News

Threats to Your Genetic Privacy
Bernadine Healy, U.S. News and World Report, November 16, 2007
Deadlocks over the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act pits business interests against individual rights.
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Is Artificial Life Moving Any Closer?
Greg Bear, Nature, November 2007
Jessica Riskin's new book Genesis Redux gathers together papers from a rousing academic conference held in Stanford in 2003, and Beyond Human offers a critical but enthusiastic view from a physics and biological perspective.
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In the Name of the Father
Jim Ritter, Chicago Sun-Times, November 27, 2007
Art Kessler wanted to be a father, but worried he might pass on a single terrible gene. Two expensive new treatments have dramatically transformed Kessler's life by ensuring that Kessler and his wife could have a baby that would not inherit his disease.
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Delivering Drugs with MEMS
Kevin Bullis, Technology Review, November 30, 2007
An MIT spinoff is finally ready to begin testing smart implants for drug delivery and sensing.
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'Bionic' Nerve To Bring Damaged Limbs And Organs Back To Life
Science Daily, October 18, 2007
University of Manchester researchers have transformed fat tissue stem cells into nerve cells - and now plan to develop an artificial nerve that will bring damaged limbs and organs back to life.
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Genetic Selection for Human Enhancement
Andy Miah, Journal of International Biotechnology Law, 4(6), Oct 17, 2007
This paper examines the UK regulatory framework and the ethical arguments surrounding the use of genetic tests, specifically considering how they would apply to selecting for enhanced health characteristics.
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Death Special: The plan for Eternal Life
Danielle Egan, NewScientist.com, October 13, 2007
Transhumanists plan to bypass death by using technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), genetic engineering and nanotechnology to radically accelerate human evolution, eventually merging people with machines to make us immortal.
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Body Parts, New and Improved
Emily Singer, Technology Review, September/October 2007
Amputee athletes are getting faster and stronger. Will they surpass their able-bodied counterparts?
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Barney Pell: Pathways to artificial intelligence
ZDnet.com, August 29, 2007
Barney Pell, the founder of Powerset search engine and an innovator in Artificial Intelligence technology is interviewed on this podcast.
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Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years
AP, The New York Times, August 20, 2007
Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.
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Military Tests Rocket-powered Bionic Arm
Vidura Panditaratne, Press Etc., August 20, 2007
A rocket-powered bionic arm has been successfully developed and tested by a team of mechanical engineers at Vanderbilt University as part of a $30 million military program to develop advanced prosthetic devices for next generation of super-soldiers.
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Virtual Immortality for Virtual Eternity
Patrick Tucker, The Futurist, July-August, 2007
The National Science Foundation has awarded a half-million-dollar grant to the universities of Central Florida at Orlando and Illinois at Chicago to explore using artificial intelligence, archiving, and computer imaging to create realistic, digital versions of actual people.
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Drugs May Boost Your Brain Power
Pallab Ghosh, BBC News, April 16, 2007
Governmental officials are assessing the impact of a new generation of drugs that claim to boost intelligence.
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Learn Like a Human
Jeff Hawkins, IEEE Spectrum Online, April 2007
Despite decades of research, computer scientists have not figured out how to instill basic perception abilities into robotics.
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Pentagon Preps Mind Fields
Noah Sachtman, Wired.com, March 21, 2007
Since 2000, a Pentagon research branch has spearheaded an approximately $70-million effort on developing computers than can scan the human mind to identify thoughts.
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A Chip in the Eye Boosts Sight
Ned Stafford, Nature, March 21, 2007
The first test of an electrically boosted, light-sensitive electronic chip implanted into the eye shows that it can restore sight to some blind patients.
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Full-mental Nudity
William Saletan, Slate.com, March 20, 2007
With the aid of functional magnetic resonance imaging under controlled conditions, neuroscientists can tell from a brain scan at which of two images the subject looking. They can identify whether the human subject is thinking of a face, an animal, or a scene, and they can even tell which finger the subject is about to move.
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Tapping Brains for Future Crimes
Jennifer Granick, Wired, February 14, 2007
A team of neuroscientists announced a scientific breakthrough in the use of brain scans to discover a person's thinking.
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Call for "Neuroethics" as Brain Science Races Ahead
Tom Heneghan, Reuters, February 14, 2007
Neuroscientists are making such rapid progress in unlocking the brain's secrets that some are urging their colleagues in the field to debate the ethics of their work before it can be misused.
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Doctors Try New Techniques to Regrow Human Tissue
Ron Winslow, Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2007
An experiment to regrow portions of fingers lost in the Iraq War by five soldiers is about to commence at a military base in Texas. The experimental treatment involves a fine powder called "extracellular matrix," harvested from pig bladders.
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Building the Cortex in Silicon
Emily Singer, Technology Review, February 12, 2007
Models of the brain built from specially designed computer chips could reveal cerebral secrets.
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Fueling Brain Research
Emily Singer, Technology Review, February 5, 2007
The past decade has seen a revolution in the understanding of the human brain. But what discoveries will the next generation of technologies bring to neuroscience?
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Bionic Tech Is the Real Deal
Kenji Hall, Business Week, February 5, 2007
The notion of boosting human strength, or replacing lost limbs, with robotic technology has been around for decades. But are the sci-fi ideas now becoming reality?
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I Guess That Makes Me a Transhumanist
Green Technology Forum, January 20, 2007
This article covers an engaging discussion between Nigel Cameron, Director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society and President of the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future, and George Dvorsky, President of the Toronto Transhumanist Association.
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Nanotechnology Will Reshape Humanity
George Dvorsky, Beliefnet, January 17, 2007
George Dvorsky, President of the Toronto Transhumanist Association, argues that nano-medical human enhancement will not alter what it means to be human.
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The Discover Interview: Marvin Minsky
Susan Kruglinski, Discover, January 2007
Legendary A.I. pioneer Marvin Minsky ponders the brain, bashes neuroscience, and lays out a plan for super-human robots in this interview.
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