line I have heard from him before, that humans are all mind-readers. It is important for us to figure out what those around us are thinking, generally using facial cues, body language, etc… He comment that we all try to do it, but we just aren’t very good at it, and the world would look a lot different if we were better at it. And with neuroscience, we are getting better at it. There are many examples of imaging research where scientists look at activity and make suppositions about what the subjects are subjectively thinking. Now, much of that research involves figuring out whether, for example, a person is thinking of a place or a face – this is not of immediate applicability in the courtroom. But what is applicable is research that is attempting to figure out what people believe or think: e.g. lie detection, figuring out whether people are actually feeling chronic pain, whether people are biased. He introduces the current two commercial companies that offer lie detection, and the two recent court cases that asked whether they would allow fMRI-based lie detection as evidence (they both said no). Greely notes that there is currently no regulation of this field but people are still applying the technology.
Responsibility: Greely discusses recent court cases where the defendants use neuroscience brain scans to claim insanity. A more common argument in these court cases is that its not the defendants fault, it is the fault of their brain and how it works. What will juries do when told that a defendant is a psychopath, and their brain makes them a murder?
Consciousness: Greely brings up the recent paper where two groups showed that of a group of 54 patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative or minimally-conscious state, fMRI scans showed that in 5 patients, being told to plan a motor task resulted in activity in the motor planning area. In addition, 4 patients showed activity in brain regions responsible for navigation when told to imagine walking through their homes. Finally, they took one patient, who had been diagnosed in a vegetative state for 5 years, and showed that he was able to answer personal questions by selectively activating either the motor planning or navigation area. What will we do with that information? Greely comments that doctors at Stanford have already started having families of patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state ask that the patient be put into an fMRI scanner.
Treatment: Greely wonders what happens when we learn how to “cure” things that are not diseases, such as “deviant sexual behaviors”? What happens when a neuroscience attempts to cure addition with brain lesions, as happened recently in China, where doctors made electrolytic lesions of the nucleus accumbens of soldiers addicted to opium. They reported that after the lesion, soldiers did not crave opium, but Greely notes that the peer-reviewed paper did not report what else the soldiers did not crave. Another example are laws requiring that people convicted of a long list of sexual offenses are required to undergo chemical castration, despite the fact that we don’t have much information regarding the efficacy or safety of the chemicals used for the castration. In addition, even if we know that treatments for addition, psychological diseases, etc… are efficacious and safe, when do we mandate their use?
Enhancement: Many (most) scientists use mind-altering drugs – caffeine and chocolate both alter brain chemistry. But there are greater numbers of students who are now using Ritalin without a prescription to enhance their cognitive abilities. Of course, Ritalin and other drugs like it are not that good at enhancing cognition. But what about memory-enhancing drugs developed to treat diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s? What do we do if these drugs work on 20-year olds? What should universities or medical schools do about the availability of these drugs? Greely states emphatically that the single greatest cognitive enhancer is primary education, the ability to read and write. What did we do about it? We made it mandatory. How will be respond to a new host of drugs.
And lastly, Greely turns to the question of how society will respond to neuroscience research regarding the human condition. How will we assimilate information regarding the differences (or lack thereof) between the brains of humans and other animals? What about consciousness – when we can identify it, how will this alter how we treat patients, or fetuses? What about free will – how society react once we can identify the exact mechanisms that lead to our decisions, when we can show that circuits in our brains have made a decision long before we consciously acknowledge that decision. How will religion be affected? Greely imagines that it won’t affect society too much – the general public will continue to believe in free will not matter what evidence neuroscience throws at them.
Having talked about these issues, Greely turns to how neuroscience should start to handle them. The first step is to conduct research to show conclusively whether the techniques mentioned over the past hour are effective and safe. Going further, are questions about how we use these techniques if they are effective and safe? Neuroscientists have perhaps a smaller role, but an important one in making sure the public is aware of the complexities of the science and the techniques. And lastly, the deeper existential questions – and here Greely states that neuroscientists and non-neuroscientists all are on an equal footing, each with something to contribute.
