It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, August 02, 2023
AMERIKA
Abortion facility access means long drives for 41.8% of women
IMAGE: LOCATIONS OF PHYSICAL ABORTION CLINICS (BLACK SQUARES), WITH 30-, 60-, 90-MINUTE DRIVING DISTANCE BASED ON CURRENT AND PROJECTED ABORTION RESTRICTIONSview more
CREDIT: SOURCE: A GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS OF ABORTION ACCESS IN THE UNITED STATES AFTER THE REVERSAL OF ROE V WADE, OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY: JULY 26, 2023
SPOKANE, Wash. – One year after the Dobbs decision, 41.8% of U.S. women of reproductive age have to drive 30 minutes or more to reach an abortion care facility, according to a study of data as of June 2, 2023. Researchers predicted that number would rise to 53.5% if other state bills under consideration are passed.
The study estimated longer drives as well, finding that 29.3% of women didn’t have access to a facility within a 60-minute drive and 23.6% lacked access even within a 90-minute drive. Those figures would jump to 45.6% and 43% respectively if new restrictions are passed.
While the 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade created a patchwork of abortion restrictions across the nation, the researchers found state laws did not necessarily determine the procedure’s availability.
“This study highlights that abortion access is about more than laws. It’s about more than the state you reside in because people are allowed to cross state borders for medical care. There are a lot of other factors at play,” said Dr. Dawn Kopp, the vice chair for OBGYN at Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine and senior author on the study in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.
For example, Kopp pointed out that in Wisconsin, a state that bans abortion, 61.7% of women still had access within a 90-minute drive to facilities that provide abortions in neighboring states. Conversely, some states where abortion is legal may still not have good access for lack of facilities and the location of facilities relative to where people reside.
For this study, the researchers compared census data for women ages 15-49 to locations of 750 abortion care facilities. The authors note that data limits on gender and age-ranges may not capture all people capable of pregnancy, but it does focus on a large proportion of those affected. The facilities were gathered from lists publicly available online with the intention to mimic what an average person might use if they searched for a provider.
Working with the DataLab at the University of California, Davis, the researchers then used “isochrones,” map lines that create travel time areas using actual roads.
“Use of geospatial technology and analysis in the field of medicine is a growing area of interest,” said co-author Michele Tobias, a geospatial data specialist at the UC Davis DataLab.
While other studies have estimated distances to care, this research focused on the real drives women would have to make.
“You hear these broad strokes of certain states banning or restricting abortion, but we were able to see on such a granular level the impact this is having on the lives of everyday American women,” said first author Maeve Alterio, a fourth-year medical student at WSU.
The lack of access has potential serious health consequences as other research has found an increase in maternal and neonatal mortality in states with more abortion restrictions.
These risks have a greater effect on people with lower incomes, the authors said, since the cost of travel and time off work can put the abortion out of reach for people in places like Texas and states without providers in neighboring areas.
Telehealth likely provides access that spans borders for some patients, as many early pregnancy abortions are now done through medication taken at home rather than through a procedure in a clinic. The researchers counted these but could not estimate their geographical reach. They also noted the barriers to telehealth including finding follow-up care in areas where abortion is illegal. Many states have also enacted legislation to ban or restrict telehealth use for abortion.
The volatile legal landscape around abortion means the researchers had to re-analyze the data three times as more bills passed or were challenged in court.
Navigating these shifts in the legal landscape has added complexity and uncertainty to the lives of American families, Kopp said.
“This study adds to the stories patients and clinicians have already shared by giving objective data on how pervasive the difficulty to access comprehensive reproductive health care is in a post Roe v. Wade America,” she said.
A sociological study by the University of Zurich confirms that a considerable proportion of employees perceive their work as socially useless. Employees in financial, sales and management occupations are more likely to conclude that their jobs are of little use to society.
In recent years, research showed that many professionals consider their work to be socially useless. Various explanations have been proposed for the phenomenon. The much-discussed “bullshit jobs theory” by the American anthropologist David Graeber, for example, states that some jobs are objectively useless and that this occurs more frequently in certain occupations than others.
