Aggregated News
(12-07) 19:25 PST -- Three job candidates sit in a quiet room, straining over a tough exam. But one of them has taken a memory-enhancing drug the other two couldn't afford. Is the test fair?
In another futuristic scenario, a drug can help airline pilots keep focused during a long flight, though it causes some side effects. May an airline require pilots to take the drug?
Get ready to confront such questions in daily life, a group of scientists and policy experts urge in a thought-provoking commentary published online Sunday by the journal Nature.
Brain research is accelerating, and a new era of "cognitive enhancement" - the use of brain-stimulating drugs and devices by healthy people - is approaching, the authors said.
While thorny ethical and medical questions must be addressed, pharmaceutical enhancement of inborn mental gifts is a trend to be welcomed, the seven co-authors from Harvard, Stanford and other prestigious institutions said.
"We call for a presumption that mentally competent adults should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs," said the writers, who include Stanford law...
In another futuristic scenario, a drug can help airline pilots keep focused during a long flight, though it causes some side effects. May an airline require pilots to take the drug?
Get ready to confront such questions in daily life, a group of scientists and policy experts urge in a thought-provoking commentary published online Sunday by the journal Nature.
Brain research is accelerating, and a new era of "cognitive enhancement" - the use of brain-stimulating drugs and devices by healthy people - is approaching, the authors said.
While thorny ethical and medical questions must be addressed, pharmaceutical enhancement of inborn mental gifts is a trend to be welcomed, the seven co-authors from Harvard, Stanford and other prestigious institutions said.
"We call for a presumption that mentally competent adults should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs," said the writers, who include Stanford law...