Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

Fighting malnutrition: Golden Rice and the EU’s GMO conundrum – EURACTIV

Posted: February 14, 2020 at 3:43 am

This rice could save a million kids a year, read the July 2000 cover of Time Magazine, referring to a genetically modified rice, Golden Rice, that had been biofortified with life-saving nutrition. But in the nearly two decades that have passed since then, the cultivation of genetically biofortified crops, such as Golden Rice, to help solve the global humanitarian crisis of malnutrition remains elusive.

One major reason for the delay has been the systematic opposition to all forms of GMOs and genetic engineering by radical interest groups including Greenpeace and many Green party politicians, particularly in Europe. On December 18th, 2019, the Philippines joined a growing list of countries granting a permit for Golden Rice as food and feed, and for processing a major milestone in making it available to the people who need it most.

So, lets consider the facts.

Over two billion people worldwide continue to suffer from hidden hunger, or the lack of essential micronutrients, which impairs the physical and cognitive development of children, productivity in adults, and quality of life for all. There is a case to be made here for agricultural biotechnology, specifically in the context of biofortification to improve the nutritional value of staple crops through various means, including transgenic biofortification and genome editing. Biofortification allows for the delivery of additional life-improving and life-saving nutrients without the need to change dietary choices or preferences, and at relatively low cost. The potential benefits are especially pronounced in developing countries like the Philippines and Bangladesh, which suffer from high rates of malnutrition[1].

The cost of malnutrition in all its forms is unacceptably high, at 3.5 trillion USD per year worldwide. In the Philippines, the projected annual national economic burden of malnutrition is more than 4.65 billion USD per year, of which 33 million USD is attributable to Vitamin A deficiency. The relative affordability of biofortified crops like Golden Rice may make a world of difference to households who are most in need and yet least able to afford nutritious food. In Bangladesh, which has an average daily per capita rice consumption of 367g, ultra-poor households spend three-quarters of their income, or 75 out of 100 taka, on rice. Oftentimes, fruits, vegetables, eggs are not only unaffordable but also unavailable on a regular basis in marginalized and hard-to-reach communities. When rice is all that a nutrition-deficient household can afford, it is unconscionable to push for the adoption of a nutritional intervention that will financially burden its target communities. Coupled with a relatively longer shelf life, Golden Rice is therefore an affordable complement to a diet when access to other vitamin A-rich foods is difficult or lacking.

Global public goods like Golden Rice are developed with a clear humanitarian purpose and in partnership with national research organizations in the countries where they are intended for adoption[2]. The nomer of Golden Rice does not refer to a single line or variety. Rather, it is the result of technology that has been extensively researched and introduced into local varieties that are most consumed by the communities that need it most in their respective countries. This ensures that the developed product meets the needs and preferences of its target communities, and that appropriate deployment mechanisms are established to sustain adoption. In the case of Golden Rice, consumer benefit is established: its beta-carotene content can provide up to 50% of the estimated average requirement for Vitamin A. Initial estimates are even higher, with beta-carotene content ranging from 357-561 g/day for every 100 g of raw Golden Rice But whether it is adopted or not depends entirely on farmer and consumer preference.

In addition to helping solve immense public health issues through biofortification, agricultural biotechnology also holds enormous potential to contribute more substantially to other Sustainable Development Goals. Already today, more than 14 million farmers grow GM cotton on smallholder farms in Asia (comprising the vast majority of farmers who have adopted GM crops globally) in order to increase yields and improve farm safety and sustainability by lowering the cost of and need for inputs. Many other GM crops have also been developed around the world by public research institutions (see map here). Examples of biotech crops which have made it to market include virus resistant papaya (in Hawaii)[3] and insect resistant aubergines (in Bangladesh), which help to reduce the need for chemical control. A number of GM crops with health benefits also exist, such as soybeans to produce healthier oils, low acrylamide potatoes, and insect resistant maize, which significantly reduces naturally occurring mycotoxins that cause problems also in European maize harvests.

However, the majority of ag biotech innovations have unfortunately not had the immense financial resources needed to get safe GM crops through the regulatory process. In the EU, GM import approvals typically take six years and cost 11 to 16.7 million Euros. The costs and waiting times associated with such approvals are preventing public institutions from investing in ag biotech solutions to solve global challenges. The same EU predicament now also applies to genome edited crops, even if they do not have any added genes[4]. With the EUs stringent stance towards GMOs based largely on anti-corporate sentiment campaigns, and the false impression that GMOs are strictly the territory of profit-driven innovation, we tend to forget that these same technologies are also developing parts of the solution to help the poorest of the poor attain decent lives and livelihoods. Also, the majority of ag biotech solutions listed above are of course not available to European farmers, with the exception of one single type of insect resistant maize, which is available to Spanish and Portuguese farmers.

Those of us working and advocating for Golden Rice look forward to the day that regulatory approvals will allow us to respond to societal challenges. While the evaluation process has taken much longer than intended, this underscores the presence of regulatory protocol to independently assess the Golden Rice biosafety dossier which has already received food safety approvals in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

It is unfortunate then that regulatory delays in some parts of the world are held by critics, especially in Europe, as proof that the product is ineffective and unsafe. Yet any action taken to provide and assess the data needed to demonstrate its safety and benefits is viewed as an attempt to force feed Golden Rice to communities who need it the most. We sincerely hope that European decision makers will have the courage to listen to the science, given also that Europeans today are much less concerned with GMOs than they were a decade ago. After 25 years of millions of farmers growing GM crops, now on about 12% of the worlds fields, it would only be reasonable for Europe to look at the evidence surrounding the proven safety of GM crops, instead of demonising a technology which can and does provide multiple benefits.

About the authors

As the head of the Strategic Innovation Platform, Ajay Kohli leads a team primarily in the application of fundamental sciences such as genomics, genetics, and informatics instruments. His platform identifies genes and provides genetic materials and associated information that enables the institutes rice breeders and physiologists to harness upstream research into translational research, through a highly interdisciplinary approach. Ajay also leads IRRIs Plant Molecular Biology Group for the past 10 years. During this time, the group has gained recognition in gene discovery and characterization in environmental stress tolerance of rice, particularly in improving yield under drought condition. Ajay brings 27 years of experience in upstream research, innovation, and leadership in the agricultural sector.

Joanna Dupont-Inglis is the Secretary General of EuropaBio, where she has worked since 2009 in a variety of leadership positions. Prior to EuropaBio she worked for two leading Brussels-based consultancies on agriculture, healthcare, environment and energy policy together with a broad range of industries, international organisations, NGOs and with the EU Institutions. She has an academic background in environmental science and European studies and is a French-speaking UK/Irish national.

[1] See table 6 of Swamy et al (2019) for potential benefit of GR2E in the Philippines and Bangladesh. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6646955/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6646955/

[3] GM papaya practically saved Hawaiis fifth largest crop from decimation (http://www.vib.be/en/about-vib/Documents/Virus%20resistant%20papaya%20in%20Hawaii.pdf) and results of the genome sequence of the GM papaya were reported as a measure of transparency (Kohli and Christou, 2008, Stable transgenes bear fruit. Nature Biotechnology 26(6):653-4

DOI: 10.1038/nbt0608-653

[4] https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/partner_article/eu-legislation-must-safeguard-precision-plant-breeding-technologies

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Fighting malnutrition: Golden Rice and the EU's GMO conundrum - EURACTIV

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Have humans evolved beyond nature? – The Independent

Posted: February 14, 2020 at 3:43 am

Such is the extent of our dominion on Earththat the answers to questions around whether we are still part of nature and whether we even need some of it rely on an understanding of what we want as Homo sapiens. And to know what we want, we need to grasp what we are.