Other researchers suggested that the reason people felt their jobs were useless was solely because they were routine and lacked autonomy or good management rather than anything intrinsic to their work. However, this is only one part of the story, as a recent study by sociologist Simon Walo of the University of Zurich shows. It is the first to give quantitative support to the relevance of the occupations.
Office jobs twice as likely to feel socially useless
In his study, Walo analyzed survey data on 1,811 respondents in the USA working in 21 types of jobs, who were asked if their work gave them “a feeling of making a positive impact on community and society” and “the feeling of doing useful work”. The survey, carried out in 2015, found that 19 percent of respondents spread across a range of occupations answered “never” or “rarely” to the questions.
Walo adjusted the raw data to compare workers with the same degree of routine work, job autonomy and quality of management, and found that the nature of the job still had a large effect on their perceived pointlessness once working conditions were excluded as a factor. Employees in the occupations that Graeber deemed useless were more likely to reply in a negative fashion.
Those working in business and finance and sales were more than twice as likely to say their jobs were socially useless than others. Office assistants and managers were also more likely to say this, though less strongly (1.6 or 1.9 times more likely than others).
Private-sector jobs suffer from higher perceived pointlessness
“The original evidence presented by Graeber was mainly qualitative, which made it difficult to assess the magnitude of the problem,” says Walo. “This study extends previous analyses by drawing on a rich, under-utilised dataset and provides new evidence. This paper is therefore the first to find quantitative evidence supporting the argument that the occupation can be decisive for the perceived pointlessness.” Walo also found that the share of workers who consider their jobs socially useless is higher in the private sector than in the non-profit or the public sector.
Bullshit jobs – a complex issue
However, Walo’s study also confirms other factors that influence employees’ perceptions of their own work, including, e.g., alienation, unfavorable working conditions and social interaction. “Employees’ assessment of whether their work is perceived as socially useless is a very complex issue that needs to be approached from different angles,” the author therefore concludes. “It depends on various factors that do not necessarily have anything to do with the actual usefulness of work as claimed by Graeber. For example, people may also view their work as socially useless because unfavorable working conditions make it seem pointless.”
Why Are Bullshit Jobs Proliferating? A Brief Excursus on Causality and the Nature of Soclological Explanation I. Sundry Notes on the Role of Government in ...
360 pages
Extroverts more likely to resist vaccines, study shows
IMAGE: A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER PREPARES A DOSE OF THE COVID-19 VACCINE.view more
CREDIT: THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO
EL PASO, Texas (Aug. 2, 2023) – Which types of personalities were more hesitant about COVID-19 vaccination during the pandemic’s peak? Extroverts — according to a new study on more than 40,000 Canadians.
“We expected that people who were especially high in extroversion would be more likely to get the vaccine,” said Melissa Baker, Ph.D., lead author and assistant professor at The University of Texas at El Paso. “We figured those people would want to get back out in the world and socialize, right? It’s actually the opposite.”
The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, can help with future public health messaging and vaccination campaigns, according to the team of scientists, based at UTEP and the University of Toronto. It also offers a unique perspective in vaccine hesitancy research, a field that has largely focused on political affiliation.
“We wanted to look at vaccine hesitancy a different way,” Baker said. “Of course, politics can help explain some of it, but there are personal differences between people, too — and that led us to this personality aspect.”
The study is based on surveys of more than 40,000 Canadian adults, taken between November 2020 and July 2021. Online questions evaluated each participant’s personality, based on a model known as “big five,” which gauges an individual’s openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability.
Additional questions probed how respondents felt about vaccination. One question, for example, asked, “When a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, will you be vaccinated?” As the vaccine rollout began, questions were altered to reflect their availability.
Most of the team’s hypotheses were supported. For instance, people who were more open and agreeable were more likely to get the vaccine.
“Those are the kind of people who are open to new things, new information and just like to go with the flow,” Baker said. “We also expected that for people with high conscientious because they are detail-oriented and big planners.”
On the other hand, those with low emotional stability — or those who experience extreme emotions — were less likely to be vaccinated. And extroverts, to their surprise, were 18 percent more likely to refuse the vaccine.
