Scientists Are Working on Vaccines that Spread Like a Disease. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
May 2nd, 2021You’ll love this:
Self-spreading vaccines have some of their roots in efforts to reduce pest populations. Australian researchers described a virally spread immunocontraception, which hijacked the immune systems of infected animals—in this case a non-native mouse species in Australia—and prevented them from fertilizing offspring.
Hmm.
Perhaps it will be used on two-legged pests.
Via: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
Self-spreading vaccines could indeed entail serious risks, and the prospect of using them raises challenging questions.
Who decides, for instance, where and when a vaccine should be released? Once released, scientists will no longer be in control of the virus. It could mutate, as viruses naturally do. It may jump species. It will cross borders. There will be unexpected outcomes and unintended consequences. There always are.
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Self-spreading vaccines are essentially genetically engineered viruses designed to move through populations in the same way as infectious diseases, but rather than causing disease, they confer protection. Built on the chassis of a benign virus, the vaccines have genetic material from a pathogen added to them that stimulates the creation of antibodies or white blood cells in “infected” hosts.
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The principal security concern is that of dual-use. In essence, this means that the same research that is used to develop self-spreading vaccines to prevent disease, could also be used to deliberately cause harm. You could, for instance, engineer triggers into a virus that cause immune system failures in infected people or animals, a bit like HIV does naturally. Or you could create triggers in a virus that cause a harmful autoimmune response, where the body starts attacking its own healthy cells and tissues.
The bioweapon question. While researchers may intend to make self-spreading vaccines, others could repurpose their science and develop biological weapons. Such a self-spreading weapon may prove uncontrollable and irreversible.
Underground Nuclear Waste Tank Leaks In Washington State
May 1st, 2021Via: Washington State Department of Ecology:
The U.S. Department of Energy announced Thursday an underground radioactive and dangerous chemical waste storage tank at the Hanford Site in Southeast Washington is leaking.
The Washington state Department of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program, along with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, oversees Energy’s cleanup of Hanford.
“It’s a serious matter whenever a Hanford tank leaks its radioactive and dangerous chemical waste,” Ecology Director Laura Watson said. “Based on the information we have right now, the leak poses no immediate increased risk to workers or the public, but it adds to the ongoing environmental threat at Hanford.”
Tank B-109, which is at least 75 years old, is estimated to be leaking 3.5 gallons a day, or nearly 1,300 gallons per year.
Ecology has been concerned with this tank and tracking it for more than a year, when a formal leak assessment first began. B-109 is leaking into an area where other tanks have already leaked 200,000 gallons into the soil.
B-109 is miles away from the Columbia River, and the water table is 210-240 feet below the tank.
An estimated 1,700 gallons have leaked into the soil from B-109 dating back to March 2019.
Hanford tanks contain widely varying volumes of mixed waste (waste with both radioactive components and dangerous chemicals), each with a unique blend of constituents.
“This leak is adding to the estimated one million gallons of tank waste already in the soil across the Hanford site,” Watson said. “This highlights the critical need for resources to address Hanford’s aging tanks, which will continue to fail and leak over time.”
U.S. Ends Visa Services for Most Russians
May 1st, 2021Via: Reuters:
The Kremlin accused Washington on Friday of fuelling tension with “unfriendly actions” after the U.S. embassy in Moscow said it was cutting staff and stopping processing visas for most Russians.
The embassy said it was cutting consular staff by 75% and that from May 12 it would stop processing non-immigrant visas for non-diplomatic travel after a new Russian law imposed limits on how many local staff can work at foreign diplomatic missions.
That means Russians, who are not diplomats or green card seekers, will no longer be able to apply inside their own country for visas to visit the United States for tourism and other purposes. They will have to make such applications in third countries instead if they need to.
Majority Of U.S. Companies Will Require Workers To Provide Proof Of Vaccination
May 1st, 2021Via: ZeroHedge:
According to a new survey from the Rockefeller Foundation, 65% of businesses will offer some kind of incentive for employees to get vaccinated, while 63% said they will require proof of vaccination before workers can return to the office.
Another 35% said disciplinary actions are on the table, including the possibility of termination, for those who refuse vaccines.