So what can we, as neuroscientists, do? Greely calls us to consider the ethical issues of our own work, and to talk about these ethical issues, whether they come out of our own work or the work of others. He encourages neuroscientists to get involved, to join the Society for Neuroethics, to communicate with the public on these issues, to bring our sophisticated understanding of the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of neuroscience to discussions in the public domain. Greely tells us that he must believe that the more we discuss these ethical issues, the less likely we are to mess up the big decisions. In conclusion, he hopes he made us think about the short and long term implications for neuroscience on society, and that he had convinced us of the critical need for educated neuroscientists go get involved in the introduction of our knowledge into society.
The International Neuroethics Society
Who are we?
We are an interdisciplinary group of scholars, scientists, clinicians and other professionals who share an interest in the social, legal, ethical and policy implications of advances in neuroscience. The late 20th century saw unprecedented progress in the basic sciences of mind and brain and in the treatment of psychiatric and neurologic disorders. Now, in the early 21st century, neuroscience plays an expanding role in human life beyond the research lab and clinic. In classrooms, courtrooms, offices and homes around the world, neuroscience is giving us powerful new tools for achieving our goals and prompting a new understanding of ourselves as social, moral and spiritual beings.
Our mission
Our mission is to promote the development and responsible application of neuroscience through interdisciplinary and international research, education, outreach and public engagement for the benefit of people of all nations, ethnicities, and cultures.
http://www.military.com/news/article/military-weapons-in-gangsters-hands.html
Military Weapons in Gangsters' Hands
Gangs are acquiring highpowered, military-grade weapons more frequently, according to the latest National Gang Intelligence Center Report. And FBI and law enforcement officials suggest gang members -- both enlisted and those working at military bases as contract civilians -- may be funneling the firearms to their street-level counterparts.
In late July, 27 AK-47s were stolen from a Fort Irwin warehouse, officials said. Those close to the case, who would speak only under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the subject, said investigators believe gang members were involved in the theft.
Related Story: FBI Says Gangs Infiltrating the US Military
One source said the base had hired parolees, and officials are investigating the possibility parolees may have been involved in the heist. The source believes that since the theft, the base has discontinued the practice.
Gus Bahena, interim director of the public affairs office at Fort Irwin, said authorities couldn't comment on whether the base hires parolees, but did state officials were aware of gang issues.
Christopher Grey, spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Command in Quantico, Va., confirmed the independent agency that investigates felony-level crimes was actively working the Fort Irwin case but wouldn't comment on the details, stating they wanted to maintain the integrity of the investigation.
"Regarding gangs in general, we continue to educate our community, both Soldiers and civilians, so that all can recognize and report suspected gang activity," Bahena said.
As of April of this year, the NGIC has identified gang members from 53 gangs who are serving in the military. Members of 37 of those gangs -- including the notorious 18th Street and Mara Salvatrucha 13 -- have infiltrated the Army. Twenty-eight gangs have been identified within the Marine Corps' ranks and five in the Air Force.
The exact number of enlisted gang members is hard to come by, as many times investigators only see graffiti or paraphernalia as evidence of gang activity. For example, investigators found evidence that the motorcycle gang Devils Diciples [sic] -- the same one California State University, San Bernardino Professor Steven Kinzey is allegedly tied to -- has members in the military, but that evidence was found in areas where several branches have access.
While it appears the Army has the largest problem with gangs, some experts feel other branches may be underreporting the number of gang members within the rank and file.
"I think the problem -- percentage wise -- is bigger in the Marines but there are no statistics to back that up since the Marines fail to admit it ever existed," said Richard Valdemar, a retired Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department sergeant and gang expert. "In incidents I am personally familiar with, it seems to be mostly in the Marines."
According to the latest NGIC report released last month, gang members are getting their hands on a variety of military-grade weapons including rifles, grenades, artillery rounds and even body armor.