It is a huge question but they are the best. And as a biologist, here is my humble suggestion to address it, and a personal conclusion. You may have a different one, but what matters is that we reflect on it.

Perhaps the best place to start is to consider what makes us human in the first place, which is not as obvious as it may seem.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Many years ago, a novel written by Vercors called Les Animaux Dnaturs (Denatured Animals) told the story of a group of primitive hominids, the Tropis, found in an unexplored jungle in New Guinea, who seem to constitute a missing link. However, the prospect that this fictional group may be used as slave labour by an entrepreneurial businessman named Vancruysen forces society to decide whether the Tropis are simply sophisticated animals or whether they should be given human rights. And herein lies the difficulty.

Human status had hitherto seemed so obvious that the book describes how it is soon discovered that there is no definition of what a human actually is. Certainly, the string of experts consulted anthropologists, primatologists, psychologists, lawyers and clergymen could not agree. Perhaps prophetically, it is a layperson who suggested a possible way forward.

She asked whether some of the hominids habits could be described as the early signs of a spiritual or religious mind. In short, were there signs that, like us, the Tropis were no longer at one with nature, but had separated from it, and were now looking at it from the outside with some fear.

Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found.The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission."Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study."But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there."

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The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year

Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average.

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The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females.But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal

Ye et al/Current Biology

African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017.

Reuters

Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago

A. Gennari

A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste

Steven G Johnson

Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands

Clay Bolt

Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal

New Mexico Museum of Natural History

Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold

Faye Levine, University of Maryland

A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase

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The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies

Getty/AFP

The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Grard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers

Reuters/AP

The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn"

Viktor Radermacher / SWNS

Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star.

ESO/A. Mller et al

Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins

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Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs

Jos Iriarte

More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test.Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly.

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The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth.

Pictures by: Tom Momary

Getty

Ye et al/Current Biology

Reuters

A. Gennari

Steven G Johnson

Clay Bolt

New Mexico Museum of Natural History

Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold

Faye Levine, University of Maryland

A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males

Getty

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase

Getty

Getty/AFP

Reuters/AP

Viktor Radermacher / SWNS

ESO/A. Mller et al

Getty

Jos Iriarte

Getty

The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth.

Pictures by: Tom Momary

It is a telling perspective. Our status as altered or denatured animals creatures who have arguably separated from the natural world is perhaps both the source of our humanity and the cause of many of our troubles. In the words of the books author:

All mans troubles arise from the fact that we do not know what we are and do not agree on what we want to be

We will probably never know the timing of our gradual separation from nature although cave paintings perhaps contain some clues. But a key recent event in our relationship with the world around us is as well documented as it was abrupt. It happened on a sunny Monday morning, at precisely 8.15am.

A new age

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The atomic bomb that rocked Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 was a wake-up call so loud that it still resonates in our consciousness many decades later.

The day the sun rose twice was not only a forceful demonstration of the new era that we had entered buta reminder of how paradoxically primitive we remained: differential calculus, advanced electronics and almost godlike insights into the laws of the universe helped build, well a very big stick. Modern Homo sapiens seemingly had developed the powers of gods, while keeping the psyche of a stereotypical Stone Age killer.

We were no longer fearful of nature, but of what we would do to it, and ourselves. In short, we still did not know where we came from but began panicking about where we were going. We now know a lot more about our origins but we remain unsure about what we want to be in the future or, increasingly, as the climate crisis accelerates, whether we even have one.

Arguably, the greater choices granted by our technological advances make it even more difficult to decide which of the many paths to take. This is the cost of freedom. I am not arguing against our dominion over nature nor, even as a biologist, do I feel a need to preserve the status quo. Big changes are part of our evolution. After all, oxygen was first a poison which threatened the very existence of early life, yet it is now the fuel vital to our existence.

Similarly, we may have to accept that what we do, even our unprecedented dominion, is a natural consequence of what we have evolved into, and by a process nothing less natural than natural selection itself. If artificial birth control is unnatural, so is reduced infant mortality.

I am also not convinced by the argument against genetic engineering on the basis that it is unnatural. By artificially selecting specific strains of wheat or dogs, we had been tinkering more or less blindly with genomes for centuries before the genetic revolution. Even our choice of romantic partner is a form of genetic engineering. Sex is natures way of producing new genetic combinations quickly.

Even nature, it seems, can be impatient with itself.

Changing our world

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CRISPR: Coroner tackles the ethics of gene editing – CBC.ca

Posted: February 14, 2020 at 3:43 am

It may sound like something from a fiction movie, and just over a decade ago it probably was, but in that time, scientists have discovered a ground-breaking genetic engineering tool called CRISPR-Cas9 (often referred to as only CRISPR).

It has the potential to revolutionize the future of human experience from creating drought resistant crops, augmenting mosquitoes to eliminating the transmission of malaria to, most importantly, eradicating specific genetic diseases like cancer by manipulating the blueprint of life. But could it have contradictory effects?

Coroner explores this topic in season two episode three, entitled 'CRISPR SISTR', where Dr. Jenny Cooper and Det. Donovan McAvoy investigate the death of a lab assistant who was helping in the CRISPR research that was to eradicate Lewy body dementia. Or so the scientists involved in the research implied during interrogation.

What really happened is a bit different and we'll get to it, but let's try to answer some complicated questions first.

You know how you can edit anything that needs a bit of fixing, such as a video an episode of Coroner for example or an Instagram picture by using various apps or tools? CRISPR-Cas9 issimilar, but a molecular tool, which is much more complex.

We can only scratch the surface, but to put it in simple terms: CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene editing tool that can be used to more precisely edit targeted bits of DNA in order to modify (strengthen, weaken, switch on and off) or eliminate specific genes in organisms like bacteria, animals, plants and even human cells. Imagine being able to prevent cancer by editing out the culprit?! Life changing!

"Think of it like editing text," says Dr. Janet Rossant, a researcher who uses CRISPR in her lab at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

"You can cursor in and you delete a few words, paste in a little sentence. And that is what people can now do in the genome."

Breaking it up, CRISPR (short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a cluster of DNA sequences found within the genomes of specific microorganisms such as bacteria. And Cas9 (CRISPR associated protein 9) is an enzyme from bacterial antiviral systems that uses those sequences as a guide to recognize, interrogate and cleave foreign DNA by unwinding it and checking for complementary sites. And then snip snip.

In his interview with The Nature of Things, Dr. Eric Olson, a Molecular Biologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, explains it in everyday terms.

Metaphorically speaking, he says that we can think of CRISPR as a spell checker for DNA with a two component system. One component is the molecular scissors that can cut DNA and the other a GPS device for DNA which you can program to guide and deliver the scissors anywhere in the 6 billion letters of the DNA, and cut it in two.

There are many gene editing techniques which have been around for a while but CRISPR-Cas9 is revolutionary in its precision, timeliness and cost. Researchers are working tirelessly to add more to the CRISPR toolkit, but for now Cas9 is still the most popular.

"All methods are very efficient at making site-specific mutations, but CRISPR takes the least time and has the lowest costs," said Caixia Gao, a plant biologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, to sciencemag.org.

If you need more detailed explanations on CRISPR and how it works, this is where we defer to the experts and we go back to Coroner.

Jenny's CRISPR case gets personal because of its ability to possibly heal her father who has the previously mentioned Lewy body dementia. Her hopes are up and after a conversation with her father, he is interested in being a part of the human trials.

Unfortunately, the scientists in the series end up on the unethical side. They've lied about experimenting with Lewy body dementia but instead were selfishly trying to cure themselves of Huntington's disease.

