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Climate Change And The Complexity of Science
One of the most successful environmental treaties of all time was the Montreal Protocol of 1987, which banned the use of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, an ozone-depleting substance mainly used in refrigeration and air conditioning. The ban was made feasible by the development of new refrigerants that would not deplete the ozone layer. According to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry:

In the 1980s, I remember that many scientists feared that ozone depletion was irreversible and the headlines in many newspapers declared that nations were powerless to stem the growing loss of ozone - the great hole in the ozone that threatened us all. But the Montreal Protocol proved that the pessimists and the naysayers were wrong. Virtually all the parties have met their obligations under the accord. Nearly 100 of the most ozone-depleting substances have been phased out. And as a result, the hole in the ozone is shrinking and on its way to repair. It's why we're here today... Now, that's the good news. The bad news is that in too many cases, the substances banned by the Montreal Protocol have been replaced by hydrofluorocarbons - HFCs - which are safer for ozone, but are exceptionally potent drivers of climate change - thousands of times more potent, for example, than CO2.

The diplomatic debate about phasing out HFCs has been underway for seven years, but the technology of refrigerant coolants appears to have finally caught up with the need for replacement technology. Once replacement technology is available, diplomacy becomes possible. According to Coral Davenport of the New York Times:

The Montreal treaty allows nations to amend it to ban substitute chemicals that have negative environmental effects even if they do not harm the ozone. And American chemical companies such as Dow, DuPont and Honeywell have already begun to patent climate-friendly HFC substitutes.

In many ways, this is a repeat of what happened when the Montreal agreement was reached. New chemicals can replace important chemicals that are dangerous to the environment as long as time, effort, and resources are devoted to developing those effective substitutes. Businesses are willing to cooperate and take advantage of the new business opportunities that are presented. Everyone is happy when they make money and protect the planet at the same time.

Even the precautionary principle might not have prevented this problem; testing technologies or drugs before they are used wouldn't have helped. When we test new technologies to understand their main side effects, we are dependent on the current state of scientific knowledge to gauge that impact. HFCs protected the ozone and were better to use than CFCs, but later on we found that HFCs caused global warming. At the time we adopted HFCs, we were ignorant about their impact on global warming. Had we known, we might have still decided back in the 1980s that protecting the ozone layer was more important than global warming, but our ignorance made such a choice unnecessary.

The technological world we live in inevitably creates impacts we can't predict. By definition, not all the dimensions of new, cutting-edge technology are well understood. As we struggle to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy technology, we should be prepared for the unanticipated impacts of solar cells, batteries, wind generators, smart grids and all the rest. Having stepped down the path of technologically based economic development, we should not expect a pristine planet. But we can expect and work toward an environmentally sustainable earth. There is no excuse for willful disregard of the facts and every reason to listen closely when someone finds that your breakthrough invention has some negative effects.

We should approach the introduction of new technology and our analysis of environmental impacts with care and humility. The ozone hole was an urgent crisis that perhaps pushed other considerations out of our mind as we focused on the problem at hand. The climate crisis is today's high priority crisis. What other challenges are we setting aside as we focus our attention on the urgent crisis of the moment?

What is key is that we integrate a concern for environmental impacts into the development and implementation of new technology. Human ingenuity fashions our technology to respond to the problems of human survival and wellbeing. The goal is to make products that transform our lives. The success stories are all around us: the air conditioning that comforts us during the current heat wave, the computer and wireless internet that carries this blog piece to you, and countless inventions that make our way of life possible.

But today we are seven billion humans and before our growth peaks we will hit nine billion. It's a big planet, but our lifestyles have still managed to transform it. We've lit it up, carved it up, built it up, and travel everywhere to see all of it. We need to understand that impact if we are to continue to ensure that the natural systems that provide us with air, water, and food remain viable. While our species is ingenious, we make mistakes and our learning process is far from perfect.

The process of negotiating this treaty amendment has been difficult with both China and India agreeing to a transition from HFCs, but arguing for a longer period of transition than desired by climate advocates due to cost. The transition will not be without financial cost, and while the costs are relatively low, for developing countries they may be significant. The compliance deadlines could be influenced by the development of newer, lower-cost substitutes. If the price of transition is lowered, then the time scale issue will become less important.

Both China and India are seeing greater environmental awareness among their young people, particularly the youthful elite. This is something we already saw in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Once environmentalism takes hold among young people in China and India, we can expect to see less opposition to aggressive global environmental agreements and hopefully, less need for them in the first place. The key will be to connect future economic growth the health of the global ecosphere. Since the connection is true, the argument will be made with great impact.

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Weekend Roundup: The Last Gasp of Atatürk
If the aim of the coup plotters was to derail Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's march toward autocratic rule and restore the country firmly on the secular path envisioned by its modern founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, their failure achieved the opposite result. The last gasp of Atatürk has breathed new life into Erdoğan's troubled and troubling tenure.

Oxford scholar Azeem Ibrahim credits the development of Turkey's vibrant civil society and economy to the secular Kemalist vision and the stability secured over the years by the military and judiciary. "But the failed coup ... marks an end to all that," he writes. "And this may very well be the end of the Kemalist Turkish Republic."

In an interview, Yusuf Muftuoglu, a top advisor to former Turkish President Abdullah Gül, explains the forces behind the coup and the resistance to it. He notes the critical importance of social media, of Istanbul as a new power center for Islamists and the key role of the police in fighting the armed forces. "Erdoğan is the biggest victor" of the coup "and quite deservedly," he concludes. "Honestly, had there been another person at the same post, the coup might have succeeded. Erdoğan not only has shown the strong leadership to mobilize the masses against the coup plotters, which is unprecedented in Turkish history, but also, and more importantly, did so while he himself was physically targeted. ... This whole process also confirmed once again Erdoğan's seamless contact with his constituency and beyond."

In another interview, one of Turkey's leading novelists, Elif Shafak, sees her country "heading into a Kafkaesque world" in the wake of the coup, where everyone is suspect. "The question hovering in the air," she writes, is, "Are you one of us or are you one of them?" She also worries that her country is now on the path to becoming an "illiberal democracy." "A true democracy," she argues, "needs separation of powers, rule of law, freedom of speech, women's rights, LGBT rights, free and diverse media and independent academia. Without all these institutions and values you can only have 'majoritarianism.' And majoritarianism is not the same thing as democracy." Another Turkish novelist, Kaya Genc, describes a night of both high anxiety and relief as he roamed the streets of Istanbul with anti-coup protesters. Writing from the Menemen District far from Istanbul, Ilgin Yorulmaz talks to people about the failed coup and says her, "pro-democracy friends support neither the coup nor autocracy."

Reporting from Istanbul, WorldPost Middle East Correspondent Sophia Jones takes the pulse of everyday life on the streets among the city's unsettled residents. Some are angry at the military, some at Erdoğan, she writes. "Anything can happen at any time," one resident tells her. She also reports on the choice Greece faces over whether to extradite eight alleged Turkish coup plotters seeking exile in that neighboring country. Also writing from Istanbul, Behlül Özkan slams the "kamikaze coup attempt" that he thinks was bound to fail, but says, "Turkey is now in the midst of a national security crisis" and that Erdogan's tactics for holding on to power by, "forming temporary, strategic alliances cannot solve" it.