In the first week of November, a known gang member and his wife were arrested in Adelanto after Victor Valley SMASH Gang Team officials found several weapons in their home including a military artillery round in their garage.
Earlier this year, a field artillery round was found in an Apple Valley home, according to sheriff's reports. When it was detonated in the open desert, it created a 6-foot crater.
It didn't surprise ex-Hammerskin Nation gang member and former Marine T.J. Leyden to hear gangsters are getting their hands on heavy explosives.
"It's a lot harder to get firearms and rifles off a base but artillery rounds aren't that difficult," he said.
According to Leyden, rifles and firearms are counted three times daily but when it comes to artillery rounds, it's much easier to give false numbers.
"It's easy to say you fired 10 rounds when you only actually fired eight or six," the former Hesperia resident said.
While it may be more difficult to smuggle assault rifles and similar weapons off bases and into the hands of gang members, it's being done.
In November 2010, three former Marines were arrested in Los Angeles for selling assault weapons to members of the violent street gang, Florencia 13, according to the NGIC report. That same month, a Navy Seal from San Diego and two others were arrested in Colorado for smuggling about 18 military-issued machine guns from Iraq and Afghanistan to be sold and shipped to buyers in Mexico. It was unclear if any of the servicemen were gang members.
Gang experts feel a more stringent qualification process during recruitment plus continued vigilance and education about gangs and their practices could help identify gang members within the ranks.
"Every gang member in the military is a crap shoot," Valdemar said. "To whom do his loyalties truly stand with? We don't really know. That is the problem."
© Copyright 2011 Daily Press, Victorville, Calif.. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.dana.org/news/features/detail.aspx?id=34534
How does one get involved in the field of neuroethics? For most everyone these days, it is "a long story," a roundabout route. But within the next generations that all may change, said panelists Thursday at a workshop during the International Neuroethics Society's annual meeting.
For example, panelist Emily Murphy started out as a basic-science researcher, but then did post-doc work in neuroethics at the Stanford Center for Medical Ethics. A few more twists and turns, and now she is a third-year law student, planning to clerk for a judge in the summer, while still pursuing neuroethics research. The link? A seed planted during her last undergrad year at Harvard—a class on the brain and the law.
"You enter the field almost always obliquely," Paul Root Wolpe of Emory told the audience. "You get into bioethics through a story." When Wolpe went to college, nobody studied neuroethics: "Most people had absolutely no idea what the word meant. When the first master's student in bioethics graduated from Emory [in 2008], he was immediately more accredited than anyone else in the department."
So what are we who want to investigate the societal implications of neuroscience to do? The panelists had three main veins of advice.
First, get a credential, be it a Ph.D., a doctor's license, a law degree, or some other accreditation. That's what will get you a place on the committees, panels, and working groups, and get your foot in the door of politicos and social and medical agencies looking for someone to help them make sense of the science. "Credentials count," said Alan Leshner of AAAS. "You don't get to sit at the table unless you have a credential." It doesn't need to be a hard-science degree, though you should know the basics at least. "A lot of the questions we ask … don't require deep knowledge," Wolpe said. "What you're talking about is the implications of the neuroscience," not explaining its granular details.
Second, "the way to start doing it is to start doing it," Leshner advised. In courses or out, learn all you can about the ethical areas that interest you, and spread the word—especially in writing. Write essays and opinion pieces for local papers or websites that describe ethical issues that come up in the news, like brain enhancement and determining consciousness—or whether Michael Jackson's doctor should have been convicted. And while the field is still young, it already has journals devoted to it. Wolpe edits the AJOB Neuroscience, said one of the journal's formats is to commission "target articles" and then a few responses to it. Writing one of those responses is a great way to get noticed.
In addition, attend events like the Society's meetings, and also look for related lectures or debates that are outside the field, such as the "science and technical studies" groups at some universities and a lecture from a visiting professor. You never know who you will run into: A researcher who needs a post-doc, a college administrator who needs a lecturer, or a legislator who could use an assistant who can give her advice. Part of getting this sort of job is serendipity, and "you increase your serendipity by going to places where the people you want to meet are," said Hank Greely, director of the program in neuroethics at the Stanford Center for Bioethics.
