Archive for the 'Biotechnology' Category
Waihopai Three Acquitted
March 19th, 2010On a gut level, I’m glad that the Waihopai three were acquitted. I find New Zealand’s subservient participation in the AUSUSUKs military adventures and surveillance fetishes repellent. On a logical level, though, this appears to indicate that if an accused party can convince a jury that they were acting in the interests of the “greater […]
Ex-Pfizer Worker Cites Genetically Engineered Virus In Lawsuit Over Firing
March 18th, 2010Via: Hartford Courant: Medical experts will be watching closely Monday when a scientist who says she has been intermittently paralyzed by a virus designed at the Pfizer laboratory where she worked in Groton opens a much anticipated trial that could raise questions about safety practices in the dynamic field of genetic engineering. Organizations involved in […]
Scientists Identify Opium Poppy Genes Responsible for the Production of Codeine and Morphine
March 15th, 2010Via: Independent: Scientists have identified the genes of the opium poppy responsible for the production of the painkillers codeine and morphine, which could lead to new ways of making the drugs without having to cultivate fields of poppies. Opium poppies naturally produce morphine and smaller amounts of codeine in their seed pods. They are collected […]
Incidents at Level 4 Biosafety Lab in Downtown Winnipeg
March 4th, 2010Via: Vancouver Sun: It sits smack in the centre of downtown Winnipeg and contains some of the world’s deadliest pathogens behind air-tight walls and biosafety cabinets. But new documents reveal Canada’s National Microbiology Lab isn’t immune to leaks, spills and failures in restricted areas where lethal organisms are housed. Health Canada documents obtained through an […]
Baby DNA Sent to Military Lab for Potential Use in National Database
February 24th, 2010Via: Statesman: An Austin lawyer threatened to pursue a new federal lawsuit Monday after learning that some newborn blood samples in Texas went to the U.S. military for potential use in a database for law enforcement purposes. The Department of State Health Services never mentioned the database to Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil […]
Family Spends $5000 Per Year on Screen Related Services
February 10th, 2010You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. —Morpheus, The Matrix Don’t breathe the air, don’t drink the water, don’t eat the food, but, being saturated with endless electronic […]
Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal ‘Synthetic Organisms,’ Molecular Kill-Switch Included
February 6th, 2010Via: Wired: The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch. As part of its budget for […]
States Storing Newborns’ DNA Without Parental Consent
February 5th, 2010Via: CNN: When Annie Brown’s daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis. While grateful to have the information — Isabel received further testing and she […]
Genetically Modified Forest Planned for U.S. Southeast
February 1st, 2010Via: Scientific American: Genetic engineering is coming to the forests. While the practice of splicing foreign DNA into food crops has become common in corn and soy, few companies or researchers have dared to apply genetic engineering to plants that provide an essential strut of the U.S. economy, trees. But that will soon change. Two […]
Monsanto’s GM Corn Damages Organs: A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health
January 13th, 2010Via: International Journal of Biological Sciences: We present for the first time a comparative analysis of blood and organ system data from trials with rats fed three main commercialized genetically modified (GM) maize (NK 603, MON 810, MON 863), which are present in food and feed in the world. NK 603 has been modified to […]