In an interview, Can Dündar , the persecuted editor-in-chief of the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, fears the post-coup backlash. Speaking of Erdoğan's comment that the coup was "a gift from God," Dündar says, "He will make good use of this 'gift' and start a witch hunt against all opposition by accusing them of being coup perpetrators and thereby increasing his oppression."

Turkish authorities have blamed the cleric Fethullah Gülen and his followers for fomenting the coup and demanded his extradition from exile in the U.S. James Dorsey tries to answer the question of whether Gülen is an Islamist modernizer or "a wolf in sheep's clothing." Graham Fuller, a former vice chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council once stationed in Istanbul, and whose security assessment (written in a personal capacity) helped Gülen to obtain status as a permanent resident in the U.S., offers his take on the Gulenist movement. He sees the political battle in Turkey between the AKP ruling party and Gulenists as a power struggle among two of the Muslim world's more moderate movements. And he seriously doubts Gülen had anything to do with the coup attempt. Fuller concludes that, "Erdogan is planting the seeds of his own destruction" through the ongoing purges aimed at the Gulenist and liberal forces. "The country itself," he writes, "is now his primary victim."

Writing from Germany, Christoph Asche says that the restoration of the death penalty in Turkey "could kill relations" between the two countries since European Union nations reject executions on a human rights basis. Foreign Affairs Reporter Akbar Shahid Ahmed and others explore the complex history of relations between NATO and the various democratic and military governments in Turkey over recent decades. Ahmed also writes on Donald Trump's recent NATO controversy. Referring to the backlash against Trump's remarks that Europe should share more of NATO's burden, he says, "key anti-Trump forces are offering evidence for the Republican standard-bearer's argument ― that U.S. elites are so hung up on past commitments that they can't embrace fresh thinking." Tunisian blogger Ramzi Houidi compares the failed coup in Turkey to the successful military coup in Egypt in 2013. The difference, he says, is that "in Turkey, the opposition chose to democratically stand against the coup, putting the interests of the country before the party's."

France is once again reeling, this time after the Nice attack by a Tunisian immigrant that killed scores of people on Bastille Day. Former Bosnian Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey argues that many "losers" in society, like the Tunisian attacker, turn to terrorism so they can become "heroes." Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed argues that more attacks on the self-proclaimed Islamic State won't end terrorism in France or Europe as a whole. Only an affirmative policy of integration of Muslims will make a difference, he says. Writing from Stuttgart, Germany, Daniel Koehler brings common sense to the fight against terrorism. "Mothers may be the first, last and best approach to stopping militant recruiters," he writes.

Turning to the political drama in the U.S., the Republican Party convened in Cleveland this week to nominate Donald Trump as its presidential candidate. Dean Obeidallah writes that a recent proposal by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a key speaker at the convention, to vet American Muslims over whether they believe in Sharia is a glimpse into the "inquisition" to come if Trump wins the presidency. Reflecting on the theme of Trump's acceptance speech Thursday that "we should be afraid, very afraid," Obeidallah also lends skepticism to the nominee's credentials on security issues. "For Trump to justify scaring us, he needs to be able to deliver on his promise to keep us safe," he writes.

In his own assessment of Trump's speech from Cleveland, Howard Fineman thinks the American Founding Fathers would be turning in their grave. He writes that, "they knew the history of Rome, where tribunes ― in the name of the people but often for their own purposes ― wielded vast power. They didn't think anyone had a direct pipeline to the voice of the people except the people themselves. The founders feared both the mob and the monarchy, but most of all feared an alliance of the two."

Turning to Asia, Helen Clark looks at what the recent ruling by a U.N. tribunal against China and for the Philippines means for Vietnam, which has similar territorial claims against China. Vietnam is being cautious and not celebratory, she writes, because, "what happens next in the South China Sea won't change: it is still up to China." Looking into the not-too-distant future when robots will be creating new wealth, but displacing jobs, Moises Naim argues we should be open to the idea of a guaranteed minimum income for all.

Some things in the world are working. Google is using its DeepMind computing capacity to more efficiently regulate the flow of energy to its servers, which constitute 5 percent of the cloud.

As Saudi Arabia's top clerical body renewed its fatwa against Pokemon, our Singularity series this week reports that the "Pokemon Go" craze is only a foretaste of our augmented reality future.

But not everyone loves "Pokemon Go." Cavan Sieczkowski reports on what director Oliver Stone said about the game at Comic-Con this week. "It's everywhere," she quotes Stone as saying. "It's what some people call surveillance capitalism ... You'll see a new form of, frankly, a robot society where they will know how you want to behave, and they will make the mock-up that matches how you behave. It's what they call totalitarianism." Nathalia Ramos disagrees, arguing that "Pokemon Go" nostalgically takes millennials back to an "innocent" era before 9/11 when they played a similar game as children. In yet another twist, some Syrian children are tapping in to the "Pokemon Go" craze to ask the world to help rescue them.

WHO WE ARE

EDITORS: Nathan Gardels, Co-Founder and Executive Advisor to the Berggruen Institute, is the Editor-in-Chief of The WorldPost. Kathleen Miles is the Executive Editor of The WorldPost. Farah Mohamed is the Managing Editor of The WorldPost. Alex Gardels and Peter Mellgard are the Associate Editors of The WorldPost. Suzanne Gaber is the Editorial Assistant of The WorldPost. Katie Nelson is News Director at The Huffington Post, overseeing The WorldPost and HuffPost's news coverage. Charlotte Alfred and Nick Robins-Early are World Reporters. Rowaida Abdelaziz is World Social Media Editor.

CORRESPONDENTS: Sophia Jones in Istanbul.

EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Arianna Huffington, Eric Schmidt (Google Inc.), Pierre Omidyar (First Look Media), Juan Luis Cebrian (El Pais/PRISA), Walter Isaacson (Aspen Institute/TIME-CNN), John Elkann (Corriere della Sera, La Stampa), Wadah Khanfar (Al Jazeera), Dileep Padgaonkar (Times of India) and Yoichi Funabashi (Asahi Shimbun).

VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS: Dawn Nakagawa.

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Moises Naim (former editor of Foreign Policy), Nayan Chanda (Yale/Global; Far Eastern Economic Review) and Katherine Keating (One-On-One). Sergio Munoz Bata and Parag Khanna are Contributing Editors-At-Large.

The Asia Society and its ChinaFile, edited by Orville Schell, is our primary partner on Asia coverage. Eric X. Li and the Chunqiu Institute/Fudan University in Shanghai and Guancha.cn also provide first person voices from China. We also draw on the content of China Digital Times. Seung-yoon Lee is The WorldPost link in South Korea.

