Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

Congress approved $1.4 trillion in new spending last week to avoid another government shutdown over the holidays. Taxpayers are right to be wary whenever Congress pulls out its checkbook. But when it comes to one important line-item, budget hawks should be rooting for more funding, not less.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) serves as Congresss watchdog and plays a critical role in holding the federal government accountable to the American people. In November, the comptroller general issued the annual Performance and Accountability Report for FY2019, which found that GAOs work, yielded a record $214.7 billion in financial benefits a return of about $338 for every dollar invested in GAO.

Congress has provided $630 million in new funding for GAO a $40 million increase. This new spending will help support the comptroller generals efforts to modernize oversight and improve Congresss ability to anticipate and address critical challenges.

Since 2014, GAOs work has produced $340 billion in savings and more than 6,400 improvements in program and operational improvements across the government, according to the comptroller generals February testimony before Congress.

In addition to its traditional auditing work, GAO recently established a science, technology, assessment, and analytics (STAA) team. The STAA team is focused on enhancing Congresss capacity to assess emerging technologies, auditing federal science and technology programs, and using advanced analytics to improve auditing.

Earlier this month, Dr. Timothy M. Persons, GAOs chief scientist and managing director of science, technology assessment, and analytics, testified that, GAO will continue to build its capacity to respond to congressional demand. STAAs current staff level is about one-half of what was outlined in the April 2019 plan submitted to Congress.

Besides saving taxpayers money in the long run, increasing appropriations for the GAO and investing new resources in the STAA team, in particular will improve Congresss ability to tackle the challenges and opportunities posed by modern science and technology, rather than leaving such matters to executive agencies.

For example, the STAA team recently hired a chief data scientist, who is charged with using data analytics to support existing audit capabilities, including for upcoming reviews of improper payments across government agencies. GAO also created a Center for Strategic Foresight in 2018 focused on identifying, monitoring, and analyzing emerging issues facing policymakers.

First, enhancing auditing through advanced analytics will improve Congresss ability to prevent waste, fraud and abuse GAOs bread and butter. But increasing GAOs ability to provide technical services will also strengthen Congresss ability to conduct oversight of the many executive agencies that have jurisdiction over technical matters.

Lacking sufficient technical expertise, Congress has historically tended to defer to executive agencies. This, in turn, leaves Congress ill-equipped to grapple with many of the most pressing issues that confront it, from cybersecurity and weapons development to artificial intelligence and genetic engineering, to name only a few. As a result, Congress becomes a mere rubber stamp... of the administrative branch of government, as one member memorably put it, rather than a coequal branch of government.

Second, improving Congresss technical capability can also help it to anticipate changes in science and technology. Importantly, the STAA team is positioned to provide key support to Congress and federal agencies to address key high-risk areas, such as protecting national security technology.

Enhancing GAOs science and technology capabilities complements the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Modernization of Congresss bipartisan and unanimous recommendation for reestablishing and restructuring an improved Office of Technology Assessment. A well-resourced Government Accountability Office STAA team need notbe a replacement for recreating and modernizing the Office of Technology Assessment, which many members have advocated for. In fact, both STAA and OTA could mutually support the legislative branchs efforts to improve its oversight of the federal government and address the nations science and technology challenges.

It may seem counterintuitive to ask fiscal conservatives to support expanding Congresss capabilities, especially at a time when resources are scarce and the national debt is $23 trillion. But investing in GAO will yield long-term savings and better equip the Constitutions first branch to do its job.

Garrett Johnson is co-founder and executive director of Lincoln Network. M. Anthony Mills is director of science policy at the R Street Institute.

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Why taxpayers should support expanding the GAO | TheHill - The Hill

A sense of looming catastrophe is reinforced by reports of melting glaciers in the Arctic, unprecedented floods in parts of Asia and disappearing islands in the Pacific because of the rise in sea levels.The classic response of environmental campaigners is to demand a green revolution, based on a radical new economic agenda and drastic changes in our lifestyles.

According to the eco-warriors, the salvation of the planet lies in the replacement of hi-tech western consumerism with a culture of self-sacrifice.

Like the po-faced religious puritans of the past, these hectoring zealots argue that environmental disasters are natures revenge on us for our selfish greed.

Therefore, to avoid the apocalypse, we must atone for our sins by accepting endless green bans, taxes and economic recession.

It is a miserable, authoritarian outlook, perfectly captured in the grim rhetoric of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who has become the international champion of the hardline, environmental programme.

In a typically emotive rant at a UN summit last year, Thunberg wailed the politicians had stolen my dreams and my childhood, adding that we are at the beginning of mass extinction and all you talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.

But there is an alternative vision for the rescue of the planet, one that is far more uplifting and optimistic.

Instead of seeking to drag us back to a spartan, pre-industrial age, it aims to embrace the future.

Rather than viewing technological innovation as a menace, it wants to harness such progress for the good of mankind.

It is an approach that lies behind the new initiative by Prince William, who announced this week the launch of the most prestigious environmental prize in history in the search for practical solutions for the Earths problems.

Under this ten-year-long project, supported by Sir David Attenborough, five winners will each year receive multimillion-pound awards for the development of ideas to tackle climate change.