While the pandemic is over, the team said the findings could help with future public health messaging strategies for vaccination from various diseases, not just COVID-19.
Baker explained, “If we know you need to reach a certain type of personality, we can think about the message that will actually reach and persuade that person.”
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About The University of Texas at El Paso
The University of Texas at El Paso is America’s leading Hispanic-serving University. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 24,000 students are Hispanic, and half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 169 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.
JOURNAL
Frontiers in Psychology
ARTICLE TITLE
Dynamic role of personality in explaining COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and refusal
CYBORG
The Next Frontier for Warfighters Might Be Implants in Their Brains. Is the Pentagon Ready for the Consequences?
A physicist with the Magnetoencephalography Laboratory at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., attaches sensors to a subject's head March 21, 2017. (U.S. Air Force photo by J.M. Eddins Jr.)
The boy couldn't have been older than six or seven. Brown hair with a streak of bright orange. It was 2003, and Geoffrey Ling, a young Army doctor, was looking down at a new patient who'd arrived at his medical unit in Afghanistan missing a hand.
The Soviet Union during its long and ultimately losing campaign to quell the restive corners of the country had taken to dropping thousands of land mines out of the back of helicopters. Like little butterflies, the mines would twist and flit to the ground, a bright green that would fade to gray with time.
Almost daily, Ling would stare down at a child who had answered the siren call of the toy-like miniature bombs. A boom, a lost appendage, and they'd find their way to Ling, who'd be tasked with patching them up for a life where the best prosthesis still relied on hooks and pulleys.
The limited options got Ling thinking. What if he could come up with a better way to make an artificial hand respond to the whims of the brain, maybe by connecting the two? He'd been approached by the Pentagon's pie-in-the-sky research wing, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, shortly before he left for Afghanistan, so when he got back, he started what would become a decades-long march to make the connection between brains and computers possible.
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What started as theoretical research quickly took on greater relevance when scores of service members began facing roadside bomb attacks in Iraq in the following years, leaving many missing limbs. All of a sudden, the concepts Ling had been contemplating became a national priority.
Early on, scientists realized that the same medical research that would allow them to make prosthetics respond to the brain might also be used to enhance how troops fight, such as special operators communicating on the battlefield without uttering a word, interacting with a drone, or maybe even helping eradicate the fear of entering a room filled with enemies and the post-traumatic stress that can follow a firefight.
If you can understand the signals within the brain -- a task entirely impossible before the advent of artificial intelligence, which allows the digestion of massive data sets, you might be able to alter them, or otherwise change the nature of the closed system the brain had been since humans developed oversized thinking lobes.
"Now, you think about the what-ifs. That was very clear. Collect the brain signals, get the robot arm, clear use case, show the science can be done," Ling told Military.com in a 2021 interview. "Now what's next? Well, what's next is where does your imagination take you?"
Ling described how early on the laboratory conducting the research connected one patient to a flight simulator instead of a robotic arm. Using just her brain, she was able to achieve liftoff on the screen.
"When you talk to her, and you ask her what she's doing, she'd go, 'Oh, I think I want to fly. I think about looking up, and the plane goes up,'" Ling detailed. "She's not thinking about moving a joystick or a rudder, she's thinking about flying, and the plane flew."
The potential medical applications of access to the brain for treating ailments are far-ranging, but pressure to compete with America's adversaries might tempt leaders with the next step: enhancement.
The fear of being surpassed by "near-peer" competitors -- Pentagon parlance for Russia and China -- is driving all kinds of technology pushes by the military, including hypersonics, artificial intelligence and bioenhancement.
Both China and Russia can move at an expedited pace when it comes to military research due to their authoritarian government structure, and both have different standards when it comes to ethical guidelines in medical testing.
"There's a very real set of scenarios where neurotechnology plays a role in our national security moving forward," Justin Sanchez, the former director of DARPA's biological technologies office, told Military.com in a 2020 interview. "We cannot lose sight of that. It has to be a priority for us."
In the 20 years since Ling began work on what scientists call brain-machine interface, the ability to understand and even alter the brain has progressed rapidly. What started as a discovery to heal the wounds of war kick-started research designed to make America's warfighters more efficient and more lethal in battle.
