Ethical Technology

Mixed News from Space

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-18T13:49:+00:00

Amid fretful resignation, we learn of the likely loss of the magnificent Kepler mission...which discovered as many as three thousand planets beyond our solar system. (About 10% of them now confirmed.) Only two of the four gyro systems are still working, not enough for the probe to aim at more than a hundred thousand stars with uncanny accuracy, each day. While this will be a sad loss, the epoch introduced by the Kepler Mission bodes well for you understanding of the universe.

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Woman who lost limbs to flesh-eating bacteria gets bionic hands

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-18T13:36:+00:00

Aimee Copeland, the woman who lost her hands, one leg and her other foot to flesh-eating bacteria after a zip-line accident last year, spoke with WXIA.com and “Today” about her new bionic hands, which are helping her return to a normal life.

Copeland, 24, is in the process of learning to use two state-of-the art prosthetic hands called iLimbs. A fast learner, she has the basics down and says she is looking forward to using them for more advanced tasks like driving, according to WXIA.

Present Shock- explained in 15 minutes

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-17T13:58:+00:00

In this very brief talk for PSFK Douglas Rushkoff, IEET Fellow, talks about his new book Present Shock. The talk gives a good summary explaining what Present Shock is all about.

Rushkoff is a media theorist and the bestselling author of Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. His earlier books include Life Inc, Program or Be Programmed, and Media Virus. He made the PBS Frontline documentaries The Merchants of Cool, The Persuaders, and Digital Nation, and speaks around the world about media, technology, and change.

Here’s the Real Reason Why Virtual Reality Doesn’t Work Yet

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-17T13:07:+00:00

It's another blow for immersive virtual reality. University of California researchers have shown that even people with perfect eyesight navigate the world by relying on a lot more than what they see. Here's why VR won't really work until we go beyond visual cues and fancy treadmills.

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Making Friends With Artificial Intelligence

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-17T12:44:+00:00

Distinguished Scientist and co-director at Microsoft Research, Eric Horvitz, shares the human side of advancing machine intelligence.

An admitted advocate for empowering machines to perform more fluidly with us, he explains how computational systems will complement human cognition in order to anticipate our needs and help us prepare for inevitable surprises of all scale and size In nurturing and supportive ways.

Will the Catholic Bishops Decide How You Die?

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-17T12:15:+00:00

What happens when religious institutions get to manage public funds, absorb secular hospitals, and put theology above medical science and individual patient conscience?

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Hidden Beauty: Diseases become art under a microscope

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-16T23:41:+00:00

Even the most deadly of diseases can possess a strange beauty under the microscope.

This concept first struck Dr Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue as she was looking at a sample of testicular cancer. The patterns and colours reminded her of modern art, and seemed just as suitable for a museum wall as they did for a laboratory.

US scientists clone human stem cells

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-16T20:06:+00:00

Scientists have recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos in a breakthrough that could lead to new treatments for such illnesses as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes.

US scientists said in Wednesday’s edition of the journal Cell that they had harvested stem cells from six embryos created from donated eggs, in a technique using methods like those that produced Dolly the sheep in Britain.

Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the Oregon Health & Science University, who led the research, said that two embryos had been given DNA from skin cells of a child with a genetic in disorder and the others had DNA from fetal skin cells.

Mitalipov said the success came not from a single technical innovation, but from revising a series of steps in the process. He noted it had taken six years to reach the goal after doing it with monkey embryos.

He said that based on monkey work, he believed human embryos made with the technique could not develop into cloned babies, and that he had no interest in trying to do that.

However, opponents said it was unethical to experiment on human embryos and called for a ban.

Scientists have cloned more than a dozen kinds of mammals, starting with Dolly the sheep.

The new work was financed by the university and the Leducq Foundation in Paris. Click Here to read more…

Shame, Stigma and Angelina Jolie’s Breasts

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-16T16:55:+00:00

As reactions continue to race around the internet about Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery – the actual discussions, not the Monday-morning quarterbacking of her decision or the utterly vile “but what about her boobies” reaction from that particular subgroup of men who manage to amaze me by their continued ability to manage basic functions like breathing – I’ve been sent links.

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Open Source Democracy

director@ieet.org (IEET) — 2013-05-16T16:47:+00:00

Dr. J. talks with Douglas Rushkoff, author of Open Source Democracy (download PDF), published by the UK thinktank Demos. Rushkoff is the author of more than a dozen books, including Cyberia and Playing the Future. (This interview was originally broadcast August 21, 2004.)