Posts tagged with ‘Neuroscience’
Anyone who has ever parented a 13-year-old human female knows this already: There is a sarcasm neural system, and its appearance must be associated with early adolescence. So far only the first assertion has been confirmed by neuroscience.
New technologies enable scientists to understand, alter, and enhance our brains. These raise a host of policy-relevant questions about privacy, social and political coercion, access to technology and therapy.
Neuroscientists boast that fMRI technology could allow for mind-reading machines. The technology raises numerous legal issues. But the big question is, will it work?
From an online survey of Nature readers comes data suggesting that a significant number of scientists and engineers use drugs for the non-medical purpose of increasing productivity and brain power.
In a briefing yesterday for Capitol Hill staffers, neuroscientist Martha Farah explained that new technologies that enhance the power of the brain also raise questions about safety, economic fairness, privacy, and personal freedom.
Scientists at the University of California-Berkeley have developed a “visual decoder” which employes a computational algorithm to identify what someone saw just by examining their brain activity. The success of the study represents an advance in the scientific understanding of how the brain processes images, but could also have potential ramifications for mind-reading technology.
In his most recent book,
The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker argues that language is one of many mental organs that shape our participation in a just and free society.
A recent
New York Times Op-Ed on brain response to political keywords has drawn criticism from the neuroscience community for its incomplete findings and its false air of scientific certainty.
The U.S. is pursuing new approaches to nurture science and technology innovation—and so is the UK. This week’s National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship newsletter sets the two plans next to one another. Perhaps each government could learn from the other.
Emerging tools to treat the brain and the nervous system have the potential to transform nearly every aspect of our lives. It’s time for public policy to catch up to the science.