The Air Force is testing how hand-held devices and skull caps that use electrical current to stimulate the brain could help pilots learn more efficiently and get into aircraft cockpits faster. DARPA has also funded tests using electrical currents funneled through electrodes implanted in the brains of those suffering from epilepsy, piggybacking on a recognized treatment to see what else the currents could do.
DARPA's Restoring Active Memory program was launched in November 2013 with the goal of "developing a fully implantable, closed-loop neural interface capable of restoring normal memory function to military personnel suffering from the effects of brain injury or illness."
By 2018, DARPA announced it was working with researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the University of Southern California to actually implant devices in "neurosurgical patient volunteers who were being treated for epilepsy" and found the technology gave a boost to natural memory function, according to a press release.
Early results from the testing showed the ability to substantially alter the mood of patients with targeting stimulation.
A year later, in 2019, a report from the Army's Combat Capabilities Development Command predicted that brain enhancement technology, particularly in the form of implants, could be common by 2030.
"As this technology matures, it is anticipated that specialized operators will be using neural implants for enhanced operation of assets by the year 2030," the report details. "These operators will include teams from the Special Forces, military pilots, operators of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) such as drones, and intelligence personnel."
That means that in less than a decade, if the technology experts are right, the Pentagon could be using brain implants for troops, special operators and pilots to be connected to technology.
But while the technology is advancing, neuroethicists, futurists and medical researchers are asking whether the military is ready for the responsibilities entailed with messing around in people's heads. These experts have told Military.com in more than a dozen interviews that the brain is so incredibly complicated and the technology is so new that we don't fully understand the implications.
"The brain is, arguably and ironically, the most complex, least understood technology that there is, and that is the fundamental problem and opportunity that we're wrestling with here," Peter Singer, a scholar on 21st century military technology and an author who focuses on the future of warfare, told Military.com in an interview.
If DARPA's technology ever becomes a device that is implanted in the brain of a warfighter, what responsibility would the government have for maintaining that technology? Will the Department of Veterans Affairs be servicing degrading brain implants for decades after young Americans take off the uniform? Will mental health or cognitive disorders emerge decades from now, and will those who suffer them receive care?
"I would say the government has a huge responsibility," Dr. Paul Appelbaum, one of the country's leading scholars in legal and ethical issues in the medical field, told Military.com. "They have introduced into this person's head -- whether they've done it invasively or noninvasively -- a technology that was designed to change their brain function. And by intervening in that way, I think they have created a responsibility to follow these people down the road and try to ensure that adverse consequences don't result from their participation."
Special Forces, Super Soldiers
One of the DARPA programs that showed early promise in the 2010s, Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies, involved testing how implants inside of brains might be helpful for altering moods. The program targeted the creation of a device that could regularly provide stimulation to manage patients' conditions -- partially inspired by the ongoing issues helping veterans combat the trauma of war.
Given the ethical concerns tied to fishing around in people's heads, the subjects for the research were a group of patients already due to have electrodes implanted to combat epilepsy. But while doctors were in there, they agreed to let researchers test out how stimulation from inside the brain might make them feel.
"There's one patient that stands out in particular, a relatively young woman, very personable. This was actually the second time she'd had to have brain surgery for epilepsy," said one of the researchers, who spoke to Military.com on the condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to discuss the program.
The researchers didn't tell the patients when they would be using the stimulation, to prevent the placebo effect, instead maintaining a running dialogue. This particular patient suffered from severe anxiety.
"We said, 'Are you feeling different right now?' She said, 'I feel great, I feel energized,'" the researcher recalled. "I said, 'Oh, is this something you sometimes feel or do you never feel like this?' And she said, 'Oh, this is me on a good day. This is the way I want to feel.'"
That kind of shift in mood could be revolutionary for veterans suffering from the bonds of post-traumatic stress, if the technology proves viable.
DARPA Illustration of the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology program (Image Courtesy of DARPA)
Brain implants, if that's where the research leads, wouldn't stand as the first time the government has overseen and serviced devices in bodies.
The closest equivalent might be how the VA monitors pacemakers -- a medical device that sends electrical signals to the heart to help it keep its rhythm and function.
