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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 27, 2017)
4B THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2017 Want to track cellphones? Get a warrant, lawmakers say By DAVE COLLINS Associated Press HARTFORD, Conn. — Law enforcement cellphone tracking devices are com- ing under scrutiny in several states, where lawmakers have introduced proposals rang- ing from warrant require- ments to an outright ban on the technology. Privacy and constitutional concerns, including Fourth Amendment search and sei- zure violations, are being cited with the proposed laws on cell-site simulators. The suitcase-size devices, widely known under the brand name Stingray, mimic cellphone towers and allow law enforcement to col- lect unique subscriber num- bers and other basic data from cellphones in a partic- ular area. The data can help police determine the location of a targeted phone — and phones of innocent bystand- ers — in real time without the users even making calls or sending text messages. Law enforcement offi- cials say the devices are vital in helping to find suspects and victims, and to solve crimes. ments of Justice and Home- land Security. Courts around the coun- try, meanwhile, have issued conflicting opinions about whether warrants are needed for cellphone location data, leading to a hodgepodge of rules. Bills addressing use of the devices are now pending in at least eight states, according to a review by The Associated Press. Most of them would require police to get war- rants. One bill, introduced by South Carolina state Rep. J. Todd Rutherford, would ban the purchase and use of cell-site simulators by law enforcement. “I think most people would be offended if they knew exactly how much sur- veillance the government is doing,” said Rutherford, a Democrat from Columbia who is the House minority leader and a criminal defense lawyer. “It’s got to stop somewhere.” Rutherford isn’t even sure if any police agencies in his state are using the simula- tors. Many state and local law enforcement agencies sign nondisclosure agreements with the device manufacturer. 13 require warrants Six more states At least 13 states already require warrants to track cell- phones in real time: Cal- ifornia, Colorado, Flor- ida, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mon- tana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Utah and Virginia. Federal law enforcement officers also must get war- rants, under policies put in place in 2015 by the depart- This year, lawmakers in at least six states are propos- ing bills to require warrants to use cellphone surveillance devices: Connecticut, Missis- sippi, Missouri, New Hamp- shire, New York and Ore- gon. A California bill would require local governments to approve the use of cell-site simulators and other surveil- lance technology. Little girls doubt that women can be brilliant, study shows By MARIA DANILOVA Associated Press WASHINGTON — Can women be brilliant? Little girls are not so sure. A study published Thurs- day in the journal Science sug- gests that girls as young as 6 can be led to believe men are inherently smarter and more talented than women, making girls less motivated to pursue novel activities or ambitious careers. That such stereotypes exist is hardly a surprise, but the findings show these biases can affect children at a very young age. “As a society, we associ- ate a high level of intellec- tual ability with males more than females, and our research suggests that this association is picked up by children as young 6 and 7,” said Andrei Cimpian, associate profes- sor in the psychology depart- ment at New York University. Cimpian coauthored the study, which looked at 400 children ages 5-7. ‘Really, really smart’ In the first part of the study, girls and boys were told a story about a person who is “really, really smart,” a child’s idea of brilliance, and then asked to identify that person among the photos of two women and two men. The people in the pho- tos were dressed profession- ally, looked the same age and appeared equally happy. At 5, both boys and girls tended to associate brilliance with their own gender, mean- ing that most girls chose women and most boys chose men. But as they became older and began attending school, children apparently began endorsing gender stereotypes. At 6 and 7, girls were “sig- nificantly less likely” to pick AP Photo/Mark Lennihan News anchor Barbie, left, and computer engineer Barbie are arranged for a photo at the New York Toy Fair. A new study published Thursday in the journal Science suggests that girls as young as 6 can be led to believe that men are inherently smarter and more talented than women, mak- ing them less motivated to pursue novel activities and ambitious careers. That such stereotypes exist is hardly a surprise, but the findings show that the biases can affect children at a very young age. women. The results were sim- ilar when the kids were shown photos of children. Interestingly, when asked to select children who look like they do well in school, as opposed to being smart, girls tended to pick girls, which means that their perceptions of brilliance are not based on aca- demic performance. “These stereotypes float free of any objective mark- ers of achievement and intelli- gence,” Cimpian said. Board games In the second part of the study, children were intro- duced to two new board games, one described as an activity “for children who are really, really smart” and the other one “for children who try really, really hard.” Five-year- old girls and boys were equally likely to want to play the game for