Archive for the 'Biotechnology' Category
CRISPR Gene-Editing Tested in a Person for the First Time
November 16th, 2016Via: Nature: A Chinese group has become the first to inject a person with cells that contain genes edited using the revolutionary CRISPR–Cas9 technique. On 28 October, a team led by oncologist Lu You at Sichuan University in Chengdu delivered the modified cells into a patient with aggressive lung cancer as part of a clinical […]
Tick Bites That Trigger Severe Meat Allergy on Rise Around the World
October 6th, 2016Via: Guardian: People living in tick-endemic areas around the world are being warned of an increasingly prevalent, potentially life-threatening side effect to being bitten: developing a severe allergy to meat. The link between tick bites and meat allergies was first described in 2007, and has since been confirmed around the world. Sufferers of “tick-induced mammalian […]
Bill Gates Doubles His Bet on Wiping Out Mosquitoes with Gene Editing
September 6th, 2016Via: MIT Technology Review: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plans to double the sum it is spending to create a mosquito-killing technology that relies on CRISPR gene editing. The technique, called a gene drive, is a way to spread traits through wild populations of animals, but its ability to alter nature is drawing opposition […]
CDC Issues Historic Travel Warning Over Miami Zika Outbreak
August 1st, 2016Zika Virus Made Available to Researchers by Rockefeller Foundation in 1953 While Brazil Was Eradicating Zika Mosquitoes, America Made Them Into Weapons And Now: “Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Join The Fight To Stop Zika Virus” Bonus: Florida! Via: CNN: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an unprecedented travel warning Monday, advising pregnant women and […]
While Brazil Was Eradicating Zika Mosquitoes, America Made Them Into Weapons
June 24th, 2016Via: Atlas Obscura: In the 1950s, while in South America military-like brigades were hunting down Aedes aegypti, in the United States, the Army was falling in love with the same mosquito. At Fort Detrick, the military’s biological weapons base in Maryland, in great secret, Army scientists were considering how fleas, grasshoppers, and mosquitoes might be […]
Europe’s Robots Would Become ‘Electronic Persons’ Under Draft Plan
June 22nd, 2016Good luck with that. What about the rest of the world, where automation is rolling out without restriction? Chinese corporations will shit themselves laughing at this one as tens of thousands of human workers are being replaced by robots. My guess is that the controllers have two options as we head into the automated machine […]
Scientists Growing Human Organs in Pigs: “We Think There Is Very Low Potential for a Human Brain to Grow”
June 6th, 2016Via: BBC: The main concern is that the human cells might migrate to the developing pig’s brain and make it, in some way, more human. Pablo Ross says this is unlikely but is a key reason why the research is proceeding with such caution: “We think there is very low potential for a human brain […]
‘If you have pigs with partly human brains…’
May 18th, 2016Am I reading the news, or the new D&D Monster Manual? — Also, as my sons reminded me: Minecraft Zombie Pigman: Via: NPR: “If you have pigs with partly human brains you would have animals that might actually have consciousness like a human,” Newman says. “It might have human-type needs. We don’t really know.” That […]
Here Come the Unregulated GMOs
April 18th, 2016Via: MIT Technology Review: People are arguing about whether genetically modified foods should carry labels. But the next generation of GMOs might not only be unlabeled—they might be unregulated. Over at Scientific American you can read a 6,000-word story about how one such plant, a GM mushroom, was created. The short version is that a […]
Top U.S. Intelligence Official Calls Gene Editing a WMD Threat
February 10th, 2016…scientists have previously speculated about whether CRISPR could be used to make “killer mosquitoes.” Your what hurts? Via: MIT Technology Review: Genome editing is a weapon of mass destruction. That’s according to James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence, who on Tuesday, in the annual worldwide threat assessment report of the U.S. intelligence community, added […]
