Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory

Read the article here.


If you are too lazy to read the whole thing, here are a few interesting quotes and my thoughts on them:


"Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain. Could make you forget a chronic fear, a traumatic loss, even a bad habit.

Researchers in Brooklyn have recently accomplished comparable feats, with a single dose of an experimental drug delivered to areas of the brain critical for holding specific types of memory, like emotional associations, spatial knowledge or motor skills."


"Millions of people might be tempted to erase a severely painful memory, for instance — but what if, in the process, they lost other, personally important memories that were somehow related? Would a treatment that “cleared” the learned habits of addiction only tempt people to experiment more widely?

And perhaps even more important, when scientists find a drug to strengthen memory, will everyone feel compelled to use it?"

"'This possibility of memory editing has enormous possibilities and raises huge ethical issues,' said Dr. Steven E. Hyman, a neurobiologist at Harvard."



"Ethical issues"....understatement! Can you say mind control?! Or the possibility of erasing the wrong memories? Or how about being able to erase certain aspects of one's personality?? That could create the desire for everyone to be a "perfect human." Skynet, here we come!

New Technology Can Be Operated By Thought

Check out this article. This is seriously mind blowing. Scientists are developing technology that can be operated by thought. So far they have severely handicapped people composing and sending emails, and operating the tv with just their minds. They have also had a monkey operate a robotic arm to feed itself using only its thought. Amazing.

Body World

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I've been slacking. I got a summer job and have neglected to update this as often as I would like to. I promise the blog isn't dying. I'm going to pick it up and update more often. Come mid-late August, I will be settled back in school and posting more regularly.

Anyways...

Yesterday I went to the unique exhibit "Body Worlds" at Discovery Place in downtown Charlotte. I meandered between the dead, skinned, human bodies suspended forever in action poses, with my trusty audio guide stuck to the side of my head. I looked in awe at the Ichabod Crane-esque dead man riding the dead horse with his brain in one hand, the horse's in another. I witnessed an array of dead fetuses; one still inside its mother's womb.

In other words, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Not to sound sick or anything....


There were informative plaques and posters hanging from each wall that gave interesting tid-bits. My personal favorite were a few quotes, the speakers of which elude me (sorry), on the topic of death. One was something to the affect of "I have come to realize that death is absolutely normal while life is the exception" and the other was about how if one mourns the dead, then why not mourn the unborn?

These quotes, mixed with the motionless dead bodies tastefully dancing around the room, got me thinking about the subject of death.


As for the actual Body World exhibit, I thought it was pretty well done, aside from the audio guide's weakness towards the end of the exhibit.

I reccomend checking it out, as I usually do.