Third, don't expect it will be a full-time job. None of the four panelists does neuroethics full-time, and together they could come up with fewer than five people in the world who do. But the need is great: Nearly everyone wants to know how the mind works, and ethical questions arising from advances in science technology, especially, will only gain in prominence. "We're in a transition phase," Leshner said, "where you sort of have to be something else."
Because it's so new, "this is something you can dedicate part of your career to, and still rise," said Wolpe. Become the go-to person on your medical team; offer to facilitate discussions with your faculty. You might quickly get a reputation that will stretch outside your department or office.
And in any case, being in a field outside science might be beneficial. Many of the questions neuroethicists ask ("Who should use Ritalin?" "Should we force predators to take a pill?") can't be answered by scientists alone. They are questions for the whole of society, including doctors, sociologists, educators, lawyers and judges, and all the rest of us.
Neuroethical questions are "a multidisciplinary problem," Leshner said, "and it won't be answered by any of us who are entrenched in our own discipline."
Even though today's meeting took place in the same town the day before Neuroscience 2011, where tens of thousands of neuroscientists will meet and share research, the majority of audience members were not brain scientists. A good number studied or are studying law, medicine, ethics, and philosopy.
Sounds like a good sign for the field.
http://news.ifeng.com/taiwan/1/detail_2011_11/30/11001790_0.shtml
林瑞雄（中）昨在台北出席一项研讨会，致词结束后在随扈保护下接受媒体访问。
林瑞雄表示，有人要对付他，这些人明知他是脑瘤与神经生理的专家，还这样对付他。 来源：台湾《联合报》
中新网11月30日电 据台湾《中国时报》报道，2012年台湾地区领导人选举亲民党参选人宋楚瑜竞选搭档林瑞雄29日出席一场医疗研讨会，之后接受媒体访问，他先是抱怨成为候选人后自由受限，认为维安人员两个就够，一下子20几个“太浪费”；接着他又暗示有人用电磁波对付他，让现场媒体一头雾水。
林瑞雄说，自己是研究电磁波与脑瘤的专家，“他们竟然还敢用这种方式对付我？”
林瑞雄昨天出席“医疗事故预防及不责难补偿制度国际研讨会”，面对时事问题他侃侃而谈、有问必答，然后他突然主动询问媒体：“台湾除‘国安局’之外，到底有没有‘国安局’的‘国安局’？…东厂里还有没有锦衣卫呢？”
由于林的发言显得突兀，有点无厘头，让现场媒体一阵错愕，无人能应答。林见状又继续说，自己是研究脑瘤与电磁波的专家，他还呼吁威胁他生命安全的人“要小心”，“你们(媒体)可能不懂，大概只有‘国安局’或要威胁我生命安全的人才懂。”
当媒体追问林是否暗指“有人要用电磁波让你得脑瘤？”，林不愿多谈，仅说“不是，我只能说到这边。”随后，就在维安人员保护下快步离开现场，留下满腹疑问的媒体记者
http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/hugh-gusterson/the-militarization-neuroscience
We've seen this story before: The Pentagon takes an interest in a rapidly changing area of scientific knowledge, and the world is forever changed. And not for the better.
During World War II, the scientific field was atomic physics. Afraid that the Nazis were working on an atomic bomb, the U.S. government mounted its own crash project to get there first. The Manhattan Project was so secret that Congress did not know what it was funding and Vice President Harry S. Truman did not learn about it until FDR's death made him president. In this situation of extreme secrecy, there was almost no ethical or political debate about the Bomb before it was dropped on two cities by a bureaucratic apparatus on autopilot.
Despite J. Robert Oppenheimer's objections, a few Manhattan Project scientists organized a discussion on the implications of the "Gadget" for civilization shortly before the bomb was tested. Another handful issued the Franck Report, advising against dropping the bomb on cities without a prior demonstration and warning of the dangers of an atomic arms race. Neither initiative had any discernible effect. We ended up in a world where the United States had two incinerated cities on its conscience, and its pursuit of nuclear dominance created a world of nuclear overkill and mutually assured destruction.
