The technology that measures brainwaves has been around for 100 years. What will it be used for in 100 years?
The heart data of Ross Compton was used to accuse him of burning his house in Ohio in 2016 when he was charged with the crime. Brain data can be used to the same effect.
A person was forced to give recordings of a brain implant after being accused by police officers of assault. It turned out the person had a seizure. I looked at some of the other ways your brain data could be used against you in a previous edition of The Checkup.Teeny-tiny versions of EEG caps have been used to measure electrical activity in brain organoids
(clumps of neurons that are meant to represent a full brain), as my colleague Rhiannon Williams reported a couple of years ago.EEG has also been used to create a “brain-to-brain network”
that allows three people to collaborate on a game of Tetris by thought alone.Some neuroscientists are using EEG to search for signs of consciousness in people who seem completely unresponsive. One team discovered such signs in a woman aged 21 who had suffered a traumatic head injury. The neurophysiologist instructed the rehabilitation staff that after an EEG test showed signs of consciousness they should “search everywhere to find her!” This was done about a week later. With physical and drug therapy, she learned to move her fingers to answer simple questions.
From around the webFood waste is a problem. This Japanese company ferments it to make sustainable animal feed. The food processing plant smells and tastes like a sour smoothie. (BBC Future).
The drug company Gilead Sciences has been accused of “patent-hopping,” having dragged their feet in bringing a safer HIV-treatment to market, while thousands of patients took a harmful treatment.
According to a PrEP4All cofounder, the company should be held responsible for its actions. (STAT)Anti-suicide nets under San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge are already saving lives,
perhaps by acting as a deterrent. (The San Francisco Standard)Genetic screening of newborn babies could help identify treatable diseases early in life. Should every baby be screened in a national program. Nature Medicine
Is ‘race science’, which is nothing more than pseudoscience, on the rise again? The references by the far right to race and IQ give it that impression. The Atlantic)
In our upcoming issue, which celebrates 125 years of MIT Technology Review while looking forward to the next 125. My colleague Antonio Regalado examines how gene-editing tools CRISPR could influence the future evolution of humans. (MIT Technology Review)