Jared Cohen of Google Ideas provides regular commentary from young thinkers, leaders and activists around the globe. Bruce Mau provides regular columns from MassiveChangeNetwork.com on the "whole mind" way of thinking. Patrick Soon-Shiong is Contributing Editor for Health and Medicine.

ADVISORY COUNCIL: Members of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council and Council for the Future of Europe serve as the Advisory Council -- as well as regular contributors -- to the site. These include, Jacques Attali, Shaukat Aziz, Gordon Brown, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Juan Luis Cebrian, Jack Dorsey, Mohamed El-Erian, Francis Fukuyama, Felipe Gonzalez, John Gray, Reid Hoffman, Fred Hu, Mo Ibrahim, Alexei Kudrin, Pascal Lamy, Kishore Mahbubani, Alain Minc, Dambisa Moyo, Laura Tyson, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Raghuram Rajan, Nouriel Roubini, Nicolas Sarkozy, Eric Schmidt, Gerhard Schroeder, Peter Schwartz, Amartya Sen, Jeff Skoll, Michael Spence, Joe Stiglitz, Larry Summers, Wu Jianmin, George Yeo, Fareed Zakaria, Ernesto Zedillo, Ahmed Zewail and Zheng Bijian.

From the Europe group, these include: Marek Belka, Tony Blair, Jacques Delors, Niall Ferguson, Anthony Giddens, Otmar Issing, Mario Monti, Robert Mundell, Peter Sutherland and Guy Verhofstadt.

MISSION STATEMENT

The WorldPost is a global media bridge that seeks to connect the world and connect the dots. Gathering together top editors and first person contributors from all corners of the planet, we aspire to be the one publication where the whole world meets.

We not only deliver breaking news from the best sources with original reportage on the ground and user-generated content; we bring the best minds and most authoritative as well as fresh and new voices together to make sense of events from a global perspective looking around, not a national perspective looking out.

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The Nature Of Consciousness: Resonance Between Ancient Philosophies And Current Science

What is consciousness? Is it an essentially human characteristic or a fundamental characteristic of the universe? Questions about consciousness have intrigued philosophers and scientists for thousands of years. Neuroscientists, like myself, are asking questions about the essential characteristics of consciousness, and the extent to which it is dependent on activity in the brain. In the laboratory, I have studied consciousness through my research on meditation, and more recently the phenomenon of near-death experiences.

Authors of the many ancient philosophical texts of India have also explored the nature of consciousness through careful observation of their own experience. One tradition that I have studied is that of Kashmir Shaivism, a philosophy that flourished in the north of India in about 900-1000 CE. One of the early texts of Kashmir Shaivism is titled the Shiva Sutras, and is credited to the sage Vasugupta. As I have studied this text, I have been surprised to see how, in its very short aphorisms or sutras, it unfolds for the reader key principles to understanding the nature of consciousness. These principles resonate with emerging scientific theories about the nature of consciousness and my own research in the areas of meditation and near-death experiences.

Shiva Sutra 1.1 states: chaitanyam atma. In translating this Sutra from the original Sanskrit, we find that the word chaitanyam means consciousness, and atma describes who we are, each one of us, at the deepest and purest level. Atma is our own highest self, and the nature of all of reality. So, the sutra states that consciousness is what we are; we are consciousness. In addition, it is the substance of the universe.

What does research have to say about the nature of consciousness? Though scientists have differing views about the nature of consciousness, research on near-death experiences (NDEs) provides some of the most compelling data to suggest that consciousness is our essential nature. NDEs are experiences people report about a time when the body--including, the brain--is judged by medical professionals to be non-functioning, to be dead.

One of the first extensive studies on NDEs was done by Pim van Lommel and his colleagues, MDs in Cardiology in a network of Netherlands Hospitals, and published in the Lancet, ranked #2 among all medical journals. The researchers designed a prospective study (the gold standard of this type of study) in which they examined all the cardiac arrest survivors (344 patients) in the hospital network over a specific period. They found that 12% reported a core near-death experience. And of those patients about 24% said they had been able to watch and recall events happening around them during their cardiac arrest, events which were verified. A second prospective study in 2003 by Bruce Greyson, MD, professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia, included 1,595 patients with cardiac arrest, with 10% reporting NDEs. Greyson summarizes the characteristics of NDEs during cardiac arrest with this observation:

The paradoxical occurrence of heightened, lucid awareness and logical thought processes during a period of impaired cerebral perfusion raises particularly perplexing questions for our current understanding of consciousness and its relation to brain function. As prior researchers have concluded, a clear sensorium and complex perceptual processes during a period of apparent clinical death challenge the concept that consciousness is localized exclusively in the brain.

In the book Irreducible Mind, University of Virginia researchers Edward Kelly and his colleagues summarize the evidence from many peer-reviewed studies on NDEs. They conclude that there is evidence of conscious awareness when the brain is not functional in NDEs, adding this statement:

NDEs seem instead to provide direct evidence for a type of mental functioning that varies "inversely, rather than directly, with the observable activity of the nervous system." Such evidence, we believe, fundamentally conflicts with the conventional doctrine that brain processes produce consciousness, and supports the alternative view that brain activity normally serves as a kind of filter, which somehow constrains the material that emerges into waking consciousness.

This research suggests that an active mind actually inhibits levels of expanded consciousness. I believe this is what ancient texts such as the Shiva Sutras have been saying for thousands of years. As discussed, Shiva Sutra 1.1 states, chaitanyam atma, the essence of who we are is consciousness. This sutra, like the experiences reported in NDEs, suggests that consciousness is primary, not secondary to, or dependent on, activity within the functioning brain.

One of the characteristics of NDEs that supports this view of consciousness is the experience of persons seeing their body from a point outside itself in space. Kelly and his colleagues note that 48% of the persons who they have studied reported having this experience, including seeing and hearing events that happened nearby, such as the medical team's attempts to revive them. These observations were later verified.

A second characteristic of NDEs supporting this view of consciousness is the experience of unity awareness, timelessness and spacelessness, and a direct experience of divine love, which often occurs during the out-of-body experiences of the NDE.

Kelly and his colleagues propose a nonmedical or "transcendent" model to explain the NDE, in which there are aspects of reality not normally accessible to our senses. Our normal consciousness is considered to be a part of a transcendent and expanded conscious awareness. In an NDE persons access these more subtle levels, in which consciousness functions independently from the nervous system. Kelly also notes that these characteristics of NDEs are seen in mystical experiences related to most meditation traditions, including out-of-body experiences, enhanced mental functioning, and heightened perception.

These scientific studies on NDEs give strong evidence that the essence of the human being is consciousness, chaitanyam atma. Though our conscious awareness may appear limited or contracted in our normal waking state, it has the potential to transcend these limitations, allowing us the experience of infinite consciousness, infinite awareness. According to the Shiva Sutras, infinite awareness is our essential self. It is a fundamental characteristic of the universe.

