CDC: Many teen moms didn't think it could happen

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ATLANTA (AP) — A new government study suggests a lot of teenage girls are clueless about their chances of getting pregnant.

In a survey of thousands of teenage mothers who had unintended pregnancies, about a third who didn't use birth control said the reason was they didn't believe they could pregnant.

Why they thought that isn't clear. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey didn't ask teens to explain.

But other researchers have talked to teen moms who believed they couldn't get pregnant the first time they had sex, didn't think they could get pregnant at that time of the month or thought they were sterile.

"This report underscores how much misperception, ambivalence and magical thinking put teens at risk for unintended pregnancy," said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Other studies have asked teens about their contraception use and beliefs about pregnancy. But the CDC report released Thursday is the first to focus on teens who didn't want to get pregnant but did.

The researchers interviewed nearly 5,000 teenage girls in 19 states who gave birth after unplanned pregnancies in 2004 through 2008. The survey was done through mailed questionnaires with telephone follow-up.

About half of the girls in the survey said they were not using any birth control when they got pregnant. That's higher than surveys of teens in general, which have found that fewer than 20 percent said they didn't use contraception the last time they had sex.

"I think what surprised us was the extent to which they were not using contraception," said Lorrie Gavin, a CDC senior scientist who co-authored the report.

Some of the teen moms were asked what kind of birth control they used: Nearly 20 percent said they used the pill or a birth control patch. Another 24 percent said they used condoms.

CDC officials said they do not believe that the pill, condoms and other forms of birth control were faulty. Instead, they think the teens failed to use it correctly or consistently.

Only 13 percent of those not using contraception said they didn't because they had trouble getting it.

Another finding: Nearly a quarter of the teen moms who did not use contraception said they didn't because their partner did not want them to. That suggests that sex education must include not only information about anatomy and birth control, but also about how to deal with situations in which a girl feels pressured to do something she doesn't want to, Albert said.

The findings are sobering, he added. But it's important to remember that the overall teen birth rate has been falling for some time, and recently hit its lowest mark in about 70 years.

Albert said it would be a mistake to come away from the report saying, "They can't figure this out?" ''Most of them are figuring it out," he said.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Full ban on driver calls could be tough to enforce

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FILE - In a Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011 file photo, Dan Johnson uses a hands-free device to talk on a cellphone while driving, in San Diego. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday, Dec. 13, that texting, emailing or chatting while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States. But if lawmakers follow the advice of the federal board, police officers could be faced with decoding whether someone is using their cell phone or simply singing along to the radio, pleading with backseat children to stop fighting or reciting an important sales pitch. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File) FILE - In a Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011 file photo, Dan Johnson uses a hands-free device to talk on a cellphone while driving, in San Diego. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday, Dec. 13, that texting, emailing or chatting while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States. But if lawmakers follow the advice of the federal board, police officers could be faced with decoding whether someone is using their cell phone or simply singing along to the radio, pleading with backseat children to stop fighting or reciting an important sales pitch. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File) FILE - In a Tuesday, June 24, 2008 file photo, a sign warning drivers that hands-free technology will be required starting July 1, displays its message over a highway in San Francisco. While most states have banned texting among drivers and a number have also prohibited hand-held phones, the Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011 recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board is to outlaw all behind-the-wheel cell phone use, wireless or not. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) A driver uses a cellphone while driving Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, in Los Angeles. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting on a cellphone while driving is just too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States and is urging all states to impose total bans except for emergencies. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) A motorist uses a cellphone while holding the steering wheel and a cigarette in her other hand while passing through an intersection Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, in Houston. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting on a cellphone while driving is just too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States and is urging all states to impose total bans except for emergencies. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) Dan Johnson uses a hands-free device to talk on a cellphone while driving Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, in San Diego. Johnson, an operations manager, uses his cellphone while driving frequently for business. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)eval("var currentItemd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 1;");eval("var nextd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 0;");eval("var previousd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 0;"); WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A driver in the next lane is moving his lips. Is he on a hands-free cellphone? Talking to someone in the car? To himself? Singing along to the radio?

If lawmakers follow the advice of a federal board, police officers will have to start figuring that out — somehow.

The National Transportation Safety Board said this week that drivers should not only be barred from using hand-held cellphones, as they are in several states, but also from using hands-free devices. No more "Sorry, I'm stuck in traffic" calls, or virtually any other cellphone chatter behind the wheel.

Though no state has yet implemented such restrictive rules, the NTSB's recommendations carry weight that could place such language into future laws, or motivate the federal government to cut funding to states that don't follow suit.

Many of the men and women patrolling the nation's streets and highways wonder how they would sort the criminally chatty from the legally chatty.

"It would be almost impossible to determine if someone was talking on a phone or exercising their vocal cords," said Capt. Donald Melanson of the West Hartford, Conn., police department, which took part in a national pilot program aimed at cracking down on drivers' cellphone use. "That would be much more difficult to enforce, almost to the point where it would be impossible."

Officer Tom Nichols of the Port St. Lucie, Fla., police said a law written like the NTSB suggests would be difficult to enforce because so many variables would be at play.

"If you identify someone who has a hands-free set hooked up to their ear that doesn't mean they are talking on the phone," he said. "They could be talking to a passenger. They could be talking to a child in the back. They could be singing."

Police could end up turning to technology for help. They might even end up with the cellphone equivalent of a radar speed gun.

Fred Mannering, a Purdue University civil engineering professor who is associate director of the Center for Road Safety, said that since all cellphones emit signals, a simple Bluetooth detection device could spot them.

Computers are already common in patrol cars, and Mannering said a relatively cheap add-on could fit them to track cellphone signals.

"It would be really easy for police to have a computer on board and pick up those signals," Mannering said, "but it is sort of Big Brother."

The NTSB's proposal, announced Tuesday as a unanimous recommendation of its five-member board, urges all states to impose total bans except for emergencies. It cited deadly crashes caused by distracted drivers across the country, and noted that many studies have shown that hands-free cellphones are often as unsafe as hand-held devices.

The recommendation poses an astounding number of questions. What about chauffeurs and traveling salesmen who spend their entire day on the road? And roadside Amber Alert and Silver Alert notifications that implore drivers to call in if they spot a specific vehicle? What comes of phone lines dedicated to those "How's My Driving?" signs on trucks? How will you let someone know you're stuck in traffic?

Joe Schwieterman, a DePaul University professor who studies people's use of technology while traveling, said he can't envision a law so restrictive ever hitting the books because phone use has become commonplace for drivers. He called such an approach "draconian" and said that if such a law were passed, the public would despise it as "imperial overreach," then ignore it.

"It's a little like speeding laws where it will become just culturally acceptable to violate," he said. He said a no-call law would be followed only if violations carried stiff penalties like those for drunken driving.

Lewis Katz, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, said a nationwide ban on using cellphones while driving would be wildly unpopular, and likely the target of legal challenges. But he believed such a law, and the methods police might use to enforce it, ultimately would be deemed as constitutional as seatbelt enforcement.

"I'm sure that it would be challenged on all sorts of constitutional grounds, including free speech," he said in a phone call from his car. "But it seems to me that it doesn't in any way infringe on any constitutional rights. It's a simple safety issue."