smart kids, but at age 6 and 7, boys still wanted to play that game, while girls opted for the other activity. “There isn’t anything about the game itself that becomes less interesting for girls, but rather it’s the description of it as being for kids that are really, really smart.” As a result, believing that they are not as gifted as boys, girls tend to shy away from demanding majors and fields, leading to big differences in aspirations and career choices between men and women. “These stereotypes discourage women’s pursuit of many pres- tigious careers; that is, women are underrepresented in fields whose members cherish bril- liance,” the authors wrote. Origins It is still unclear where the stereotypes come from. Par- ents, teachers and peers and the media are the usual sus- pects, Cimpian said. But it is evident that action must be taken so that these biases don’t curtail girls’ pro- fessional aspirations. “Instill the idea that success in any line of work is not an innate abil- ity, whatever it is, but rather putting your head down, being passionate about what you are doing,” Cimpian said, add- ing that exposure to successful women who can serve as role models also helps. Toy companies like Mattel, maker of the Barbie doll, have taken steps to try to reduce gender stereotypes. Mattel’s “You can be any- thing” Barbie campaign tells girls that they can be paleon- tologists, veterinarians or pro- fessors, among other careers. The campaign also holds out the possibility that a girl can imagine herself to be a fairy princess. Rebecca S. Bigler, profes- sor of psychology at the Uni- versity of Texas at Austin, described Cimpian’s study “as exceptionally nice work.” She suggested that the stereo- types develop in early elemen- tary school when students are exposed to famous scientists, composers and writers, the “geniuses” of history, who are overwhelmingly men. Bigler said it is important to combine that knowledge with informa- tion on gender discrimination. “We need to explain to children that laws were cre- ated specifically to prevent women from becoming great scientists, artists, composers, writers, explorers, and lead- ers,” Bigler added. “Children will then be ... more likely to believe in their own intellec- tual potential and contribute to social justice and equally by pursuing these careers themselves.” Scientists take first steps to growing human organs in pigs Could help with growing human transplant organs By MALCOLM RITTER Associated Press NEW YORK — Scientists have grown human cells inside pig embryos, a very early step toward the goal of growing livers and other human organs in animals to transplant into people. The cells made up just a tiny part of each embryo, and the embryos were grown for only a few weeks, researchers reported Thursday. Such human-animal research has raised ethical con- cerns. The U.S. government suspended taxpayer funding of experiments in 2015. The new work, done in California and Spain, was paid for by private foundations. Any growing of human organs in pigs is “far away,” said Juan Carlos Izpisua Bel- monte of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, an author of the paper in the journal Cell. He said the new research is “just a very early step toward the goal.” Even before that is achieved, he said, putting human cells in animals could pay off for studies of how genetic diseases develop and for screening potential drugs. Chimeras Animals with cells from different species are called chimeras. Such mixing has been done before with mice and rats. Larger animals like pigs would be needed to make the transplant, the problem of rejection should be minimized, said another Salk researcher, Jun Wu. Daniel Garry of the Uni- versity of Minnesota, who is working on chimeras but didn’t participate in the new work, called the Cell paper “an exciting initial step for this entire field.” The details Salk Institute A 4-week-old pig embryo which had been injected with human stem cells on Jan. 24. The experiment was a very early step toward the possibility of growing human or- gans inside animals for transplantation. human-sized organs. That could help ease the shortage of human donors for transplants. The Salk team is working on making humanized pan- creases, hearts and livers in pigs. The animals would grow those organs in place of their own, and they’d be euthanized before the organ is removed. Most of the organ cells would be human. By injecting pig embryos with stem cells from the person who will get Here’s what the new paper reports: Scientists used human stem cells, which are capable of pro- ducing a wide variety of spe- cialized cells. They injected pig embryos made in the lab with three to 10 of those cells apiece, and implanted the embryos into sows. At three to four weeks of development, 186 embryos were removed and examined. Less than 1 in every 100,000 embryonic cells was human, which still comes to about a million human cells, Wu said. That contribution is lower than expected, he said, “but we were very happy to see we actually can see the human cells after four weeks of development.” The cells generated the pre- cursors of muscle, heart, pan- creas, liver and spinal cord tissue in the embryos. The researchers said they plan to test ways to focus human cells on making specific tis- sues while avoiding any con- tribution to the brain, sperm or eggs. That addresses ethical con- cerns that the approach could accidentally lead to pigs that gain some human qualities in their brains, or make human egg or sperm. TAX TIME Taking care of your business... Just Got Easier! 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