UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25

Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by ssalazars on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @07:38PM (#15405717)

How does someone dies of "natural causes" at 25? This sounds more like an unknown health condition.

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by majos on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @07:52PM (#15405799)

Over at Scott Aaronson's blog his father has mentioned that, according to the coroner, he may have had undiagnosed type-I diabetes [1]. His father also mentions that Michael supported the charity givedirectly.org if anyone prefers to offer condolences that way.

It's a sad event for the theoretical CS community. I didn't know Michael, but looking at some of the other memorials some prominent researchers have written ([2], [3]), he appears to have been an extremely promising researcher and collaborator.

[1] https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3468#comment-1746556

[2] https://blogs.princeton.edu/imabandit/2017/09/28/michael-b-c...

[3] https://lucatrevisan.wordpress.com/2017/09/26/3915/

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by nugget on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @08:05PM (#15405859)

Michael's father posted a comment to Scott Aaronson's blog where he confirmed it was not suicide or homicide, and speculated it might have been undiagnosed type 1 diabetes (among other contributing factors), but said they won't know for sure until the autopsy report is completed.

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by revelation on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @07:47PM (#15405777)

Preexisting congenital conditions. There is always one or two young people in any given year that decide to do some endurance event and simply drop dead from what looks like a heart attack.

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by JauntTrooper on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @07:57PM (#15405818)

I had two friends die of heart failure, one at age 15 and one at 25. Both healthy otherwise. One died after a soccer match, the other in his sleep one night.

Very sad news about Michael. My heart is with his family and friends.

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by mxschumacher on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @07:45PM (#15405764)

dying from a disease is still a natural cause. Unnatural would be getting killed, suicide, accidents etc.

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by goialoq on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @09:19PM (#15406152)

The term "natural causes" is a misnomer for "non-human-agent causes".

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by Retric on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @10:30PM (#15406365)

Not quite, 'Eaten by shark' for example is not usually lumped under natural causes. Even if that's a natural event.

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by microcolonel on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @09:35PM (#15406192)

It fits the "natural versus artificial" dichotomy. i.e. anything is natural if it comes about without human agency.

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by lutorm on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @10:02PM (#15406269)

If I die from a lightning strike while hiking, I'm pretty sure that's not counting as "natural causes" either.

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Re:UC Berkeley research fellow Michael Cohen dies at 25 by ianadoctor on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @07:47PM (#15405778)

I don't mean to be coy (just trying to be respectful), but you should ask your doctor this. I actually did last year, after wondering what my risks were.

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