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Drunk Driving Laws Don't Match The Research
By Brad J. Uren, University of Michigan

Emergency physicians learn to be prepared for anything thrown at us in the clinical arena. Personal life is a different story. Last year a drunk driver with multiple prior offenses and no valid driver's license smashed a truck through the wall of my son's daycare.

Fortunately, the children and staff were in undamaged areas. But just minutes before, my son and I had walked through the exact spot in the art room where the truck came to rest in a pile of debris.

Having worked in the ER for years, I've seen the aftermath of drunk driving often enough before, but that was the first time I had seen an accident caused by a drunk driver up close.

Drunk driving is a major public health problem in the U.S. In 2014 nearly one-third of the nation's 32,675 traffic fatalities were alcohol-related. This means a completely preventable death happened every 53 minutes in this country.

My brush with a drunk driver made me wonder about what practices and policies can help prevent accidents and fatalities. Research suggests lower blood alcohol concentration limits and interventions like ignition interlocks can make a big difference.

Jefferson County Sheriff Deputy Kevin Schwindt tests a driver to see if he is under the influence of drugs or alcohol in Golden, Colorado in 2008.
Rick Wilking/Reuters

Think you're OK to drive?

When drunk drivers come to the ER they often express surprise, disbelief or denial about their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) or their level of impairment. They often are drunker than they think they are.

Higher blood alcohol levels, no matter how "sober" you feel, can have a real impact on your ability to perform tasks that require concentration, such as driving. While people who drink more often may feel the effects of alcohol less acutely than someone who does not, their reflexes and judgment can still be impaired. And the more you drink, the harder it is to judge how intoxicated you are.

At least one study involving college students has shown that higher BACs are associated with an underestimation of an individual's level of intoxication.

Studies have also shown that increasing BAC is also associated with a decreased reaction time.
For instance, one study pointed to an average decreased reaction time of 120 milliseconds, just over a tenth of a second, associated with a blood alcohol content (BAC) level of 0.08, the legal limit. Traveling at 70 miles per hour, a drunk driver would travel for an additional 12 feet before reacting to a roadway hazard.

Legal limit for blood alcohol is pretty high

In 2000 Congress passed legislation making 0.08 the national standard for impaired driving in the United States. Under the law, states that did not adopt 0.08 as the standard by 2004 faced cuts in federal highway funding. By the time the law was passed many states had already adopted the 0.08 standards, but some states used 0.10 as the standard.

The lowering of the limit was in response to a 1992 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report to Congress recommending this action as a way to reduce highway deaths. Implementation of these lower BAC laws has been associated with a decrease in alcohol-related highway fatalities. But 0.08 is still a fairly high BAC level compared to other developed countries.

Among the largest industrialized countries, only the U.S., United Kingdom and Canada permit BACs as high as 0.08. France, Germany, Italy and Australia currently set their BAC limit at 0.05. Japan has the lowest requirement of this group at 0.03. European countries in particular have sought lower BAC requirements in the past decades as part of an effort to decrease traffic deaths

When the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, made its recommendations to change EU laws to recommend a BAC of 0.05 as the per se limit for impaired driving, they included supporting data, including fatality reductions, from countries with existing 0.05 BAC laws.

There's a big difference between 0.05 BAC and 0.08

It might not take as many drinks as you think to slow your reaction time and make safe driving harder.

For the purposes of standardization, a drink is defined as 12 ounces of 5 percent alcohol beer, five ounces of 12 percent alcohol wine or one and a half ounces of 80 proof (40 percent alcohol) liquor. To account for an individual drinking over a longer period of time, subtract about 0.01 percent for each 40 minutes of drinking time.

How many drinks does it take to get to the limit?
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a 160-pound man, two alcoholic beverages can bring about some loss of judgment, decreased ability to rapidly track a moving target and result in decreased ability to multitask. Women generally weighing less than men, would see a higher BAC per drink.

Three alcoholic drinks will bring a person's blood alcohol level to a level of approximately 0.05 percent, which can impair the ability to rapidly focus vision, lower alertness, and decrease coordination to the point that steering becomes difficult and response to driving emergencies becomes blunted.

After approximately four alcoholic drinks, balance, vision and reaction time are often affected. It becomes harder to detect roadway dangers. Reasoning and information processing are often measurably impaired. This corresponds most closely to a BAC of 0.08 percent, the limit set by most states for legal operation of a vehicle.

A blood alcohol of 0.10 percent is generally associated with a clear loss of reaction time and control. There will be reduced ability to maintain proper lane position or brake appropriately.

Not surprisingly, as the BAC level climbs higher than 0.10 percent, it is associated with the progressively deteriorating ability to drive a vehicle safely.

Studies going back to the 1960s have demonstrated the correlation between BAC and accident risk. The relative risk of being in a crash is 1.38 times higher at a BAC of 0.05 than 0.00. At 0.08, the risk is 2.69 times higher. At 0.10, the crash risk climbs to five times higher.

When you consider the medical evidence, including the physiological effects, and the relative risk of crash, you can understand why some countries set the legal limit at 0.05 and why in 2013 the NTSB recommended that 0.05 become the new limit in the U.S.

Ignition interlocks could stop drunk drivers

Drunk driving is a tough problem to solve. One solution is to focus interventions on those who have a prior alcohol impaired driving arrest because they are at higher risk of doing it again. The reasons for this are not clear, but many drunk driving episodes are linked to binge drinking and not simply social drinking.

Ignition interlocks, which are essentially breathalyzers connected to the vehicle's ignition system, could also make a difference. These devices ensure that the vehicle can only be started by a sober driver. They've have been around for many years and modern versions have features to resist tampering, and require intermittent rechecks to ensure the driver doesn't drink after starting the vehicle.

All states use ignition interlocks to some degree, but as of January 2016, only 23 states require interlocks for all DUI offenders, which are sometimes called universal ignition interlock laws. The NTSB recommended the use of ignition interlocks for all first time offenders in 2012.

A 2015 study in the American Journal of Public Health, found that states with these laws have fewer alcohol involved crash deaths. Researchers compared data for 18 states which implemented universal ignition interlock laws to 32 states that had not. In those 18 states, universal interlock laws saved 918 lives, a 15 percent reduction in deaths related to drunk driving.

It is every driver's responsibility to understand that there is no "safe" BAC level. It's simple: The more you drink, the less you are able to drive safely, and the higher the likelihood of an accident. For those who ignore the evidence and the law, at least there is a technical solution that could help stop further loss of life to this preventable problem.
"The

Brad J. Uren, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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"It's A Scandal" -Daryl Hall on Doctors Denying Chronic Lyme

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Growing up a musically-obsessed child in the 80's, Daryl Hall was one of my biggest inspirations. A masterful, inventive songwriter with an ocean of soul, he set me on the path to being an artist, to never waste a word, and to sing because I mean it.

With six number ones and five additional top ten hits throughout the 70's and 80's Daryl Hall and John Oates are the number one duo in music history. Still at the top of his game at 69 years old, Daryl has won legions of new fans with his hit MTV Live show Live From Daryl's House.