Whether the NTSB's recommendations will motivate decision-makers remains to be seen, but they have certainly caught their attention.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has made combating distracted driving the signature issue of his tenure, stopped short of an endorsement. His department is separate from the NTSB.

"My focus is going to be on preaching to people: Take personal responsibility. Put your cellphone and your texting device in the glove compartment when you get behind the wheel of a car," LaHood told reporters at a news conference in Chicago. "You can't drive safely when you have your hand on a cellphone and are trying to drive a 4,000- 5,000 pound vehicle."

Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon, a Republican, said he was wary. His state is among those that have resisted passing laws restricting drivers' cellphone use.

Cannon said future technological advances may prove more effective than legislation at addressing driver distraction issues. As an example, he cited his new iPhone, which can make phone calls and send text messages via voice command.

"In these attempts to try and prevent every bad thing from happening," he said, "it's all too easy to overly restrict personal freedoms and individual rights and responsibilities."

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, the top law enforcement official in Palm Beach County, Fla., said that if lawmakers take the NTSB's suggestions to heart, they should address all manner of distracted driving.

"I see women putting makeup on. I see a guy with an electric shaver. I see one woman with a newspaper. I see a guy with a dog in his hands. All of those are worse than texting," he said.

Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the Illinois State Police, said training would be key to enforcing any ban. Officers are already looking for unbuckled seat belts and swerving drivers; they'd have to add to their mental checklists.

"It's something that is not insurmountable," Bond said. "How you're going to spot it, or how you're going to look for it — you have to acclimate the troops and acclimate the operations as to how to do this."

Chief Walter McNeil of Quincy, Fla., president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said enforcement of a total ban would be difficult, but that distracted driving needs to be addressed.

"We certainly need to deal with the overall problem with distracted drivers, and getting some level of uniformity in how we enforce that would be helpful," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

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Why Leather Football Helmets Could Provide a Better Defense Against Concussion

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If we want to cut down on football concussions, should we bring back the leather helmet? Not quite, says a new study in the Journal of Neurosurgery, though the noggin-protectors of yore do at least as good of a job as modern helmets at staving off concussions.

Modern helmets do a much better job of preventing deadly skull fractures. But on the type of lower-impact hits to the head you typically see in college and high school games — the constant subconcussive blows that can also cause brain damage — leatherheads do a comparable, and sometimes better, job of reducing concussion risks than today's helmets, according to Cleveland Clinic researchers.

“The fact that leather helmets were even in the neighborhood with modern helmets was surprising,” says Adam Bartsch, the study's lead researcher and director of the Spine Research Laboratory at the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Spine Health.

To reach this conclusion, Bartsch says his team basically “smashed some helmets together.” In the experiments, 11 widely-used high school football helmets and two vintage turn-of-the-century models were placed on the heads of crash-test dummies. The researchers simulated head impacts at gravity-force (Gs) levels of 75 Gs or less, which are typically encountered in high school and college games. They simulated impacts at different angles – a head-on collision, a hit to the side of the head, a hit to the back of the head – and measured their effects on skull rotation, neck force, neck torque and other head movements.

MORE: Study Ranks 10 Football Helmets for Concussion Safety

This data was input into a software program that estimates risk of brain contusions, acute subdural hematoma (bleeding on the surface of the brain), and diffuse axonal injury (DAI), which causes the shearing of nerve cells within the brain. “Overall,” the study concludes, leather helmets and modern helmets provide a “similar protectiveness profile” during subconcussive hits. In fact, under one testing scenario, a leather helmet provided a lower level of DAI risk than any of the modern helmets.

How could a leatherhead possibly be more protective? One reason, Bartsch says, probably has to with the stiffness of today's helmets. While these helmets are effective shields against catastrophic skull fractures, they don't do as good a job absorbing energy from a lower impact hit. These hits might not break the skull, but they can cause the brain to shift a little bit within the skull. And such jiggling causes concussions.

Bartsch offers a useful analogy: Think about hitting your thumb with a hammer. If you put, say, a piece of a padded gym mat on your thumb, that padding will absorb the impact from the hammer, and dull the pain. Now, imagine putting a two-by-four on top of your thumb. Whack the hammer against that stiffer surface; your thumb will probably hurt more than the gym mat.  Think of the leatherhead as the gym mat, and a plastic helmet as the two-by-four. The hammer is like a football hit, while the thumb is like your head.

MORE: Study: Boys, Girls Suffer Different Concussion Symptoms

Still, we won't be returning to the leather helmet days; no one wants fatalities on the football field. Yet it's worth considering whether today's football helmets might benefit from a slightly softer outer shell.

For inspiration, Bartsch suggests that the sporting-goods industry look at car companies.  “Unlike cars, in which seat belts, airbags and crumple zones make the choice between a 1920s Model T and the modern mini-van a no-brainer," said Bartsch in a release that accompanied the study, "these results tell us that modern helmets have ample room to improve safety against many typical in-game hits."

Sean Gregory is a staff writer at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @seanmgregory. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Contagion: Could it really happen?

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 23:39 GMT By Caroline Parkinson Health editor, BBC News website The film shows how panic and chaos spread Hollywood blockbusters are not normally known for their scientific accuracy. So how realistic is the new disaster movie Contagion, which depicts the spread of a killer virus across the world?

'Too late to contain swine flu', 'Sars virus 'mutating rapidly', 'Bird flu fear as mutant strain hits China and Vietnam'.

These are not lines from the film. They are all real headlines from the past decade.

They all relate to illnesses which it was feared could spread around the globe and kill millions.

But, while each has claimed lives, none has become the feared "modern plague".

So how realistic is the depiction of the spread of the fatal infectious disease in Contagion?

According to a one scientist who has already seen the film, the answer is very.

Prof John Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who looks at how best to tackle epidemics of disease, said: "It's obviously a worst-case scenario."

He added: "We can't rule it out as a possibility. And the science in the film was very good."

Likely candidates?

Contagion begins with Gwyneth Paltrow on a business trip in Hong Kong. It then shows how a virus she contracts spreads from person to person as she travels back home to the US and the chain of transmission begins.

Kate Winslet plays one of the scientists who tracks the virus

Prof Edmunds said it was possible to "quibble" about some of the scientific detail and the speed at which some things, like the development of a vaccine, happen in the film, which also stars Matt Damon, Jude Law and Kate Winslet.

But he added a great deal, such as the epidemiology - the investigation of the outbreak - and the involvement of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) was accurate.

"For example the 1918 flu pandemic was at least as severe as what's represented in Contagion.

"And in 2003 we had Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) - that was close to becoming a Contagion-like scenario.

"There were just two things that stopped it. People with Sars weren't infectious until they were showing symptoms, and by then they were in hospital. Also the hospitalisation and isolation provision was good."

But he said if those two things hadn't happened and the virus had spread more quickly and to places which didn't have the same healthcare systems, it would have been a different story.

And he said: "Aids is another example of a virus that has spread around the world. The only difference there is the mode of transmission."

When people think about viruses spreading around the world though, they tend to think of flu.

Bird flu - H5N1 - first appeared in 2003. Experts had been predicting that the world was due a major flu pandemic that would kill millions - and bird flu was seen as a likely candidate.

In the event, it has killed about 330 people since then, according to official statistics. But these were overwhelmingly people who farmed birds, or who had them in their own home.