A 2020 Veterans Health Administration's directive ordered all VA patients with pacemaker-type devices to enroll in its National Cardiac Device Surveillance Program, which diligently keeps tabs on battery levels, heart health and other problems that may arise with the technology.
Subsequent virtual or in-person appointments can be scheduled, depending on what work needs to be done. As of 2019, American Heart Association research says that nearly 200,000 veterans have these devices monitored through the VA.
But pacemakers have been in use since the 1950s, a well-understood technology where VA doctors can follow decades of medical research.
There are other historic examples of military technology that have, over time, been shown to cause harm, often when rolled out with less scientific rigor. Agent Orange -- a Vietnam War-era herbicide that was contaminated with dioxin during the production process -- was eventually linked to leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and various types of cancers in service members. What was once quickly sent to the battlefield to provide a tactical advantage later turned into a health nightmare.
The brain is the human body's most sensitive and complex organ. Side effects of high-risk surgeries and electric stimulation are constantly being evaluated by the medical community. But there are some people, who despite not knowing all of the potential problems that could one day be discovered from this technology, are eager to try it out if only for the slightest tactical advantage.
Elite warfighters -- the Navy SEALs, the Army Green Berets, Air Force special warfighters and Marine Corps' Raider Regiment -- are already experimenting with electrical stimulation delivered through the surface of the head. Due to the long-standing culture within those units, often accompanied with gallows humor about dying young and pretty, they'll do whatever is necessary to become, and stay, the most lethal men and women in uniform.
"That community, by and large, is all about improving human performance," said an Army Special Forces officer, who spoke to Military.com on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to speak to the media. "From some perspective, they're always trying to push us to a more lethal edge."
And for a community facing deep-seated issues from decades of intense operations, the prospect of being able to alter not only how the brain reacts from a tactical standpoint, but also how it might react emotionally, holds enormous appeal.
"I think some guys would be scared or hesitant, but if you're telling me I could go into a room and not have the same stresses and worries confronting an enemy, I'd have a really hard time not signing up for it either," the Army Special Forces officer said. "You're going to see a line outside the door, especially if it's a drastic improvement."
Chris Sajnog, a Navy SEAL who served for 20 years and is now a master training specialist, told Military.com that the possible applications of such technology to train better or maybe even eliminate mental barriers such as post-traumatic stress disorder present a unique dilemma.
As medical researchers, and even DARPA, look at how this technology could be used to help with PTSD, memory loss and depression, Sajnog wonders about the unintended consequences.
Part of what bonds special warfighters together are the horrors and stresses they see in conflict. And, Sajnog said, that's part of the reason that units like the Navy SEALs train so hard. Being able to potentially wipe those traumas away changes the dynamic of what brings that team together.
But Sajnog said he's having a hard time not supporting an innovation that could one day get rid of debilitating mental health problems.
"The stress that we endure together is what makes our bond so special and so different from other units," Sajnog said. "But if it gets to a point where people are having anxiety and stress, I think you can look at ways to reduce that."
Some special operators also voice concerns that such technology, especially if it's used to alter moods and behaviors, could make deployments more frequent. If the men and women aren't complaining or are more numb to the frequent combat they are experiencing, military leadership would have a hard time standing them down.
Training the Brain
The device is pressed under the chin, like a knife held to the jugular of a hostage in a Hollywood action movie. The user slowly dials up the electricity coursing toward their brain, triggering muscle contractions in the neck that creep upward.
Once the lower jaw starts vibrating, and the lip pulls slightly to the side from the current, it's time to switch off the device and focus on learning how to be a pilot.
The voltage is part of a program at the Air Force Research Laboratory designed to help cut pilot training time in an era where the service is struggling to find and retain airmen capable of flying.
Andy McKinley, who runs the testing of brain stimulation that's part of the Individualized Neural Learning System, known as iNeuraLS, which kicked off in 2020, has been studying the effects of electricity on the brain for more than a decade and a half.
"There's always a lot of variability in any physiology signal," McKinley said in an interview. "Your current brain state matters. If I'm trying to enhance your attention and arousal, but you're already super amped up, I'm either not going to have an effect or it may decrease your attention. ... People say they feel more alert, but not jittery."