Reflecting this bold emphasis on advances in science and engineering, the scheme is entitled Earthshot in an echo of the inspirational US Moonshot programme of the 1960s that pioneered the first Moon landings.

By taking the plunge into environmental politics, there was a danger that Prince William might have come across as just another virtue-signalling, woke celebrity, delivering sanctimonious lectures about green awareness from his affluent cocoon of privilege.

But he has been far too thoughtful, and creative to do that.

Instead, he has come up with a plan that could yield real results rather than just spreading guilt.

In contrast to the bleak propaganda of Thunberg and her fellow fundamentalists, his prizes offer the exciting hope of better times ahead.

The Prince himself rightly referred to the inspiring civilisations we have built through our unique power as human beings to innovate and problem-solve.

He is absolutely right.

The answer to climate change lies with the hard-headed pioneers, not shrill activists.

Tremendous progress is already being made, particularly in the generation of green energy.

Yesterday, the National Grid revealed that 2019 was the cleanest year on record, as energy from sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power outstripped that from fossil fuels.

This can be part of a saga of real environmental progress.

Bolstered by the Princes support, technologists will also find new ways of trapping energy through far more effective storage systems such as batteries or laminate coating.

New, greener forms of transport will be developed, such as electric aircraft and hyperloop trains that can travel at over 700mph.

Crop yields can be enhanced by genetic modification, thereby helping to feed the planet more cheaply.

Above all, the advent of fusion power plants which create energy by combining atoms rather than dividing them will transform supplies, since the process is inherently safe and produces zero emissions.

The stance of the eco-mob is unworkable.

Their whole ethos runs counter to mankinds impulse for improvement.

That is why the radical greens are so intolerant.

In a notorious recent outburst for which she had to apologise, Thunberg herself called for world leaders to be put up against the wall.

But Prince Williams scheme is the opposite.

In place of self-loathing, it is a celebration of the best of mankind.

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New technology will save the planet from climate change, says LEO McKINSTRY - Express.co.uk

The study, led by the University of Sheffield and published today in the journal Nature, reveals the structure of cytochrome b6f -- the protein complex that significantly influences plant growth via photosynthesis.

Using a high-resolution structural model, the team found that the protein complex provides the electrical connection between the two light-powered chlorophyll-proteins (Photosystems I and II) found in the plant cell chloroplast that convert sunlight into chemical energy.

"Our study provides important new insights into how cytochrome b6f utilises the electrical current passing through it to power up a 'proton battery'. This stored energy can then be then used to make ATP, the energy currency of living cells. Ultimately this reaction provides the energy that plants need to turn carbon dioxide into the carbohydrates and biomass that sustain the global food chain, Lorna Malone, the first author of the study and a PhD student in the University of Sheffield's Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, said.

The high-resolution structural model, determined using single-particle cryo-electron microscopy, reveals new details of the additional role of cytochrome b6f as a sensor to tune photosynthetic efficiency in response to ever-changing environmental conditions. This response mechanism protects the plant from damage during exposure to harsh conditions such as drought or excess light.

Dr Matt Johnson, reader in Biochemistry at the University of Sheffield and one of the supervisors of the study, explained: "Cytochrome b6f is the beating heart of photosynthesis which plays a crucial role in regulating photosynthetic efficiency.

"Previous studies have shown that by manipulating the levels of this complex we can grow bigger and better plants. With the new insights we have obtained from our structure we can hope to rationally redesign photosynthesis in crop plants to achieve the higher yields we urgently need to sustain a projected global population of 9-10 billion by 2050."

Dr Johnson stressed that the need to produce enough food for this number of people will require the sector to look to methods including genetic engineering to improve the efficiency of food production. The dramatic increase in food production required by our growing population means we arent going to be able to wait around for evolution to [make photosynthesis more efficient] for us. That is why approaches like genetic engineering are so important for improving crops.

The research was conducted in collaboration with the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds.

Researchers now aim to establish how cytochrome b6f is controlled by a myriad of regulatory proteins and how these regulators affect the function of this complex.

SourceCryo-EM structure of the spinach cytochrome b6f complex at 3.6 resolutionNature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1746-6Authors: Lorna A. Malone, Pu Qian, Guy E. Mayneord, Andrew Hitchcock, David A. Farmer, Rebecca F. Thompson, David J. K. Swainsbury, Neil A. Ranson, C. Neil Hunter, Matthew P. Johnson

Additional materials provided by the University of Sheffield

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Redesigning photosynthesis for the 'higher yields we urgently need' - FoodNavigator.com

We live in a time when science and technology are having an impact on our society in more and more ways. And the decisions that shape how these new fields of knowledge develop ultimately affect all of us.

When I studied biology in high school, I didnt learn about DNA for a very simple reason. The work of Francis Crick, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin and others who unlocked the structure of the basic code of life was still years away. The idea of engineering human beings? Well, that was firmly the stuff of science fiction, like Aldous Huxleys dystopian novel Brave New World (published a year after my birth). It seemed as likely as, say, going to the moon.

