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If there’s one thing I learned from the most recent installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, it’s this:  if you’re doing interesting research, it probably has a military application. In the interest of spoiler avoidance, let's just call this Wayne Enterprises invention "dual-use." (http://ixpower.com/2012/07/dark-knight-rises-batman-movie-does-infant-smr-industry-no-favors/) Dual Use Technology The formal name for it is “dual-use technology,” and it’s difficult to find an area of research in which it’s not a relevant concern. Innovations in renewable energy may avert catastrophic global warming, but they also promise to significantly lower military fuel costs and improve the mobility of forces newly unconstrained by the logistics of fossil fuel transportation. Research into nuclear fusion foreshadows essentially inexhaustible carbon-free energy at the same time as it provides a  technological foundation for fusion-triggered nuclear weapons that some bel...

I attended the excellent Neuroscience, Law, and Ethics of Lie Detection Technologies Symposium  in May, and as a consequence, I have spent the last month trying to answer questions I hadn’t even thought to ask before: Who owns the thoughts in my head? Could I be compelled to submit them? Can someone else decide that keeping my ideas to myself is a violation of the law or a threat to my country? If they force me to surrender them, do I lose ownership? So this week, I thought I would share some of the things I learned as I tried to find out answers. You can actually  buy this online . I am considering getting it printed on a hat. Two preliminary points: first, I want specify what I mean when I say “compelled” to undergo a brain scan. It seems, at least it seemed to me while sitting in the audience, that Americans are pretty afraid of having someone else read their minds without their permission, or, worse, being forced to have their minds read. This extends even to a si...

The undergraduate Neuroethics Program Creative Team embarked on making one of their first videos featuring Dr. Paul Root Wolpe .  This short 3 minute video discusses the ethical implications of using neuroimaging as evidence in the courtroom. This video is a teaser for our upcoming event on May 25th at Emory (see below for more information).  Thanks to our Neuroethics Creative Team! Giacomo Waller Sabrina Bernstein Lauren Ladov The Truth About Lies: the Neuroscience, Law, and Ethics of Lie Detection Technologies You Can’t Handle the Truth! The Neuroscience Program, Center for Ethics Neuroethics Program, and the Scholars Program in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Research (SPINR) are combining forces to hold a symposium on the intersection of neuroscience and law pertaining to the use of fMRI and other lie detection technologies in the courtroom. Drs. Hank Greely , director of the Center for Law and Biosciences at Stanford Law School, Daniel Langleben , a professor of Ps...

Pretty pictures of brains with some parts lit up: Do they convince us that scientific results are real? Do they convince us more than text or bar graphs? McCabe and Castel ask these questions in their 2008 article "Seeing is Believing" . (The above is not an actual figure. It was pirated mercilessly from a paper unrelated to this post by yours truly.) Last Wednesday, Dr. Karen Rommelfanger presented McCabe and Castel's paper at the first meeting of a new journal club hosted by the Neuroethics Program at the Emory Center for Ethics. Karen began by talking about how pervasive those pretty pictures of brains have become. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) seems to be everywhere (a good introduction to how it works can be found here ). Some companies, such as Cephos ("The science behind the truth") and NoLieMRI (who make up for their lack of a snappy slogan with their rhyming name), claim to use fMRI scanners as giant lie detectors, while other companie...