At the moment it is self-defeating. It cannot spread easily between people because it kills its hosts quickly, thereby preventing its spread.

"Bird flu is extremely lethal," says Prof Edmunds. "About half the people with it have died. What has stopped it is it's not transmissible between humans, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility that it could become transmissible."

Where and when?

And then there was swine flu.

Continue reading the main story Sars - 2002-04 - originated in China - 10% of the 8,100 infected died.Bird flu - 2003 onwards. H5N1 has infected 565 people globally, more than half of whom died. Reports in August suggested a mutated strain had been seen.Swine flu - emerged in Mexico in 2009. H1N1 affected millions, and almost 16,000 died.That first emerged in Mexico in 2009. It spread from country to country extremely quickly, because it was a new form of flu - H1N1 - that people did not have any resistance to.

By the end of February 2010, the pandemic had caused 15,921 deaths worldwide. However, by summer last year levels of the virus were falling and the World Health Organization (WHO) was able to declare the pandemic over.

But H1N1 was the prevalent strain of flu in the UK last winter, and it will be present again this year. It is different to most flus, in that it kills previously healthy adults. But for most, it is no worse than a normal flu.

It therefore has the capacity to spread like Contagion's virus, but isn't as likely to be fatal.

Gwyneth Paltrow is the first person affected

So, if Contagion depicts a possible, if worst-case, scenario, what's the most likely real-life candidate?

Well the scientists say it could be any of the things they know about, if they change or mutate in some way.

Prof Mike Catchpole, of the Health Protection Agency, said: "The one we watch particularly is flu. You only need to look back to the 1918 pandemic to see it can cause a huge number of cases - and a huge number of deaths.

"And we just don't know when or where the next pandemic flu will come along."

Or, perhaps more likely, the next global disease could be something that no-one has thought of yet.

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TB smoking toll 'could reach 40m'

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4 October 2011 Last updated at 23:00 GMT By Helen Briggs Health editor, BBC News website Smoking is a risk factor for TB Forty million smokers could die from TB by 2050, research suggests.

Smokers are about twice as likely to get the lung infection and die from it, compared with non-smokers.

Many of the new TB cases will be in Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asian regions, according to projections published in the BMJ.

A lung charity said global efforts to fight TB are being undermined by the tobacco industry's "aggressive promotion" of smoking in some places.

Dr John Moore-Gillon is a TB specialist and honorary medical advisor for the British Lung Foundation.

He said: "It is nearly 20 years since the World Health Organization declared tuberculosis to be a 'global health emergency'.

"Since that time rates have risen rather than fallen, and smoking increases the risk of getting - and dying from - TB.

"Concerted international efforts are now under way to try and turn the tide of TB, but this important research shows that all these efforts may be undermined by the tobacco industry's continuing aggressive promotion of smoking in many parts of the world."

Mathematical model

Nearly a fifth of people in the world are smokers; many in countries with high rates of TB where multi-national tobacco companies have expanded their markets.

Smoking is a known risk factor for TB, and may reduce the ability of the lungs to fight off infection.

X-ray of the chest of a patient with TB

Dr Sanjay Basu and colleagues from the University of California set out to predict the impact of smoking on future TB rates.

According to their mathematical model, worldwide smoking could lead to 40 million extra deaths from TB from 2010 to 2050.

If current smoking trends continue, the number of new cases of TB will rise by 18 million.

Smoking alone could undermine the worldwide goal of reducing TB mortality by half between 1990 and 2015, they say.

Writing in the BMJ, the team concludes: "Tobacco smoking could substantially increase tuberculosis cases and deaths worldwide in coming years, undermining progress towards tuberculosis mortality targets.

"Aggressive tobacco control could avert millions of deaths from tuberculosis."

Contagious

Tuberculosis is a contagious infection that mainly affects the lungs, but can spread to other parts of the body.

If not treated, it can damage the lungs to such an extent that a person cannot breathe properly.

Sometimes, people do not experience any symptoms for many months or even years after being infected.

TB can treated with antibiotics but is sometimes fatal.

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Could A Lack Of Empathy Explain Cruelty?

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Can neuroscience and psychology explain cruelty? In his new book, The Science of Evil, Cambridge University professor Simon Baron-Cohen explains the empathy spectrum we all lie on and that an erosion of empathy can explain why some commit cruel acts.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, host: Up next, the science of evil. How are some people capable of causing extreme harm to others? Are they hardwired to do it, or can their behavior be tracked back to a troubled upbringing? My next guest has written a book that asks what makes someone evil, and he says that empathy, empathy might have something to do with it. That's the ability to recognize and respond to someone else's feeling.

Could lowered empathy cause cruelty? Simon Baron-Cohen is author of "The Science of Evil." He's a professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. and director of the university's Autism Research Center there. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Dr. Baron-Cohen.

SIMON BARON-COHEN: Thank you very much.

FLATOW: Can you give us a definition of what empathy is or what empathy is not?

BARON-COHEN: Well, you just gave a very good definition. I think it has two parts. The first part is recognition of somebody else's state of mind. So can you identify what someone else is thinking and feeling? But the second part is the response element. Do you have an appropriate emotional response to somebody else's thoughts and feelings?

I think just having one part without the other wouldn't really count as empathy. If you could recognize that someone was in pain, for example, but you didn't do anything about it, that wouldn't really be empathy.

FLATOW: Interesting. And how is that connected to the title of your book, "The Science of Evil"?

BARON-COHEN: So when we try to explain why people are capable of cruelty, often we use this term evil as if it's an explanation. You know, we say he did something bad because he's evil. But actually when you examine the word, it's not really an explanation at all.

I mean, within a theological context or framework, it might perhaps suggest that there's some kind of demonic possession, but for a scientist, it doesn't really explain why people are capable of cruelty.

So I've been arguing in this book that we should instead use the term empathy and the erosion of empathy to explain how people are capable of hurting other people.

FLATOW: And because it's an emotion, there must be some location for it in our brains, I would imagine.

BARON-COHEN: Yeah, I mean empathy is not just an emotion, but you're right. It does involve, as we said, that response element, which is having an emotional response to somebody else's state of mind. But it's also got this cognitive element, that is to say the recognition element. And as you say, it's ultimately a function of the brain.

And part of the reason for writing this book is that the neuroscience has been making great strides over the last decade, and I wanted to bring together all the work that's showing where empathy works in the brain.

We've got MRI these days, magnetic resonance imaging, and you can get people to lie in the scanner whilst they're looking at, for example, film clips of other people's facial expressions or their situation, often in painful situations, and you can see which parts of the brain are activated by seeing someone else's state of mind.

FLATOW: And can you teach people who are not empathetic to recognize these emotions?

BARON-COHEN: You can do that. So empathy isn't a fixed quantity, although there are individual differences in empathy. It's not as if your level of empathy necessarily remains static all your life. You can learn it, it can be taught, and this is often the basis of social skills teaching, for example, but also many therapies have empathy as the target.

FLATOW: Our number, 1-800-989-8255. You can tweet us, @scifri, @-S-C-I-F-R-I, go to our Facebook page. Talking with Simon Baron-Cohen. Dr. Baron-Cohen is author of "The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty." We'll take a short break. Our number again, 1-800-989-8255. Tweet @scifri, @-S-C-I-F-R-I. We'll be right back after this break.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow talking with Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, author of "The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty." Our number, 1-800-989-8255. Does the lack of empathy have a direct line to cruelty?