There are a few inferences you can make from this framing of my life. One is that I have been on the planet for a while. The other is the speed of change in what we know about what life is, and how we can control it, has accelerated at a rapid rate. Now we as a species are on the precipice of being able to manipulate the very building blocks of human evolution, not to mention wield unpredictable change on the greater world around us. Even as I commit that thought to paper, I pause in awe at its implications.

I have lived through eventful times and my job as a journalist has been to chronicle wars, presidents and sweeping social movements such as civil rights. I have seen a world in flux, but when I try to peer into the future I come to the conclusion that this story of humankinds ability to understand life on its most intimate level and be able to tinker with it for our benefit or detriment is likely to be the biggest one I will ever cover.

We are living in one of the greatest epochs of human exploration and it will shape our world as profoundly as the age of the transoceanic explorers. It is just that the beachheads on which we are landing and the continents we are mapping comprise a world far too small to see with the naked eye. Some of it is even invisible to our most powerful microscopes.

This brings me to a term that has become a big part of my life over the last few years: Crispr. Perhaps you know of it. Perhaps you dont. When I first heard of it, I thought it might be a new brand of toaster. I now know its an extremely powerful tool for editing genes in seemingly any organism on Earth, including humans. Scientists doing basic research have been uncovering the mechanisms of life for decades. They have been creating tools for modifying individual genes but Crispr is one of those revolutions where what researchers thought might be possible in the distant horizon is suddenly available now. Its cheap, its relatively simple and its remarkably precise.

I immediately knew that this was a story that needed telling. Human Nature, the resulting film full disclosure, I am executive producer came out of our conversations with scientists. They tend not to be the type of people who hype things but when they talk about Crispr you can feel the urgency in their voices. This is something you need to know about. All of you. If you are worried about your health or the health of your children. If you are concerned about how we might need to engineer our planet in the face of the climate crisis. If you are in finance, law or the world of tech. This will shape all of it.

And as we grapple with the unintended consequences of the internet and social media, as we try to make progress against a heating planet, I humbly submit that we as a species tend not to be good at thinking through where we are going until a crisis is already upon us. I fervently hope with Crispr that we can start the conversation sooner. That we can start it now. Thats why we made the film.

To be clear, we are probably a long way from designing babies to be more intelligent or more musically inclined. Life is just too complex for that, at least right now. More immediately, there is so much about this technology that is very exciting. As someone who remembers a time when my classmates were struck down with childhood diseases for which we now have vaccines, I know science can have profound applications for human health. Crispr could cure genetic diseases such as sickle cell and Huntingtons. It is being tested against cancers and HIV. It could also potentially be used to make crops more drought-resistant or food more nutritious.

On the other hand, we are walking closer to a world Aldous Huxley foresaw. What does it mean to be human? Where should we draw the boundaries beyond which we dare not cross? The inspiring researchers we talked to for the film know that the ethical and moral questions this technology raises are not for them to decide. Science has given us the tools, but not the answers. This is up to us, all of us. We need to be informed. We need to be honest with whats real and whats not. And we need to add our voices to a global conversation. Thats part of our responsibility as humans living on Earth today.

Dan Rather is one of the USs most feted journalists. He anchored CBS Evening News for 24 years

Human Nature is in UK cinemas now before a university town tour in the new year, wondercollaborative.org/human-nature-documentary-film/#screenings . It will be shown on BBC Storyville in spring/summer 2020

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Gene editing will let us control our very evolution. Will we use it wisely? - The Guardian

Last week, a woman namedVictoria Gray became the first person in the U.S. to have her cells edited with CRISPR. The41-year-old patient was sufferingfromsickle cell anemia.

RELATED:FIRST HUMAN TRIAL USING CRISPR GENE-EDITING IN US BEGINS

The condition, caused by a genetic mutation that messes with the shape of red blood cells, causes havoc on patients, and to make things even worse, the options for treatment are very limited and ineffective. The only current treatment for sickle cell anemia patients is a donor transplant that works for just 10% of patients, but all that is about to change.

It was clear that analternative, much more effectivesolutionwas desperately needed. After much consideration, doctors believed that editing cells extracted from a patient's own bone marrow could restore effective red blood cell creation, and this is exactly the operation they attempted on Gray.

The doctors used CRISPR to tweak Gray's bone marrow DNA to turn on a specific protein that would allow proper red blood cell generation. The operation makes Gray the first person in the U.S. to undergo a CRISPR editing procedure and the second globally.

The treatment comes from observations made back in the 1940s.In 1941 a pediatrician named Jane Watson noticed that babies with sickle cell didnt have symptoms until 6 months to 1 year of age, Vivien Sheehan, a hematologist at Baylor University told Popular Science.

The pediatrician also discovered that these infants produced fetal hemoglobin for much longer periods than healthy babies.Following Watson's observations, the research since then has indicated that increasing fetal hemoglobin could provide an effective treatment for the disease.

Now, CRISPR may just make that treatment viable. But before we get too excited, it should be noted that the strategy comes with several risks.

In order for the edited cells to be inserted back into the patients bone marrow, other stem cells need to be deactivated. Otherwise, there is the chance the unedited stem cells may continue to produce sickled red blood cells very fast, outpacing the edited cells' production of healthy cells.