In February of 2015, at my very sickest from chronic Lyme and Bartonella, after it was missed by eleven NYC doctors, I was homebound and in heart failure. On one of those terrifying, bleary days I caught the last half of a Dan Rather interview with Daryl.

Near the end, Rather asked, "What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?"

Daryl exhaled, "Getting Lyme Disease is no fun, I'll tell you that right now."

"I have to speak with him," I thought. "He looks so good! I need to know how he got better."

So, here is my conversation with Daryl and with Dr. Richard Horowitz, Daryl's esteemed Lyme specialist, Board Certified Internist and Director of the Hudson Valley Healing Arts Center, in Hyde Park, New York, and New York Times best-selling author of Why Can't I Get Better. His forthcoming book, How Can I Get Better, will be out later this year.

Daryl, thank you for going on the record; many celebrities don't want to talk about this and I don't know why.
I don't either. I don't know why anybody would want to hide this, there's no stigma against it. It's something that's happening to everybody.

How and when did this all start for you?
About ten years ago, I started getting tremors, especially in my left hand and arm, with twitching, and I didn't know what that was. I've always had food allergies and spring allergies but then I got this very serious celery allergy. And that came out of the blue. And then finally I came down with this raging fever and really stiff neck and body.

What was the timeframe for all of the symptoms to surface?
This took place over the course of about a year.

I assume you were seeing doctors- what were they saying?
They told me it was the summer flu and all this nonsense. So I started talking to my family about it and my ex-wife, who has Lyme, said it sounded to her like Lyme. So I went to another doctor who finally did test me, and found I also had ehrlichia. He gave me two weeks of Doxycycline only, and of course, old story, nothing happened. Except that the bull's-eye suddenly appeared. But I was not getting any better.

And then my sister found Dr. Joseph Burrascano for me, who was one of the few Lyme doctors practicing, and he was out in the Hamptons. He was the first Lyme-literate doctor that I went to and he gave me my diagnosis and started proper treatment. That went on for about a year.

What was the treatment?
I was pulsing oral antibiotics. I did not do an IV. I cycled through many different antibiotics, and slowly I started feeling better. Dr. Burrascano actually assessed me for Parkinson's because of my tremors, but thank God, I did not have it. It was Lyme.

Dr. Horowitz, is there a way to distinguish between Parkinson's and Parkinsonism? How common are tremors with Lyme and other tick-borne disease, and which infection seems to cause it?
Dr. Horowitz: Parkinson's disease is a clinical diagnosis, and the one common denominator underlying most chronic illness, especially neurological diseases like Parkinson's, is inflammation. We now know that different neurological diseases, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, as well as the symptoms of chronic Lyme disease are all influenced by inflammation, which can have multifactorial etiologies.

For example, inflammation could be due to different infections (like Lyme and Bartonella), autoimmune processes, environmental toxins, unhealthy bacteria in our colons (dysbiosis), an improper diet and/or nutritional deficiencies, as well as a lack of sleep.

I call these multiple overlapping medical problems keeping Lyme patients sick, MSIDS. It stands for Multiple Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome and it is a comprehensive map to identifying the factors that keep people sick so that they can achieve wellness. Infections and toxins on the MSIDS map drive inflammation, and in the case of tremors, Lyme combined with mercury toxicity and pesticide exposure, can all increase inflammation in the central nervous system, leading to amyloid production, which damages our nerve cells. This causes memory problems and tremors. If we want to control the symptoms of Lyme disease and decrease these neurological manifestations, we have to address all of the above overlapping causes of inflammation.

Daryl, did you continue on treatment after the first year?
Yes, Joe moved into research and I began treatment with Dr. Richard Horowitz, and I have been with him ever since. He is an extraordinary doctor, incredible.

Dr. Horowitz, how was Daryl when he first came to you and can you be specific about how you got his symptoms under control?
Dr. Horowitz: Daryl had intermittent symptom flares of fatigue, pain, sweats, palpitations and mild cognitive problems, that were keeping him from functioning at his full capacity, but he was a trooper, and always pushed through when he was performing and touring.

He responded to combinations of antibiotics that addressed the cell wall, cystic and intracellular forms of Lyme and co-infections (Babesia played a role in keeping him ill, as it does in many), and we found multiple abnormalities on the MSIDS map contributing to inflammation and sickness.

For example, apart from the infections, he would get hypoglycemic from time to time, because his diet was off with low adrenal function, especially when he was on the road touring for extended periods of time. We had to intermittently go in with antibiotics for symptom flares, although oftentimes, Daryl did fine with low dose herbal therapies. This was once the load of the bacteria and parasites were sufficiently knocked down.

Daryl, how are you now?
After treatment with him all these years, I am pretty much fine, except for occasional flareups. This spring, I had one and it was lengthy and it mimicked my original symptoms of stiff neck and aches and pains and arthritic feelings and heart palpitations, all the typical Lyme symptoms.

Dr. Horowitz, why do patients seem to complain about springtime flares?
Dr. Horowitz: Sometimes it's due to a new tick bite, but Lyme and associated tick-borne infections tend to have a cyclical nature. For example, women who have been adequately treated may only flare around their menstrual cycle.

We see people with healthy immune systems that can be fine for extended periods of time (which is the case in those who have beaten down the majority of the infections with treatment), but then get a relapse with the change of season, or any new stressor, like an accident, having a family quarrel, or lack of sleep.

Daryl, do you think you were re-bitten?
No, definitely not. This just tends to happen to me about once a year.

What does Dr. Horowitz do for you when you have flareups?
He knows me pretty well at this point and knows to give me double doses of Omnicef. That seems to knock it back down for me.

Dr. Horowitz, as I know you treat with many different drugs and herbs, how did you come to choose Omnicef here?
Dr. Horowitz: Everyone responds differently to treatment. You have to take a careful history and see how people respond to different medications.

Some do well with cell wall drugs like Omnicef, implying that a certain percentage of the bacteria are in cell wall forms, causing illness. Others do well with intracellular drugs like doxycycline, Zithromax, rifampin or Dapsone, because intracellular bacteria are causing inflammation, making them sick.

Once you've figured out a patient's wiring, and the overlapping factors on the MSIDS map causing inflammation, you can get people better by addressing the specific abnormalities.

Daryl, how many doctors did you see that missed this?
Not that many because my ex-wife intervened pretty quickly, but probably about three, who did absolutely nothing for me. That was in a very short period of time and I was very lucky I started the proper regimen very soon. God knows, so many people go on like this for years.

Dr. Horowitz, how many doctors and over what span of time is the average for people to find you?
Dr. Horowitz: The average patient who is sick for a long time tells me that they have seen at least between ten and twenty doctors over many years before seeing me. They are usually diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, an autoimmune illness like rheumatoid arthritis and MS, dementia or a psychiatric illness, and told that its all in their head. When they see me, I confirm that it IS in their head. Infections and toxins in their brains are making them chronically ill.

