1. Devil’s Advocate
Time Stamp: 5:09
- Revisiting Familiars
- The Benefits of Having A Companion Animal
https://petsforvets.com/benefits- Individuals with strong and rewarding social connections are happier, have fewer health problems and live longer than those who don’t
- Pets never judge, instead, offering only unconditional love, support and a feeling of safety.
- For the animals, having a routine and a human they trust gives them a sense of belonging and security they may have not had before.
- When petting an animal, the hormone oxytocin is released into the brain of both the human and the animal, creating a sense of calm, regulating breathing, and lowering blood pressure and pulse rate. Health is further improved through shared physical activity such as walks, hikes, runs and playing games like fetch.
- Saves Animal Lives – Each year in the U.S., over 6.5 million animals enter shelters and approximately 1.5 million are euthanized.
- Benefits of Companion Animals
https://northamerica.covetrus.com/resource-center/blogs/animal-health/animal-health/2017/06/02/benefits-of-companion-animals
https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/management/upload/Comment-4704-attachment_.pdf- Psychological benefits
- Reducing depression
- Warding off loneliness by providing companionship
- Increasing the need to take or maintain responsibility for self
- Lowering the incidence of psychological disease
- Lessening the need for medication
- Providing a sense of purpose.
- Psychological benefits
- If we accept that we are animals, ‘no better, often worse than those who walk on all four’, than we must accept that they are an integral part of our world, and thus it is an opportunity for us to improve their lives by improving ours.
- With taking care of the environment
- Outreach to local shelters
- Creating a positive feedback loop emotionally and psychologically
- The Benefits of Having A Companion Animal
2. Infernal Informant
Time Stamps: 34:41
- House set to vote on marijuana legalization
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/marijuana-legalization-house-vote-404455- The House will vote on legalizing marijuana next month.
- States would still have to vote to legalize the drug. Marijuana is already legal in 11 states.
- The MORE Act would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and erase some cannabis criminal records.
- Neither chamber of Congress has ever voted on removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act.
- “A floor vote on the bill would be the greatest federal cannabis reform accomplishment in over 50 years,” said Randal Meyer of the Global Alliance for Cannabis Commerce.
- Background: Cannabis is a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, which was signed into law in 1970. Drugs that are classified as Schedule I are defined as having a high potential for abuse and no medical benefit.
- This bill, H.R. 3884 (116), was introduced by House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) last fall and passed the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 24-10 in November. Reps Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Tom McClintock (Calif.) were the only Republicans on the committee to vote for the bill.
- “Of course I intend to vote yes on the bill,” McClintock said on Friday. “With respect to timing, I do find it ironic that the only small businesses the Democrats seem to be worried about is cannabis shops, but I would support this bill whenever it is brought to a vote.”
- The MORE Act is not the only bill that would remove cannabis from the CSA, but because it expunges records and creates funding for grants to benefit people who have been negatively impacted by criminal enforcement, this bill has garnered the most support from Democrat leadership and legalization advocates.
- “As people across the country protest racial injustices, there’s even greater urgency for Congress to seize this historic opportunity and finally align our cannabis laws with what the majority of Americans support, while ensuring restorative justice,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), a longtime champion of marijuana legalization.
- Does this mean cannabis will be legal? No, the odds of this bill passing in the Senate are still very slim, given the opposition of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
- The bill’s lead sponsor in the Senate is Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.,) the Democratic nominee for vice president.
- With Elon Musk’s help, ‘Three Little Pigs’ demonstrate Neuralink’s brain implant
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/three-little-pigs-help-elon-musk-demonstrate-neuralinks-brain-implant/- With grudging assistance from a trio of pigs, Neuralink co-founder Elon Musk showed off the startup’s state-of-the-art neuron-reading brain implant and announced that the system has received the Food and Drug Administration’s preliminary blessing as an experimental medical device.
- Neuralink’s team plans to place the implants in people, initially to see if those who have become paralyzed due to spinal cord injuries can regain motor functions through thought alone.
- Musk said the implant received a Breakthrough Device designation from the FDA last month. That doesn’t yet clear the way for human clinical trials, but it does put Neuralink on the fast track for consultation with the FDA’s experts during preparations for such trials.
- Neuralink has received more than $150 million in funding, with roughly two-thirds of that support coming from Musk himself
- Musk said the purpose of today’s demonstration was to recruit more job applicants.
- Brain-computer interfaces have been the stuff of science fiction for decades, and in a sense, they already exist in the form of neuron-reading electrode grids. But Musk and his Neuralink team are aiming to create easily implantable, wireless devices that theoretically could be used to give full sight to the blind and make it possible for people to communicate thoughts directly.
- Over the longer term, Musk said the system could help people store and replay their memories, upload their minds and download them back into robotic bodies, or merge their consciousness with AI agents.
- “This is obviously sounding increasingly like a ‘Black Mirror’ episode,” he said. “But, well, I guess they’re pretty good at predicting. … The future is going to be weird.”
- Neuralink’s researchers aren’t the only ones working on next-generation interfaces. This week, a venture called Synchron announced that its implantable brain-computer interface has also received the FDA’s Breakthrough Device designation. Synchron’s Stentrode device stimulates the nervous system from the interior of a blood vessel, without the need for open brain surgery. It’s already been implanted in patients with upper-limb paralysis during trials conducted in Australia.
- Another venture, BrainGate, is developing a brain implant system that has been approved for investigational use in clinical trials.
- At Seattle’s Center for Neurotechnology, which is headquartered at the University of Washington with funding from the National Science Foundation, researchers are developing technologies aimed at giving rise to brain co-processors.
- “These are brain-computer interfaces that use AI to transform information from one region of the brain to stimulate another, in order to achieve a goal such as rehabilitation, restoration or augmentation of brain function,” UW neuroscientist Rajesh Rao, the center’s co-director, explained in an email to GeekWire.
- Musk: “All of your senses — your sight, hearing, feeling, pain — these are all electrical signals sent by neurons to your brain,” he said. “And if you can correct these signals, you can solve everything from memory loss to hearing loss, blindness, paralysis, depression, insomnia, extreme pain, seizures, anxiety, addiction. strokes, brain damage. These can all be solved with an implantable Neurolink. … The neurons are like wiring, and you kind of need an electronic thing to solve an electronic problem.”
3. Creature Feature
Time Stamp: 54:41
- Ralph Angus McQuarrie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_McQuarrie- June 13, 1929 – March 3, 2012
- American conceptual designer and illustrator
- Filmography
- Star Wars (1977) (production illustrator)
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) (Mother Ship designer)
- Battlestar Galactica (1978) (production and concept illustrator)
- Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) (illustrator)
- The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (design consultant and conceptual artist)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (ILM illustrator)
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (scenic artist/spaceship design)
- Return of the Jedi (1983) (conceptual artist)
- Cocoon (1985) (conceptual artist)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) (visual consultant)
- *batteries not included (1987) (conceptual artist)
- Nightbreed (1990) (conceptual artist)
- Back to the Future: The Ride (1991) (conceptual artist) (uncredited)
- RALPH MCQUARRIE’S MOST MEMORABLE MASTERPIECES
https://www.starwars.com/news/ralph-mcquarries-most-memorable-masterpieces