This time we have a chance to do better. The science in question now is not physics, but neuroscience, and the question is whether we can control its militarization.
According to Jonathan Moreno's fascinating and frightening new book, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense (Dana Press 2006), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been funding research in the following areas:
- Mind-machine interfaces ("neural prosthetics") that will enable pilots and soldiers to control high-tech weapons by thought alone.
- "Living robots" whose movements could be controlled via brain implants. This technology has already been tested successfully on "roborats" and could lead to animals remotely directed for mine clearance, or even to remotely controlled soldiers.
- "Cognitive feedback helmets" that allow remote monitoring of soldiers' mental state.
- MRI technologies ("brain fingerprinting") for use in interrogation or airport screening for terrorists. Quite apart from questions about their error rate, such technologies would raise the issue of whether involuntary brain scans violate the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
- Pulse weapons or other neurodisruptors that play havoc with enemy soldiers' thought processes.
- "Neuroweapons" that use biological agents to excite the release of neurotoxins. (The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention bans the stockpiling of such weapons for offensive purposes, but not "defensive" research into their mechanisms of action.)
- New drugs that would enable soldiers to go without sleep for days, to excise traumatic memories, to suppress fear, or to repress psychological inhibitions against killing.
Moreno's book is important since there has been little discussion about the ethical implications of such research, and the science is at an early enough stage that it might yet be redirected in response to public discussion.
If left on autopilot, however, it's not hard to see where all of this will lead. During the Cold War, misplaced fears of a missile gap and a mind control gap excited an overbuilding of nuclear weapons and unethical LSD experiments on involuntary human subjects. Similarly, we can anticipate future fears of a "neuroweapons" gap, and these fears will justify a headlong rush into research (quite likely to involve unethical human experiments) that will only stimulate our enemies to follow suit.
The military and scientific leaders chartering neuroweapons research will argue that the United States is a uniquely noble country that can be trusted with such technologies, while other countries (except for a few allies) cannot. They will also argue that these technologies will save lives and that U.S. ingenuity will enable the United States to dominate other countries in a neuroweapons race. When it is too late to turn back the clock, they will profess amazement that other countries caught up so quickly and that an initiative intended to ensure American dominance instead led to a world where everyone is threatened by chemicalized soldiers and roboterrorists straight out of Blade Runner.
Meanwhile, individual scientists will tell themselves that, if they don't do the research, someone else will. Research funding will be sufficiently dominated by military grant makers that it will cause some scientists to choose between accepting military funding or giving up their chosen field of research. And the very real dual-use potential of these new technologies (the same brain implant can create a robosoldier or rehabilitate a Parkinson's disease sufferer) will allow scientists to tell themselves that they are "really" working on health technologies to improve the human lot, and the funding just happens to come from the Pentagon.
Does it have to be this way? In spite of obvious problems controlling a field of research that is much less capital-intensive and susceptible to international verification regimes than nuclear weapons research, it is possible that a sustained international conversation between neuroscientists, ethicists, and security specialists could avert the dystopian future sketched out above.
Unfortunately, however, Moreno (p.163) quotes Michael Moodie, a former director of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, as saying, "The attitudes of those working in the life sciences contrast sharply with the nuclear community. Physicists since the beginning of the nuclear age, including Albert Einstein, understood the dangers of atomic power, and the need to participate actively in managing these risks. The life sciences sectors lag in this regard. Many neglect thinking about the potential risks of their work."
Time to start talking!
Frank and serious talk about the military’s use of mind control is rare outside the social circles of conspiracy theorists.
