February 15, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Joaquin Oliver was killed in the Parkland school shooting. Now with AI, the 17-year-old’s voice can be heard again. WSJ’s Joanna Stern sat down with Joaquin’s parents to find out how and why they are preserving … Read More
February 14, 2024
(The Atlantic) – Death reminds us of the limits of romantic love, but it also sets romantic love free. It allows love to take its place alongside other goods, some that last and others that are fleeting. Death brings a … Read More
February 12, 2024
(NPR) – A new film streaming on Hulu considers a subject that’s sometimes in the news, but not often in entertainment: hospice end-of-life care. Suncoast is writer-director Laura Chinn’s fictional account of her life in the early 2000s as a … Read More
February 12, 2024
(NPR) – The debate is focused on the Uniform Determination of Death Act, a law that was adopted by most states in the 1980s. The law says that death can be declared if someone has experienced “irreversible cessation of all … Read More
February 9, 2024
(Axios) – A push to let physicians prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients is getting major attention in statehouses this year, with lawmakers in 19 states considering bills to allow the practice. The big picture: Despite continuing skepticism from … Read More
February 5, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Unethical funeral homes have exploited grieving customers for decades. What consumers don’t know is that many of the industry’s bad actors have been hidden from the public thanks to a sweetheart deal struck between the Federal … Read More
February 2, 2024
January 9, 2024
(Nature) – The Digital Departed: How We Face Death, Commemorate Life, and Chase Virtual Immortality Timothy Recuber NYU Press (2023) Many of us will have turned to the Internet to grieve and remember the dead — by posting messages on … Read More
January 3, 2024
(New York Times) – Naomi’s therapist had printed out an article for her to read. It was called “Medical Futility and Psychiatry: Palliative Care and Hospice Care as a Last Resort in the Treatment of Refractory Anorexia Nervosa,” published in … Read More
December 28, 2023
(NPR) – We’ve seen it so many times. A young, handsome man rushed into the emergency room with a gunshot wound. A flurry of white coats racing the clock: CPR, the heart zapper, the order for a scalpel. Stat! Then … Read More
December 28, 2023
(NPR) – Many assumed the decision meant that Carter wouldn’t be alive for much longer. But contrary to popular belief, hospice care isn’t necessarily only for people who have just a few days to live, nor does it mean giving … Read More
December 21, 2023
(NBC News) – Death investigation experts say these mistakes are preventable. Coroners and medical examiners, they say, should adopt detailed written protocols for identifying and contacting next of kin. And when exhaustive efforts to find families fall short, experts say … Read More
December 12, 2023
(NPR) – Recently, I wrote about the dark side of CPR. Despite a common misperception that CPR can rescue almost anyone from the brink of death, most people that receive it don’t survive. Of those that do, many sustain devastating … Read More
November 27, 2023
(STAT News) – Today, our nation faces a meteoric rise in metabolic disease that is showing up in end-of-life care in a devastating way. The increasing prevalence of metabolic disease combined with an aging population and a critical shortage of … Read More
November 27, 2023
(Washington Post) – The death of former first lady Rosalynn Carter on Sunday, and the survival of her husband, former president Jimmy Carter, have exposed one of the most achingly difficult questions faced by people with life-threatening illness: when to … Read More
November 21, 2023
(Vox) – While mimicking conversational style is just one of the many uses of the popular generative chatbot ChatGPT, there’s a niche yet growing slate of platforms that use deep learning and large language models to re-create the essence of … Read More
November 17, 2023
(MIT Technology Review) – Just as birth certificates note the time we enter the world, death certificates mark the moment we exit it. This practice reflects traditional notions about life and death as binaries. We are here until, suddenly, like … Read More
November 8, 2023
(Associated Press) – A judge at Britain’s High Court ruled Wednesday that life support for a terminally ill 8-month-old baby should be withdrawn in a hospice or hospital, despite efforts by the infant’s parents and the Italian government to transport … Read More
November 6, 2023
(Gizmodo) – Fantasies of immortality and extended life preservation are likely as old as humanity itself, but new advances in robotics and advanced artificial intelligence models are inching those transhumanist tales closer to reality at a rapid pace. AI researchers … Read More
November 2, 2023
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October 5, 2023
