The disease may not be as destructive of memory as previously believed. That means that if they can come up with a cure, or ways of repairing the neuronal damage, people may be savable as the persons they were. This would reduce the attractiveness of the cryonics solution for them, if true.

[Update in the afternoon]

I should clarify that last sentence, per the question in comments. What I mean is that it would reduce the attractiveness of cryonics as a cure for Alzheimer’s. That is, if you believe that Alzheimer’s is destroying your mind, you’d like to preserve it before it’s all gone, so even though it’s currently illegal, it would be desirable to have yourself frozen now in the hope that they can repair you in the future, rather than the empty husk of the Alzheimer’s-addled you, from which all knowledge of who you are is gone.

This research provides an alternative. Let the mind go, if it can be brought back with future therapies, even before you’re suspended, without taking the risk on freezing it.

They may have found out what’s really killing the bees.

I never bought the cell phone theory, anyway. I know that those things have been getting smaller and smaller, but I don’t know how they would have gotten the bees to use them, or sign up for a twelve-month plan.

They may have found out what’s really killing the bees.

I never bought the cell phone theory, anyway. I know that those things have been getting smaller and smaller, but I don’t know how they would have gotten the bees to use them, or sign up for a twelve-month plan.

They may have found out what’s really killing the bees.

I never bought the cell phone theory, anyway. I know that those things have been getting smaller and smaller, but I don’t know how they would have gotten the bees to use them, or sign up for a twelve-month plan.

Carbon credits turn out to be bogus.

Well, so were the indulgences that the Church sold, that went and got Luther’s tonsure all in a knot. It’s just one more indication that this is about moralizing and religion, rather than science. In theory, though, you’d think that carbon credits would be more confirmable. I mean, you don’t have to wait until you’re dead to find out whether you got your money’s worth…

Carbon credits turn out to be bogus.

Well, so were the indulgences that the Church sold, that went and got Luther’s tonsure all in a knot. It’s just one more indication that this is about moralizing and religion, rather than science. In theory, though, you’d think that carbon credits would be more confirmable. I mean, you don’t have to wait until you’re dead to find out whether you got your money’s worth…

Carbon credits turn out to be bogus.

Well, so were the indulgences that the Church sold, that went and got Luther’s tonsure all in a knot. It’s just one more indication that this is about moralizing and religion, rather than science. In theory, though, you’d think that carbon credits would be more confirmable. I mean, you don’t have to wait until you’re dead to find out whether you got your money’s worth…

Some thoughts on our unwillingness to force treatment or confinement on the dangerously mentally ill. Of course, it’s a fine balance of civil liberties:

No one who knew him seems surprised by what he did. On the contrary, dorm chatter characterized him explicitly as a future school-shooter. One of his professors, the poet Nikki Giovanni, saw him as a disruptive bully and kicked him out of her class. Other teachers viewed him as disturbed and referred him for the ubiquitous “counseling”–an outcome that is ambiguous to the point of meaninglessness and akin to “treatment” for a patient with metastasized cancer.

But even that minimal care wasn’t given. The shooter didn’t want it and no one tried to force him to get it. While it’s been reported that he was involuntarily committed to a “Behavioral Health Center” in December 2005, those reports also say he was released the very next morning. Even if the will to segregate an obvious menace had been in place, the legal mechanisms to provide even temporary “warehousing” were absent. The rest is terrible history.

That is not to say that anyone who pens violence-laden poetry or lets slip the occasional hostile remark should be protectively incarcerated. But when the level of threat rises to college freshmen and faculty prophesying accurately, perhaps we should err on the side of public safety rather than protect individual liberty at all costs.

If the Virginia Tech shooter had been locked up for careful observation in a humane mental hospital, the worst-case scenario would’ve been a minor league civil liberties goof: an unpleasant semester break for an odd and hostile young misanthrope who might’ve even have learned to be more polite. Yes, it’s possible confinement would’ve been futile or even stoked his rage. But a third outcome is also possible: Simply getting a patient through a crisis point can prevent disaster, as happens with suicidal people restrained from self-destruction who lose their enthusiasm for repeat performances.

Could global warming reduce hurricanes?

Why not?

As a (current, at least) south Floridian, sounds good to me.

In the wake of the shootings, Jennifer Roback Morse writes about the intractable problem of the mentally ill (as it’s more than abundantly clear that the shooter was). This is something with which I, unfortunately, have some personal experience. It is tragic, and frustrating. But in this particular case, it was also devastating to dozens of innocents and their families.