Now researchers say they need to follow Gray's progress for at least 15 years to rule out any other potential dangers of the procedure. Still, for those 90% suffering with sickle cell anemia that don't respond well to current treatment, the procedure, if successful, would offer the much-needed lifeline they've been hoping for.

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Sickle Cell Anemia Patient Becomes First Person in the US to Have Her Genes Edited With CRISPR - Interesting Engineering

After growing pains, scheduling shifts, and some rather unfortunate injuries and incidents plaguing the production of No Time to Die, director Cary Joji Fukunagas entry into the legendary James Bond series finally showed the world its first look at its action packed contents. To say that the result was impressive is an understatement, as theres not only some massively satisfying action present, but a new mystery that Daniel Craigs superspy will have to uncover. And its all down to a secret that Lea Seydouxs Dr. Madeleine Swann may or may not be hiding from him, which could tie her to the notorious terrorist organization SPECTRE.

Theres a 90% chance that there is some great big shadowy secret that No Time To Die has in store for Dr. Swann, and considering whats been shown above, one theory starts to stick out. Before we go to much further into discussing this theory, take a look at this mornings trailer for yourself.

And now, lets talk about just what Madeleine Swann could be hiding in her complicated past:

Right now, the big theory seems to be that Madeleine possesses a hidden tie between herself and the organization her family has served in the past. As we learned in the previous James Bond film, also named Spectre, Swanns father, Mr. White (Jesper Christensen,) was entrenched in the operations of Ernst Stavro Blofelds (Christoph Waltz) nasty enterprise as far back as her own formative years.

So theres a possibility that Madeleine Swann is either a former or current SPECTRE agent, who could have been in the family business at a very young age. It might feel strange, but theres already enough clues to start solidifying this assumption in a comfortable manner. Theres another, wilder theory that spawns from this assumption, but for now lets discuss this more grounded possibility.

As discussed in Spectre, Madeleine Swann has a distaste for guns. The reason being, there was once an intruder who tried to kill her father in her childhood, and she didnt hesitate to shoot that man dead in his tracks. This story could play an important part in No Time To Die, as the British publication Express reported that the film formerly known as Bond 25 will have a flashback to this very encounter.

Madeleine Swann already knew how to assemble a gun thanks to her childhood with a SPECTRE employed father. So either he taught her these skills to protect her throughout life or, in a more chilling scenario, theres a possibility that she could have been a child soldier working for Blofeld. That is, until she turned away from that life and became a psychologist. Which brings up another interesting point.

Throughout No Time To Dies trailer, there seems to be an assumption that the relationship between James Bond and Dr. Swann at the end of Spectre hasnt lasted. Be it his own insecurities, or a general falling out between the two, it seems the potential secret that Madeleine is hiding broke their coupling in two. Which makes it all the more awkward that the two seem to be working for MI6 after Bond comes out of retirement.

As it just so happens, Blofeld is in MI6 custody, and if Swann were to be a SPECTRE agent in hiding, this would be the perfect opportunity to stymie Bonds professional efforts to thwart their organization. Between their failed relationship, and Blofelds Hannibal Lecter like imprisonment bringing him into the fold after all, the man we once knew as 007 is in a tighter spot than hes ever been.

Thinking backwards to the assumption that Madeleine Swanns childhood run in with an intruder, if No Time To Die does show us that particular moment, it seems to be reasonable to assume that Rami Maleks Safin is indeed the man that attacked Mr. White and Madeleine Swann all of those years ago. Facial scarring on both the masked assailant and Maleks face during the big reveal show that hes chasing someone wearing the broken mask that Madeleine tears up upon seeing.

With a more complete look at that mask being shown in the No Time To Die trailer, the flashback theory seems to be in play. If this is the case, Madeleine and Safin know each other from way back, which could confirm that not only Madeleine but also Safin were child soldiers for Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Though theres one other possibility tying both parties to Blofelds organization that could prove to be more outlandish than anything weve seen in the recent run of James Bond movies.

Theres an exchange between Safin and Bond that seems to hint at a much darker possibility when it comes to the existence of No Time To Dies villain.

Safin: Your skills die with your body. Mine will survive long after Im gone.Bond: History isnt kind to men who play God.

As of this moment, the James Bond series canon starting with 2006s Casino Royale seems to be a much more grounded affair than the more classic adventures. In the past, there have been villains trying to use genetic engineering/warfare, the very subject thats rumored to be at the center of Safins schemes in No Time To Die.

Put together with the dialogue above, theres a possibility that Safin is a clone, or at least another variant of a genetically enhanced soldier that SPECTRE has been tinkering with. So if Madeleine Swann does have ties to this man in her past, it could be because they were competing agents within Blofelds family of operatives.

One final note should be mentioned when it comes to Madeleine Swanns big secret in No Time to Die. No matter what this hidden truth turns out to be, it appears to be something so horrific, itll ruin James Bond; possibly even drive him into the path of further and fatal harm. Blofeld tells him as much, when he speaks the following line in the trailer:

When her secret finds its way out, itll be the death of you.

This might not be a literal death, but rather a metaphorical, and even emotional one. If Swanns secret is confirmed to be SPECTRE related, this would definitely be reminiscent of the time Vesper Lynd snuck under Bonds radar, and eventually killed herself as a twisted act of atonement. We all know how that affected Bonds psyche, so theres a potential for James to become more reckless, and even more cruel, in his operations. Meaning that the film intended to wrap Daniel Craigs tenure as the legendary British agent could end with him losing his life; freeing up the next participant to start their own chain of adventures in the future of the famed franchise.

