Word: term
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...enhance your mood, sex drive, athletic performance, concentration levels and overall health. But is such medically driven self-improvement always a good idea? Nick Bostrom, the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, believes it's time to open the ethical debate surrounding human enhancement - a term that is growing to include genetic, pharmaceutical and technological ways to improve our physical and mental abilities and even dramatically extend human life. He recently edited a collection of essays on the subject, Human Enhancement, and in an e-mail exchange explained why our future holds great promise - and grave...
...ethical discussion is running ahead of reality, which is as should be. However, we already have alertness enhancers (caffeine, modafinil), athletic enhancers (steroids, EPO), sexual-performance enhancers (Viagra), immune enhancers (vaccinations) and concentration enhancers (Ritalin). One can expect improved versions of these to become available in the short term. In addition, memory enhancers are currently in clinical trials. Perhaps there will be compounds that facilitate trust - such as Oxytocin - and encourage pair bonding, or improved diet pills, or treatments that slow the rate of aging and increase sustainable mental energy. Each intervention has to be judged on its merits...
...immediate onslaught of pollution is gone, blood pressure drops back down. But the damaging effects persist. Particulates can lodge deep in the lungs, where they activate another process - inflammation, which kicks in over the 24 hours after exposure. The inflammatory response can stiffen blood vessels and cause longer-term damage to blood-vessel flexibility and their ability to absorb changes in blood flow from the heart. Weakened blood vessels can increase the risk of heart disease or stroke...
...water covered by the spilled ash, all but eight acres are part of the plant and reservoir property managed by TVA. Three homes were structurally damaged. TVA is dredging the river to remove the ash as quickly as possible and will work with the community to develop a long-term plan for disposition of the remaining...
...Waterboarding seemed to be the term in circulation, and I think it's something that many people do not understand in terms of what it physically looks like," says Skier, the play's director and writer who sought training from someone who had gone through Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE), a U.S. program that trains troops to withstand torture...