McKinley said he's heard anecdotally about the positive effects some special operations airmen have had with stimulating their brains.
"There was one guy down there at AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command], who said he was highly addicted to caffeine. He had to have energy drinks and coffee all day long to stay awake," McKinley recalled. The special operator started using a device called a gammaCore, which sends electronic signals to the brain to feel more alert.
"So using that, he completely got off caffeine, didn't feel like he needed any caffeine anymore."
In the early 2010s, McKinley co-authored several research papers suggesting that zapping brains might help speed up learning, something researchers had initially seen in animal studies but had only just begun to consider for people.
The program involves electric stimulation and monitoring of the impact that stimulation is having on the brain so that it can be adjusted. That involves both miniaturizing brain scanning technology like MRI machines so that they're small enough to be wearable -- hopefully tucked into a hat -- and using advanced artificial intelligence to decipher the meaning of the brain signals those scans detect, as no two brains are exactly alike.
The Air Force Research Laboratory-led Individualized Neural Learning System project, known as iNeuraLS, aims to give Airmen the ability to rapidly acquire knowledge and skills through neurotechnology. (U.S. Air Force graphic by Richard Eldridge)
The early data from McKinley’s studies show an improvement in learning, with people retaining roughly 20% more information initially, and 35% more 90 days on from the training. "The processes that are occurring under the hood with this type of stimulation [are] the same that would be occurring with a lot of practice. It's just that we're speeding up that natural process."
If the technology proves successful, the Air Force has plans to see how else it could use this variety of brain enhancement.
"We're starting with the use case of a pilot training, but the idea is to expand that to a variety of other types of training," McKinley said.
What makes this approach so appealing is that it doesn't require implanting devices in the brain, a high hurdle for any medical program. By using stimulation from outside of the skull, McKinley's team is starting to see performance enhancement that would be a much easier sell to many service members.
Implanted devices that stimulate the vagus nerve, the same neural tunnel from the lower part of the brain down through the neck and chest to the stomach that is zapped externally by the Air Force team, have received FDA approval for some methods of stroke rehabilitation; devices used outside the skin have been approved by the FDA for migraines and headaches, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Side effects from an implanted vagus nerve stimulation device can include voice changes, throat pain, headaches, trouble swallowing or tingling or prickling of the skin, according to the Mayo Clinic. Side effects observed thus far for the hand-held devices are minimal, often relating to slight pain or irritation from too much stimulation.
Transcranial direct current stimulation -- sending electrical signals to the brain through the scalp as military researchers are also testing -- saw some reported side effects such as some itching, burning, tingling, headache and other discomfort, according to the National Library of Medicine.
The Air Force Research Laboratory's experiment with pilot training is one of the most public-facing applications of neuro-enhancing technology, but only one small demonstration of the technology that DARPA has been advancing for years. Programs like N3, that sought to create a brain-machine connection without implantation, have been undertaken alongside more invasive approaches like the mood-altering current tests using implants.
So far, science hasn't advanced enough to make some of the wildest dreams of researchers come true, like being able to easily control battlefield weapons systems directly from the brain or enhancing human senses. The brain is still too complicated, and deciphering what specific electrical signals signify is still too daunting. But talking to key researchers, it's clear it's where the agency wants to go.
Global Competition Heating Up
Even if a surgical knife isn't taken to skulls, it's unclear whether harm might still be done to America's service members if electronically stimulating the brain becomes commonplace. The technology is just too new.
But the pressure to gain an edge over international competitors such as China and Russia continues to push the research forward, both in the U.S. and overseas.
"China has even conducted human testing on members of the People's Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities," former U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe wrote in The Wall Street Journal in 2020. "There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing's pursuit of power."
In late 2021, the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security sanctioned the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 of its research institutions because its research posed "a significant risk of being or becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests," including development of "purported brain-control weaponry."
In 2021, prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia's Kommersant Business Daily reported the government approved a program to research controlling electronic devices with the use of the human brain by implanted computer chips. President Vladmir Putin reportedly personally approved the project. A Kremlin spokesman later said he could neither confirm nor deny the report, according to Tass – A Russian state-owned news agency.
