China Gene-Edited Baby Experiment ‘May Have Created Unintended Mutations’
December 5th, 2019Via: Guardian:
The gene editing performed on Chinese twins to immunise them against HIV may have failed and created unintended mutations, scientists have said after the original research was made public for the first time.
Excerpts from the manuscript were released by the MIT Technology Review to show how Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui ignored ethical and scientific norms in creating the twins Lula and Nana, whose birth in late 2018 sent shockwaves through the scientific world.
He made expansive claims of a medical breakthrough that could “control the HIV epidemic”, but it was not clear whether it had even been successful in its intended purpose – immunising the babies against the virus – because the team did not in fact reproduce the gene mutation that confers this resistance.
A small percentage of people are born with immunity because of a mutation in a gene called CCR5 and it was this gene that He had claimed to have targeted using a powerful editing tool known as Crispr which has revolutionised the field since 2012.
Fyodor Urnov, a genome-editing scientist at the University of California, Berkeley told the MIT Technology Review: “The claim they have reproduced the prevalent CCR5 variant is a blatant misrepresentation of the actual data and can only be described by one term: a deliberate falsehood.
The H&K MP5 Comes Back to the USA as the SP5
December 5th, 2019$2800. That’s pretty nuts. I remember HK94s for $650-$750 around 1985. Plug $750 in 1985 into the inflation calculator and that’s $1793 in 2019.
HK is definitely milking it.
A U.S. Marine Flew Guns to Haiti so He Could Teach the Army How to Shoot, and Then ‘Become President’
December 5th, 2019This is a weird one.
Via: National Post:
Jacques Yves Sebastien Duroseau had a plan.
The U.S. Marine would fly to Haiti with trunks full of weapons, armour and ammunition, train Haiti’s newest soldiers how to shoot, and as a result make the country more stable. In the end, court documents allege, the plan was that he himself would rule the island nation.
Now, federal prosecutors in Raleigh, North Carolina have charged him with gun smuggling, the Miami Herald reports, after he arrived at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince with his own personal arsenal on Nov. 12. His luggage included suitcases and plastic boxes containing weaponry, and court filings indicate he was in active service when detained.
Using Tesla Cybertruck to Power Off-Grid Tiny House
December 5th, 2019I love it, although a lot of that math is meaningless because we don’t have any solid Cybertruck battery or inverter specs.
Anyway, shine on you crazy diamond.
Via: Electric Bike:
This article is about how I plan to power my off-grid Tiny House using nothing but the CyberTruck (hopefully with the solar panel option) and how you can do the same. It also has a section about how to power your entire house off the Cybertruck in emergencies or scheduled blackouts which seem to be getting more and more common in California.
Carmakers Shed 80,000 Jobs as Electric Shift Upends Industry
December 4th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
It’s turning out to be one of the worst years ever for auto workers across the globe amid shrinking demand and a tectonic shift in vehicle technology, with Daimler AG and Audi announcing almost 20,000 job cuts in just the past week.
All told, carmakers are eliminating more than 80,000 jobs during the coming years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. Although the cuts are concentrated in Germany, the U.S. and the U.K., faster-growing economies haven’t been immune and are seeing automakers scale back operations there.
Merck’s Insurers Treat Ransomware Takedown as Act of War
December 4th, 2019Schadenfreude?
Maybe a little.
Ok, a lot.
Via: Bloomberg:
Merck did what any of us would do when facing a disaster: It turned to its insurers. After all, through its property policies, the company was covered—after a $150 million deductible—to the tune of $1.75 billion for catastrophic risks including the destruction of computer data, coding, and software. So it was stunned when most of its 30 insurers and reinsurers denied coverage under those policies. Why? Because Merck’s property policies specifically excluded another class of risk: an act of war.
Merck went to court, suing its insurers, including such industry titans as Allianz SE and American International Group Inc., for breach of contract, ultimately claiming $1.3 billion in losses.
