3 QUESTIONS. 3 HINTS. 3 ANSWERS.
August 16, 2016
News stories courtesy of LSI Executive Council member Kirk Hartley
- How is gene therapy helping young children avoid or at least stall a death sentence?
Hint:
Answer: young children fighting a rare but deadly inherited brain disease called MLD may be treated overseas with gene therapy whereby original bone marrow is destroyed and replaced with genetically modified marrow. Scientists are not yet sure whether the gene therapy results in a permanent fix or whether the disease will eventually return. In order to qualify as a candidate, a child must be symptom-free. This presents a great difficulty — unless a child has been tested, either in vitro, in vivo or after birth, there is no way to know whether a child is afflicted, until symptoms appear. If a parent is aware she or he carries a copy of the defective recessive gene, each child’s outcome can be measured in percentages. If both parents carry a defective copy, a child has a 25% chance of being affected. Researchers are currently studying whether automatic screening of newborns for MLD is feasible. Read more here.
2. How can we teach artificial intelligence to be fair?
Hint:
Answer: a warning label is an allegedly insufficient beginning when comes to bias in algorithm-based recommendations or decisions. Fairness testing and transparency are being called for so that people have an opportunity to scrutinize and challenge collected data and ultimate results. The European Union’s due process condition for automated decisions is a step in the right direction but even this form of transparency, allowing citizens to review automated findings, is limited to software-based outcomes that otherwise would not involve human judgment. Read the details here.
3. How have unintentional mountain collisions become a thing of the past?
Hint:
Answer: airline pilots have come to rely on a mapping safety system originally developed by Honeywell engineers, led by Don Bateman. Crashing into mountains used to be the leading cause of death in airplane incidents. Bateman’s technology virtually ended the “Controlled Flight into Terrain.” Bateman worked tirelessly over the years to improve the safety device. His goal: save as many lives as possible. Today’s result: the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System. In 2011, Bateman was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Read the story here.