Of course, all of this discussion about No Time to Die is predicated on the first trailer weve seen for the film, and a lot can change between now and the films April 2020 release window. But it feels like this new adventure in the James Bond series is a more personally plotted affair, with Madeleine Swann sitting square in the middle of the proceedings, hiding something that could unhinge the man himself.

No Time to Die reveals all its secrets on April 8th, 2020. Should you want to size up the competition for the box office dollar that weekend, take a look at our 2020 release schedule and see who else is gunning for glory.

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Bond 25: Let's Discuss That Massive Secret That's Teased In The No Time To Die Trailer - CinemaBlend

-OpEd-

BOGOT Everyone talks about how we're in the midst of a technological and scientific revolution that's rapidly transforming our world in ways that exceed previous revolutions.

New technologies come to us so fast that it seems almost unnecessary and repetitive to keep mentioning them. And yet, we cannot overlook how such technologies are redefining our societies and institutions. But what's most important here is not just that people have access to these technologies, but that they reap the benefits of such advances and share in the dividends.

However sophisticated or confusing they may be, the key issue with these technological changes is wealth distribution. If yesterday we were focused on returns from land and machines, today we must pay special attention to the dividends of digital technologies, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering.

These new dividends, like past ones, can be either democratizing in their impact or help concentrate power in the hands of the few. But if they're to permeate society on a democratic scale, we first need a society that absorbs like a sponge, and that, in turn, depends on another basic factor: better education.

Have we already missed the train?

Improved education is needed not just at the higher levels of science and technology, but also in primary and secondary schooling, which creates better citizens. Unfortunately, in Colombia, too many people are excluded from quality education.

This is another reason why education must be a long-term, state policy, rather than subject to the short-term whims of whatever administration happens to be in power. And that means more government spending, which can be financed by more progressive taxes and a smaller military budget.

Colombian students walk to class Photo: Michelle McFarlane

One cannot have a truly democratic society if economic inequality allows a few to also hoard all the political power and wield it over the great majority. There can be no democratic society if everyone can access certain technologies, but only a few will reap its economic rewards. A decent education is one that permits a better social distribution of the dividends of science and technology.

Citizens should not allow the frequently used terms of this revolution words like technology, digital, 4.0 or 5.0 to confound the most basic social demands that include, and are a precondition to, democratic access to the dividends of science and technology. Colombia is no exception, and unless it embarks on a concerted revolution in education, it won't be able to properly assimilate the tech revolution.

Indeed, this is a particularly important challenge for developing nations like ours, which are already playing catchup when it comes to education. If we missed the train already, as they say, what happens now that the train is moving that much faster?

*Hernndez is an economics professor at the Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogot.

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A Democratic Imperative Of The Technology Revolution - Worldcrunch

UGA hype man gives it his all from the sideline to the classroom

Chip Chambers has never been good at sitting still.

Thats why he dances all four quarters of University of Georgia home football gamesand has for the last four years.

Decked out in suspenders and a bow tie, Chambers might be better known as the Mic Man, the hype man who fires up the fans and shows off his fancy footwork in front of the student section at Sanford Stadium.

And what most people dont know about him is that hes actually a scholar who spends a decent amount of his free time in the library or coffee shops. My form of procrastination is reading health policy and theology, he said. Which is a really nerdy thing to say.

Chambers is graduating this December with degrees in economics and biology; a minor in health policy and management; and certificates in interdisciplinary writing, and personal and organizational leadership.

A Foundation Fellow and a teaching assistant in UGAs Honors Program, Chambers next plans to attend to medical school. He wont sit still there either. He aims to get a dual degreeeither a Master of Public Health or Master of Business Administration along with his medical degree.

Chambers draws his unrelenting energy from crowdsbe it fourth quarter on game day, Honors prom or running into his friends on campus.

Chip Chambers was named Homecoming king in 2018. He is pictured with Avalon Kandrac, Homecoming queen. (Photo by Dorothy Kozlowski/UGA)

First and foremost, Chambers is a football fan. Growing up in Watkinsville as a third generation Bulldog, red and black is in his blood. He got discovered for his Mic Man role his freshman year. Hed been attending basketball games and, for better or worse, had built a reputation as that crazy dancing guy that just wouldnt sit down. The athletics department took notice and asked him if he wanted to try out for the Mic Man position, which works in conjunction with the cheerleaders. Starting his sophomore year, Chambers joined the ranks of about a dozen Mic Men in UGA history.

The first key to being a good mic man is to keep a pulse on pop music. Youve got to know every song and youve got to know all the main dances. It doesnt mean you have to be good at them, he said. Sometimes my sister or my roommates will text me a video and tell me theres a dance Ive got to learn. For games, his go-to dance moves are the Dougie, the two-step, the stanky leg and hit the woah.

