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Medicine

Non-Invasive Stimulation of the Brain Ended Opioid Addiction, Cigarette Craving (jpost.com) 37

Posted by FirehoseFavorites from the second-chance dept.
The Jerusalem Post reports that doctors at Haifa's Rambam Health Care Campus "have successfully treated their first Israeli opioid addiction patient using an experimental noninvasive brain technology, easing him through withdrawal in just 20 minutes..." [T]he team of specialists at the Haifa medical center intervened in the electrical activity of an area of the patient's brain called the nucleus accumbens, the core of the brain system responsible for feelings of satisfaction, pleasure, and reward. The treatment, based on technology from the Israeli company Insightec, is similar to the one used to treat symptoms of essential tremor and Parkinsonian tremor, under MRI control. In this case, the treatment was carried out with the help of a new technology that performs noninvasive neuromodulation, without heating or burning tissue, and allows stimulation in the same area of the brain to increase or suppress activity...

"Tests carried out a week later produced negative results for opioids and other substances," [said Dr. Lior Lev-Tov, director of the functional neurosurgery unit in Rambam's neurosurgery division and the one leading the new study at the medical center.] "The patient himself reported a craving score of zero out of 10 for using the drug, and even another side effect, a drastic drop in the desire for cigarettes, from three packs a day to just a few cigarettes, and with no urge to use alcohol. In other words, in a treatment that lasted about 20 minutes net, our patient was completely freed from an extreme dependence that had accompanied him every day for years. This is nothing less than a medical and therapeutic revolution."
Dr. Lev-Tov added that "This experience opens doors for us to treat a wide range of very serious illnesses such as PTSD, OCD, eating disorders, other addictions, severe depression, severe pain disorders, and I hope we will also be able to reach cognitive areas and treat attention deficit disorders, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and more."

Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.

Comment Smart Fortwo vs my Silverado (Score 1) 330

Occasionally I would get my truck behind a Smart car and joke that if I rear-ended them they would just roll right up onto my hood and roof and down into the bed of my truck. I know its not really funny in actuality but my sense of humor is jaded. That said, this is exactly why I have a truck... if I'm going to be in an accident, I want to be on the living side of the damage.

Comment Re:Everyone knows Meta = Facebook (Score 1) 65

by Rosco P. Coltrane (#66191938) Attached to: Will Meta's $14 Billion Bet on AI Ever Pay Off?

> Meta doesn't really know how to do anything else with any skill.

They don't know how to do Facebook very well either: it's been pretty much stagnant and enshittified to death for the past 22 years, and it feels like a forum for greying people whose greying friends haven't bothered to move on either, or to get the date of the next annual meeting of the bridge club.

Comment Oh yeah, Shutterstock... (Score 1) 19

one of those companies whose sole purpose seems to be annoying you by slapping their name as a watermark on a generic image you'd like to use in a meme, and force to spend 10 seconds finding somewhere else because you were never going to pay a stupid company to remove their mark on a bad picture you can find everywhere.

I wonder how those companies still exist, let alone make any money.

Anyway, the modern way to use copyrighted photos for free is to ask stable diffusion to regenerate it, because the AI companies have done all the data stealing for you and repackaged the stolen data into "models" you can use for free.
Space

Blue Origin Rocket Exploded Thursday Night During Hot-Fire Test (cbsnews.com) 73

Posted by EditorDavid from the space-is-hard dept.
Spaceflight Now shared their video of the explosion, which the Orlando Sentinel describes as showing Blue Origin's rocket "become engulfed in flames. The fireball expands out and covers the entire launch pad as the fuselage of the rocket can be seen crumbling into the flames."

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X.com "It's too early to know the root cause but we're already working to find it. Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it." (SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted "Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.")

It's unclear how this will impact future launches. "The rocket was destroyed," reports CBS News, "and as the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the erector-gantry used to move the New Glenn from its hangar to the pad and to raise it from horizontal to vertical. Likewise, one of two tall lightning towers was no longer visible." It was the first such on-pad explosion at the Cape since a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on nearby pad 40 on Sept. 1, 2016... Blue Origin only has one New Glenn pad, the one that was damaged in the Thursday test. The New Glenn, which has launched three times, is a heavy lift rocket designed to compete head-to-head with SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. During New Glenn's most recent flight in April, an upper stage malfunction prevented a commercial internet satellite from reaching its planned orbit...

The New Glenn destroyed Thursday was to send 48 Leo internet satellites owned by Amazon into space [which were not on board for the hot-fire test]
Blue Origin posted on X.com that "Debris from our recent hotfire anomaly may wash ashore in the coming days/weeks. If you encounter any debris, do not touch or approach it for your safety."

"Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult..." NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X.com. "âWe will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader symbolset for sharing the news.

Comment And that's why (Score 4, Interesting) 42

I download all my books DRM-free from bittorrent.

My ebook reader is an ancient Sony PRS-650, it still works fine and it has no trouble reading files that haven't been messed up by Amazon. What a concept eh?

"What about the book's authors who aren't getting paid when you download their stuff for free?" I hear you say:

Yes, I wish I could pay for what I downloaded. But I can't. The best option I could find was to buy the paperback as well, so some of my money would trickle back to them. But that's mighty stupid and totally not environmentally-friendly.

I did try to pay an author directly once (the late Ian M. Banks) but he send me an angry email back saying even if he got money from me, I was robbing his editor and distributor, and I should just buy his book normally - which I would, if that didn't entail leaving an undeserved cut to effing Amazon.

So there we are: there's no mechanism to legally buy books that aren't hamstrung by DRM. So honest people who value their consumer rights can't be honest.

Comment Truly ignorant author lives in cities too much (Score 2) 108

"The use of wood as an energy source is a relic of the past, one that should not be relived if given a choice.

Wood burning is very much alive - both old-stylee polluting open-fires and stoves, and ultra-efficient pellet, wood-chip and wood dust burning in power stations. And it's renewable. Try visiting any nordic country some day...

Also, just because burning wood has downsides doesn't mean it has to be ditcheds it entirely. Solve the downsides instead...

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