To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Prospect of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus joining forces
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 12:13:56 -0400

Concerns over 'Soviet Union'-lite
Prospect of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus joining forces causes anxiety in U.S.

By Jon E. Dougherty =A9 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

The prospect of Russia recreating an alliance of states,
albeit smaller than the original Soviet Union, is chilling
to some U.S. officials and foreign policy experts who are
beginning to see Russian President Vladimir Putin as a
possible threat to American interests in Europe and abroad.

In an exclusive report yesterday, WorldNetDaily described
how Putin, along with Belarussian President Alexander
Lukashenko and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, promised
to resurrect at least a portion of the former Soviet empire
to create an alliance to be "reckoned with."

Full Story:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_dougherty/20000506_xnjdo_concerns_ o.shtml

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========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Researchers Identify Brain's Moral Center
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 21:28:14 -0400

Wednesday May 3 6:22 PM ET

 Researchers Identify Brain's Moral
 Center

 SAN DIEGO (Reuters Health) - The brain's moral center--the
 bit that sorts ``right'' from ``wrong''--has been identified on brain
 scans, researchers reported here at the American Academy of
 Neurology's 52nd annual meeting.

 Drs. Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza and Jorge Moll of the Neurology
 and Neuroimaging Group, LABS and Hospitais D'or, Rio de
 Janeiro, Brazil, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to find
 out which parts of the brain were working when people were
 asked to make moral judgments.

                         Ten subjects (six men and four
                         women), aged 24 to 43 years,
                         were asked to make a series of
                         moral judgments while lying inside
                         an MRI scanner.

 On headphones, the study participants listened to a series of
 statements, such as ``we break the law if necessary,'' ''everyone
 has the right to live,'' and ``let's fight for peace.'' In each case, the
 subjects were asked to silently judge if each sentence was ``right''
 or ``wrong.''

 The participants also listened to sentences with no moral content,
 such as ``stones are made of water'' or ``walking is good for
 health,'' and judged these in a similar fashion.

 Results from brain scans taken as these judgments were being
 considered showed that making moral choices was associated
 with activation of the brain's frontal poles--an area known as
 Brodmann area 10.

 According to the research team, their findings tie in with previous
 observations that people who injure this area of the brain may
 exhibit severe antisocial activity.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000503/hl/brain_morals_1.html

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========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Kids Get Graphic Instruction In Homosexual Sex
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 21:47:03 -0400

The following url is from a site I've never heard of before but promotes itself
as: "A newspaper for moderates, conservatives and Libertarians who live or
work in Massachusetts." The information in this article is VERY disturbing
and I can't help hoping it is false. Nevertheless, if this is going on, we need to
be aware of it. Very graphic and not for the faint of heart.--Moza
---------------

Kids Get Graphic Instruction In Homosexual Sex

State sponsored conference featured detailed sexual material

By Brian Camenker and Scott Whiteman Massachusetts News
Massachusetts Department of Education employees described the
pleasures of homosexual sex to a group of high school students at a state-
sponsored workshop on March 25 at Tufts.

Full Story:
http://www.massnews.com/maygsa.htm

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========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Give It A Thought -- And Make It So
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 21:51:27 -0400

Posted 5/4/2000

Give It A Thought -- And Make It So

Glancing at a stereo and turning it on with a thought may have once been
science fiction, but inside a virtual world at the University of Rochester,
people are listening to music by simply wishing it so. Outfitted with a virtual
reality helmet and a computer program adept at recognizing key brain
signals, volunteers use their thoughts to take actions like those of any
apartment dweller-turning on the television or the stereo, for instance. The
line of research, which links a brain and computer in a near real-world
environment, may someday allow patients with extreme paralysis to regain
some control of their surroundings, say the project's developers, and could
eventually eliminate keyboards and computer mice as the go-betweens
connecting our thoughts and the actions we wish to see in our environment.

While several teams around the world are working on brain-computer
interfaces (BCI), computer science graduate student Jessica Bayliss is the
first to show that detection of the brain's weak electrical signals is possible
in a busy environment filled with activity. She has shown that volunteers who
don a virtual reality helmet in her lab can control elements in a virtual world,
including turning lights on and off and bringing a mock-up of a car to a stop
by thought alone. Though all this is currently taking place only in virtual
reality, the team is confident that the technology will make the jump to the
"real world" and should soon enable people to look around a real apartment
and take control in a way they couldn't before.