BARON-COHEN: So you - that's the main claim I'm making in my book, but it turns out that a low level of empathy doesn't necessarily lead to cruelty. So the way I see it is it's not a symmetric relationship, that when people do cruel things, they must have had a reduction in their empathy. But if you have low empathy, it doesn't necessarily lead to cruelty.

The reason we know that is from people with autism. They too struggle with empathy, but they don't necessarily go on to hurt other people. Instead, they tend to avoid other people because they find relationships confusing.

FLATOW: So do we all, then, somewhere, lie on some scale of empathy, a spectrum of empathy?

BARON-COHEN: Yeah, that's the sort of new view. I guess in the old days we would say that empathy was just like a unitary thing, that you either have it or you don't, whereas today we think of it more as a dimension, and you can measure it to see those individual differences.

Most of us are average in empathy, but there are some people who are very high and obviously some people very low, and part of what my book does it explores the reasons why people might end up very low in empathy.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255 is our number. Let's see if we can go to the phones now. Let's go to Chad in Auburn, New York. Hi, Chad.

CHAD: How are you this afternoon?

FLATOW: Hi there.

CHAD: I think your guest is right on with respect to his conclusions. I've been a town judge here for 16 years, and - but I do believe that there's a spectrum of people who lack empathy that can't be fixed. There's an awful lot of young people that maybe lack empathy for their - the people that they're hurting, that they're having a negative impact on.

But I think that there are a number of people who have come before me that really define evil because they have absolutely zero consideration for the impact of their behavior on others. Even after you explain and describe that impact, they don't - they simply can't incorporate.

BARON-COHEN: Yeah, so I think you're making two points, because first point is that there are some people who really can't appreciate the impact of their own behavior on others, and I agree with you. I mean, I've met people like that.

But I wouldn't necessarily call those people evil. I see that as a neurological disability, no different to other kinds of disabilities. In this case, the brain is not allowing them the capacity of empathy.

I think your other point was that those people can't be helped, that their empathy is fixed once and forever at a very low level. And I guess I'm taking a more optimistic view that sometimes it looks like people are not capable of development, but sometimes you have to take a very long-term view, and the mind may change very slowly, but development is possible.

FLATOW: Thanks for calling, Chad. 1-800-989-8255 is our number. So at what point does empathy turn to being evil? How would you define it then?

BARON-COHEN: Well, I mean, I've been trying to shift the debate away from using the term evil towards simply low empathy. You know, your last caller was, I guess, raising the important context of the judicial system, because people with low empathy can sometimes hurt others and break the law. And you know, it's very important that we realize that low empathy can lead an individual into the criminal justice system.

FLATOW: Is there somewhere something different in the brain circuitry between a normal person's brain and a low empathy?

BARON-COHEN: Yeah, and that's really part of the advance of MRI, is that you can take a group of people with, say, a personality disorder - many of the personality disorders involve low empathy - you can put them into the scanner, and you can look for differences in the empathy circuit.

So empathy isn't really located in one region. By my count, there are at least 10 different parts of the brain that are activated when you're trying to empathize with another person. And in people with, say, antisocial personality disorder, who have low empathy, you see reduced activity in many parts of that empathy circuit.

You also see that the size of the regions in the empathy circuit may not have developed to the normal size.

FLATOW: Here's a question, a tweet coming in from CSpanDemocrat(ph) who wants to know: Are not sociopaths without empathy?

BARON-COHEN: Well, yeah, we were just talking about psychopaths, and they are part of what's called antisocial personality disorder, also called sociopaths, and they do lack empathy. They tend to lack what's called the affective part of empathy. That's to say that although they can identify what someone might be thinking or feeling, they don't really care about other people's thoughts and feelings.

FLATOW: What about a gender difference? Is there a difference between men and women in empathy?

BARON-COHEN: Well, certainly when it comes to the extremes, people who have very low empathy, we tend to see far more males than females. So psychopaths, for example, tend to be male. But even if you look in the general population, there is a small but statistically significant sex difference, gender difference in empathy that females tend to score higher on most tests of empathy.

FLATOW: You know, psychiatry today is so much - so involved with medications and throwing pills and things at psychiatric symptoms. I'm sure there must be somebody looking for a pill for low empathy somewhere.

BARON-COHEN: Well, you're right, and research has started along that road, and there's a particular interest in a hormone called oxytocin, which gets quite a lot of press these days. So oxytocin, if you take an extra dose of it, seems to improve people's ability to read other people's faces.

FLATOW: Hmm. You - is that right? And that is one of the problems, is not being able to read and understand the pain or whatever is on someone else's face?

BARON-COHEN: Yes, for some people, you know, their difficulties are about interpreting other people's facial expressions of emotion, and that's certainly true in the group with autism or Asberger's syndrome, that reading other people's faces or their tone of voice, their intentions, can be quite difficult.

But going back to the question of drugs, I'm not suggesting that, you know, the way to improve empathy is necessarily through a medication route, because certainly there are plenty of psychological approaches, too, that are being tried.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255. Let's go to Paula in Toledo. Hi, Paula.

PAULA: Hi, how are you doing? While I've been on hold, I've been getting this sort of like weird flashback to "Clockwork Orange" as I'm listening to this discussion. It seems so dispassionate, and the solutions kind of put that in my mind.

The reason I called was because I was curious to know if the author had had any familiar with the MacArthur Genius Award recipient who had done a study on her kindergarten class and the basic sort of cruelty that she saw forming in her kindergarten class with children who socially up and children who were socially down.

The kids in the up category wouldn't let the social outcasts play with them, and they actually became social outcasts by virtue of the exclusion of the in-crowd. And, you know, this is sort of a thing that gets just more and more intense as children go through school and really gets sophisticated at the high school level.

I was wondering if any of his research had looked at this rather basic, not really pathological, or at least we don't really think of it as pathological cruelty, that people tend to engage in.

BARON-COHEN: Yeah, no, this is - you've made two really important points. The first is that when we're thinking about people who struggle with empathy, we shouldn't lose our own compassion. And you know, if the discussion was sounding scientific and detached, maybe that's part of the focus of this show, but actually you're absolutely right that ultimately there are people involved here who are struggling.

And, you know, I think your second point is that we don't have to go to the extremes of, for example, people with psychopathic personality disorder, to see examples of how we can hurt each other, that we see this in everyday society. You're describing people who really turn against another group because they're not part of their in-group.

And this is a well-studied area within social psychology, that you can reduce your empathy towards another group of people just because they're not part of your group. So social factors are very important.

FLATOW: Now, we've gotten a lot of tweets about that. Maybe you can expand on that. I'll just go through a couple of the ideas in the tweets. What about social media, decreasing empathy because of the ideas that people encounter on them every day? Can environmental factors reduce empathy, or is it innate?

BARON-COHEN: Sure, so this is really raising the big question about where our empathy comes from and what determines how much empathy you end up with. And I think there is some evidence for genetic factors, and that comes from looking at twins, because identical twins tend to have more similar levels of empathy than non-identical twins.