To make things worse, the methods which they applied turned deadly for the assistant who initially saw them as miracle workers while they used him as a guinea pig for their personal gain and research.

As the case closes, so does the CRISPR research along with Jenny's hopes for her father's recovery. The disappointment in this episode makes for a great story... but is reality any different?

While CRISPR has the potential to save many lives, there are still many safety wrinkles that need to be ironed out before we start to see it applied in Canadian labs. As Coroner points out, CRISPR-Cas9 could unleash consequences we can't predict which could be dire.

The method relies on Cas9 to be precise but sometimes it does veer off, makingoff-target cuts which is where the challenges begin. It also relies on the body's natural repair system to heal the snipped area that could cause DNA mutations and other diseases.

One of the biggest controversies of CRISPR is the possibility of making permanent gene alterations which could be passed down to future generations. Creating designer babies by altering their genes to create faster and more powerful athletes or changing their hair or eye colour may sound like a no big deal to some but along with many cons, it takes away one's choice to choose their life path.

In Canada, under theAssisted Human Reproduction Act of 2004, editing the human genome is prohibited and punishable by up to ten years in prison which is why in Coroner's episode three of season two, the CRISPR lab is shut down and the scientists arrested.

As we are propelled into the future with new bio technologies like CRISPR-Cas9, which are getting easier, cheaper and more widely accessible, the possibilities are endless and the responsibilities higher. There are many questions that still need to be answered around CRISPR like: what are the best ways of using these technologies responsibly and how can research be contained in order to avoid unethical applications?

While the scientists and the law ponder those questions, you can watch 'CRISPR SISTR' and past Coroner episodes on CBC Gem!

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NYU Launches Alliance to Promote Public Interest Technology – NYU Washington Square News

Posted: February 14, 2020 at 3:43 am

NYU launched a new alliance this Thursday dedicated to promoting research, discussion and collaboration in public interest technologies.

Public interest technologies are tools developed and utilized by public institutions. Facial recognition, computing systems, cloning or genetic engineering all fall under the umbrella of public interest technologies. Founders of the alliance plan to use their resources and knowledge to help and encourage research in these fields.

The alliance places an emphasis on collaboration with students and other organizations. Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development and an associate for the alliance Charlton McIlwain emphasized this goal.

When we think about PIT, it means thinking about how we use, design, build technology that serves the public interest, the greater good of society, McIlwain said.

McIlwain worked with a group of faculty to organize people across the university community around the topic of public interest technology. This interdisciplinary group strives to develop NYU as an academic institution at the forefront of discussions surrounding technology and ethics.

How do we go about trying to amplify the research and work of our faculty that are doing this kind of technology work? McIlwain asked. How do we make them more visible both within the university and outside the university?

McIlwain believes the alliance can add diversity to the technological workforce and shape future public policy that will emerge to regulate systems, such as artificial intelligence, through recruiting and educating students. One of these potential students is Nicolas Baldwin, who is pursuing a BA/MA bioethics degree.

What I always found really interesting about biology wasnt just the science behind it but the social and political ramifications behind it, Baldwin said.

Bioethics deals with the issues that can arise from research and biological discoveries, such as abortion and associated technologies. Today, Baldwin believes that many of our societys larger issues, like healthcare, can be looked at from a bioethics perspective. Discussions regarding abortion, cloning or genetic engineering are all connected with bioethics and these are the conversations the alliance plans to foster.

Ben Blaustein, a CAS senior, said topics surrounding bioethics often seem more fiction than fact.

Bioethics is very sci-fi in a lot of ways, Blaustein said. Youre talking about hypothetical situations, and I think that future is coming way faster than we realize.

This future will need to include organizations and larger companies taking on responsibilities that werent prioritized before. Baldwin said the prevalence of bioethics conversations as public interest technology remains on the rise.

I think one of the great shames and educational failures in our society is that we talk about ethics and we talk about whats good and bad for people but we dont have a broad education on these issues, Baldwin said.

From the creation of the bioethics programs at NYU and the introduction of the new Alliance for Public Interest Technology, it is clear that technology and the ethical questions it raises for society will continue to grow in prevalence.

The introduction of the Alliance for Public Interest Technology indicates a rising need for ethical discussions surrounding the worlds new technologies. But for Blaustein, one question lingers.

When is it dangerous, and when is it acceptable? Blaustein asked.

Email Julia Santiago at [emailprotected]

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Big Brains podcast: Why the Doomsday Clock is Closer to Apocalypse Than Ever, with Rachel Bronson – UChicago News

Posted: February 14, 2020 at 3:43 am

Since its inception following World War II,the Doomsday Clock has measured our time untilapocalypse in minutes. This year, for the first time, the clock measured our time to midnight in just seconds.Rachel Bronson is the CEO and president of the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, the organization that sets the clock. Even though the Clock is a metaphor, she says understanding the meaning behind it is a matter of life and death.

This year, the Bulletin cited two major factors in their decision: the threat of nuclear destruction and the ever worsening problem of climate change. But are we really closer to nuclear destruction than during the Cold War? And is there any hope that we could turn the hands of doom back on climate change?

Paul Rand:How far are wefrom the end of the world?Athousand years?Tenthousand?Or is it much closer to say, fifty years.Some of the smartest scientists in the world say were much closerthan many of us think.

AnnouncementTAPE:Today, the bulletin of the atomic scientists moves the hands of the doomsday clock. It is 100 seconds to midnight. 21:04

Paul Rand:The Doomsday Clock has been awell-known piece of popularculture sinceitsinception in the 1940s.It is a symbolic representation of how close leading scientists believe humanity is to destroying itself. And this year, it was moved closer to midnight than ever been before

AnnouncementTape:What we called the new abnormal last year, adismal state of affairs in the realms of nuclear security and climate change,now has become an apparently enduring, disturbing reality in which things are not getting better.

Paul Rand:Nuclear security and climate change,scientists say these are thebiggestthreats to civilizationcombined with an era of alternative facts and misinformation.

AnnouncementTape:The continued use in 2019 of untruths, exaggerations and misrepresentations by world leaders to what they deem fake news, has made worse an already dangerous situation.

Paul Rand:According toThe Bulletin ofTheAtomic Scientist,the organization that sets the clock,catastrophe is upon us.

Rachel Bronson:So my organization looks at man-made threats to our existence.

Paul Rand:Thats Rachel Bronson, the President and CEO of the Bulletin ofTheAtomic Scientist which is housed at the University of Chicago. She saysthat whilethe clockmay just be a metaphor,understanding the thinking behind that metaphor isa matter of life and deathfor everyone.

Rachel Bronson:Weare fast moving into a period where all the rules certainly on nuclear issues, but in climate as well, and broader disruptive tech are either falling away or in the case of disruptive tech not really even yet created.And it's very reminiscent to 1953 in many ways: a global architecture that doesn't exist in terms of cooperation between countries, lack of trust between countries at a moment where the issues are compounding each other.

Paul Rand:From the University of Chicago, this is Big Brains,a podcast about pioneering research and pivotal breakthroughs reshaping our world.Today,how we got to 100 seconds to midnight. What the doomsday clock means, and what it would take to move it back. Im your host, Paul Rand.

Paul Rand:Since its inception, The Doomsday Clock hassymbolicallymeasured our time till certain destruction in minutes. This year,for the first time,the measurement was made in seconds.

Rachel Bronson:The closest it had been to midnight was 2 minutes to midnight, where we moved it in 2018, and we held it there in 2019. And it was the closest it had been to midnight since 1953 when it was also two minutes to midnight. And it's when the U.S. and the Soviets.