Daryl, what do you say to the CDC, Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and other doctors who deny that chronic Lyme exists?
It's mystifying to me. When something is impossible to understand, then conspiracy theories crop up. And you start asking why; what is all this virulent opposition to the reality of chronic Lyme disease? And I don't know what the truth of it is- why they're denying it-- but I can certainly tell you that it is hurting a lot of people. It is hurting a lot of doctors and it is hurting a lot of patients that should be treated properly. It's a scandal, really.

It is very disturbing. I refer people to the brilliant documentary, Under Our Skin, to get a handle on the corruption at play here. Do you want to weigh in on your feelings about this, Dr. Horowitz?
Dr. Horowitz: Daryl is, of course, right. There is a lot of denial going on here. We are in the middle of an epidemic where many people are getting sick and becoming disabled. I regularly hear stories that patients lose their jobs, families are torn apart, and they can't find anyone to help them.

Although the scientific literature clearly shows that the present diagnostic testing is inadequate with persistent infections causing chronic illness, there is a divide among doctors about how best to diagnose and treat these patients, and it has led to a virulent healthcare debate. The fall-out is that some doctors have lost their licenses for trying to help these sick patients, and many are also scared to treat them because of ramifications from the health insurance companies. We need to get everyone to the table quickly to sort this out. Lyme and associated co-infections are a major healthcare threat for our country.

Daryl, do fans come up and talk to you about Lyme disease?
They do, all the time. They ask me what to do and what doctor to go to and I refer them to the ILADS website. I tell them I go to Richard Horowitz and I reassure them that yes, I believe that you are truly sick. This is not a lie. You're not crazy, you're not a hypochondriac, because a lot of people are accused of that.

Did you ever have neuropsychiatric symptoms from Lyme?
Yes, not severe, but yes. I had cognitive issues and I still do when I get these occasional flareups. I get a little brain fog and I can't think as sharply as I normally do. Luckily, it does not last long for me. But yes, I went through a period where I was very disassociated, having issues with writing and things like that, hand-eye coordination.

Dr. Horowitz, what are the most common neuro-psych issues you see with Lyme and TBD and what is the best treatment for them?
Dr. Horowitz: Many of my patients complain of neurological symptoms like a stiff neck, headache, light and sound sensitivity, dizziness, memory and concentration problems, as well as symptoms of depression and anxiety.

We can even see a sudden onset of OCD and psychosis/schizophrenic-type symptoms. That's usually the case if someone is co-infected with multiple infections, like Babesia, which makes Lyme symptoms three times more severe; Bartonella which increases many underlying neuro-pscyh symptoms; and/or if someone has been exposed to environmental toxins like heavy metals and mold. The best treatment is to find all of the underlying infections making you sick, and detoxify from inflammatory cytokines and neurotoxins.

Daryl, did you have any anxiety, depression, or insomnia?
I had occasional insomnia. My ex-wife who has Lyme had horrible insomnia, she didn't sleep well for years. Luckily, that passed for me.

Dr. Horowitz, for patients with Lyme-induced insomnia, can you explain why this happens, what you recommend to treat it, and tell us how to treat it?
Dr. Horowitz: Sleep disorders are due to inflammation with tick-borne diseases, but you have to do a differential diagnosis to see if there are overlapping causes of insomnia.

For example, someone could have Lyme, causing a delayed sleep phase syndrome, where it takes them hours to fall asleep, and they get up in the late morning or afternoon, but they also could have other things interfering with sleep like drinking too much espresso late in the day (I wouldn't know anything about that), having an overactive bladder, being on stimulant medication with a long half-life, having sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, hormone abnormalities, such as low estrogen seen in menopause, or having elevated adrenal hormones at night keeping them up at night.

Others might have a chronic pain condition or do stimulating activities on the computer, interfering with their melatonin production. The key is to diagnose any and all overlapping causes of insomnia, and treat the tick-borne disorders, while using both medications and herbs to get people to sleep. Then the insomnia usually gets better over time.

Daryl, what do you make of the IDSA notion that four weeks of antibiotics is curative for Lyme?
I think it's a lie! Simple as that. It's a lie. And for some people, if they only have borrelia, maybe they are cured in that short of time. But a large number of people are not, and it becomes chronic, and there are usually co-infections involved, and then they remain sick. Anybody who says otherwise is giving false information.

Dr. Horowitz, what are your thoughts here? How long does it take you, on average, to get people either into remission or, at least, under control?
Dr. Horowitz: It is individualized and varies from person to person. If it is an acute case of Lyme, without associated co-infections, it an be relatively quick.

Those with chronic Lyme, who are very ill and have been sick for many years with multiple abnormalities on the MSIDS map, may require years of treatment to get better and/or get into remission. We have had some recent breakthroughs in treatments based on research coming out of Johns Hopkins University and Kim Lewis's lab at Northeastern University showing that Lyme is a "persister" bacterium.

We recently published two new studies on the use of mycobacterium drugs (Dapsone and pyrazinamide) for Lyme, which are normally used for other persister bacteria (mycobacterium infections like leprosy and TB). They are turning out to be very helpful in a certain percentage of people who have failed all traditional therapies.

I just had one women from Maine, sick for over 15 years, who finally got off of all of her antibiotics after using both of these drugs. I just spoke to her, and she is getting better off antibiotics for the first time in nearly two decades! These new therapies look very promising. They will be discussed in detail in my new book coming out, "How Can I Get Better? An Action Plan for Treating Resistant Lyme and Chronic Disease".

Daryl, did you have Herxheimer reactions during longterm antibiotic therapy?
Oh, yeah. I was getting them every three weeks on treatment at first. Lyme creates such roving symptoms. I'd feel arthritic in my hipbone, then tremors, then stiff neck, and sometimes a slight headache, or heart palpitations, and these things would all rove around my body. They are these intense but vague symptoms that move around, that's the best way I can describe it.

Dr. Horowitz, what are your top recommendations for getting through herxes/ detoxing?
Dr. Horowitz: Herxheimer reactions result from killing off the Lyme bacteria, with inflammatory molecules produced called cytokines, which are not being adequately removed from the body. The rule of thumb is to turn off the faucet and shut down the production of inflammatory molecules, and open up the drain, improving the functioning of the detoxification pathways of the body, to get rid of the toxins.

This can usually be accomplished using medications that control inflammation like low dose naltrexone (LDN), Plaquenil, and IVIG (immunoglobulin therapy), but also using natural approaches like doing a trial of giving up gluten and grains, avoiding allergic foods and nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers), or doing an alkaline diet with lots of healthy fruits and vegetables, while using phytochemical supplements that also turn on anti-inflammatory genes in the body.

Tumeric (curcurmin), green tea extract (EGCG), resveratrol (the red wine/grape extract), and broccoli seed extract (sulforaphane), combined with omega 3 fatty acids, can all help lower inflammation. We also have had success decreasing Herxheimer reactions by alkalizing (drinking lemons and limes in water, or taking Alka Seltzer Gold) while taking liposomal glutathione and/or clay/charcoal, which helps remove toxins from the body.