But social factors are certainly very important, and some of the best evidence for that comes from people who end up with borderline personality disorder, people who have very - a lot of difficulty regulating their relationships and can show extreme anger towards others. But many of those people have suffered extreme abuse or neglect in their childhood. So, early experience contributes to how much empathy you end up with. It doesn't directly address the issue about social media, but it may well be - I don't know of any studies in that - it may well be that other social factors can influence our level of empathy.

FLATOW: Can you notice it in yourself that you lack empathy and try to get some help, or does somebody else have to help you?

BARON-COHEN: Well, this is a tricky one because empathy often goes hand-in-hand with self-awareness, that people who are good at empathy are not only good at picking up on other people's feelings, but they - they're also good at reflecting on their own behavior. And so, someone who's low in empathy may be the last person to realize that. And it may mean that other people around them have to give them a little bit of feedback, or it may be that they seek help anyway and discover that they have empathy difficulties.

FLATOW: Well, Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, thank you very much for taking time to be with us. Very enlightening.

BARON-COHEN: Thank you for having me on the show.

FLATOW: You're welcome. Dr. Baron-Cohen is author of "The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty."

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Health Management

Education Information

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Physios could write prescriptions

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25 September 2011 Last updated at 23:03 GMT Physiotherapists could be able to prescribe medication for strokes, asthma and pain relief Physiotherapists could soon have the right to prescribe medicines to patients, in the same way that nurses and pharmacists are allowed to.

At present, physiotherapists can only prescribe medication when working with the written authority of a doctor.

A Department of Health consultation exercise envisages them being able to prescribe medication for pain relief and conditions such as asthma.

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy says this will improve patient care.

In 2002, specially trained nurses were given the right to write prescriptions for a wide range of drugs, including antibiotics for infections.

In 2004, the then Health Secretary John Reid started the push to give prescribing rights to optometrists, chiropodists, physiotherapists and radiographers.

Under the current proposals, physiotherapists would be able to prescribe a range of medication for respiratory diseases such as asthma, neurological conditions such as the effects of a stroke, and for pain relief.

'Best placed'

Ann Green, chairwoman of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said the consultation was a major step towards improving patient care by physiotherapists.

Continue reading the main story

This is about making things better for patients, so they can get the appropriate medicines”

End Quote Pip White Chartered Society of Physiotherapy "The other big benefit is that the new rights will relieve a currently unnecessary burden on doctors who are simply asked to write a prescription for medication recommended by the physiotherapist.

"Though the proposed change will mean greater responsibilities and additional training to become independent prescribers, physiotherapists are well placed to take this on as they have already been 'supplementary prescribers' since 2001."

Pip White, medicines and prescribing professional advisor at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said acquiring the right to prescribe medication was not about the profession.

"This is about making things better for patients, so they can get the appropriate medicines from the health professional who is best placed to help them."

"It is important to bring us into line with professions like nurses and pharmacists."

She added that not all physios would get the right to prescribe medication.

"Physiotherapists would have to undergo a training course and be approved before being allowed to be an independent prescriber.

"This is really only for experienced physios who are specialists."

At present there are 35,000 registered physiotherapists with The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, but only 200 of them are "supplementary providers".

Mr White said this number would grow if the proposals were given the green light.

A full government review will take place after the consultation. If enough support for the plans is shown then amendments to the Medicines Act 1968 and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 would be required.

A spokesman from the British Medical Association it was were open to the proposals and added: "Doctors undergo years of training to equip them with the skills to be able to prescribe medicines for all conditions.

"However, there is a role for other healthcare professionals to prescribe from a limited range of medicines for specific conditions.

"Nurses and pharmacists have been able to do this since 2009. Any extension of prescribing rights to other healthcare professionals should be accompanied by rigorous training as patient safety must be paramount.

"It will also be important for physiotherapists to ensure they tell GPs about their prescribing decisions so a comprehensive patient record can be maintained in order to avoid adverse events occurring."

View the original article here

Peliculas Online

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Physios could write prescriptions

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
25 September 2011 Last updated at 23:03 GMT Physiotherapists could be able to prescribe medication for strokes, asthma and pain relief Physiotherapists could soon have the right to prescribe medicines to patients, in the same way that nurses and pharmacists are allowed to.

At present, physiotherapists can only prescribe medication when working with the written authority of a doctor.

A Department of Health consultation exercise envisages them being able to prescribe medication for pain relief and conditions such as asthma.

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy says this will improve patient care.

In 2002, specially trained nurses were given the right to write prescriptions for a wide range of drugs, including antibiotics for infections.

In 2004, the then Health Secretary John Reid started the push to give prescribing rights to optometrists, chiropodists, physiotherapists and radiographers.

Under the current proposals, physiotherapists would be able to prescribe a range of medication for respiratory diseases such as asthma, neurological conditions such as the effects of a stroke, and for pain relief.

'Best placed'

Ann Green, chairwoman of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said the consultation was a major step towards improving patient care by physiotherapists.

Continue reading the main story

This is about making things better for patients, so they can get the appropriate medicines”

End Quote Pip White Chartered Society of Physiotherapy "The other big benefit is that the new rights will relieve a currently unnecessary burden on doctors who are simply asked to write a prescription for medication recommended by the physiotherapist.

"Though the proposed change will mean greater responsibilities and additional training to become independent prescribers, physiotherapists are well placed to take this on as they have already been 'supplementary prescribers' since 2001."

Pip White, medicines and prescribing professional advisor at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said acquiring the right to prescribe medication was not about the profession.

"This is about making things better for patients, so they can get the appropriate medicines from the health professional who is best placed to help them."

"It is important to bring us into line with professions like nurses and pharmacists."

She added that not all physios would get the right to prescribe medication.

"Physiotherapists would have to undergo a training course and be approved before being allowed to be an independent prescriber.

"This is really only for experienced physios who are specialists."

At present there are 35,000 registered physiotherapists with The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, but only 200 of them are "supplementary providers".

Mr White said this number would grow if the proposals were given the green light.

A full government review will take place after the consultation. If enough support for the plans is shown then amendments to the Medicines Act 1968 and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 would be required.

A spokesman from the British Medical Association it was were open to the proposals and added: "Doctors undergo years of training to equip them with the skills to be able to prescribe medicines for all conditions.

"However, there is a role for other healthcare professionals to prescribe from a limited range of medicines for specific conditions.

"Nurses and pharmacists have been able to do this since 2009. Any extension of prescribing rights to other healthcare professionals should be accompanied by rigorous training as patient safety must be paramount.

"It will also be important for physiotherapists to ensure they tell GPs about their prescribing decisions so a comprehensive patient record can be maintained in order to avoid adverse events occurring."

View the original article here

Peliculas Online

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Garden therapy could aid dementia

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AppId is over the quota
20 September 2011 Last updated at 06:14 GMT By Huw Williams BBC Scotland reporter Donald Stewart picks beans at the Potager Garden Dementia patients across the country may be spending 24 hours a day locked in hospital wards - an unacceptable regime even for convicted prisoners.

And there is concern too many people with dementia are kept under a chemical cosh - powerful drugs used to control behaviour.

But now growing numbers of experts say access to the outdoors, and physical activity such as gardening, could transform life for patients with conditions such as Alzheimer's or dementia.

