This is kind of cool

and a little eerie, considering it involves brain implants. But still....

Paralyzed woman moves robotic arm using thought alone: Using the BrainGate neural interface system, a woman paralyzed by a brainstem stroke serves herself coffee for the first time in 15 years.

By implanting a 96-electrode sensor the size of a baby aspirin onto the surface of their brains, researchers have enabled two quadriplegic participants to use their thoughts alone to perform tasks with two types of robotic arms.

The BrainGate implant -- and the resulting Jedi mind tricks -- may be sort of anxiety-producing to some. But the smile on the face of the woman who hadn't been able to serve herself coffee in 15 years put a fine point on the progress the technology is affording.

I learned a new yet horrific word today

Courtesy of Rebecca Skloot, in her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: pneumoencephalography

“I later learned that while Elsie was at Crownsville, scientists often conducted research on patients there without consent, including one study titled "Pneumoencephalographic and skull X-ray studies in 100 epileptics." Pneumoencephalography was a technique developed in 1919 for taking images of the brain, which floats in a sea of liquid. That fluid protects the brain from damage, but makes it very difficult to X-ray, since images taken through fluid are cloudy. Pneumoencephalography involved drilling holes into the skulls of research subjects, draining the fluid surrounding their brains, and pumping air or helium into the skull in place of the fluid to allow crisp X-rays of the brain through the skull. the side effects--crippling headaches, dizziness, seizures, vomiting--lasted until the body naturally refilled the skull with spinal fluid, which usually took two to three months. Because pneumoencephalography could cause permanent brain damage and paralysis, it was abandoned in the 1970s.

"There is no evidence that the scientists who did research on patients at Crownsville got consent from either the patients or their parents. Bases on the number of patients listed in the pneumoencephalography studyand the years it was conducted, Lurz told me later, it most likely involved every epileptic child in the hospital including Elsie. The same is likely true of at least one other study called "The Use of Deep Temporal Leads in the Study of Psychomotor Epilepsy," which involved inserting metal probes into patients' brains.”

[Thanks to the folks at Goodreads for putting up the quote. I'd already returned my copy of the book to the library and needed the passage, although I had to correct some typos.]

Elsie Lacks, the oldest daughter of Henrietta and David Lacks, died at age 15 in 1955 at the Crownsville, originally known as the 'Hospital for the Negro Insane'. Elsie was diagnosed with mental retardation, epilepsy, and cerebral palsy, although she may have inherited the family trait for deafness. It's hard to tell what her exact diagnosis should have been. Children at the time were often misdiagnosed and locked away in institutions rather than receiving help. Skloot's description of conditions at Crownsville are chilling, and a photograph provides a window into how Elsie was treated, although there is a lot of room left to the imagination of the reader for just how bad it was.

Utter callousness and stupidity

Primary schoolchildren in tears after they are told they will be removed from families as part of Holocaust 'game'

A teacher decided to do a roleplaying exercise to teach her eleven-year-olds how it might have been for Jewish children during the Holocaust. Unfortunately, the kids didn't know it was a roleplay, for the teacher neither informed students or parents about the intended programme.

One girl said her classmates began crying when Mrs McGlynn told them she had a letter from the Scottish Executive saying nine children had to be separated from their classmates.

She told the shocked youngsters those who were born in January, February and March had lower IQs than other children, 'due to lack of sunlight in their mother's womb', and that they had to put yellow hats on and be sent to the library.

The mother added: 'When I asked why on earth they thought it was appropriate to deliver a role play situation to the children in this way, Mrs Stewart informed me that they didn't inform the children beforehand.

'This was because they wanted the children to experience an "accurate emotional response" to this scenario in order for it to be reflected in their story writing.

'Mrs Stewart then invited me to come up to the school and see the excellent work that had been produced as a result of the exercise.

'I declined and my position and opinion on the method used to extract emotive story writing from the children was cruel, barbaric, traumatic and totally, totally unethical.

'My daughter and indeed no child needs to feel the terror, fear, panic, segregation and horror that a child of the Holocaust experienced during one of the worst atrocities in history to be able to empathise with them in order to produce good story writing.'

Well said. It reminds me of the Jane Elliot's controversial 'blue-eyed/brown-eyed' exercise, which was used as an example of unethical use of human subjects in sociology class, along with the Milgram experiment. Ironically, had the teacher in the British case been a scientific researcher, her exercise would never had made it past an institutional review board (IRB) because it violates the first point of the Nuremberg Code--that informed consent of the subject must be obtained. The Nuremberg Code was, itself, set up as a response to Nazi human experimentation methods during the Holocaust to prevent exploitation and harm to the experimental subjects.

Interestingly, several commentators on the story mentioned that children today are coddled and that the children shouldn't have been so upset. But they are missing a crucial issue--trust. I don't think the parents are wrong to be upset. There's a difference between coddling a youngster and sheltering him or her from the realities of the world and betraying the trust that school is a 'safe place' in which to learn. I do not believe the teacher in this case thought out the emotional distress that this would produce coming from a trusted adult.

Interestingly, despite the ethical issues surrounding the Elliot and Milgram exercises, the majority of participants in each case looked back on them as positive experiences. Perhaps these children will as well. But considering the manipulation of emotions involved, I can't help but think that there are psychological explanations for the overwhelming support the subjects gave, perhaps a refusal to believe that anyone in a trusted position would abuse their power through manipulation. But in my opinion, that is what was done in all three of these cases.