But at a recent trans-Atlantic discussion at the Dana centers in Washington, D.C., and London, professors of ethics, neuroscience and peace studies linked current research to forecast advancements in neurological warfare, including fear- and sleep-reducing drugs and hormones for facilitating interrogations.
http://www.economist.com/node/1143583
People already worry about genetics. They should worry about brain science too
May 23rd 2002 | from the print edition
IN AN attempt to treat depression, neuroscientists once carried out a simple experiment. Using electrodes, they stimulated the brains of women in ways that caused pleasurable feelings. The subjects came to no harm—indeed their symptoms appeared to evaporate, at least temporarily—but they quickly fell in love with their experimenters.
Such a procedure (and there have been worse in the history of neuroscience) poses far more of a threat to human dignity and autonomy than does cloning. Cloning is the subject of fierce debate, with proposals for wholesale bans. Yet when it comes to neuroscience, no government or treaty stops anything. For decades, admittedly, no neuroscientist has been known to repeat the love experiment. A scientist who used a similar technique to create remote-controlled rats seemed not even to have entertained the possibility. “Humans? Who said anything about humans?” he said, in genuine shock, when questioned. “We work on rats.”
Ignoring a possibility does not, however, make it go away. If asked to guess which group of scientists is most likely to be responsible, one day, for overturning the essential nature of humanity, most people might suggest geneticists. In fact neurotechnology poses a greater threat—and also a more immediate one. Moreover, it is a challenge that is largely ignored by regulators and the public, who seem unduly obsessed by gruesome fantasies of genetic dystopias.
A person's genetic make-up certainly has something important to do with his subsequent behaviour. But genes exert their effects through the brain. If you want to predict and control a person's behaviour, the brain is the place to start. Over the course of the next decade, scientists may be able to predict, by examining a scan of a person's brain, not only whether he will tend to mental sickness or health, but also whether he will tend to depression or violence. Neural implants may within a few years be able to increase intelligence or to speed up reflexes. Drug companies are hunting for molecules to assuage brain-related ills, from paralysis to shyness (see article).
A public debate over the ethical limits to such neuroscience is long overdue. It may be hard to shift public attention away from genetics, which has so clearly shown its sinister side in the past. The spectre of eugenics, which reached its culmination in Nazi Germany, haunts both politicians and public. The fear that the ability to monitor and select for desirable characteristics will lead to the subjugation of the undesirable—or the merely unfashionable—is well-founded.
Not so long ago neuroscientists, too, were guilty of victimising the mentally ill and the imprisoned in the name of science. Their sins are now largely forgotten, thanks in part to the intractable controversy over the moral status of embryos. Anti-abortion lobbyists, who find stem-cell research and cloning repugnant, keep the ethics of genetic technology high on the political agenda. But for all its importance, the quarrel over abortion and embryos distorts public discussion of bioethics; it is a wonder that people in the field can discuss anything else.
In fact, they hardly do. America's National Institutes of Health has a hefty budget for studying the ethical, legal and social implications of genetics, but it earmarks nothing for the specific study of the ethics of neuroscience. The National Institute of Mental Health, one of its component bodies, has seen fit to finance a workshop on the ethical implications of “cyber-medicine”, yet it has not done the same to examine the social impact of drugs for “hyperactivity”, which 7% of American six- to eleven-year-olds now take. The Wellcome Trust, Britain's main source of finance for the study of biomedical ethics, has a programme devoted to the ethics of brain research, but the number of projects is dwarfed by its parallel programme devoted to genetics.
Uncontrollable fears
The worriers have not spent these resources idly. Rather, they have produced the first widespread legislative and diplomatic efforts directed at containing scientific advance. The Council of Europe and the United Nations have declared human reproductive cloning a violation of human rights. The Senate is soon to vote on a bill that would send American scientists to prison for making cloned embryonic stem cells.