Donald Stewart, 79, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's five years ago.

His wife raised the alarm when he was becoming more and more forgetful.

When a psychiatrist sent him for a brain scan, it confirmed he had the condition.

He has been gardening at the Potager Garden - a community garden in Kinross - for more than a year.

His wife, Catherine, says it has been a "god-send".

When Donald comes to the garden, she says, he "feels wanted and necessary".

She says: "He's done some woodwork painting, and things like that. Quite well, I believe."

Annie Pollock is a landscape designer and expert on gardening for dementia patients.

Annie Pollock, landscape designer from the Dementia Services Development Centre at Stirling University, says it should not be surprising that core skills from Mr Stewart's lifetime of gardening remain, even as the disease takes away other aspects of his personality.

And she says there is plenty of evidence of the benefits outdoor activity such as gardening can have for people like him.

Ms Pollock says: "If you've got somebody being locked up for 24 hours a day - as seems to happen in some scenarios - they are going to be unhappy.

"They will present challenging behaviour. They probably won't sleep at night. They'll be frailer, and they will cost the system a lot more money to care for."

She adds: "Whereas people who are outside and active still can maintain an active interest in their environment, and their cognitive abilities decline slower."

'Powerful addition'

But Fiona Thackeray, from Trellis, a charity promoting therapeutic gardening which is organising a course on designing gardens for people with dementia, cautions that unlocking the garden gate does not necessarily mean you can keep the drugs cabinet closed.

She says: "We wouldn't argue that gardening is going to cure you, or take away all need for any other interventions.

"But it can be a really powerful addition, or complementary therapy, to any drug regime.

The Potager is a community garden in Kinross

"It's a great physical activity so it's a good way to keep fit, or get fitter. Most people find it calms them down, it's a great stress reliever."

Ms Thackeray adds: "More and more we're seeing the importance of vitamin D.

"Although we don't have much sunlight in Scotland, if you're outdoors in the garden you're going to be boosting your vitamin D levels."

And, she says the sense of smell is a really strong trigger for memory.

Ms Thackeray says: "So what better place than a garden, with all the scented flowers and herbs, for people with dementia? It can help them think back to their past, and bring back positive memories."

Donald Stewart laughs as he says he likes going to the garden.

"It passes away the time", he says. "Gets you out of the house now again again, like."

He and his wife leave the garden with bags full of blackberries, beans, beetroot, and apples. The fruits of Donald's labours.

Catherine Stewart says a bramble and apple pie is "next on the agenda".

But the long-term benefits for Donald's health may be much more valuable - if rather harder to quantify.

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Could Taking Birth Control Pills Make Women's Memory More Like Men's?

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A new study shows that taking birth control pills can affect women's memory.

Shawn Nielsen, a graduate student in neurobiology and behavior at the University of California, Irvine, conducted a study with 66 female students, half of whom were taking oral contraception and half who were not.

The participants were given a unique memory test. Some women were randomly assigned to view an emotionally charged video about a young boy who was hit by a car while walking with his mother and then rushed to the hospital, where doctors reattach his severed feet. Other women watched a more neutral narrative in which the mother and son observe a minor accident and then go to the hospital to practice a disaster drill.

Nielsen, who is working toward her doctorate in the lab of Larry Cahill, a well-known hormone researcher, was interested in teasing apart how differences in estrogen and progesterone levels may affect memory. Previous research has hinted that estrogen may enhance verbal memory; in one study, for example, women taking oral contraception showed better recall of words on the active hormone days of their pill cycle than on days when they either weren't supposed to take active pills or took non-hormonal substitutes.

In the current study, when women who viewed the emotional video were tested a week later about what they saw, those who were taking the pill were able to recall the general thread of the story better than its specific details. This is similar to how men remember emotional events, says Nielsen.

"If we reduce women's sex hormone levels, the change in the type of information they recall is more like what a male participant might remember," she says. The pill works by flattening out natural spikes in estrogen and progesterone — which is what triggers ovulation — and signals the body not to make additional hormones, keeping levels low throughout the cycle.

The results were the exact opposite for the women who weren't on the pill: they were better at remembering details, such as what color shirt the boy had on, whether the mother wore glasses, or whether there was a fire hydrant at the intersection. The naturally cycling women couldn't recall the general narrative of the story as well as they could these details.

This doesn't mean that the pill squelches memory or that it robs women of their ability to recall salient things. It's just a matter of what type of information they remember. Since the pill keeps hormone levels steady throughout the cycle, women who take it tend to react differently to emotionally charged experiences, compared with women undergoing the natural monthly ebb and flow of hormones. And that's important since many of the mental illnesses that affect women — such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder — are extremely emotional in nature.

"What is important about these findings is that sex hormones affect the type of information recalled from an emotional event," says Nielsen. "What that says to us is that these changes are a powerful tool for future studies investigating the underlying neurobiology of these disorders.

"Simply taking the pill and suppressing natural sex hormone levels can affect what type of information you remember from an emotional event. That speaks to the role that estrogen and progesterone play in memory — they affect how a woman remembers an emotional event in her life," says Nielsen.

A better understanding of this connection could lead to more effective therapies that may target such hormonal drivers. Nielsen is already trying to figure out exactly what levels of hormones are associated with changes in recall. She is about to launch additional studies to correlate fluctuating levels of estrogen and progesterone in naturally cycling women with changes in the type of information they recall from emotional events.

The current study was published in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

Alice Park is a writer at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @aliceparkny. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Could a robot be conscious?

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13 September 2011 Last updated at 10:21 GMT If a robot is produced that behaves just like one of us in all respects, including thought, is it conscious or just a clever machine, asks Prof Barry C Smith, director of the Institute of Philosophy.

Human beings are made of flesh and blood - a mass of brawn and bone suffused with an intricate arrangement of nerve tissue. They belong to the physical world of matter and causes and yet they have a remarkable property - from time to time they are conscious.

Consciousness provides creatures like us with an inner life: a mental realm where we think and feel and have the means to experience sights and sounds, tastes and smells by which we come to know about the world around us. But how can mere matter and molecules give rise to such conscious experiences?

The 17th Century French philosopher, Rene Descartes, thought it couldn't. He supposed that in addition to our physical make-up, creatures like us had a non-material mind, or soul, in which our thinking took place.

For Descartes, the non-material mind was uniquely human. He denied that animals had minds. When they squealed with what we considered to be pain this, he thought, was just air escaping from their lungs. Animals were mere mechanisms. And even if we created a clever mechanical doll that replicated all our movements and reactions, it would not be capable of thinking because it would lack the power of speech.

These days few of us would deny our animal natures or accept that all other animals lacked consciousness. Besides, the idea of an immaterial soul makes it hard to understand how the mental world could have any effect on the physical world, and for that reason many contemporary philosophers reject mind-body dualism.

How could something that had no material existence move our limbs and respond to physical inputs. Surely it is the brain that is responsible for controlling the body and so it must be the brain that gives rise to our consciousness and decision making. And yet many of the same thinkers would agree with Descartes that no machine could ever be conscious or have experiences like human beings.