If you do all this while properly detoxifying, it helps the majority of patients. However, if you are on an antibiotic or herbal treatment that is causing a sustained Herx, and the above therapies do not help, you may need to take a break and rotate treatments.

Daryl, roving symptoms is a great way to describe Lyme and will help a lot of people who are going from doctor to doctor as each system of their body feels off, yet they get no answers. Hopefully, the lightbulb will go on and they will realize they need to be checked for Lyme by a Lyme specialist.
Exactly. Lyme is many things. One day you can feel like you have arthritis in your leg and the next day it feels fine and the next day you have brain fog. If you have any one of those symptoms and they are moving around your body, that is a big clue that you could have Lyme disease.

I know you live in Dutchess County, NY, which is a highly endemic area. Why don't you move to Hawaii?
I know people who do! One of the saddest things, and I used to be a hunter and a woodsman, is that I love the outdoors. I love nature. But it's been denied me. I can't walk in the woods anymore, my home is surrounded by a super-enforced deer fence so that even rodents don't get in, because mice and chipmunks carry ticks as well. I think one of the weirdest legacies of all this is that it's like a prison.

I share in that sentiment with you. But given that, you don't consider moving?
No, I live where I live. I figure it out. I am careful, I am aware of it, I wear protection, I don't go wandering around in the woods anymore. I deal with it, it's a reality that I face.

I know you had to take a break from touring because of your Lyme disease. How long was that and how did you get back to being on the road?
It wasn't that long, maybe a month or so. But it was sheer willpower that I got back on the road. I just worked being sick. If I don't feel well, I let my adrenaline kick in and it pushes the symptoms down. I am used to dealing with this and also I feel that I am lucky. It never hit me so hard that I was totally out of action, my cognitive symptoms of brain fog were never intense enough or lasted long enough to cause me to stop completely. I was able to write and do the things I normally do.

Daryl, what was your lowest moment with Lyme?
Worrying that I would never get better, that this was going to stop my life. That was early on. Another low moment was when I was walking down the street in this little village near me in Dutchess County and it felt like there was a glass window between me and the world. I felt separated from the reality that I was in. It was a very disconcerting feeling, I felt totally disassociated and I thought to myself, "where is this going?" It was a very bad moment.

What has Lyme taught you?
It taught me to not trust the government and not to trust doctors. Most of them don't know what they're talking about. I hate to say that, I have a lot of friends who are doctors, specialists. But they tend to buy into the party line and they are not paying attention to what patients are saying and what's real. I really learned that. And in my younger days, I was always a bit body-sensitive, and the Lyme completely knocked that out of me. I know what it's like to actually have something. So, in some ways it was a growing-up process. I really learned how to deal with the things that happen in life.

Lyme teaches you about being in the moment.
Yes, exactly. And how to work under adversity, how to do my job no matter what. No matter how I felt, I am up on stage, nobody knows the difference and pretty soon I don't know the difference. I guess you could look at it, in one way, that a some good came out of it.

I really get that. Now I'm like, "I'm alive and I feel really good and I am so lucky."
Yeah, you learn to appreciate what you got.

Can you give some hope to people out there who are suffering from Lyme disease or who think they might be?
First of all, find a Lyme-literate doctor. Do whatever it takes to find them and be diligent about it. And don't listen to any doctor who tells you your symptoms are imaginary, get to the bottom of it. Follow the regimen as prescribed by your Lyme-literate doctor, most of them know what the most effective protocol is for dealing with this, and be optimistic because it gets better. You will improve, for sure.

Agreed. I would add that whenever patients get an auto-immune diagnosis like RA, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, MS etc, that they ask their doctor what the root cause of this is. If they give no reasonable answers, I recommend patients seek a second opinion from a Lyme specialist, since Lyme can mimic all of these diseases.

Dr. Horowitz, what do you say to those suffering with Lyme?
Dr. Horowitz: There is definitely hope for those who are still sick and not getting better. I have seen over 12,000 chronically ill Lyme patients in the last 28 years, and by diagnosing and treating all of the abnormalities on the MSIDS map, the majority of people get better.

For some, its using a different combination of antibiotics and antimalarial medications. Many have Lyme and persistent co-infections like Babesia, Bartonella and Mycoplasma and need all of the infections properly treated, or they won't improve.

That was the case with my wife, who is finishing up 12 months of a Dapsone protocol, and it's the best she has been during the 20 years of our marriage. For others, the key might be treating hormone abnormalities, getting them on an allergen-free diet, getting them to sleep, or detoxing more (my wife also needed to do all of that to feel better). Everyone is different, but if you work with your healthcare provider and go through diagnosing and treating all of the 16 points on the MSIDS map, you should definitely see improvement. Do not give up!

For more information about Lyme and other tick-borne illness, visit Lymedisease.org, Lyme Disease Challenge, and Bay Area Lyme Foundation.

To find a referral for a Lyme specialist near you, visit: Global Lyme Alliance or ILADS.

Daryl Hall & John Oates are on tour all year long. Check here for tour dates.
Check out Daryl's restaurant and live music club, Daryl's House.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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From Apollo To Frontier

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On July 20th, 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong took the most expensive selfie in history. As the apex of an 8-year, $130 billion effort they posed in front of a camera and took a shot designed to do one thing -- to show our free enterprise democratic system was better than the rigid, authoritarian system that wanted to destroy us.

Meanwhile, here on Earth we convulsed in racial and political turmoil. Our streets were filled with anger, hatred and violence, and the very institutions of our government faltered. And yet, always moving forward and rising above it all, our quest to put humans in space punctuated the news like a shooting star in the darkness, offering a constant glimmer of hope in the night of Vietnam and the storm of Watergate.

Today we are there again. Now as then, America faces threats both internal and external. Today we are fighting another rigid, authoritarian system that wants to destroy us and sees the very existence of our liberal democratic technological society as an anathema. Internally our political system is a mess, and trust in our system of government at new lows. We are threatened by long unresolved issues between the melting pot of cultures that make up our nation. People are isolated, everyday less united, and every day falling deeper into a new level of cultural despair.

At the same time our environment is teetering on the edge of a dangerous slide into global disaster, fed by ignorance and lack of appreciation that there are no walls in the sky or oceans, and one country's pollution is necessarily the responsibility of all.

It is time to raise our eyes again. It is time to come together and do something important, if not magnificent. It is time to set a unifying goal that calls out the very best in us and our friends around the world, a goal that is hard to achieve and yet when achieved catapults us to a new level of knowledge and prosperity, time to turn the machines and minds of war outwards and upwards. It is time to begin the opening of the High Frontier. Space.

Timing is everything. And now is the time. After the sad and pathetically low moments in American and world history we have witnessed this year, whichever new leader arises has the chance to lift the nation up to a new level by declaring the frontier open and clearing the way for we the people to exercise our right stuff and our space rights, and to step out and up to the greatest challenge in human history.

