Drugs Under the Regime

Soheil Tavakoli's newest video:

According to IranNegah.com, addicted people freely use various kinds of drugs in Mashhad, Iran--and police don't care. 


Perhaps addicts are easier to control than healthy, free thinking individuals. But if the abilities of enough productive members of society are significantly impaired, this could logically impact the stability of that society.


Although drugs and alcohol have contributed to the artistic output of poets, writers, musicians and artists through the centuries, the potential for a steep downfall is clearly ever present. It is so ironic that something that initially seems freeing can eventually be so enslaving.

Tetris and Zip Erase Memories

Computer game Tetris is being used by Dr. Emily Holmes to disrupt processes in the brain involved in laying down painful memories. This work is performed at Oxford University's Institute of Psychiatry.

Dr Todd Sacktor and his team at the State University of New York have been erasing the memory of a mild electric shock in rats with a drug called Zip.

"Anders Sandberg from the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University said nobody should object to efforts to help people suffering from serious psychiatric conditions like PTSD. But in the future, "we will be able to figure out which neural networks in the brain underpin certain memories, and to undermine them. That's going to cause some ethical problems," BBC News reports.