But troops taking part in medical research is often morally tricky. Some ethicists have questioned whether a service member, whose primary responsibility is to follow orders, can fully participate in a brain-computer-interface program when it becomes a reality unless the government develops ways for troops to object without consequence to using the technology.
"Limited personal autonomy among military personnel, as well as a lack of information about long-term health risks, have led some ethicists outside of government to argue that [brain-computer-interface or BCI] interventions, such as noninvasive brain stimulation techniques, are currently inappropriate for a military or security sector setting," detailed a 2020 report from Rand, a nonprofit think tank that researches issues in the military.
Department of Defense civilians and active duty service members attend a Traumatic Brain Injury Open House event March 20, 2014, at Tripler Army Medical Center located in Honolulu. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal)
The Rand researchers wrote that the military services should consider "arbitration mechanisms" or ways for troops to civilly discuss the concerns of orders "so that service members and their commanding officers may discuss or object to unethical or harmful uses of BCI technology."
Gene Civillico, a neuroscientist who has prior stints at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, told Military.com in an interview that the ethical questions of neurotechnology can be solved for the military pending the right regulatory and research processes, but there will always be an extra level of scrutiny paid to anything involving the brain.
And enhancement, rather than just curing ailments, raises further concerns.
"It's hard to distinguish sometimes between what's medical and what might be useful from a military mission standpoint," Civillico said. "The FDA might approve a device to enhance memory, because it would be seen as a medical indication that this device alleviates memory loss that's associated with Alzheimer's or something else. But suppose that the military wanted to make it so that someone could remember more than they had ever been able to remember before?"
Service members could also find more than their memories altered by enhanced brain performance.
"There's also this really complicated question of what do you do when you give somebody enhancing technology that becomes integral to their own self-identity," Nita Farahany, a Duke University professor, futurist and author of "The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology," told Military.com.
"Then they leave the military and they no longer can use that enhancing technology, which has become core to the way that they understand and interact with the rest of the world," added Farahany, who served on then-President Barack Obama's Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues and recently resigned from DARPA's ethical, legal and social implications committee.
Shortly after laying his eyes on that young, wounded boy in Afghanistan two decades ago, Ling knew quickly that research into connecting the mind to machines would open up all kinds of possibilities for the brain.
He's confident the military will keep ethics at the forefront of pioneering research, he said. But he can't promise that America's adversaries will do the same.
"You could change the human experience, and this little project that we did opens the possibility," Ling said.
A Year After Revolutionary War Soldiers from 1777 Were Found in a NJ Field, Questions Remain
Wade Catts, president and principal archaeologist for South River Heritage Consulting of Delaware, speaking at the scene of the discovery just outside Red Bank Battlefield Park , Aug. 2, 2022. (NJ Advance Media photo by Dave Hernandez /TNS)
An archeological dig just outside Red Bank Battlefield Park in Gloucester County, aimed at mapping a wartime trench, had accidentally uncovered the skeletal remains of a dozen or more individuals in an unmarked mass grave lost to history for 245 years.
All of the remains were believed to have been Hessian soldiers who died fighting for Great Britain against the Continental Army in a 1777 battle.
The discovery was made in June 2022 on the fourth and final day of a public dig that attracted more than 100 volunteers and was led by Wade Catts, an archeologist. It was announced to the public Aug. 2, drawing national attention and reviving interest in the Battle of Red Bank, in which an outnumbered group of colonists staved off an effort by the British to capture Fort Mercer.
“I think what has most impressed me since the announcement of the discovery is the level of public engagement. The team recognized this was a very significant discovery, but I don’t think we understood at the time just how much our project would resonate with the public,” said Jen Janofsky, director of Red Bank Battlefield Park.
One year later, several key questions stemming from the discovery remain unanswered.
Researchers do not know the precise number of individuals recovered from the excavated trench, Janofsky said. The total number is 15 or more and DNA testing remains underway, she said.
The conclusion that the soldiers were Hessians was based on items recovered by the remains, including a King George III gold guinea that would have been the equivalent of a soldier’s monthly pay, officials said previously.
