What do you get when you put a terrorist inside of a brain scanner?

It’s not the setup of a bad joke. For years, the U.S. military has likely used brain scanners to try to read the minds of suspected terrorists. Some bioethicists have argued, and I tend to agree, that using neuroimaging during interrogations is not only ineffective, but could also exacerbate the abusive treatment of prisoners of […]

Giving Up on Aliens. Or Not.

Heather asked about the SETI telescope at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, whether having its budget zeroed out mattered in any way.  Had it ever found anything? Could it be re-purposed?  No it hasn’t and yes it can, but I don’t care because, ma’am, I am seriously running out of patience with the whole enterprise. […]

A Tech Journalism Cheat Sheet

A few weeks ago, the Human Brain Project announced that it had been selected as a finalist in a competition whose winners will get €1 billion worth of funding from the EU. The Human Brain Project (HBP) plans to use the prize money to build a simulation of the human brain on a supercomputer. HBP […]