Super Agers - Artificial Intelligence - Medicine Disposal
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Breedlove, S
Apr 17, 2018, 7:18:51 AM4/17/18
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-study-brains-of-people-whose-memory-stays-share-into-old-age/2018/04/13/5422bfc8-3686-11e8-8fd2-49fe3c675a89_story.html?utm_term=.e030
Scientists study brains of people whose memory stays strong into old age
by Lauren Neergaard
It’s pretty extraordinary for people in their 80s and 90s to keep the same sharp memory as someone several decades younger, so scientists are peeking into the brains of“superagers” who do to uncover their secret.
The work is the flip side of the disappointing hunt for new drugs to fight or prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Instead of tackling that problem, “why don’t we figure out what it is we might need to do to maximize our memory?” said neuroscientist Emily Rogalski, who leads the SuperAging study at Northwestern University in Chicago.
Parts of the brain shrink with age, one of the reasons that most people experience a gradual slowing of at least some types of memory late in life.
But it turns out that superagers’ brains aren’t shrinking nearly as fast as their peers’. And autopsies of the first superagers to die during the study show they harbor a lot more of a special kind of nerve cell in a deep-brain region that’s important for attention, Rogalski told a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
These elite elders are “more than just an oddity or a rarity,” said neuroscientist Molly Wagster of the National Institute on Aging, which helps fund the research. “There’s the potential for learning an enormous amount and applying it to the rest of us, and even to those who may be on a trajectory for some type of neurodegenerative disease.”
© 1996-2018 The Washington Post
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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04602-6
Regulate artificial intelligence to avert cyber arms race
Mariarosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi.
Cyberattacks are becoming more frequent, sophisticated and destructive. Each day in 2017, the United States suffered, on average, more than 4,000 ransomware attacks, which encrypt computer files until the owner pays to release them1. In 2015, the daily average was just 1,000. In May last year, when the WannaCry virus crippled hundreds of IT systems across the UK National Health Service, more than 19,000 appointments were cancelled. A month later, the NotPetya ransomware cost pharmaceutical giant Merck, shipping firm Maersk and logistics company FedEx around US$300 million each. Global damages from cyberattacks totalled $5 billion in 2017 and may reach $6 trillion a year by 2021 (see go.nature.com/2gncsyg).
Countries are partly behind this rise. They use cyberattacks both offensively and defensively. For example, North Korea has been linked to WannaCry, and Russia to NotPetya.
As the threats escalate, so do defence tactics. Since 2012, the United States has used ‘active’ cyberdefence strategies, in which computer experts neutralize or distract viruses with decoy targets, or break into a hacker’s computer to delete data or destroy the system. In 2016, the United Kingdom announced a 5-year, £1.9-billion (US$2.7-billion) plan to combat cyber threats. NATO also began drafting principles for active cyberdefence, to be agreed by 2019. The United States and the United Kingdom are leading this initiative. Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain are also involved (see go.nature.com/2hebxnt).
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Limited,
--------------------
https://undark.org/article/unused-medication-drug-take-back/
Awash in Unused Medications, With No Good Place to Put Them
/ By Joshua Brockman
In May of last year, Dr. Chad Brummett spent part of a weekend in an Ann Arbor high school parking lot ensuring that the no-questions-asked drug take-back program he co-directs — called the Michigan Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network (Michigan OPEN) — went off without a hitch. The program is designed to give consumers in the area a convenient place to drop off unused or excess medications — ostensibly so they don’t end up being dumped or flushed into the environment, or land in the streets as part of the nation’s unchecked opioid epidemic.
“We believe these programs may be an effective part of an all-of-the-above strategy.”
Among the people stopping by that day, Brummett recalled: his own local pharmacist.
“I thought that was really an eye-opening moment when I had my pharmacist attend the event to dispose of his pills,” said Brummett, who is also an associate professor of anesthesiology and the director of the Division of Pain Research at the University of Michigan.
“I mean the irony is pretty deep, right?”
According to a new analysis from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), some 4 million Americans reported misusing prescriptions in the prior month, and deaths related to opioid abuse are skyrocketing. Most people, the GAO suggests, get these drugs from friends or relatives, so providing a safe and convenient way for consumers to return unused medications, the thinking goes, could help. Currently, there are three approaches to disposing of unused prescription drugs that are sanctioned by the Drug Enforcement Administration. These include special disposal bins installed at pharmacies or other registered entities, mail-back programs, and take-back events like Brummett’s.
Copyright 2018 Undark
--------------------
Scientists study brains of people whose memory stays strong into old age
by Lauren Neergaard
It’s pretty extraordinary for people in their 80s and 90s to keep the same sharp memory as someone several decades younger, so scientists are peeking into the brains of“superagers” who do to uncover their secret.
The work is the flip side of the disappointing hunt for new drugs to fight or prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Instead of tackling that problem, “why don’t we figure out what it is we might need to do to maximize our memory?” said neuroscientist Emily Rogalski, who leads the SuperAging study at Northwestern University in Chicago.
Parts of the brain shrink with age, one of the reasons that most people experience a gradual slowing of at least some types of memory late in life.
But it turns out that superagers’ brains aren’t shrinking nearly as fast as their peers’. And autopsies of the first superagers to die during the study show they harbor a lot more of a special kind of nerve cell in a deep-brain region that’s important for attention, Rogalski told a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
These elite elders are “more than just an oddity or a rarity,” said neuroscientist Molly Wagster of the National Institute on Aging, which helps fund the research. “There’s the potential for learning an enormous amount and applying it to the rest of us, and even to those who may be on a trajectory for some type of neurodegenerative disease.”
© 1996-2018 The Washington Post
--------------------
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04602-6
Regulate artificial intelligence to avert cyber arms race
Mariarosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi.
Cyberattacks are becoming more frequent, sophisticated and destructive. Each day in 2017, the United States suffered, on average, more than 4,000 ransomware attacks, which encrypt computer files until the owner pays to release them1. In 2015, the daily average was just 1,000. In May last year, when the WannaCry virus crippled hundreds of IT systems across the UK National Health Service, more than 19,000 appointments were cancelled. A month later, the NotPetya ransomware cost pharmaceutical giant Merck, shipping firm Maersk and logistics company FedEx around US$300 million each. Global damages from cyberattacks totalled $5 billion in 2017 and may reach $6 trillion a year by 2021 (see go.nature.com/2gncsyg).
Countries are partly behind this rise. They use cyberattacks both offensively and defensively. For example, North Korea has been linked to WannaCry, and Russia to NotPetya.
As the threats escalate, so do defence tactics. Since 2012, the United States has used ‘active’ cyberdefence strategies, in which computer experts neutralize or distract viruses with decoy targets, or break into a hacker’s computer to delete data or destroy the system. In 2016, the United Kingdom announced a 5-year, £1.9-billion (US$2.7-billion) plan to combat cyber threats. NATO also began drafting principles for active cyberdefence, to be agreed by 2019. The United States and the United Kingdom are leading this initiative. Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain are also involved (see go.nature.com/2hebxnt).
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Limited,
--------------------
https://undark.org/article/unused-medication-drug-take-back/
Awash in Unused Medications, With No Good Place to Put Them
/ By Joshua Brockman
In May of last year, Dr. Chad Brummett spent part of a weekend in an Ann Arbor high school parking lot ensuring that the no-questions-asked drug take-back program he co-directs — called the Michigan Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network (Michigan OPEN) — went off without a hitch. The program is designed to give consumers in the area a convenient place to drop off unused or excess medications — ostensibly so they don’t end up being dumped or flushed into the environment, or land in the streets as part of the nation’s unchecked opioid epidemic.
“We believe these programs may be an effective part of an all-of-the-above strategy.”
Among the people stopping by that day, Brummett recalled: his own local pharmacist.
“I thought that was really an eye-opening moment when I had my pharmacist attend the event to dispose of his pills,” said Brummett, who is also an associate professor of anesthesiology and the director of the Division of Pain Research at the University of Michigan.
“I mean the irony is pretty deep, right?”
According to a new analysis from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), some 4 million Americans reported misusing prescriptions in the prior month, and deaths related to opioid abuse are skyrocketing. Most people, the GAO suggests, get these drugs from friends or relatives, so providing a safe and convenient way for consumers to return unused medications, the thinking goes, could help. Currently, there are three approaches to disposing of unused prescription drugs that are sanctioned by the Drug Enforcement Administration. These include special disposal bins installed at pharmacies or other registered entities, mail-back programs, and take-back events like Brummett’s.
Copyright 2018 Undark
--------------------
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