In a world where a hacker can cause more damage than a gunship, the dispute playing out in a New Jersey courtroom will have far-reaching consequences for victims of cyberattacks and the insurance companies that will or will not protect them. Until recently, the big worry associated with cyberattacks was data loss. The NotPetya strike shows how a few hundred lines of malicious code can bring a company to its knees.
U.S. Navy Buying 9 New Nuclear Submarines for $22 Billion, Largest Warship Building Deal Ever
December 4th, 2019So it goes…
Via: Popular Mechanics:
The U.S. Navy has just signed the largest warship building deal ever. The service will pay more than 20 billion dollars for nine new Virginia-class attack submarines. The submarines will replace Cold War-era Los Angeles-class boats in America’s submarine fleet, adding new technology and greater firepower. Many of the new submarines will include a long-awaited capability to launch swarms of cruise missiles.
The deal, announced on December 2, awards $22 billion to a shipbuilding team consisting of General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries. The submarines, The Diplomat reports, will begin construction this year, with deliveries taking place from 2025 to 2029. One of the submarines will be of the Virginia classes’ Block IV configuration, with the remaining eight of the new Block V configuration.
Thomas Bowers: Epstein Connection to Dead Trump Banker [???]
December 3rd, 2019Related: “Deutsche Bank Executive Who Signed Off On Trump Loans Kills Himself At Age 55”
Via: TruePundit:
Bowers headed the private wealth banking division for Deutsche Bank and signed off on millions in loans to Epstein. Bowers, prior to taking over the private banking arm at Deutsche Bank, served in the same top position at Citibank, as the head of the bank’s private wealth arm. Citigroup also made massive loans to Epstein, according to records and banking sources who spoke to True Pundit.
True Pundit founder Mike “Thomas Paine” Moore previously headed anti-money laundering for a major Citigroup division during the time frame Citi commenced large loans to Epstein.
“The loans to Epstein were personal and commercial,” Paine confirmed. “The Citi loans I can confirm were for more than $25 million. Some were secured, some were not.”
Did Citi bend its lending rules for Epstein? Paine said that appears “quite likely,” with Bowers and other Citi executives he later recruited to work for him at Deutsche all working to secure the approvals regardless of compliance-related red flags.
And sources said Citi loaned Epstein much more money, eclipsing $100 million and also allowed Epstein to use the bank to send thousands of wire transfers from his accounts. Bowers, who turned up dead just days ago, brokered the loans for Epstein, sources said.
Bowers was the chief of Deutsche Bank’s Private Wealth Management division and worked from the bank’s Park Avenue offices in New York City. At Citi, Bowers served as the chief of the The Citi Private Bank and previously ran Citigroup’s Global Markets and Wealth Management businesses.
And when Bowers left Citi for Deutsche Bank, Epstein followed.
Meanwhile, Epstein stopped making payments on his millions in outstanding Citi loans. But that mattered little because Bowers approved new high-risk loans and credit lines from Deutsche Bank, sources said.
And that relationship with Epstein continued until Bowers left Deutsche Bank in 2015. By that time, Epstein had chalked up untold millions in loans with the help of Bowers who recruited many of his top private wealth top bankers from Citi to Deutsche Bank.
FDA Bowed to Industry for Decades as Alarms Were Sounded Over Talc
December 3rd, 2019Via: Reuters:
Over the past 50 years, the FDA has relied upon–and often deferred to–industry even as outside experts and consumers repeatedly raised serious health concerns about talc powders and cosmetics, a Reuters investigation found.
Again and again since at least the 1970s, the agency has downplayed the risk of asbestos contamination and declined to issue warnings or impose safety standards, according to documents produced in court proceedings and in response to public records requests.
Astronomers Are About to Detect the Light from the Very First Stars in the Universe
December 3rd, 2019Via: Universe Today:
A team of scientists working with the Murchison Widefield Array (WMA) radio telescope are trying to find the signal from the Universe’s first stars. Those first stars formed after the Universe’s Dark Ages. To find their first light, the researchers are looking for the signal from neutral hydrogen, the gas that dominated the Universe after the Dark Ages.
