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Trump appears to have reversed on his position that drug dealers should get the death penalty by pardoning Ross Ulbricht this week.

During his announcement in late 2022 that he would be once again running for president of the United States, now-reelected president Donald Trump issued an outrageous threat: that he'd seek to punish drug dealers with the death penalty.

"We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts," Trump told an audience during his speech at his Mar-a-Lago estate at the time. "Because it's the only way."

Just over two years later, Trump appears to have completely reversed that position by unconditionally pardoning Ross "Dread Pirate Roberts" Ulbricht this week. Ulbricht ran Silk Road, the now infamous site that made history as the first dark web marketplace, offering a cornucopia of banned drugs in exchange for the then-nascent cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Ulbricht was sentenced to life in federal person in 2015 after he was busted by the FBI — and after Silk Road had facilitated the sale of over $200 million in illegal drugs and other illicit goods.

"Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people," Preet Bharara, then US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement at the time.

During his 2015 sentencing, district judge Katherine Forrest described Ulbricht as "no better a person than any other drug dealer."

Forrest had a point. Ulbricht didn't just sell drugs; he disrupted the entire industry. He wasn't your neighborhood dealer; he was the Uber of plugs, singlehandedly creating an entire new model that directly connected drug buyers with drug sellers — and taking a handsome cut in the process. In terms of long term impact, Ubricht probably had more of an impact on the global drug trade than Pablo Escobar.

It's not that drug crimes actually deserve draconian punishments, but Trump's pardon serves as a painstakingly obvious attempt to curry favor with the crypto industry — which he also once reviled, before gaining its financial support — as well as contradicting his earlier promise to literally punish drug dealers with death.

The pardon highlights Trump's fragile moral compass and well-documented willingness to abandon his stance on a given matter when presented with an opportunity to cash in.

Ulbricht's life sentence has long been the subject of libertarian outrage, as Al Jazeera reports, with the crypto community arguing he was unfairly prosecuted as an example to others.

"I was doing life without parole, and I was locked up for more than 11 years but he let me out," he said in a video message posted on X-formerly-Twitter. "I’m a free man now. So let it be known that Donald Trump is a man of his word."

Trump's decision to pardon him, however, had plenty of critics.

"Pardoning drug trafficking kingpins is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to his crimes," Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto wrote in a tweet. "Donald Trump should have to explain to them how any of this makes America safer. It's an outrage."

Meanwhile, Trump signed an executive order earlier this week, looking to reinstate the death penalty. Whether the Supreme Court will green-light the decision remains to be seen.

During a campaign speech in September, Trump reiterated his desire to expand the death penalty to those who were convicted of drug trafficking.

"These are terrible, terrible, horrible people who are responsible for death, carnage and crime all over the country," he said at the time. "We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts."

Yet somehow Ulbricht, who created an entire marketplace and new business model for the sale of drugs, has been set free.

More on Silk Road: Silk Road Mastermind Ross Ulbricht Seen Leaving Prison Holding a Small Plant

The post Trump, Who Called for Death Penalty for Drug Dealers, Pardons Most Influential Drug Dealer in Human History appeared first on Futurism.

Scientists were astonished to find that recirculating preserving agents through a severed pig's head caused its brain to show signs of life.

Scientists were astonished to find that recirculating a cocktail of preserving agents through a severed pig's head caused the animal's brain to show signs of life.

As New Scientist reports, basic cellular functions were restored in the dismembered brain — something that was previously thought impossible following the cessation of blood flow.

While the pig brain wasn't exactly oinking at the farm after the treatment, in scientifically significant ways it was seemingly brought back from the brink of death — a ghoulish experiment that could have implications for future efforts to reanimate a dead human brain as well.

In fact, Yale School of Medicine neuroscientist Zvonimir Vrselja and his colleagues are looking to try the technique on human brains — efforts, needless to say, that could have thorny ethical ramifications.

For one, the definition of when a person has died has remained a lively debate among health practitioners.

"We are trying to be transparent and very careful because there’s so much value that can come out of this," Vrselja told New Scientist.

Some argue that death occurs when the heart stops beating. Others define it as the point when the brain's functions cease entirely.

Things get murkier when you consider that neuroscientists have already found that brain activity can extend far beyond cardiac arrest. In fact, research has found that the brain can even light up when the heart stops beating.

"The dying brain actually starts this massive rescue effort," University of Michigan neuroscientist Jimo Borjigin told New Scientist.

Borjigin found in a 2023 study that the brain "appeared to be on fire" after four dying people were taken off of life support.

"If we can better understand what’s going on at this point, I believe we could resuscitate it," he added.

Vrselja and his colleagues are at the forefront of those efforts, having developed a special drug cocktail called BrainEx that stops the brain from being damaged by the sudden surge of oxygen-rich blood following brain death.

In a 2019 experiment involving pig brains, the researchers managed to bring some activity back four hours after decapitation.

But even getting remotely near the point of consciousness with a donated human brain could have major ethical ramifications, forcing the team to tread carefully.

"We had to develop new methods to make sure no electrical activity is occurring in an organized way that might reflect any kind of consciousness," Vrselja told New Scientist.

For now, they're using their invention to test out treatments for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Similar techniques could also be used to prolong the shelf life of donor organs, which could save lives.

More on death: Professor of Medicine Says Death Appears to Be Reversible

The post Doctors Intrigued by Treatment That Makes Dead Brains Show Signs of Life appeared first on Futurism.

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Doctors Intrigued by Treatment That Makes Dead Brains Show Signs of Life