Paul Rand:The Cold War

Rachel Bronson:That's right. And right in the beginnings of the Cold War. So, when the U.S. and the Soviets had exploded hydrogen bombs. And we've been slowly moving the clock closer to midnight.

Paul Rand:This year it moved 20 seconds closer to midnight. With the fear of complete annihilation on the line, you might have the same question I had: why 20 seconds closer exactly? Why not 10, or 30? What does this time really mean?

Rachel Bronson:So why 20 seconds? It's a really great question. So what the Doomsday Clock is set by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. And it's a judgment. There is not some computer somewhere where we feed all of these different facts in and a time pops up. The clock is a metaphor. And we answer the question: are we safer or at greater risk this year compared to last year, and this year compared to all the years we've set it, is humanity safer, or at greater risk? And what time best conveys the message that we're trying to get out there. And that 20 seconds, we really went back and forth. If we moved it 10 seconds, well, it seemed more important. So it's really a judgment. And that's where they got to this sense of being twenty seconds closer.

Paul Rand:You know, it's interesting, as I think through potential analogies on this, we're not all that far off from the Super Bowl this year. And, you know, when you get in-between the one-yard line, you almost assume it's a fait accompli that you're going to get into the in zone, right. Here we are pretty darn close. If I applied the same analogy, you'd just assume you're that close, tt doesn't take much to push it over. Is that how you guys think about this?

Rachel Bronson:Yeah, and the analogy is a really good one for that reason and another one.Itsboth on where we are on the one-yard line. But the other analogy that's appropriate, I think, is were within the two-minute warning. Any football fan knows there's one game that's played up until the two-minute warning, especially when you're in the fourth quarter. Everything changes, the intensity changes, the play calling changes, and a lot happens in that two minutes.We're kind of in that two-minute warning, which is this is just a different game where we are now. And it really requires our attention. And there is a moment where we can change the course of history, and that's not often true with these kinds of issues.

Paul Rand:So, if this isthe end game, what does it look like? How will we know when weve crossed the line into midnight?

Rachel Bronson:So, midnight was really easy to define when it was limited to nuclear issues. In truth, midnight was an exchange of nuclear weapons.And that's what drove the creation of the clock. It was really going to be the end of humanity as we knew it. That's very easy when you're talking about a nuclear exchange, minutes, it's all over.Wevebeen really lucky that there hasn't been a strategic exchange. There have been so many near misses.

JFK Tape:This government has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.

Rachel Bronson:So many accidents.

CBS News Tape:A newly disclosed document reviles a US hydrogen bomb almost dedicated near Goldsborough North Caroline back in 1961.

Democracy Now Tape:The so-called Damascus accident involved a titan two intercontinental ballistic missile mishap at a launch complex outside Damascus Arkansas.

Rachel Bronson:But we have been really lucky and we're now moving in the wrong direction.

Paul Rand:To people who grew up after the constant warnings and dread of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war may seem benign. An ever-present issue, but not pressing or escalating. Are we really closer to nuclear war today, even closer than during the Cold War?

Rachel Bronson:A few days ago, but within the week, the U.S. deployed its first low yield nuclear weapon in a long time on to a nuclear powered submarine that also has other strategic weapons.

Democracy Now Tape:On Capitol Hill House Armed Services Committee Chairman, Adam Smith, said this destabilizing deployment further increases the potential for miscalculation during a crisis.

Rachel Bronson:And when I say low yield, and this is important because youll see this from time to time in the paper, it can mean as big as a Hiroshima, Nagasaki like bomb or a half as much. It is still multiple times the explosive force of the biggest bomb we have in our arsenal. And we've tended to try to walk away from these kinds of weapons because they have the risk of being felt to be usable.

Democracy Now Tape:Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov responded by saying, This reflects the fact that the United States is actually lowering the nuclear threshold and that theyre conceding the possibility of them waging a limited nuclear war and winning this war. This is extremely alarming he said.

Rachel Bronson:So we've just deployed this weapon within the week. A year from yesterday, so just slightly less than a year, the last remaining arms control agreement, New START, that exists between the US and the Russians will expire. The Russians want to extend it. The United States has shown no interest in extending it. Many of us are calling for an extension. And so, the last remaining arms control agreement that helps us verify what the Russians have, helps with the transparency and understanding what their forces are, all that that goes out the window. It has caps on what we can produce, that goes out the window. So, we're losing our arms control architecture. We're losing the transparency. We're deploying new weapons in the United States. Our Nuclear Posture Review, actually, widens the issues to which we would respond could respond with a nuclear response. So, there is so much changing

Paul Rand:Basically, the infrastructure we put in place to protect us from a nuclear war is crumbling. Just in the past year, the trump administration has ended several major arms control deals, it pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, is threatening to withdraw from The Open Skies Treaty, negotiations with North Korea have stalled and the New START Treaty with Russia is set to expire.

Rachel Bronson:And we've just authorized basically one point three trillion dollars over 30 years to refurbish and refresh and renew in some ways our nuclear arsenal. Every major nuclear power is operating and making decisions as if the use of nuclear weapons is easier or more likely. And so this is a moment where we can actually change that course, because, in 10 years, these are all going to be set in stone. And that's why, going back to our Doomsday Clock on the nuclear side, there's a belief that it's like we're in 1953 again.

Paul Rand:As if nuclear apocalypse wasnt enough, when Bulletin scientist made their announcement in January, they cited another major global threat in their reasoning. Thats after the break.

(Break)

Paul Rand:The mandate of the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists is to track global threats that could lead to humanitys ultimate destruction. In the recent decade, that mandate has pushed them to move beyond just nuclear war to focus on another growing threat.

Announcement Tape:To test the limits of earths habitable temperature is madness. Its a madness akin to the nuclear madness that is again threatening the world.

Paul Rand:That threat isclimate change.

Announcement Tape:Despite these devastating warnings, and although some governments are echoing many scientists use of the term climate emergency, their policies are hardly commensurate to an emergency. A UN report was released underscoring what was already known, the pledges to curb greenhouse gases that governments committed to pursue by 2030 under the Paris climate agreementthey would need to be scaled up eight-fold to be consistent with the agreed aiming of keeping warming well below two degrees.

Rachel Bronson:We added climate to the clock in 2007. But what does midnight for climate look like? It's much harder to have a kind of before and after midnight clear sense of what that means. That being said, this metaphor is important because for the climate, folks, there are tipping points that you can't come back from. And you won't feel those effects until years out, but it'll be very difficult if even possible to recover from. And that sense of before and after for the climate experts, they still talk in those terms. It's just that we won't feel that for some decades.

Paul Rand:Its particularly interesting that theres actually a point where nuclear power and climate change meet, with important implications for both issues.

Rachel Bronson:Nuclear power right now is so desperately needed in terms of energy in this carbon constrained environment that we're in, right. We desperately need nuclear power because it doesn't emit carbon. But at the same time, we've been unable to fully manage its risks. The public doesn't trust it. We're worried about terrorism, we're worried about accidents, we're worried about meltdowns. Well, if we could manage those risks, we'd have this really unhindered energy source. But we are worried about those risks. And so we're not using nuclear power to its fullest advantage, which is exactly the kinds of issues that we are really interested in, because good policy should be able to help us get there. We just haven't been able to develop the political architecture or apparatus to make us feel safe. What's fascinating is that Sweden has found ways to kind of bury their nuclear waste, whereas here in the United States, we still can't figure out what to do with our nuclear power plants and what to do with their waste.Andwe're shutting down nuclear power plants that could be operating because they're not cost effective right now, but they're also not emitting carbon. So right now, we are in a fight to keep open nuclear power plants that have been decently regulated, safe in the United States just for the sake of because we don't like them. And it's so disruptive to our energy transformation, we need a bridge to all these renewables, and we need to find ways to power our economy at a moment where battery storage doesn't allow us to fully harness the power of other renewables. I do worry about that. I do worry about when there's not kind of a strategic view on how are we going to get to this energy transformation that we need. Because nobody thinks, at the moment, that solar and wind alone is going to do it.