Notre Dame leprechaun Samuel Jackson and Georgia mic man Chip Chambers have a dance-off during a commercial break at ESPN College Gameday on Myers Quad before the home game win over Notre Dame. (Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA)

After four seasons at the gig, he said hes learned to pace himself so every time we score, I can act like we just won the national championship. Its all about a steady effort, while still giving it his all. I dont want to walk off that field with an ounce of energy left or with my voice still intact. So, if Im not raspy the next morning, that means Ive done something wrong.

Clearly, Chambers is all about giving 100% whether thats on the sideline of a football game or showing up for a biochemistry test. I want to be characterized by passion, he said. I dont want to be apathetic about anything I do, and I want to be characterized by curiosity.

He worked in UGAs Terns Lab for four semesters researching CRISPR-Cas, a genetic engineering technology. Through UGAs Honors Program, he interned at the Greater New York Hospital Association. This past summer, he interned at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta working in its office of quality improvement and patient safety, and learned a lot about how to make the health care system more efficient, equitable, safe and patient-centered. For six years, hes volunteered at Mercy Health Center, which serves the uninsured.

Chip Chambers has done research through the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities for several semesters. (Photo by Stephanie Schupska)

Ultimately, I want to be a doctor because its the intersection of my interests in the life sciences and economics as well as an opportunity to join people at their absolute lowest, he said. Health care meets people at some of their worst moments in their life and I think as a doctor you have the opportunity to walk into a room where someones experiencing tremendous hurt and pain and say, I think I might be able to help. And thats pretty appealing to me.

And as his time at UGA comes to an end, Chambers thinks back to lessons hes learned both in the classroom and on the sidelines. Almost nothing matters nearly as much as you think it does. Im TA-ing a class for first-year students and I see them getting worked up about a lot of the exact same things I used to get worked up about, he said. Ive been trying to learn the difference between whats urgent and whats important. Nobody on their deathbed says, I wish I would have gotten a 93 instead of an 86 on that quiz. But people say, I wish I wouldve spent more time with family, so I want to concentrate on my faith and being a curious, kind individual.

Chip Chambers is a Foundation Fellow. Ive learned that the most effective leaders are the people who started as just one of the people that theyre leading and ultimately still identify as one of those individuals, he said. So for me, Im just another student. Im not anywhere close to the level of Hairy Dawg who is held on a pedestal. But being an effective leader requires a sense of humility and a sense of staying down to earth. (Photo by Stephanie Schupska)

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The man behind the mic - University of Georgia

Bengaluru: What must it have felt like to be a cotton spinner or an iron maker in England in the 1820s in the midst of an industrial revolution? Exactly 200 years later, we may be on the verge of another era of momentous change: the internet revolution. With internet access expanding dramatically post the early 1990s, a slew of new technologies have now matured to a point where fundamental change constantly seems to be right around the corner.

On the doorstep of a brand new decadethe 2020swhat new frontiers may Artificial Intelligence (AI) or gene editing open up? Will we soon have robot bosses? Will mixed reality change the way we consume entertainment and sports? Will we be able to cure 90% of all genetic diseases by the end of the decade? We take a look at five technologies that could alter India and the world. This may not be a definitive or even exhaustive list, but it is a list of things that could change the way we live, work, and play sooner than we think.

Mixed reality

Imagine watching a football match, not on your TV but on a virtual reality (VR) headset that streams the match live and projects interesting stats on the fly with the help of augmented reality (AR). Mumbai-based VR startup Tesseract, now owned by Mukesh Ambanis Reliance Jio, is promising a future like that with its Quark camera, Holoboard headset, and the high internet speeds of Jio Fiber. Similarly, a Hyderabad-based mixed reality startup called Imaginate enables cross-device communication over VR and AR wearables for better enterprise collaboration in the industrial sector.

Despite the much-hyped yet unmet expectations from the likes of Google Glass, Microsoft HoloLens and Facebooks Oculus, Tesseract and Imaginate simply underscore how the fusion of AR and VR technologies the combination of which is popularly known as Mixed Reality or MR is coming of age and is no longer in the realm of just sci-fi movies like Blade Runner 2049, where Officer K played by Ryan Gosling develops a relationship with his artificial intelligence (AI) hologram companion Joi.

For instance, AI-powered chatbots today can not only conduct a conversation in natural language via audio or text but they can be made more powerful with a dose of mixed reality. Last May, Fidelity Investments created a prototype VR financial advisor named Cora to answer client queries using a suite of tools from Amazon Web Services. Researchers in Southampton have built a device that displays 3D animated objects that can talk and interact with onlookers.

The Chinese government-run Xinhua News Agency has the worlds first AI-powered news anchor, whose voice has been modelled to resemble a real human anchor working for the agency. Going a step further, Japan-headquartered DataGrid Inc. uses generative adversarial networks (GANs) to develop its so-called whole body model automatic generation AI" that automatically generates full-length images of non-existent people with high resolutions.

Nevertheless, challenges abound when dealing MR-and AI-powered robots, humanoids, and human avatars. For one, whenever a company generates human bodies and faces, concerns over deep fakes and cheap fakes will always rear their heads. Second, data collection will continually raise concerns over security and privacy. Third, theres always the concern regarding the fairness of an AI algorithm when it is deployed to do human tasks like giving financial advice. Last, but not the least, theres also the question of whether AI bots should be allowed to pose as humans. This will continually pose a challenge and opportunity for technologists and policy makers.

