Scientists Create 1st Living Organism From Artificial DNA
May 7th, 2014Via: U.S. News and World Report:
Move over, Frankenstein! Your 21st-century counterpart has just been announced.
In true sci-fi fashion, a team of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in La Jolla, Calif., has created a brand-new bacteria based on a genetic structure found nowhere on Earth.
According to lead researcher Floyd Romesberg, the feat involved artificially engineering a unique combination of DNA material — a combination not found in any living creature — and then successfully inserting it into a living cell that usually contains only natural combinations of DNA.
“Life on Earth in all its diversity is encoded by only two pairs of DNA bases, A-T and C-G,” Romesberg explained in an institute news release. “And what we’ve made is an organism that stably contains those two plus a third, unnatural pair of bases.”
“This shows that other solutions to storing [genetic] information are possible,” he added, “and, of course, takes us closer to an expanded-DNA biology that will have many exciting applications — from new medicines to new kinds of nanotechnology.”
“This Secret Fuel of the Economy, Rarely Missing and Little Noticed, Is Running Out”
May 7th, 2014
Via: AP:
For those who fear an overcrowded planet, this is good news. For the economy, not so good.
We tend to think economic growth comes from working harder and smarter. But economists attribute up to a third of it to more people joining the workforce each year than leaving it. The result is more producing, earning and spending.
Now this secret fuel of the economy, rarely missing and little noticed, is running out.
“For the first time since World War II, we’re no longer getting a tailwind,” says Russ Koesterich, chief investment strategist at Blackrock, the world’s largest money manager. “You’re going to create fewer jobs. … All else equal, wage growth will be slower.”
Births are falling in China, Japan, the United States, Germany, Italy and nearly all other European countries. Studies have shown that births drop when unemployment rises, such as during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Birth rates have fallen the most in some regions that were hardest hit by the financial crisis.
In the United States, three-quarters of people surveyed by Gallup last year said the main reason couples weren’t having more children was a lack of money or fear of the economy.
The trend emerges as a key gauge of future economic health — the growth in the pool of potential workers, ages 20-64 — is signaling trouble ahead. This labor pool had expanded for decades, thanks to the vast generation of baby boomers. Now the boomers are retiring, and there are barely enough new workers to replace them, let alone add to their numbers.
Eyes Over Compton, “We Basically Kept it Pretty Hush Hush”
May 6th, 2014Via: The Atlantic:
This is the future if nothing is done to stop it.
In a secret test of mass surveillance technology, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sent a civilian aircraft* over Compton, California, capturing high-resolution video of everything that happened inside that 10-square-mile municipality.
Compton residents weren’t told about the spying, which happened in 2012. “We literally watched all of Compton during the times that we were flying, so we could zoom in anywhere within the city of Compton and follow cars and see people,” Ross McNutt of Persistence Surveillance Systems told the Center for Investigative Reporting, which unearthed and did the first reporting on this important story. The technology he’s trying to sell to police departments all over America can stay aloft for up to six hours. Like Google Earth, it enables police to zoom in on certain areas. And like TiVo, it permits them to rewind, so that they can look back and see what happened anywhere they weren’t watching in real time.
If it’s adopted, Americans can be policed like Iraqis and Afghanis under occupation–and at bargain prices…
Robots Are Caring for Elderly People in Europe
May 6th, 2014Via: Vice:
Judging by recent surveys, most people seem to think that robots that are actually useful will lead to some sort of apocalyptic machine uprising. But look past the military bots and automated job-stealers, and one of the most obvious applications of a service robot is an entirely unthreatening task humans are increasingly failing to meet demand for: caring.
Six elderly people across Europe currently have a new companion: a GiraffPlus robot, or Mr. Robin, as one 94-year-old taking part in the trial rather adorably calls it in the video below. It’s part of an EU-funded project to use robotics to help elderly people who want to stay at home remain independent past the point they’d usually be unable to live alone due to physical or cognitive difficulties.
