Two Minds Blog

A recent paper described the accidental recording of EEG brainwave information right at the time of death, from a patient who had the unfortunate outcome of dying during a brain scan procedure. The patient was an 87-year-old man who had been hospitalized after a fall in which he hit his head; surgeons relieved pressure on his brain with surgery, but 2 days into hospitalization the patient showed a rapid decline in neurological status that led to the EEG. Some seizure activity in the brain was identified. Then, while he was still in the scanner, the patient experienced a cardiac arrest and died (he had a "do not resuscitate" order on file). The study's authors held off on publishing for 6 years because they weren't sure how much could be generalized from a single case study, but eventually they decided to share these accidental results with the scientific community. The most interesting thing about this case report was an increase in the relative percentage of gamma-...

Beginning in 2014, China's government set itself the goal of developing a national consumer credit system. At first glance this might seem unexceptional: In the U.S. this function is filled by three private companies -- Transunion, Equifax, and Experian -- that each develop their own credit ratings of individuals. And indeed, China's credit monitoring system includes ratings of financial credit by the company Alipay, a Chinese financial company owned by the same people as the the online sales giant Alibaba, through its feature Sesame Credit. But the notion of "credit" in China is broader than just its financial meaning; the Chinese government therefore calls its approach a "social credit system" ( shehui xinyong tixi ), with the Chinese word for "credit" also having connotations of "faith," "credibility," or "honor." In its original intention, the Chinese credit system was designed to reward good behavior  in all asp...