Paul Rand:Are there other potential categories are a bit beyond nuclear war and climate change that you could see creeping into this?

Rachel Bronson:Yeah, absolutely.Around 2007 when climate gets introduced into the Clock,we were also really focused on bio-threats and the Board was really grappling with

Paul Rand:And what do you mean bio-threats

Rachel Bronson:Pandemics. So, you know, we're talking about coronavirus right now. But for my organization, The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, they're really interested in can these be created in labs? And what if they're used as weapons to wipe out humanity? Should we be thinking of bio-threats in that way? The experts are saying, oh, I don't know that we have this under control anymore. The technology changed so quickly. We're actually concerned about where this is going, how this might be used. Like, things like genetic engineering. Right. If we think about threats to our existence, like what does it mean to be human, and what are the threats to humanity, the advancements in CRISPR and genetic engineering, the future of artificial intelligence? All of these are really kind of fascinating to us. And this goes back to our founders, this is actually about political action. Science is moving really quickly and that's going to bring huge benefits, but only if we can manage its risks.

Paul Rand:The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists was established after World War II as a way to not only warn the public about these risks, but also to offer solutions and push politicians to enact them. That history and those solutions, after the break.

(Break)

Rachel Bronson:Thescientists who started the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, many of them were involved in the Manhattan Project. They literally created the atomic weapons that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

VINTAGE TAPE:Thats the atomic bomb exploding at Nagasaki. The film was taken in a B29 many miles away. All who see this picture can judge for yourselves the extent to of the menace to civilization of this new weapon.

Rachel Bronson:And they were very, very quick to realize where the technology was going. Right. And they were also very engaged politically.

Vintage Tape:Civilized people can only demand that such power be used not toward their obliteration, but to the benefit of mankind.

Rachel Bronson:So the bulletin was founded in 1945 and it was literally a six page black and white bulletin that we distributed. In 1947, it's the time of Time magazine and Life magazine and we've got this great subscriber base, we decide we want to turn our bulletin into a magazine. We need a cover. So the first cover of the first magazine is the Doomsday Clock. Thats where it was created, and it was created to be a great cover. It was created by the wife of a Manhattan Project scientist.She understood the urgency he felt, and his colleagues felt about this technology they had created. And she was trying to figure out what would convey that urgency, so she creates a clock and she sets it at seven minutes to midnight. So that's our starting point. Seven minutes to midnight. There's an interview where she says because it looked good to her eye, her design eye, which it does. But also because that design conveys both the urgency that they feel but hope that we can turn it back right. And it was also I mean, it was also it was a cheap design to recreate. We were like a bunch of scientists at the University Chicago. We didnt have a lot of money or anything. So this clock gets it gets copied on each edition just because all she did was change the color and her daughters would pick what color they like.But the in nineteen forty-nine, the editor moved the clock forward and that's when the Soviets had tested their first atomic bomb.

Vintage Tape:President Truman dramatic announcement that Russia has created an atomic explosion sends reports racing for Flushing Meadow where Russias Vishinsky arrives to address the United Nations.

Rachel Bronson:So suddenly this static image becomes dynamic.Andsomeone had asked the original founder of the bulletin like what's the purpose of the bulletin? And he gives three reasons. One, it was to engage the public on nuclear energy. The second, which is so interesting to me, was to get scientists to engage in the politics of the day and talk to each other about these issues. Even today, there's this issue, do the experts belong in the ivory tower or should they come out and engage? And so, the bulletin was on record very early as saying we want the scientists to engage in these kind of policy discussions. And then the third issue, which is the one that animates me the most, is to manage Pandora's box of modern science. So that's the charge of the bulletin.

Paul Rand:So how has that charge been going? Are there any trends the Bulletin has seen in the last year to suggest that maybe, in the future, we could turn the hands of the clock backward, away from midnight?

Rachel Bronson:We do point out a bright spot and that's in the climate space.Andour experts really talked about this, about, you know, is this something we would move the clock away from midnight? On the climate space, what the what our experts recognized was there is a growing global awareness that that we are changing our climate and there's things that we can and need to do. Especially among the youth, the kind of youth movements that are embracing climate

CBS News:Groups of students across America say they will skip class tomorrow for the first national school strike over climate change.

Rachel Bronson:Is leading to, not enough political action, but you're seeing it be introduced into the public sphere.

Greta Thunberg Tape:The young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you and if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you.

Rachel Bronson:We believe that that kind of on the street marching, sitting outside parliaments and missing school to do so, the kinds of large numbers that we're seeing who are owning this issue and putting pressure on their leaders to try to engage, is very promising. So all that's to say is public engagement still really matters. And so, in the climate space, that kind of awareness of the role and power that they have, even though it seems very out of reach, is actually very powerful.Wedlove to see the United States reengage in the Paris agreements around climate. We'd love to see the U.S. sitting down with the Russians and if not extending New START, which we'd love to see them extend just to buy us some breathing room but then what substitutes for these arms control agreements that have fallen away. The only thing that's going to move the politicians is if we all tell them that we care about these issues.

Paul Rand:You know its interesting that you mentioned the politicians because here we are moving into election season. And if you were going to sit down and say to the presidential candidates, I need answers on these topics, and we really think that for the American public to make a determination on who should be president, you need to answer these questions. What questions would you put on that list?

Rachel Bronson:Ask them who their science adviser would be. So, we don't have a science visor anymore in the United States.

Paul Rand:Who was our last science advisor?

Rachel Bronson:So our last science advisor was John Holdren. He's at Harvard now. But if you look at the arms control agreements and issues on climate, we've always relied on our key advisers with deep scientific knowledge not to dictate the direction we go, these are political problems, but to inform them.And so I think it's absolutely fair to ask the candidates, well, who are you considering to be your science adviser, your cabinet in general, but I'd be very interested ot know who theyre thinking of.

Paul Rand:What else would you want to know? So thats a key question, if you were to say I need to know positions on x, y and z.

Rachel Bronson:So this is going to be a really hard one for them to answer. And you could see this in the Democratic debates, but we've walked away for from the Iran deal. It's unlikely that we can get it back at this point. So how do you start again with Iran? Iran is clearly moving now towards rethinking starting up their nuclear program. So what does that look like?

Paul Rand:What about on climate change?

Rachel Bronson:On climate change how would you direct the American government and the private sector to be investing in terms of new technologies needed around climate change?Notjust do you believe in climate change, but what are what are you going to do? What's your first few days? What's your plan? How are we going to invest? The United States, this is true globally, but the United States is facing a massive energy transformation that's going to be huge winners and losers. How do we do this so we can move forward as a country without just, we're not going to do it by ripping up all of our infrastructure. So how are we going to get there? My favorite question because I find it a fascinating question, is how do you think about nuclear power? For Democrats, this is really hard. The Democratic base is not pro nuclear power for the most part. Certainly, on the left, it's just viewed as really evil. Well it's hard for me to see how you get a true energy transformation without nuclear power. So asking the candidates how they're going to get there is something that I find really fascinating. I'd love to hear more of. And then for Republicans, we're not having this discussion, but they are a lot more comfortable with nuclear power. But they're also comfortable with drill, baby, drill. So, we're not moving forward with a kind of coal future with the way it's currently configured. And we do need to find ways to keep some of the carbon in the ground. So how are they going to do it on their side? That's a conversation they're not having. But if they could have that conversation, it's a really important conversation to have about what's our carbon future.

