Enlightenment, Porn, and Worse: Studying Human Cruelty

Re–blog from the OUPblog.

I totally agree: we are in great need to understand human cruelty. The media landscape and the availability of, in lack of a better word, negative news has changed our perception of violence, war, etc. I often speak about our — that being the global — culture as pornographic. It all reminds me of Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others.

In New Procedure, Artificial Arm Listens to Brain

Re–blog from the NY Times.

The possibility to communicate directly with the nervous system fascinates me. A couple of years ago I saw myself becoming a researcher of brain machine interfaces. (This podcast presented by Futures in Biotech is a good introduction to the subject.) Sorry to say that didn’t happen…

Anyhow, what grabbed my attention in this article was rather the strong connection between casualties of war and scientific development. The relationship between the two are so strong that one tend to forget them.