Life Imitates Art: Robot and Frank
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to NDAA Detention Power
May 6th, 2014Via: Antiwar:
The US Supreme Court has further enhanced the administration’s ability to detain anyone, at any time, on any pretext today, when it refused to hear the Hedges v. Obama case, meaning an Appeals Court ruling on the matter will stand.
‘Bitcoin A Terrorist Threat?’
May 6th, 2014Via: International Business Times:
After attracting attention from law enforcement, financial regulators and old-school Wall Street investors, bitcoin is now on the U.S. military’s radar as a possible terrorist threat.
Friday was the deadline for submissions to a counterterrorism program seeking vendors to help the military understand state-of-the-art technologies that may pose threats to national security, and “bitcoin” and “virtual currencies” are listed among them.
The program is being conducted by the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office, a division of the Department of Defense that identifies and develops counterterrorism abilities and investigates irregular warfare and evolving threats.
An unclassified memo from January unearthed by Bitcoin Magazine detailed solicitations for CTTSO projects. The memo states that one of the mission requirements is for “innovative…solutions to develop and/or enhance new concepts and constructs for understanding the role of virtual currencies” in financing threats against the United States.
The memo said the blurring of national lines is facilitating the transfer of virtual currencies: “The introduction of virtual currency will likely shape threat finance by increasing the opaqueness, transactional velocity, and overall efficiencies of terrorist attacks,” it stated.
NATO Countries to Help Ukraine with PSYOP
May 6th, 2014Via: U.S. News and World Report:
NATO countries may be ramping up their war of words in the coming weeks in Ukraine, where Russian propaganda flows freely into the east while ill-prepared security forces can’t even talk to one another.
Multiple officials who spoke with U.S. News say planning is underway to bolster the Ukrainian government’s ability to communicate among its security services and broadcast to the general public. The details are still being worked out, including whether this would require troops from NATO countries on the ground in Ukraine to train and support the effort.
Norway: Oculus Rift Helps Norwegian Soldiers Drive Tanks
May 6th, 2014Via: Vice:
As it usually happens, video games are designed to mimic real-world fighting. Now it seems the model’s being flipped on its head—the battlefield, for better or worse, is bearing an increasing resemblance to a game.
Look at Norway, where the Army has started using Oculus Rift to drive tanks with increased visibility, according to the Norwegian TV station tu.no. Four VR cameras are mounted on the sides of the tank to give the soldier inside donning the headset a full 360 degree view of what’s going on outside, like X-ray vision.
Volvo Testing Self Driving Cars on Public Roads in Sweden
May 5th, 2014Via: Volvo:
Volvo Car Group’s groundbreaking project ‘Drive Me’ – featuring 100 self-driving Volvos on public roads in everyday driving conditions – is moving forward rapidly. The first test cars are already rolling around the Swedish city of Gothenburg and the sophisticated Autopilot technology is performing well. An autonomous drive car was also shown in the U.S. at the New York International Auto Show this month.
“The test cars are now able to handle lane following, speed adaption and merging traffic all by themselves. This is an important step towards our aim that the final ‘Drive Me’ cars will be able to drive the whole test route in highly autonomous mode. The technology, which will be called Autopilot, enables the driver to hand over the driving to the vehicle, which takes care of all driving functions,” says Erik Coelingh, Technical Specialist at Volvo Car Group.
Body of Missing New Jersey Banker Found in Hudson River
May 5th, 2014Via: New York Daily News:
Nearly a month after Andrew Jarzyk went missing his family, at long last, has been given some amount of closure.
The 27-year-old’s family has confirmed that a body found in the Hudson River on Monday is that of the Hoboken, N.J., jogger and banker who had been missing since the early hours of April 1.
But despite his body’s recovery, his family says his death and disappearance is still deeply shrouded in mystery.
“At this time we do not have answers into why Andrew’s life ended at such a young age. Please be accepting to the fact we may never have these answers,” his brother posted on a public Facebook page created for his recovery.
Jarzyk, who worked at PNC Financial in Woodland, had been described by friends as in good spirits when last seen at a Hoboken restaurant.