The survey, released Thursday, represents the responses of 957 businesses across 24 industries. Most of the respondents were US businesses with 250 employees or more.
Los Angeles Building “Tiny Homes Villages” for Homeless People
May 1st, 2021Note the juxtaposition of the shiny new homeless camp right next to several closed businesses…
Via: German in Venice:
“We can’t do a thing to stop UFOs – it could be America’s biggest spy failure since 9/11, warns ex-Pentagon investigator”
April 30th, 2021Tell me another one, Lou.
Let me guess… Lockheed Martin, et al. will need a few trillion more dollars to deal with the, “Threat.”
Via: The Sun:
“There is something in our skies, we don’t know what it is, we don’t know how it works, we don’t know fully what it can do, we don’t know who is behind the wheel, we don’t know its intentions, and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it.”
Space Force Scientist: U.S. Military Must Experiment with Human Augmentation and AI to Stay Ahead of Russia and China
April 30th, 2021Via: Daily Mail:
Combining humans with machines to create superhuman intelligence may soon no longer be the plot of science-fiction films, as the US Space Force’s chief scientist say it will happen in ‘the coming decade.’
Dr. Joel Mozer, speaking at an event at the Airforce Research Laboratory Wednesday, announced we are entering the age of ‘human augmentation,’ which is crucial to the US’s national defense in order to not ‘fall behind our strategic competitors.’
However, his proposal does not turn humans into cyborgs, but employs ‘AI agents’ to assist with strategic military planning.
Mozer highlights the abilities seen in developed by a Google subsidiary, AlphaGo Zero, which was able to train itself to play the game of Go at a master level in just a few weeks.
Mozer suggests the extortionary capabilities can lead to superhuman capabilities, by means of combining human ingenuity with the power, speed and efficiency of machines.
An Inside Look at Scientology’s Lavish Production Facilities and Actor Recruitment Strategy
April 29th, 2021Via: Hollywood Reporter:
Ex-members offer a rare look at the organization’s multiple studios and allege that Scientology used the audition process to recruit outside actors: “It’s an in-house film and no one’s going to see it.”
One Bank Warns Soaring Food Prices Will Lead To Social Unrest
April 29th, 2021Via: ZeroHedge:
…the Bloomberg Agri spot index hit the highest level in six years.
In a nutshell, this is a problem since food is a large component of CPI baskets in Asia, and “this large inflationary impulse in the region that houses more than half the world’s population should result in higher wage costs in the factory base of the world. As CPI and PPI rise in Asia, it will feed through globally in the months ahead.”
Today, DB’s Jim Reid picked that chart as his “Chart of the day”, repeating what readers already know, namely that Bloomberg’s agriculture spot index has risen by c.76% year-on-year, noting that “that’s the biggest annual rise in nearly a decade, and there are only a couple of other comparable episodes since the index begins back in 1991.”
Like us, Reid then patiently tries to explain to all the idiots – like those employed in the Marriner Eccles building – that the importance of this record surge “extends far beyond your weekly shop, as there’s an extensive literature connecting higher food prices to periods of social unrest.” Indeed, you’ll notice from the chart that the last big surge from the middle of 2010 to early 2011 coincided with the start of the Arab Spring, for which food inflation is regarded as a contributing factor.
While this is hardly new – we discussed it in “Why Albert Edwards Is Starting To Panic About Soaring Food Prices” and in “We Are Edging Closer To A Biblical Commodity Price Increase Scenario” – Reid also reminds us that emerging markets are more vulnerable to this trend, since their consumers spend a far greater share of their income on food than those in the developed world.
US Investigating ‘Havana Syndrome’ Directed Energy Attack Near White House
April 29th, 2021Beware, CNN is the source.
Via: ZeroHedge:
And now CNN is reporting what is perhaps the most bizarre and outlandish instance of this yet – a ‘sonic attack’ which sickened a top administration official while standing just outside White House grounds.
“That incident, which occurred near the Ellipse, the large oval lawn on the south side of the White House, sickened one National Security Council official, according to multiple current and former US officials and sources familiar with the matter,” CNN writes.
