Dopamine

• LAS VEGAS, Dec. 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Illicit Elixirs is enhancing their brand debut by announcing an initial collaboration with actress, director, and entrepreneur, Bella Thorne.
• The partnership will feature the Bella Thorne Naughty Behavior Citrus Flavor, which will be available in late Spring / early Summer 2024.
• "From the moment I was introduced to Illicit Elixirs, I felt connected to the brand because there is much more to it than what meets the eye," says Bella Thorne.
• To learn more about how to treat the mind and the body to something new and exciting, please visit Illicit Elixirs at www.illicitelixirs.com .

• SAN DIEGO, Nov. 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Biocom California, the association representing the California life sciences industry, has announced that Andrés Bratt-Leal, PhD, Aspen Neuroscience co-founder and senior vice-president of research and development, is a recipient of the 2023 Life Science Catalyst Awards.
• The awards are open to accomplished as well as up-and-coming academics, entrepreneurs, investors, corporate leaders, and business advisers making their mark on the California life science industry.
• "Andrés Bratt-Leal and each of the Life Science Catalyst Award winners have demonstrated insight, expertise, and passion for the cause in their respective areas, all of which are helping to propel the California life science ecosystem forward and benefiting human health," said Joe Panetta, president and CEO of Biocom California.
• "It is an honor to have been selected as a Biocom California Life Science Catalyst Award Winner, especially among this year's distinguished recipients," said Dr. Bratt-Leal.

• Mission Therapeutics is a global leader in discovering and developing innovative therapeutics that promote mitophagy.
• By inhibiting the enzyme USP30, Mission's experimental drug MTX325 helps promote mitochondrial quality control by increasing the removal of dysfunctional mitochondria.
• Dr Anker Lundemose, Chief Executive Officer at Mission Therapeutics, said: "The exciting findings of this Nature Communications paper are a tremendous boost to Mission's Parkinson's Disease programme.
• The Nature Communications paper outlines how Mission's drug MTX325 has potential as a novel, disease-modifying treatment for Parkinson's, by enhancing mitophagy and clearing dysfunctional mitochondria.

• In the United States, 41 states have filed lawsuits against Meta for allegedly driving social media addiction in its young users (under the age of 18), amid growing concerns about the negative effects of platforms.
• The lawsuits allege Meta has been harvesting young users’ data, deploying features to promote compulsive use of both Facebook and Instagram, and misleading the public about the negative effects of these features.

Leveraging whistleblower revelations

• These cases rely in part on revelations made by former Meta employee Frances Haugen in 2021 about the role Facebook’s algorithms play in facilitating harms on the platform.
• Haugen’s testimony suggests algorithms deployed across Facebook and Instagram were designed to increase content sharing, and therefore profits, using data harvested from users over many years.
• These changes, she said, impacted how content was viewed on the news feed, leading to increased sharing of negative content such as hate speech.

Concerns over algorithms and content

• Instead it provides a continuous stream of content without a natural endpoint.
• They say the recommendation algorithms used by Meta periodically present users with harmful materials.
• These include “content related to eating disorders, violent content, content encouraging negative self-perception and body image issues, [and] bullying content”.

Consequences for Australia

• This includes material relating to cyberbullying of children, cyberabuse of adults, image-based abuse and abhorrent violent material.
• The Federal Court can impose significant penalties for violations of the Online Safety Act.
• But this doesn’t cover all the harmful content on social media, such as some linked to eating disorders and negative self-image.
• Australia also has no legislative equivalent to COPPA.

We need collaboration and innovation

• But domestic law can only go so far in protecting people using a medium that operates (mostly) seamlessly across borders.
• As such, international law scholars have suggested more creative approaches in the context of online hate speech.
• In doing so, the court strengthened The Gambia’s claims in a pending action before the International Court of Justice.

• Kayleen Manwaring receives funding from the UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation and the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre.
• She is a member of the Advisory Board for the Consumer Policy Research Centre (Vic) and is Deputy Chair and NSW Coordinator for an Australian chapter of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology.