Brent Kearney

Sam Harris recently gave a talk at the TED conference on how the scientific method can be employed to answer moral questions. It was a wonderful and thought provoking lecture! I have no idea how it relates to one of technology, entertainment, or design (TED), but who cares? :) I will return and elaborate some of my thoughts on this subject, but for now I will simply post the video, and encourage you to leave comments at Sam’s Blog.

The question I have for Sam, which I will post on this blog and hope for a reply, is: what makes him think that a super computer will never be able to help us make moral decisions? Does he think that the field of artificial intelligence is a fool’s errand, or does he subscribe to some theoretical basis for it’s limits in this regard? (I know it’s completely unrelated to the point of Sam’s talk, but I just wondered where he’s coming from with this remark!)

A new study from UBC researcher Ana Mingorance-Le Meur, working with Professor Timothy O’Connor in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, has revealed the mechanisms that control neuronal growth in the brain. As we age, the growth of neurons slows and settles into a relatively fixed neural network for our adult lives. This is why the brain has trouble growing around injuries — nerves are naturally repressed from further growth, to prevent over-growth.

This new research, published in Nature’s EMBO Journal, identifies the mechanisms responsible for stimulating neural growth and for repressing neural growth. The repressive mechanism is the protein calpain, and the stimulating mechanism is the protein cortactin.

“The maintenance of neuronal connections is an active process that requires constant repression of the formation of nerve sprouts by the protein calpain to avoid uncontrolled growth,” says Mingorance-Le Meur, who is also a member of the Brain Research Centre at UBC and VCH Research Institute. “But a consequence of this role is that calpain limits neural plasticity and the brain’s ability to repair itself. The next step is to find a way to enhance neural plasticity without interfering with the good connections that are already in place.

Drugs that block calpain and/or enhance cortactin should lead to effective new treatments for brain injury patients.

Thanks to KurzweilAI.net for the link.

I came across some great news today in MIT Review. The article, "Self-assembling Nanofibers Heal Spinal Cords," describes the successful test of an engineered nanofiber liquid that was injected into the spinal columns of mice with severed spines, and allows them to heal and regain the use of their hind legs.

This is great news not only for the millions of paralyzed people around the world, but also for the implications that it has for other applications involving nerve growth. According to the article, the substance promotes the myelination of nerve cells, which could mean that it has applications in degenerative brain diseases and brain injuries.

The density of myelinated cells in the brain has been linked to increased intelligence — what would this new substance do for a healthy brain?

This study marks a major breakthrough in the health sciences, and I look forward to hearing about future progress with this research!

This Times Online story, with the promising title, “Coming soon: superfast internet”, hit the Digg top ten today. It sensationally introduces CERN’s academic grid computing network — officially known as the European Commission project, Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) — as some type of shadow Internet that operates 10,000 times faster than the commercial Internet we all know and love, and will be coming soon to your ISP.

The reality is that private academic networks are nothing new, and have been in use for quite awhile. They are simply high speed networks reserved for academic research. They are not clogged by consumers surfing porn and downloading music and movies. In Canada, we have WestGrid, which is part of the nation-wide CAnet. Large corporations, such as Microsoft, also have “grids” of a sort; they call them virtual private networks.
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It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything, and I was hoping to have this blog redesigned before my next post. Oh well. I’ve been busy with all kinds of things in the past few months.

There has been a lot of cool developments in the news since Christmas, stuff I’d normally mention (this is, after all, a *web log*). So I thought I’d write a quick little summary of some interesting things I’ve recently read.

Underwater Breathing Device Invented

As reported on IsraCast, an Israeli engineer has invented a device that allows people to breath the oxygen stored in water, the way that fish do. It’s still experimental, but in a few years, “the new tankless breathing system will be operational and will be attached to a diver in the form of a vest that will enable him to stay underwater for a period of many hours.”

Science Gains Insights About Morality via Brain Injury and Primate Studies

The Science section of the New York Times has an interesting article on the study of primates and their altruistic behavior, which strongly overlaps our own. This research shows that morality evolved long before philosophy or religion. Also, a very interesting finding, as reported by Reuters, about a study on people with a particular frontal lobe brain injury: they were more likely to make utilitarian ethical choices. That is, when confronted with the choice of doing harm to an individual for the benefit of the larger group v.s. doing no harm to an individual despite consequences for a group of people, they would choose the former. Many people choose the latter. For example, would you kill your own child so that 10 other children could live? The subjects of this study would usually say “yes”. They should have titled the study, “How to fix a Kantian.”

British Research Shows that Alcohol and Tobacco are as Bad as Presently Illegal Drugs

“In the end, the experts agreed with each other — but not with the existing British classification of dangerous substances.” This article in Time details a study in the U.K. of 20 different drugs and their harmful effects on people and society. They came up with a danger ranking of substances that people use recreationally; alcohol placed 6th and tobacco 9th. Marijuana placed 11th, and surprisingly, Ecstasy came in last, at 20th. “The current drug system is ill thought-out and arbitrary,” argues the head scientist, however, his conclusion is rather obtuse: that alcohol and tobacco should be banned as well. I think many people would argue the opposite: that all of the other drugs should be legalized, or at least those below 5th on the list.

Skiing in Banff Still Rocks

Last but not least, I wanted to mention that despite the very warm temperatures lately, the ski conditions at Sunshine this week were superb. They got 37cm of snow in 3 days, and it was like mid-winter conditions up there. It stayed cold enough in the Village. Not too many people were around either, so there was plenty of fresh, fluffy powder to bomb around in. We’ve also had a string of sunny bluebird days, so it’s really quite excellent! :)