"This is a remarkable feat of engineering," says Dana Ballard, professor of
computer science and Bayliss' adviser. "She's managed to separate out the
tiny brain signals from all the electric noise of the virtual reality gear. We
usually try to read brain signals in a pristine, quiet environment, but a real
environment isn't so quiet. Jessica has found a way to effectively cut through
the interference."

The National Institutes of Health is supporting Bayliss' research because it
may someday give back some control to those who have lost the ability to
move. A person so paralyzed that he or she is unable even to speak may be
able to communicate once again if this technology can be perfected,
explains Bayliss. By merely looking at the telephone, television or
thermostat and wishing it to be used, a person with disabilities could call a
friend or turn up the heat on a chilly day. Bayliss hopes that someday such
people may even be able to operate a wheelchair by themselves simply by
thinking their commands.

"Virtual reality is a safe testing ground," says Bayliss. "We can see what
works and what doesn't without the danger of driving a wheelchair into a wall.
We can learn how brain interfaces will work in the real world, instead of how
they work when someone is just looking at test patterns and letters. The
brain normally interacts with a 3-D world, so I want to see if it gives off
different signals when dealing with a 3-D world than with a chart."

The brain signal Bayliss listens for is called the "P300 evoked potential." It's
not a specific signal that could be translated as "Aunt Nora" or "stop at the
red light," but rather a sign of recognition-more like "That's it!"

"It's as if each neuron is a single person who's talking," explains Bayliss. "If
there's just one person, then it's easy to hear what he's saying, but the brain
has billions of neurons, so imagine a room full of a billion people all talking at
once. You can't pick out one person's voice, but if everyone suddenly cheers
or oohs or aahs, you can hear it. That's what we listen for, when several
neurons suddenly say 'that's it!' "

Bayliss looks for this signal to occur in sync with a light flashing on the
television or stereo. If the rhythm matches the blinks of the stereo light, for
instance, the computer knows the person is concentrating on the stereo and
turns it on. A person doesn't even have to look directly at the stereo; as long
as the object is in the field of view, it can be controlled by the person's brain
signals. Since it's not necessary to move even the eyes, this system could
work for paralysis patients who are completely "locked in," a state where
even eye blinks or movement are impossible.

The virtual apartment in which volunteers have been turning appliances on
and off is modeled after Bayliss' own. Such a simple, virtual world is the first
step toward developing a way to accurately control the real world. Once
Bayliss has perfected the computer's ability to determine what a person is
looking at in the virtual room, the next hurdle will be to devise a system that
can tell what object a person is looking at in the real world. BCI groups are
also close to surmounting another obstacle-that of attaching the sensors to
the head. Right now dozens of electrodes must be attached to the scalp one
at a time with a gooey gel, but Bayliss says dry sensors are just around the
corner, and simple slip-on head caps should not be far behind.

"One place such an interface may be very useful is in wearable computers,"
Ballard says. "With the roving eye as a mouse and the P300 wave as a
mouse-click, small computers that you wear as glasses may be more
promising than ever."

BCIs are divided into two categories: biofeedback and stimulus-response.
Bayliss uses the latter approach, which simply measures the response the
brain has to an event. Biofeedback is a method where a person learns to
control some aspect of his or her body, such as relaxing, and the resulting
change in the brain can be detected. Though many BCI groups use this
approach, Bayliss decided against it because people must be trained,
sometimes for a year or more, and not everyone can learn to accurately
control their thought patterns.

Bayliss and Ballard work in the University's National Resource Laboratory for
the Study of Brain and Behavior, which brings together computer scientists,
cognitive scientists, visual scientists, and neurologists to study neural
functions in complex settings. The laboratory's research combines tools that
mimic real-world sensations, such as virtual reality driving simulators and
gloves that simulate the feel of virtual objects, with sensory trackers that
measure eye, head, and finger movements. Recently the lab added virtual
people, robot-like actors with which volunteers can interact in a limited way.

So in the future will we all be wearing little caps that will let us open doors,
channel surf and drive the car on a whim? "Not likely," Bayliss says.
"Anything you can do with your brain can be done a lot faster, cheaper and
easier with a finger and a remote control."

Editor's Note: The original news release can be found at
http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/cs/bayliss.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/05/000503180714.htm

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