Samples from the remains were initially analyzed by the New Jersey State Police’s Forensic Unit, which had been seeking to extract DNA from bones and teeth. The samples were then sent more than 3,000 miles away to Astrea Forensics, Janofsky said.
Astrea Forensics, located in Santa Cruz, California, was founded in 2019 by paleogeneticists to apply DNA techniques and direct genome sequencing to difficult-to-solve forensic casework and the identification of human remains, according to its website. The lab claims it has the ability to recover genetic profiles from rootless hair and other highly degraded samples, for which traditional forensic DNA testing might not be sufficient.
Janofsky said the lab is attempting to determine the quality of the DNA.
“This will guide future studies. We are also exploring stable isotope analysis which holds the potential to identify region, diet and ethnicity,” Janofsky said.
Results of ground-penetrating radar testing, aimed at determining if additional remains are located at the battlefield, are pending, she said. The testing was underwritten by $49,500 in grants from the New Jersey Historical Commission and Gloucester County.
“Based on our work from last year, there is, of course, always some potential for additional remains to be found at Red Bank,” Janofsky said.
Red Bank Battlefield Park is located in National Park, a borough in Gloucester County on the Delaware River. The battlefield is not part of the similarly-named Borough of Red Bank in Monmouth County, located about 90 miles away on the Navesink River.
Red Bank Battlefield Park covers 44 acres and is owned by Gloucester County.
The Revolutionary War-era trench where the remains were located extends onto an adjoining, quarter-acre site that was acquired by Gloucester County in 2020 and, until last year’s dig, had not been thoroughly explored by archeologists.
No decision has been made on where, or when, to rebury the remains, she said.
Janofsky and Catts, the archeologist who led the dig at the site, have been offering dozens of in-person and virtual presentations on the find and ongoing work. Sponsors have included the Daughters of the American Revolution, Gloucester County Historical Society, Lenape Regional High School in Meford and Monsignor Farrell High School in Staten Island, N.Y.
Students at Rowan University, where Janofsky is the public historian, participated in a six-week project at the battlefield in the spring, in which they learned about excavation and identifying artifacts.
Conservation work on many items recovered from last year’s project — including two gunflints, one musket ball, seven plain and repousśe buttons and two knee buckles — is being unwritten by a $2,937 grant from the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey, a group that makes grants to support local Revolutionary War-related sites and organizations, she said.
Upon completion, the items will be displayed in the James and Ann Whitall House, located at the battlefield park.
“Over the past year Wade and I have met hundreds of people who are truly invested in our work. They email us, attend our presentations, and let us know how impactful the work that we are doing is,” Janofsky said.
“The work of identifying those lost to history in a mass grave really connects with the public. In many ways, they are experiencing what our team experienced last year. People are clearly moved during our presentations, and I’ve lost count of how many have said ‘thank you’ to us. As a public historian, it’s been remarkable to take this journey with them,” Janofsky said.
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“As always, we remain a close family with deep love and respect for each other for everything we have built and will continue to build,” Trudeau wrote in a statement.
Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau and wife Sophie Trudeau arriving ahead of the coronation ceremony of King Charles III in London on May 6.
The prime minister and his wife said in a joint statement posted to their official Instagram accounts that they had "many meaningful and difficult conversations" prior to their decision.
"As always, we remain a close family with deep love and respect for each other for everything we have built and will continue to build," he wrote.
The couple asked for privacy out of respect for the children's wellbeing.
Sophie and Justin Trudeau first met as children in Montreal and crossed paths again at a charity event in 2003, according to Vogue. They married in 2005 and have three children together, two sons and a daughter.
Justin Trudeau has publicly praised his wife over the years, most recently in a post on her birthday in April. He posted two selfies with her to his social media with a caption professing his love for her.
"From this, to this, and everything in between, there’s no one I’d rather have by my side," he wrote.
He also praised her and his own mother as two of the "strongest, bravest, and greatest people" in a Mother's Day post from May.
"This man could carry the love he has for his kids anywhere," she wrote. "Dads, never underestimate your role as mentors in your family for your sons and your daughters."
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