Carbon creatures

We can no longer rely on Descartes' criterion for deciding which beings could think. Nowadays computers can make use of language and synthesised speech improves all the time. It was the potential for computers to use language and respond appropriately to questions that led Alan Turing, the mathematician and war time code-breaker, to propose a test for machine intelligence.

Descartes denied animals had minds

He imagined a person sitting in a room, communicating by computer screen with two others in different rooms. She could type in questions and receive answers, and if she could not tell which of the respondents was a person and which was a computer she had no reason to treat them differently.

If she was prepared to treat one as intelligent, she should be prepared to treat the other as intelligent too. This is known as the Turing Test, and if the situation is arranged carefully, computer programs can pass it.

The original Turing Test relies on not being able to see who is sending the replies to questions, but what if we extended the test and installed the computer programme in a life-like robot? Robotics have developed rapidly in the last decade and we now see machines that move and behave like humans. Would such a display of life-like behaviour combined with appropriate responses to questions convince us that the machine was not only clever but also conscious?

Here, we need to draw a distinction between our thinking that the robot was conscious and it actually being conscious. We may be tempted to treat it as a minded creature but that doesn't mean it is a minded creature.

Last mystery

Those who study machine consciousness are trying to develop self-organising systems that will initiate actions and learn from their surroundings. The hope is that if we can create or replicate consciousness in a machine we would learn just what makes consciousness possible.

Researchers are far from realising that dream and a big obstacle stands in their way. They need an answer to the following question - could a silicon-based machine ever produce consciousness, or is it only carbon creatures with our material make-up that can produce the glowing technicoloured moments of conscious experience? The question is whether consciousness is more a matter of what we do or what we are made of.

Turing developed a test for machine intelligence

Consciousness may be the last remaining mystery for science, but to some extent it has been dethroned from the central role it used to occupy in the study of the mental. We are learning more and more from neuroscience and neurobiology about how much of what we do is the result of unconscious processes and mechanisms.

And we are also learning that there is no single thing consciousness is. There are different levels of consciousness in humans, and much of our thinking and decision making can go on without it.

It's worth remembering that the only convincing experience of consciousness we have is our own. We are each aware of our own inner lives, but have only indirect access to the inner mental lives of others. Are the people around me really conscious in the way I am, or could they all be zombies who walk and talk and act like humans although there is nobody home.

And this is creates a twist in our story. For if we managed to produce a robot that behaved just like one of us in all respects that might be a proof not of the consciousness of a robot or machine, but instead may be a convincing demonstration of how much we could manage to do without consciousness.

View the original article here

Peliculas Online

Read More

Could a robot be conscious?

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
13 September 2011 Last updated at 10:21 GMT If a robot is produced that behaves just like one of us in all respects, including thought, is it conscious or just a clever machine, asks Prof Barry C Smith, director of the Institute of Philosophy.

Human beings are made of flesh and blood - a mass of brawn and bone suffused with an intricate arrangement of nerve tissue. They belong to the physical world of matter and causes and yet they have a remarkable property - from time to time they are conscious.

Consciousness provides creatures like us with an inner life: a mental realm where we think and feel and have the means to experience sights and sounds, tastes and smells by which we come to know about the world around us. But how can mere matter and molecules give rise to such conscious experiences?

The 17th Century French philosopher, Rene Descartes, thought it couldn't. He supposed that in addition to our physical make-up, creatures like us had a non-material mind, or soul, in which our thinking took place.

For Descartes, the non-material mind was uniquely human. He denied that animals had minds. When they squealed with what we considered to be pain this, he thought, was just air escaping from their lungs. Animals were mere mechanisms. And even if we created a clever mechanical doll that replicated all our movements and reactions, it would not be capable of thinking because it would lack the power of speech.

These days few of us would deny our animal natures or accept that all other animals lacked consciousness. Besides, the idea of an immaterial soul makes it hard to understand how the mental world could have any effect on the physical world, and for that reason many contemporary philosophers reject mind-body dualism.

How could something that had no material existence move our limbs and respond to physical inputs. Surely it is the brain that is responsible for controlling the body and so it must be the brain that gives rise to our consciousness and decision making. And yet many of the same thinkers would agree with Descartes that no machine could ever be conscious or have experiences like human beings.

Carbon creatures

We can no longer rely on Descartes' criterion for deciding which beings could think. Nowadays computers can make use of language and synthesised speech improves all the time. It was the potential for computers to use language and respond appropriately to questions that led Alan Turing, the mathematician and war time code-breaker, to propose a test for machine intelligence.

Descartes denied animals had minds

He imagined a person sitting in a room, communicating by computer screen with two others in different rooms. She could type in questions and receive answers, and if she could not tell which of the respondents was a person and which was a computer she had no reason to treat them differently.

If she was prepared to treat one as intelligent, she should be prepared to treat the other as intelligent too. This is known as the Turing Test, and if the situation is arranged carefully, computer programs can pass it.

The original Turing Test relies on not being able to see who is sending the replies to questions, but what if we extended the test and installed the computer programme in a life-like robot? Robotics have developed rapidly in the last decade and we now see machines that move and behave like humans. Would such a display of life-like behaviour combined with appropriate responses to questions convince us that the machine was not only clever but also conscious?

Here, we need to draw a distinction between our thinking that the robot was conscious and it actually being conscious. We may be tempted to treat it as a minded creature but that doesn't mean it is a minded creature.

Last mystery

Those who study machine consciousness are trying to develop self-organising systems that will initiate actions and learn from their surroundings. The hope is that if we can create or replicate consciousness in a machine we would learn just what makes consciousness possible.

Researchers are far from realising that dream and a big obstacle stands in their way. They need an answer to the following question - could a silicon-based machine ever produce consciousness, or is it only carbon creatures with our material make-up that can produce the glowing technicoloured moments of conscious experience? The question is whether consciousness is more a matter of what we do or what we are made of.

Turing developed a test for machine intelligence

Consciousness may be the last remaining mystery for science, but to some extent it has been dethroned from the central role it used to occupy in the study of the mental. We are learning more and more from neuroscience and neurobiology about how much of what we do is the result of unconscious processes and mechanisms.

And we are also learning that there is no single thing consciousness is. There are different levels of consciousness in humans, and much of our thinking and decision making can go on without it.

It's worth remembering that the only convincing experience of consciousness we have is our own. We are each aware of our own inner lives, but have only indirect access to the inner mental lives of others. Are the people around me really conscious in the way I am, or could they all be zombies who walk and talk and act like humans although there is nobody home.

And this is creates a twist in our story. For if we managed to produce a robot that behaved just like one of us in all respects that might be a proof not of the consciousness of a robot or machine, but instead may be a convincing demonstration of how much we could manage to do without consciousness.