Yet neuroscientists have been left largely to their own devices, restrained only by standard codes of medical ethics and experimentation. This relative lack of regulation and oversight has produced a curious result. When it comes to the brain, society now regards the distinction between treatment and enhancement as essentially meaningless. Taking a drug such as Prozac when you are not clinically depressed used to be called cosmetic, or non-essential, and was therefore considered an improper use of medical technology. Now it is regarded as just about as cosmetic, and as non-essential, as birth control or orthodontics. American legislators are weighing the so-called parity issue—the argument that mental treatments deserve the same coverage in health-insurance plans as any other sort of drug. Where drugs to change personality traits were once seen as medicinal fripperies, or enhancements, they are now seen as entitlements.
This flexible attitude towards neurotechnology—use it if it might work, demand it if it does—is likely to extend to all sorts of other technologies that affect health and behaviour, both genetic and otherwise. Rather than resisting their advent, people are likely to begin clamouring for those that make themselves and their children healthier and happier.
This might be bad or it might be good. It is a question that public discussion ought to try to settle, perhaps with the help of a regulatory body such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which oversees embryo research in Britain. History teaches that worrying overmuch about technological change rarely stops it. Those who seek to halt genetics in its tracks may soon learn that lesson anew, as rogue scientists perform experiments in defiance of well-intended bans. But, if society is concerned about the pace and ethics of scientific advance, it should at least form a clearer picture of what is worth worrying about, and why.
English news article (Daily Mail UK)
Chinese news article 中文报导
http://www.jxmjw.cn/kejixinwen_21632.html
据英国媒体近日报道，一项虚拟现实实验爱丽丝仙境使人能够产生一种错觉，变成了芭比大小或者是长大成4米高的巨人。就像爱丽丝喝酒或者吃下奇怪的东西之后身体变大变小一样，实验的被试志愿者们也在实验中变身了。瑞典卡罗林斯卡研究所的科学家们在早期关于身体交换研究的基础上加以调整，进行了这项实验。 这种错觉的产生是给参与者一个虚拟现实耳机，让他们觉得自己好像拥有一个人工假体。 身体影响环境感知 当模特的假腿和真人的腿同时被触摸时，会让大脑误以为，假体才是真实的。这项新的研究。这项实验明，
http://www.naturalnews.com/034229_science_cyborgs.html
http://baike.baidu.com/view/2173657.html?tp=1_11
嗅觉电影
◤嗅觉电影◢ 无论是烧烤大餐上令人垂涎的香味，女性令人陶醉的香水气味，还是战场上火药的硫磺气味，这些气味都具 有强大的力量。因此，科学家提出一种理念——在电视节目和游戏视频中的特殊画 面将伴随人们产生一定的嗅觉联想。 这种理念又被称为“嗅觉电影”，赋予电视画面让人体大脑产生相应的气味反应，我们仍不清楚为什么我们能够感觉到某些分子具有特殊的气味反应，因此并不能预测一种分子所有的气味，也无法制造特殊的分子形成独特的气味。然而，近期最新科技手段暗示着现已突破之前“嗅觉电影”的发展障碍，不久人们将能理解嗅觉感应是如何工作的，并且“嗅觉电影”也将成为现实！ 美国气味研究（DigiScents）公司在上世纪90年代研发出“嗅觉电影”技术，曾在该公司工作的嗅觉科学家艾弗里－吉尔伯特（Avery Gilbert）称，我们将气味分成了三十多种类型，比如：树木、草、排泄物、花卉等。气味研究公司建造了一种原型设备，可以产生许多日常生活中的气味。吉尔伯特称，这些气味不能完全复制，但却可以进行识别。 目前，银幕对于嗅觉电影概念并不陌生，自上世纪50年代就在银幕上出现了嗅觉电影的雏形，此后陆续出现了许多嗅觉电影。前不久，日本索尼公司最新专利产品可使用超声波信号直接刺激大脑部分，从而诱导浏览者或游戏者产生嗅觉反应 1960年小迈克尔·托德投资了这种嗅觉电影装置，这是一种复杂的系统，能让电影卷轴产生瓶装香水的气味，随影片情节传给观众。唯一一部使用嗅觉的电影是1960年的《》。这部影片是为这种装置特别创作的。不难想象，这部影片恶评不断，此后嗅觉电影也不再使用。