Paul Rand:Isthere ever a time that you could see that you could retire the clock? Or is it we that it will never be retired because the genie is out of the bottle?

Rachel Bronson:Well, after the Cold War in 1991, we had moved it back to 17 minutes to midnight, and we would have loved to have kept moving it back up further. And so I think these issues are like crime or poverty. It never goes away. But it can be less horrific, or more horrific. And so to that, there's probably always going to be a clock. But it wouldn't be that interesting if we were moving it from 17 minutes to 19 minutes, to 20 minutes, to 25. And maybe there's a way we can, you know, that would be really exciting. That is just getting better and better. So, I shouldn't say it wouldn't be as exciting. Maybe it would be. We just have we haven't been there. So, 20 20 is a fascinating year as the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day. It's the fiftieth anniversary of the nonproliferation treaty, which underpins all treaties, is the seventy fifth anniversary of the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The seventy fifth anniversary of the U.N. is the seventy fifth anniversary of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, because we're responding to those global issues. And so, we've been through this before and we have this opportunity to chart a different kind of history for the next 75 years. And we're in a pretty precarious place.

See the article here:
Big Brains podcast: Why the Doomsday Clock is Closer to Apocalypse Than Ever, with Rachel Bronson - UChicago News

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Competing in the Global Infectious Disease Testing Market 2019 – Forecasts for 100 Tests – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Business Wire

Posted: February 14, 2020 at 3:43 am

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Competing in the Global Infectious Disease Testing Market: Supplier Shares, Segment Forecasts for 100 Tests, Growth Opportunities" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The report contains 1,954 pages, 824 tables and provides market segmentation analysis of over 100 diseases and viruses in seven countries, assessment of emerging technologies, review of current instrumentation, as well as strategic profiles of leading suppliers and recent market entrants with innovative technologies and products.

Rationale

This comprehensive seven-country report is designed to assist diagnostics industry executives, as well as companies planning to diversify into the dynamic and rapidly expanding microbiology testing market, in evaluating emerging opportunities and developing effective business strategies.

The microbiology testing market is one of the most rapidly growing segments of the in vitro diagnostics industry, and the greatest challenge facing suppliers. Among the main driving forces is continuing spread of AIDS, which remains the world's major health threat and a key factor contributing to the rise of opportunistic infections; threat of bioterrorism; advances in molecular diagnostic technologies; and wider availability of immunosuppressive drugs.

Although for some infections the etiology is still a mystery, while for others the causative microorganisms are present in minute concentrations long before the occurrence of first clinical symptoms, recent advances in genetic engineering and detection technologies are creating exciting opportunities for highly sensitive, specific and cost-effective products.

Geographic Coverage

Market Segmentation Analysis

Current and Emerging Products

Technology Review

Competitive Assessments

Worldwide Market Overview

Opportunities and Strategic Recommendations

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/cajv4i

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Competing in the Global Infectious Disease Testing Market 2019 - Forecasts for 100 Tests - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire

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Teilhard de Chardin and the Incomplete Nature of Evolutionary Theory – Discovery Institute

Posted: February 14, 2020 at 3:43 am

Editors note:Dr. Shedingeris a Professor of Religion at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. He is the author of a recent book critiquing Darwinian triumphalism,The Mystery of Evolutionary Mechanisms: Darwinian Biologys Grand Narrative of Triumph and the Subversion of Religion.

Why should advocates of intelligent design care about a French Jesuit priest who died more than 60 years ago? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) along with being a Jesuit priest was also a geologist and paleontologist who made several trips to China to participate in geological and paleontological work (he was part of the team that discovered Piltdown Man, later revealed to be a hoax). But Teilhard is best known for his book The Phenomenon of Man, published in French in the 1930s and in English in 1955. In this book Teilhard lays out a vision for the evolutionary process that is at odds with the established scientific view but is consistent with his own religious convictions.

Teilhard argued that the science of his time had a truncated view of evolution. Scientists studied the evolutionary process as if it were a movie playing on a screen in front of them with the scientists themselves as mere passive observers. Teilhard thought that evolution needed to be viewed from the inside, viewing humans not only as observers of evolution but also as its products. As such, Teilhard conceived evolution as occurring on four levels, only two of which were acknowledged by establishment scientists.

The first of these levels he called cosmogenesis, the evolution of the physical universe. The second level he labeled biogenesis, the evolution of life in the physical universe. According to Teilhard, this is where evolutionary biologists had traditionally stopped. But a full accounting of the evolutionary process, he believed, required two additional levels: psychogenesis, the evolution of consciousness in biological organisms, and noogenesis, the evolution of reflective thought, a characteristic unique to humans. With the evolution of humans, Teilhard believed evolution had crossed what he called a threshold of reflection that would fundamentally alter the very course of evolution. Rather than a billion-fold trial and error, evolution would now proceed more intentionally through the exercise of the human mind. We should remember that Teilhard formulated these ideas in the 1930s, long before anyone had conceived of the possibility of genetic engineering. Teilhard was prescient.

Having fully accounted for the evolutionary process, Teilhard went on to articulate his most controversial idea. He argued that over time, human minds would eventually form a web of reflective consciousness enveloping the Earth (what would he think of the Internet?!). He called this the noosphere. In time, the noosphere would reach an omega point where consciousness would completely fuse with the God who created it. Teilhards view of evolution was thus highly teleological. The evolutionary process existed for the purpose of creating beings with the ability of reflective thought so that they could commune with their Creator. No Darwinian contingency here!

Not surprisingly, most Darwinians howled with derision at Teilhard. In response to The Phenomenon of Man, Nobel Laureate Peter Medawar published one of the most devastating book reviews ever written. Medawar called Teilhards book nonsense, tricked out with a variety of metaphysical conceits, and its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself. For Medawar, reading Phenomenon brought on feelings of real distress, even despair. Despite this, many philosophers and theologians found Teilhards book of great interest. But according to arch-Darwinian Daniel Dennett, the esteem with which non-scientists held the book is nothing more than a testimony to their depth of loathing of Darwins dangerous idea, a loathing so great that it will excuse any illogicality and tolerate any opacity in what purports to be an argument. The Darwinian reaction to Teilhards explicit evolutionary theology is of course to be expected. What we dont expect is to find that this disdain was not shared universally within the Darwinian establishment.

Enter Theodosius Dobzhansky, perhaps the most important figure in the history of evolutionary theory after Darwin. In his oft-cited essay Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution, Dobzhansky unexpectedly calls Teilhard one of the great thinkers of our age. As a man of deep Christian faith himself, Dobzhansky clearly resonated with Teilhards attempt to create a synthesis between evolution and religious thought. In fact, Dobzhansky appears to have been so taken with Teilhards work that he served for a year as president of the North American Teilhard Society (1969). Of course, we will never learn from the textbooks that a figure as central to the modern evolutionary synthesis as Dobzhansky seemed to embrace an explicitly teleological and even theological understanding of evolution. I suppose Dobzhansky was deceived (according to Medawar) or prone to illogicality (according to Dennett)!