Future of solar

Heliogen, a company that has billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates as one of its investors, says it has created the worlds first technology that can commercially replace fuels with carbon-free, ultra-high temperature heat from the sun. With its patented technology, Heliogens field of mirrors acts as a multi-acre magnifying glass to concentrate and capture sunlight.

This is just a case in point that solar technologies have evolved a lot since they first made their debut in the 1960s. For instance, solar roadwayspanels lining the surface of highwayshave already popped up in the Netherlands. Floating solar, on its part, is providing a credible option to address land use concerns associated with wide scale solar implementations. A French firm called Ciel et Terre, for instance, has projects set up in France, Japan, and England. Other parts of the world, including India and California in the US, are piloting similar floating solar initiatives.

Space-based solar technology is another exciting arena. India, China and Japan are investing heavily in these technologies right now. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agencys (JAXA) Space Solar Power Systems (SSPS) aims to transmit energy from orbiting solar panels by 2030. Further, researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre in Finland have used solar and 3D printing technologies to develop prototypes of what they have christened as energy harvesting trees".

With solar power cheaper than coal in most countries in the world, its worth scaling up these technologies.

Indians and robot bosses

Between 400 and 800 million individuals around the world could be displaced by automation and would need to find new jobs by 2030, predicted a December 2017 survey by consultancy firm McKinsey. The Future of Jobs 2018 report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) suggests that 75 million jobs may be lost to automation by 2022, but adds that another 133 million additional new roles will be created.

Given that many of the automated jobs are being taken away by AI-powered chatbots and intelligent robots, would humans eventually have to work for a robo boss? This, however, may not be as big a concern as it is made out to be. According to the second annual AI at Work study conducted by Oracle and Future Workplace, people trust robots more than their managers. The study, released this October, notes that workers in China (77%) and India (78%) have adopted AI over 2X more than those in France (32%) and Japan (29%). Further, workers in India (60%) and China (56%) are the most excited about AI, while men have a more positive view of AI at work than women.

Oracle and Future Workplace also found that 82% of the workers believe robot managers are better at certain tasks, such as maintaining work schedules and providing unbiased information, than their human counterparts. And almost two-thirds (64%) of workers worldwide say they would trust a robot more than their human manager. In China and India, that figure rises to almost 90%.

On the other hand, the respondents felt managers can outdo robots when it comes to understanding their feelings, coaching them, and creating a healthy work culture. Whether humans eventually serve a robo boss or not remains to be seen. However, we can be certain of one thing: in the near future, we will increasingly see humans collaborating with smart robots.

Future of payments

Everyone can be a merchant, and every device can be an acceptance device," Accenture noted in its 2017 Driving the Future of Payments report. This trend has only accelerated over the last two years, especially with banks coming to terms with the fact that young customers, especially those living in urban areas, prefer net banking and mobile banking and would seldom, or never, want to visit a bank branch if offered that choice.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investors, for instance, have not lost faith in this disruptive currency despite the run with volatility, and despite the industry being viewed with a lot of suspicion by most governments around the world, including India. Fintechs too, with their innovative technology solutions like AI-powered bots and contactless payments to name a few, have only made the payments ecosystem more inclusive, disruptive, and challenging. In India, especially, the governments Aadhaar-enabled payments system and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) have revolutionized the payments ecosystem. The total volume of UPI transactions in the third quarter of calendar 2019 touched 2.7 billiona 183% rise over the same July-September quarter a year ago. In terms of value, UPI clocked 4.6 trillionup 189% over the same period a year ago, according to the Worldlines India Digital Payments Report-Q3 2019.

However, the number of transactions done on mobile wallets was 1.04 billiononly a 5% rise over the previous year period.

QR codes, according to the report, will continue to be used for payments, and the internet of things (IoT) is set to dominate micro payments by transforming connected devices into payment channels, though the pace of adoption of 5G by countries like India will be the key.

Nevertheless, cash that has been in existence for over 3000 years in different forms is not going to disappear in a hurry. Trust and security will continue to remain the operative words in digital payments.

Making sense of gene editing

When Dolly the sheep made news for becoming the first mammal ever to be cloned from another individuals body cell, many expected human cloning to follow soon. Dolly died over 16 years ago, and subsequently animals, including monkeys and dogs, continue to be cloned successfully. Yet, no human being has yet been cloned in real life.

While human cloning, which may or may not eventually happen, is bound to raise a lot of alarm bells given the moral implications surrounding the issue, the fact is that human genomes, or genes, are being routinely edited in a bid to find solutions for what are today considered to be incurable genetically inherited diseases.

Researchers are using a gene editing tool known as CRISPR-Cas9. CRISPR, which stands for Clusters of Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a tool that allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene function. The protein Cas9 (CRISPR-associated, or Cas) is an enzyme that acts like a pair of molecular scissors capable of cutting strands of DNA.

CRISPR-Cas9 is primarily known for its use in treating diseases like AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Huntingtons disease. Two patients, one with beta thalassemia and one with sickle cell disease, have potentially been cured of their diseases, reveal results from clinical trials that were jointly conducted by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics. The results released this November involved using Crispr to edit the genes of these patients.

