Daily Archives: May 26, 2023

News to use

Granderson: DeSantis reckless to dangle pardons for Trump, rioters – Los Angeles Times

Ultimately, what DeSantis is dangling is less like a carrot and more like a ticking bomb. Pardoning domestic terrorists is setting up the nation for decades of pain that ought to be put behind us. How do we know? Because it’s been done before.

After the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate soldiers, and you know what happened? Let’s just say the spirit of the rebellion lived on. Or rather, lives on. There was a veteran of the Confederacy serving in the Senate as late as 1921, the same year as the Tulsa race massacre. A century later, on Jan. 6, 2021, a Confederate battle flag was carried into the Capitol — a place that flag had not reached during the actual war. Johnson’s pardon did not bring healing or justice. It brought Jim Crow laws. Not that Johnson cared. He vetoed a bill guaranteeing the citizenship of Black people immediately after the Civil War. Congress had to override him. That’s not “critical race theory,” by they way. That’s just what happened.

Source: Granderson: DeSantis reckless to dangle pardons for Trump, rioters – Los Angeles Times

News to use

Brain-Spine Interface Allows Paralyzed Man to Walk Using His Thoughts – Scientific American

Brain-Spine Interface Allows Paralyzed Man to Walk Using His Thoughts

Twelve years ago, a cycling accident left Gert-Jan Oskam, now 40, with paralysed legs and partially paralysed arms, after his spinal cord was damaged in his neck. But these days, Oskam is back on his feet and walking, thanks to a device that creates a ‘digital bridge’ between his brain and the nerves below his injury.

The device — called a brain–spine interface — builds on previous work by Grégoire Courtine, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and his colleagues. In 2018, they demonstrated that, when combined with intensive training, technology that stimulates the lower spine with electrical pulses can help people with spinal-cord injuries to walk again.

Source: Brain-Spine Interface Allows Paralyzed Man to Walk Using His Thoughts – Scientific American