This revolution has already started, with wealthy citizens building their own space programs and entrepreneurs building spacecraft on relatively tiny budgets. This new space generation stands on the shoulders of the giants who got us out there the first time and is applying their technology in new ways to create low cost, easy access to space, allowing us to use space resources, and to make it pay. All of them, to a person, share the dream of opening space to human settlement. If a new leader were to bring these citizen pioneers together with the explorers of our government space program, we could launch this nation, and indeed the world, out into the solar system within a decade.

This time it must be about people, not governments. Rather than a centrally controlled quasi-military government race to space by two superpowers, we must enable the people themselves to go where they want to go, to do there what they want. If governments decide to return to the Moon -- as seems to be the case -- it must be to build villages, not bases, and to do it as rapidly as possible, as it needs to be an immediate challenge, not a distant dream. And if some want to go to Mars or mine asteroids, they need to be seen as part of a new frontier community. Thus, with both public and private players doing what they do best where they want to do it, we can make it happen far faster than many might believe.

After all, wherever we go between here and Mars, the challenge this time is not as daunting as going from the Earth to the Moon was in 1961, when we went from knowing almost nothing about space to walking on the Moon in eight years. Since then we have 50 years of experience operating in space. And while we foundered for many years in the waters just off shore in Earth orbit, we've learned a lot, developed a vast tool kit and honed our ability to get there, keep people alive and get them back. Opening the new worlds of space is not a technological challenge, so much as it is psychological. It is a matter of decision.

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The Frontier offers us new ways of living, new ways to save our world and new ways to work together. It is an anathema to the ideologies of ignorance and hate espoused by those who attack us, as it literally rises above such wars. Even as we roll up our sleeves to defeat those who would push us back into the dark ages we can be creating the age of light. We can look at our children and tell them they need not be afraid. Instead we can share with them a new dream of people working together to achieve something incredible.

It was Apollo 8 that first showed us the tiny blue marble of Earth floating in the void of space, one of the great psychological shifts in human history. From out there we can both appreciate and begin to solve the problems of our world in ways unavailable to us otherwise. From all we know by those who have gone so far, the very act of being up there, helps shift your relationship to life down here. And the more minds who have access, who move out there, the more transformation they will enable.

As it eventually became the first time, space will not only be a bridge to the future, but a bridge between people, ideologies and cultures. Ironically, while the human space program started as a tool of a technology and propaganda war, even as cold and hot wars between governments raged below, hands have reached through airlocks in warm embrace, and opponents have literally been able to rise above their differences. We led the way once, we can do it again. Ours is a frontier nation and heritage. It is this psychology that made us who we are, and while we may have lost our way as a nation, we can get back on track -- with the right leadership.

Our system works. Free people in a free economy who are free to exercise their dreams can do anything. WE can do anything. It is time to return to the Moon, open Free Space and go to Mars. It is time to open The Frontier.

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Brain mapping: Getting it right
This post was written in collaboration with Randy Gollub, Jeanette Mumford, Panthea Heydari, Leonardo Fernandino, and Cyril Pernet, as well as was approved by the entire Communications Committee and the Council of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping.

Scientific publications generate a written conversation that evolves over time. Each new publication expands on the conversational foundation established by its predecessors. Despite our positive view that a recent study by Eklund and colleagues makes a valuable contribution to the conversation in our field of brain mapping, many reports have interpreted that findings from this paper cast doubt on all studies conducted with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) over the last two decades. We hope to dispel some of the misconceptions.

You may have read some of these reports, which often repeated convincing figures like "false positive rates up to 70 percent" or "Tens of Thousands of FMRI Brain Studies May Be Flawed" to create doubt and undermine confidence in fMRI. Where did these numbers come from? Well, a major issue that all brain imagers must deal with is determining the reliability of the detected brain activation. Since the detection is made via statistical techniques, there is always a chance that what is determined to be an activation, may in fact be a "false positive". Researchers use methods that control the chance of a false positive within their measurements, capped at a predetermined level (usually 5 percent). Controlling false positives, however, can be a tricky business since it often requires certain assumptions to be made. For those of you interested in a more detailed technical explanation, see the blog we wrote for our community. Assessing the risk of false positives is not a new issue and is central in most scientific fields. Since the field of fMRI research is relatively new - barely above the legal drinking age in the U.S. - we are still determining the best way to control false positives. The work by Eklund and colleagues showed that the false positive rate using some analysis techniques can be as high as 70 percent, which is the origin of that figure in the headlines. 40,000 is an estimate of the total number of studies that have used fMRI, or the size of the pool of studies that this work could possibly impact.

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Three example headlines reporting that the findings by Eklund and colleagues may invalidate all fMRI studies. Images sources: Forbes, Wired, and Science Alert.

Now that we know what those figures represent, what do they mean and how do they affect the field of neuroimaging? The elegant study by Eklund and colleagues showed that only a certain subset of analysis decisions can give rise to the highest false positive rate of up to 70 percent (instead of the conventional 5 percent). However, not every brain mapper analyzes their data in the same way or uses the approaches examined by the authors. As pointed out by Dr. Nichols, one of the co-authors, on his blog, only ~3500 studies (or less than 10 percent of the ~40,000 existing fMRI studies) used the statistical methods that Eklund and colleagues called into question. So, over ~90 percent of previously published fMRI studies implemented other analysis methods that were not questioned. Further, the findings from all of these 3500 studies are not necessarily false either. Likely only a fraction of the 3500 studies - for example, those with marginally significant results or those not subsequently reproduced - might be called into question.

So, while some sensationalists seem to think differently, there is no need to question every result ever published with fMRI. The new paper by Eklund and colleagues simply demonstrates that particular variants of methods for statistical inference that are sometimes used are not valid. It does not invalidate either (a) the method of fMRI or (b) the majority of the field's findings. Finding meaningful patterns in fMRI data is an on-going effort. As a reflection of the importance of this process, the journal in which the Eklund study was published has agreed to release an erratum clarifying the interpretation of these data - consistent with what is highlighted in the present post. What we are witnessing is a healthy process of science self-correcting. Over time, scientists will learn to identify and fix techniques, and eventually converge upon those that prove to be the most reliable.

By chance, as one of us was editing this article, a group of junior colleagues from a cognitive neuroscience lab were discussing the paper by Eklund and colleagues in the next room. They were considering if and how these findings have implications for their own data analysis methods. And that is the true value of this work: To openly question and continually improve our methods because after all, fMRI remains one of the best tools available to reveal the inner workings of the living human brain.

Kevin S. Weiner is a neuroscientist, as well as member of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) and writes for the Communications/Media Team. The OHBM Media Team brings cutting edge information and research on the human brain to your laptops, desktops and mobile devices in a way that is neurobiologically pleasing. For more information about brain mapping, follow www.humanbrainmapping.org/blog or @OHBMSci_News

Further reading:

Eklund et al. (2016).

A technical comment on the Eklund at al. paper from our OHBM blog.

A technical comment on the Eklund et al. paper by Guillaume Flandin and Karl Friston.

A white paper on best practices in analyzing neuroimaging data.

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