Researchers are now looking to extend its use to tackle famine, lend a hand in creating antibiotics, and even wipe out an entire species such as malaria-spreading mosquitoes. Further, by genetically engineering a persons bone marrow cells, researchers can reprogram their immune and circulatory systems. Some new cancer treatments are based on this. Moreover, looking at the DNA of the collection of microbes in your gut can help with digestive disorders, weight loss, and even help understand mood changes.

Closer home, scientists at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) and the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (CSIR-IICB) are trying to correct genetic mutations in their laboratories using CRISPR Cas9 with encouraging preliminary results. But due to regulatory and ethical concerns, it may take a while before they can use this on humans.

IGIB also sells CRISPR products such as Cas9 proteins and its variants to educational institutes at reduced prices in a bid to encourage use of the technology.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on its part, considers any use of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in humans to be gene therapy and rules that the sale of DIY kits to produce gene therapies for self-administration is illegal. India, too, has banned the use of stem cell therapy for commercial use following concerns over rampant malpractice".

CRISPR-Cas9, thus, remains a work in progress and countries should have policies to govern its use. Meanwhile, one can watch out for an upgrade to CRISPR called Prime, which theoretically has the ability to snip out more than 90% of all genetic diseases.

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Five technologies that may alter India in 2020 - Livemint

Israeli scientists have revealed a potential weapon in the battles against air pollution, deforestation and climate change: bacteria engineered to eat carbon dioxide (CO2) from the environment.

Prof. Ron Milos plant and environmental sciences research lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science published a report on the study in Cell on November 27.

Milos team spent nearly a decade using rational design, genetic engineering and a sped-up version of evolution to create unique CO2-eating E. coli bacteria.

First, they identified the genes that plants use for the process of carbon fixation taking carbon from CO2 and turning it into protein, DNA and other biological molecules. Many of these genes were already present in the bacteria. Others could be added or modified.

They also inserted a gene that allows bacteria to get energy from formate, a readily available substance that can be produced directly from electricity and air.

Once the cultured bacteria had the necessary genetic mechanics, they still had to be coaxed into making the switch from their normal food (sugar) to CO2.

Postdoctoral fellow Shmuel Gleizer, the lead researcher, did this with a technique called lab evolution.

Together with PhD students Roee Ben-Nissan, Yinon Bar-On and other members of Milos team, Gleizer weaned the bacteria gradually off the sugar they were used to eating.

At each stage, cultured bacteria were given just enough sugar to keep them from complete starvation, as well as plenty of CO2 and formate.

Subsequent generations of the original cultured bacteria were given less and less sugar. After about a year of adapting to the new diet, some of them did switch to living and multiplying in an environment of pure CO2.

The researchers even used a special method to make sure the E. coli werent snacking on other nutrients.

Researchers converted sugar-eating E. coli bacterium (left) to producing all of its biomass from CO2, using metabolic engineering combined with lab evolution. The new bacterium (center) uses the compound formate as a form of chemical energy to drive CO2 fixation. The bacterium may provide the infrastructure for renewable production of food and green fuels (right). Chart courtesy of the Weizmann Institute

Cultured bacteria for a healthier planet

Our lab was the first to pursue the idea of changing the diet of a normal heterotroph (one that eats organic substances) to convert it to autotrophism (living on air), said Milo.

It sounded impossible at first, but it has taught us numerous lessons along the way, and in the end we showed it indeed can be done. Our findings are a significant milestone toward our goal of efficient, green scientific applications.

The researchers believe that the cultured bacteria could prove healthy for the planet in a variety of ways.

There are several scenarios in which this current research could be potentially applied in the future to address climate change, Bar-On tells ISRAEL21c.

Engineering an E. coli strain capable of utilizing energy sources such as formate, which could be synthesized electrochemically from renewable energy, opens the possibility of producing net-zero emissions ethanol, butanol, and potentially even denser fuels such as diesel fuels, which could replace fossil fuels, says Bar-On.Industrial renewable food production

In addition, the research could serve as the basis for future methods to increase food production without the vast land masses currently needed for raising meat and vegetables.

Reducing the land demand of food production can help to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture, for example by reducing the amount of deforestation, Bar-On explains.

Biotech companies that currently feed large amounts of corn syrup to bacteria or yeast to produce commodity chemicals could instead use cultured bacteria that live on a diet of CO2 and renewable electricity. Thats another potential way to reduce land demand.

The CO2-eating bacteria also could be useful in producing alternative protein, a major goal in the food-tech world.

In the future, we may be able to use renewable energy to drive carbon fixation and protein production in such bacteria, says Bar-On. This process can be scaled up to produce protein from renewable sources, which could serve as the feedstock of livestock, for example.

Because E. coli are the powerhouse of molecular biology research, says Bar-On, cultured E.coli that live on air alone will allow researchers to probe much closer the components of the carbon fixation machinery, which also operates in all of the plants providing our food.

As such, this bacterium could serve as a stepping-stone for discoveries that may improve the process of carbon fixation and could someday be implemented in crops to increase food production.

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Israeli CO2-eating bacteria could help save the planet - ISRAEL21c