View the original article here

Peliculas Online

Read More

HEALTH MANAGEMENT. China's existing system of the reserves keeps getting not wild plants, valuable future could be sources of food and medicines

China needs to change, where it its pages nature reserves, and draw people from the cities to protect of their resources valuable but endangered wild plants according to an article in the September issue of Bioscience published remote villages in the direction.
The article by Weiguo sang and Keping Ma of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Botany and Jan C. Axmacher of University College, London, lists the seven strategic steps that are required, the future of China's wild plants, secure, who say the authors cannot effectively by the country's existing preserves are protected areas. Many of these areas only on paper and are far from provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan, where rare species in the largest numbers, sang, and his coauthors are found.
Protected area managers in many cases currently missing basic data about the plant species on their reserves and even the exact scope and extent of reserves are present. Consequently, rapid economic development, which related spread of invasive species and the development of tourism of species become extinct could drive the impact of China's, which could be sources of future crops and medicine.
In addition to creating competition rules reserves in relevant areas and develop specific management and monitoring plans for that at the most threatened and promote sustainable eco tourism, the plants, not damaged, argue the authors BioScience promoting the rural poor, who often move accurate data about threats to their species, China should develop resources, predatory in cities. It should also consider temporary protection very rare species in botanical gardens and expand, financing and training for traditional taxonomy, and experimental ecosystem laboratories and management.

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. Delete old cholesterol way could be used to Unfur of arteries

Called "Self digestion", the cumulative dysfunctional molecules from cells, clears cholesterol an old phone way Autophagy also mobilized and exports and provide for a totally new goal under the direction of the University of Ottawa Heart for drugs "unfur arteries" or reverse atherosclerosis, the main cause of heart attack and stroke, according to the Research Institute (UOHI) in Canada.
Run Director of HDL biology laboratory, UOHI and colleagues from UOHI and Columbia University in New York, United States, found, remained, during the evolution researcher Dr. Yves Marcel, Autophagy, a process that developed and is in single-cell organisms, devours and digested cholesterol which in artery walls has accumulated.
In a statement published yesterday Marcel said 8 September, the press:
"The finding that Autophagy regulated offers also functions to digest and free cholesterol from cells, and the fact that we know that this option will hope for the development of new drugs, enable the export of cholesterol could arteries."
Cholesterol is an important and necessary molecule in mammals, where it produced, hormones and cell membranes and is carried out by the body in the blood. However, it collects in the arteries, that they "fur up" and turn in the atherosclerosis, where narrower and narrower, finally caused blockages and circulation of the heart, which frequently causes heart attacks and strokes reduces arteries,.
Rockefeller Mireille Ouimet, an essential factor in the work, said:
"It is urgently necessary to understand how the accumulation can be reversed by cholesterol in the arteries."
Researchers have discovered that cholesterol accumulation itself raises cholesterol Autophagy, caused, published and broken by the liver, where it is removed from the body be and.
Marcel suggests that perhaps some people with coronary heart disease (CHD) unable to cholesterol in your arteries Autophagy option to delete. A route for new drugs could reactivate this option.
Cell metabolism researchers published details of their work this year in the journal.

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. Enzyme could be target for the treatment of smoking, alcoholism at the same time

An enzyme that is displayed, a role in controlling the brain response to nicotine and alcohol in mice may be a promising a drug, which would at the same time deal with smoking, and alcohol abuse in humans, according to a study by researchers of the Ernest Gallo clinic and Research Center, San Francisco joined with the University of California,.
In the course of four weeks mice genetically so is missing the gene for protein kinase C (PKC)-Epsilon consumes less a nicotine-containing water solution than normal mice and were less likely to a Chamber back, in which she had given nicotine.
On the other hand, normal mice steadily grew their consumption of nicotine solution, while the mice PKC Epsilon is not missing.
The study was conducted by Gallo, senior associate director and investigator Robert O. brass, MD, UCSF Professor of Neurology and Gallo researchers Dr. Anna M. Lee.
Binds nicotine to a certain class of Nicotinic Receptors in normal mice, as in humans is neurons released by dopamine in the brain causes on dopamine. Dopamine creates a feeling of joy and so calls for a sense of reward. Lee and brass found that mice without PKC Epsilon has a lack of these Nicotinic Receptors.
The study is in the online early Edition of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for the week of 12 September 2011.
The finding complements earlier research in brass found that mice genetically PKC-Epsilon enzyme deficiency to less alcohol than normal mice potion and were averse to a Chamber, where she had been alcohol again.
"This could mean that these mice of nicotine or alcohol, not the same feeling of reward get," brass said. "The enzyme looks like it the part of regulating the reward system, which includes these Nicotinic Receptors." The reward system is a complex of areas in the brain, which call for nicotine, to influence alcohol and other addictive substances.
The next step in the research, brass, said would be to develop compounds that inhibit PKC Epsilon. The ultimate goal, he said, would be drugs, which could be used "through its contribution to the edge of searches for people on some of which will demand their reward."
The research was U.S. through grants from the public health service and the Canadian Institutes of health research, and funded, supported by California for medical research on alcohol and drug abuse by UCSF.
The UCSF-affiliated Ernest Gallo clinic and Research Center is one of the world's preeminent academic centres for the study of the biological basis of alcohol and substance use. Gallo center discoveries possible molecular targets for the development of therapeutic medicines through preclinical and proof-of-concept studies extended.
UCSF is a leading University, promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate training in life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. Mold removal in homes, offices could cut respiratory diseases

A new evidence finds review free, homes and offices of mildew and moisture respiratory infections, and to reduce can disturbing symptoms for asthma sufferers all over the world; the best way to eliminate the form remains unclear.
Mold is one of the most important environmental trigger of symptoms such as coughing and wheezing, health sciences according to National Institute of environmental.
"Form found partially or completely underground and in buildings, which have been flooded or poor humidity control, will have many with Keller, in homes and work stoppages,", said Peter Thorne, head of the Department of occupational safety and health at the University of Iowa. "House and office building both have problems."
But makes a big difference apartments, offices and schools of moisture and mold "Correction" or relief? Examiner Riitta Sauni of the Finnish Institute of occupational health in, run Tampere, Finland, said that the results are mixed.
"We were glad evidence that rehabilitation of damaged houses reduced form, severity, and the level of symptoms in patients with asthma and respiratory, infections," Sauni said. "Unfortunately, we found does not prove that the meditation of these diseases could prevent."
The review appears in the September issue of the Cochrane Library, a publication of the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates research in all areas of health care. Systematic reviews draw conclusions about evidence-based medical practice taking into account both the content and the quality of the existing studies on a subject.
Remediation of mold and moisture requires full or partial renovation of a building or cleaning with a fungicide or bleach solution. Sauni and her team saw eight studies with 6.538 participants, their homes, schools or workplaces, which had restored through a combination of these methods. The reviews say that because the available studies do not provide high-quality evidence have and sample sizes were small, "hard conclusions difficult."
Yet, the review found that compared to anything at all to do, repair houses asthma symptoms as also the amount of infections of the respiratory tract in adult. Recovery reduces the number of acute care visits to children and students visit to doctors for colds.
Study in a South Wales, for example, 115 members of the Group had their homes with a fungicide treatment and installation of fan, restored the complete removal of visible form, improve their respiratory symptoms for six and 12 months later were rather, compared to those in the control group, whose Häuser were not cleaned up.
The reviews could not determine however, which method was superior to the rehabilitation clear reduction of asthma symptoms.
"The studies have shown that after the cleaning and, apply fungicidal treatment, a large number of buildings soon with mold new infections have been, and must also be a partial office building more thoroughly had to be repaired," said Sauni, adding that removing mold can be expensive.
"Sometimes, if the structures are far damaged, is the simplest and most cost-effective option open the damp buildings and create a new" she said.
The reviews came to the conclusion that better research be must demonstrate better results.

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