Of course, neither Teilhard nor Dobzhansky appears to have made an explicit design argument. They would be better categorized as theistic evolutionists. For Dobzhansky this is confirmed when in his previously cited essay he states, There is, of course, nothing conscious or intentional in the action of natural selection. Here Dobzhansky adheres to the standard Darwinian story. Yet just a few lines later he notes humans ability to make conscious, intentional decisions, and concludes, This is why the species Homo sapiens is the apex of evolution. The incompatibility between these two statements seems not to have occurred to Dobzhansky. Clearly, a process with no direction or larger purpose by definition has no apex. His attempt to hold to both an orthodox Darwinian viewpoint and an orthodox Christian viewpoint simultaneously dissolves into incoherence. Theistic evolutionary schemes seem to be a logical dead end.

While Pierre Teilhard de Chardin may not have been a forerunner of intelligent design thinking per se, the significance of his pointing out the incomplete nature of the evolutionary theory of his day should not be underestimated. As Thomas Nagel would argue today, any theory of evolution that excludes the origin of mind and consciousness from consideration is at best half a theory. Teilhard noticed this weakness of Darwinian evolutionary theory nearly a century ago, and at least one very prominent Darwinian may well have agreed, even if he never admitted it in public.

Photo: Pierre Teilhard de Chardinin 1947, viaArchives des jsuites de France [CC BY-SA].

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Teilhard de Chardin and the Incomplete Nature of Evolutionary Theory - Discovery Institute

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Speaking of Research Calls for Support of Global Science: Stand Against International Bias and Reject PETAs Ethics Dumping Accusations to Scientists…

Posted: February 14, 2020 at 3:43 am

February 13th 2020.

Tl;dr: Speaking of Research calls on scientific societies, journals, and other stakeholders to join us in standing up in support of global science and challenging xenophobia. We urge, the following:

A new phase in PETAs war on science?

Renowned neuroscientist Nikos Logothetis recently announced that he was moving to China to co-direct the International Center for Primate Brain Research (ICPBR) in Shanghai, with another renowned neuroscientist, Poo Mu-Ming, the scientific director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology. The move followed a vicious and drawn-out anti-animal research campaign that had profound effects on the research program Prof. Logothetis directed at a prestigious German research center.

News reports about Logothetis move emphasized the contrast between support and appreciation for scientific research in China and Germany. As reported by Gretchen Vogel at Nature: The Chinese institute is building a new facility in Shanghais Songjiang district, which will house as many as 6000 nonhuman primates, including many transgenic monkeys. Scientifically its incredible, he [Logothetis] says. They have excellent groups working with CRISPR and genetic engineering. And, he adds, the acceptance of nonhuman primate research by authorities and the public in China is much higher than in Europe. They know that no other brain (besides that of humans themselves) can be a true help in making progress. [Emphases added]

It is definitely not news to many, including the global scientific community, that Chinese scientists and research institutes continue to conduct cutting-edge science and to attract leading scientists from around the world for collaborative work has global biomedical benefits. The countrys investment in research is increasing at an unparalleled rate.

That trend is not new either. In 2012 the New England Journal of Medicine published Asias Ascent Global Trends in Biomedical R&D Expenditures, a report on global public and private biomedical Research & Development (R&D) investments from 2007-2012. The report sparked alarm at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), according to an article headlined America is losing biomedical research leadership to Asia.

The article describes NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins efforts to underscore: to Congress the importance of NIH-funded research to overall U.S. economic activity. It advances scientific products and technologies, creates economic growth, supports high-paying jobs and enhances health and quality of life. Across the board we need to turn this around, Collins said, according to a report in The Atlantic . You look at what a country invests in research and development as part of GDP, as an indicator of the health of the [nations seriousness]. Right now we are at 2.6 percent. Many other countries are at 3 percent or above theyre basically out to eat our lunch.

More recently, the Washington Post reported:

Consider this statistic, published last week in the journal JCI Insight: In 2000, China spent only 12 percent of what the United States did on biomedical research (adjusted for purchasing power). By 2015, it far surpassed all other countries except for the United States, spending 75 percent of what we do on biomedical research (adjusted for purchasing power). Other studies have found similar trends in scientific fields outside the biomedical arena. [Emphases added]

PETAs response to global science

It is perhaps for this reason that an anti-animal research group founded in the US has identified a new tactic to target scientific studies that depend on the use of nonhuman animals. PETA is no stranger to criticisms and accusations of racism, sexism, and sensationalism in service of its absolutist agenda. The group has apparently added a new ploy to its repertoire: attempting to suppress publication of scientific findings depending on the country in which the work was conducted.

PETA has written to the Journal of Neurophysiology (JNP) demanding that any research Logothetis group conducts in China be barred from consideration for publication (letter here).

We reached out to the journals publisher, the American Physiological Association, to ask for their response to the letter. The journals editor, Dr. Bill Yates, responded with a clear statement that the society and journal would not engage in discrimination on the basis of the country in which research is conducted.

The Journal of Neurophysiology received a letter from Emily Trunnell of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asking the journal to make a blanket policy of refusing to publish research from certain countries.

The journals of the American Physiological Society have well-established ethical criteria for review of research involving both human and animal subjects. Authors anywhere in the world who abide by these standards are welcome to submit their research for publication in our journals.

When questions are raised about whether particular articles meet those criteria, these queries are handled in the strictest confidence.

Although PETA may believe that this is a new topic, a simple scan of leading scientific journals will show that articles on new discoveries by Chinese scientists and international collaborators are nothing new at all. In fact, a comprehensive analysis of international trends in publication of scientific research in leading journals, in 2017, concluded that:

As a readout of research output in the US compared with other countries, assessment of original research articles published by US-based authors in ten clinical and basic science journals during 2000 to 2015 showed a steady decline of articles in high-ranking journals or no significant change in mid-ranking journals. In contrast, publication output originating from China-based investigators, in both high- and mid-ranking journals, has steadily increased commensurate with significant growth in R&D expenditures.

While the findings were not specific to research with nonhuman animals, the analysis did include many high profile journals that publish basic research that depends on studies of other animals: Cell, Nature, Science, Journal of Cell Science, and FASEB Journal. Further, a simple search of the scientific literature and media reports about new discoveries easily highlights ongoing publications of animal studies from research institutions in China.

PETA plays on xenophobia and international bias

SR denounces the latest PETA campaign demanding that publishers of scientific journals not publish research that was conducted in countries such as China. PETAs goal is presumably to promote its own absolutist positionan end to all research with nonhuman animals, regardless of the consequences for human, animal, and environmental health globally. That goal is obviously thwarted when scientists respond to attacks in Europe by moving their work to countries where there is little support for this radical view.

With headlines such as German Experimenter Dumps Ethics, Will Test on Live Monkey Brains in China PETA is playing with public sentiments. The group falsely accuses Prof. Logothetis and others who conduct research in China or other parts of the world deemed to have poor standards of animal welfare, of renouncing ethics in favor of scientific glory.

PETAs campaign is not about factual or serious comparison of how research is conducted in different countries. Rather, it plays on xenophobia and counts on international bias in its audience to make the case for assuming that research in China must be at a lower standard than that in Germany.

As we wrote last week, international bias has no place in science. There are different standards, approaches, and frameworks for ethical consideration of research and decisions about animal care and treatment. No single approach or framework, however, is inherently better for animal wellbeing, public interest in scientific and medical advances, or the conduct of research. Nor can we assume that more ethical frameworks can be determined based solely on the country in which they originate. Further, to impugn an entire nation on the basis of perceived differences in moral values regarding the use of nonhuman animals by humans is not only xenophobic, but also ignorant with respect to serious consideration of a global science that is inclusive of diversity and reflective of reality.

Ethics-dumping?

In its letter to the JNP editor, PETA asked that the Journal:

reject manuscripts submitted by authors who engage in forms of so-called ethics dumping PETA specifically accuses Prof. Logothetis of this so-called ethics dumping.

In her letter to JNP, PETAs Dr. Trunnell tries to explain the accusation by invoking a European Commission (EC) report and using some selective quoting to say:

ethics dumping which per the European Commission is the practice of carrying out research, which would be ethically unacceptable in Europe, in low- or middle-income countries where strong legal frameworks and ethics compliance mechanisms may be lacking.

In fact, the EC report PETA references is quite clear:

Practices defined as ethics dumping include carrying out research without ethical approval or insurance for harm that may occur during a study, exporting research samples such as blood or DNA without local authorisations, disregarding privacy concerns, exploiting vulnerable populations, or providing an inadequate standard of care in a clinical trial.

In other words, to fit animal research conducted in China into the definition of ethics dumping used by the EC, it would be necessary to claim that animal research in China occurs without ethical approval or local authorization. This is simply not true and not supportable with fact.

The version of the same claim on PETAs website, by contrast, simply conflates topics to make it appear that their view is consistent with the scientific communitys view: Ethics dumping occurs when someone cant get away with an experiment in one country, so they instead perform it in a country with less stringent ethical and legal requirements for animal welfare. This shameful practice has been strongly criticized in the scientific community, but it still occurs. When PETA and its affiliates shut down Volkswagens shocking inhalation tests on live monkeys, there was speculation that the car manufacturer had carried out those experiments in the U.S. because they wouldnt have been approved in Germany.

In fact, the term ethics dumping has a long and specific history and has largely surrounded concern that due to the progressive globalisation of research activities, the risk is higher that research with sensitive ethical issues is conducted by European organisations outside the EU in a way that would not be accepted in Europe from an ethical point of view. This exportation of noncompliant research practices is called ethics dumping. This is in stark contrast to the common interpretation that European standards are superior to those of other countries.

As we wrote recently, the assumption that ethical standards in some countries or world regions are inherently superior to others is unwarranted. In reality, expecting that Western countries, the EU and US will continue as dominant in scientific research is not supported by fact. Further, scientific research cannot be limited by borders. What that means is responding to movement of science and scientists with slurs is not only wrong with respect to prejudice and bias, but also untenable as an approach to the future of science. The reasons that scientists move their research program from one country to another are no different from the movement of scientists from one institution to another within national borders new scientific directions, better institutional infrastructure and support, career advances, and so on. Moving to a different country with a different set of regulatory standards does not automatically equate to adopting lower ethical standards. Ethical considerations and justification for the research remain the same in science, because it is a global enterprise.

~Speaking of Research

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First Proof CRISPR Can Be Safe in Cancer Therapy – BioSpace

Posted: February 10, 2020 at 2:42 pm

Although CRISPR gene editing is touted as likely to revolutionize medicine, the actual proof of its effectiveness and safety in treating diseases has been slow in coming. At least until now. Sort of.

Researchers with the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, led by Carl June, published results from the first U.S. Phase I trial of CRISPR-Cas9-edited T-cells in humans with advanced cancer. The data was published in the journal Science.

The trial involved three patients with refractory cancer, two women and one man, all in their 60s. One of the patients had sarcoma and two had multiple myeloma. The approach was similar to that seen in CAR-T therapy, where the patients own T-cells are recovered, engineered to express a specific receptor that can detect and kill cancer cells, then reinfused into the patient.

In the case of this trial, instead of engineering the T-cells with a receptor to a protein like CD19, they used CRISPR to remove three genes from the T-cells. Two edits removed the T-cells natural receptors, which could then be reprogrammed to express a synthetic T-cell receptor called NY-ESO-1. The third edit eliminated PD-1, a checkpoint receptor that allows cancer cells to hide from T-cells.

The researchers are presenting the data as a positive because it appears to be safe. June told Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, CRISPR technology has proven safe in patients with advanced refractory and metastatic cancer. Our results demonstrate the ability to precisely edit the DNA code at three different genes.

In an accompanying article, Jennifer Hamilton and CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna wrote, These findings provide a guide for the safe production and non-immunogenic administration of gene-edited somatic cells. The clinically validated long-term safety of CRISPR-Cas9 gene-edited cells reported [here] paves the way for next-generation cell-based therapies.

Before getting overly excited about this, it was also reported that one of the patients has since died and the disease became worse in the other two. June indicated the goal of the study wasnt to cure cancer, but to show that the CRISPR technique was feasible and safe.

With that goal in mind, its safe to say the trial was a success.

This is a Rubicon that has been decisively crossed, said Fyodor Urnov, a genome editor at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, in a Science article. He noted the trial was the first of its kind in the U.S. and answered questions that have frankly haunted the field.

The research also suggests what the limitations of the approach are, at least currently.

One of the big concerns in using CRISPR is off-target edits. CRISPR is generally pretty precise, but the human genome is quite larger and even a target of 20 or so specific nucleotides in a gene might be duplicated elsewhere, which could have unintended effects. And, studies of the three patients in the study confirmed that CRISPR had resulted in some off-target edits. There werent many and the number of cells affected decreased over time.

There have also been questions on how long gene edits last. In theory, they should last indefinitely, but some research has suggested the body tries to fix the edits and return them to their original state. However, this study showed the CRISPR-edited cells continued at least nine months, which is significant compared to about two months in similar CAR-T therapeutic studies.

So this study, which is significant, is more of a starting point for CRISPR-based therapies, particularly given the modest clinical response.

It wasnt like you turned off those genes and those T-cells started doing things that were amazing, Antoni Ribas, a UC Los Angeles oncologist told Science. But it was a needed start and going forward, Its going to be easierbecause they did it first.

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What it costs to eat organic – Yahoo Finance

Posted: February 10, 2020 at 2:42 pm

Americans are still paying more for organic groceries, but less than previous years, data shows.

Organic food and drinks cost 24 cents more per item on average than regular food on grocery store shelves or around 7.5 percent more, Nielsen data shows. The premium is down from 27 cents more (9 percent) five years ago.

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Sales of organic foods surged 9 percent in 2018, according to Nielsen as reported by The Associated Press. The average price for a gallon of organic milk, for example, is around $4.76 or nearly 90 percent more than a gallon of regular milk priced at around $2.53. And an organic loaf of bread is around $4.89, or almost double the price of regular bread, which is around $2.50. Organic eggs, meanwhile,cost between $4 to as much as $7,an 86 percent premium over regular eggs, which cost around $2.99.

WHAT IS THE AVERAGE GROCERY BILL FOR ONE PERSON?

When something is labeled organic, it refers to the way a farmer grows foods like vegetables, fruits, grains and meat. Organic farming has to meet requirements like healthy habitats for livestock and enhancing water and soil quality. Genetic engineering used to ward off pests and diseases, along with providing antibiotics or growth hormones for livestock is not permitted.

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Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

Fighting malnutrition: Golden Rice and the EU’s GMO conundrum – EURACTIV

Have humans evolved beyond nature? – The Independent

CRISPR: Coroner tackles the ethics of gene editing – CBC.ca

NYU Launches Alliance to Promote Public Interest Technology – NYU Washington Square News

Big Brains podcast: Why the Doomsday Clock is Closer to Apocalypse Than Ever, with Rachel Bronson – UChicago News

Competing in the Global Infectious Disease Testing Market 2019 – Forecasts for 100 Tests – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Business Wire

Teilhard de Chardin and the Incomplete Nature of Evolutionary Theory – Discovery Institute

Speaking of Research Calls for Support of Global Science: Stand Against International Bias and Reject PETAs Ethics Dumping Accusations to Scientists…

First Proof CRISPR Can Be Safe in Cancer Therapy – BioSpace

What it costs to eat organic – Yahoo Finance

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