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How white supremacists respond when their DNA says they’re not … – PBS NewsHour

Posted: August 23, 2017 at 4:45 am

A white supremacist wears a shirt with the slogan European Brotherhood at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S., August 12, 2017. Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Whether youre a white supremacist, a white nationalist or a member of the alt-right, much of your ideology centers around a simple principle: being white. The creation of a white ethnostate, populated and controlled by pure descendants of white Europeans, ranks high on your priority list.

Yet, when confronted with genetic evidence suggesting someone isnt pure blood, as white supremacists put it, they do not cast the person out of online communities. They bargain.

A new study from UCLA found when genetic ancestry tests like 23andMe spot mixed ancestry among white supremacists, most respond in three ways to discount the results and keep members with impure genealogy in their clan. Their reactions range from challenging the basic math behind the tests to accusing Jewish conspirators of sabotage.

Some argued their family history was all the proof they needed. Or they looked in the mirror and clung to the notion that race and ethnicity are directly visible, which is false.

But the real takeaway centers on a new, nuanced pattern within white supremacist groups to redefine and solidify their ranks through genetic ancestry testing, said Aaron Panofsky, a UCLA sociologist who co-led the study presented Monday at the American Sociological Associations 112th annual meeting in Montreal.

Once they start to see that a lot of members of their community are not going to fit the all-white criteria, they start to say, Well, do we have to think about what percentage [of white European genealogy] could define membership? said Aaron Panofsky, a UCLA sociologist who co-led the study presented Monday at the American Sociological Associations 112th annual meeting in Montreal.

And this co-opting of science raises an important reminder: The best way to counter white supremacists may not be to fight their alternative facts with logical ones, according to people who rehabilitate far-right extremists.

To catalog white supremacists reactions to genetic ancestry results, this study logged onto the website Stormfront. Launched in 1995, Stormfront was an original forum of white supremacy views on the internet. The website resembles a Reddit-style social network, filled with chat forums and users posting under anonymous nicknames. By housing nearly one million archived threads and over twelve million posts by 325,000 or more members, Stormfront serves as a living history of the white nationalist movement.

Over the course of two years, Panofsky and fellow UCLA sociologist Joan Donovan combed through this online community and found 153 posts where users volunteered the results of genetic ancestry tests. They then read through the subsequent discussion threads 2,341 posts wherein the community faced their collective identities.

No surprise, but white supremacists celebrate the test results that suggest full European ancestry. One example:

67% British isles18% Balkan15% Scandinavian100% white! HURRAY!

On the flip side, Panofsky and Donovan found that bad news was rarely met with expulsion from the group.

So sometimes, someone says, Yeah, this makes you not white. Go kill yourself,' Panofsky said. Much more of the responses are what we call repair responses where theyre saying, OK, this is bad news. Lets think about how you should interpret this news to make it to make it right.'

These repair responses fell into two categories.

Reject! One coping mechanism involved the outright rejection of genetic tests validity. Some argued their family history was all the proof they needed. Or they looked in the mirror and clung to the notion that race and ethnicity are directly visible, which is false, University of Chicago population geneticist John Novembre told NewsHour.

Genetically, the idea of white European as a single homogenous group does not hold up.

Though the genetics of whiteness are not completely understood, the gene variants known to influence skin color are more diluted across the globe than any random spot in the human genome. That is to say, humans appear, based on our skin pigmentation, to be much more different from each other than we actually are on a genomic level, Novembre said.

Others accused the ancestry companies of being run and manipulated by Jews, in an attempt to thwart white nationalism, but even other Stormfront users pointed out the inaccuracy of this idea.

Reinterpret:The biggest proportion of responses 1,260 posts tried to rationalize the result by offering an educational or scientific explanation for the genetic ancestry results. Many in the online community played a numbers game. If a genetic ancestry test stated someone was 95 percent white European, they would merely count the remaining 5 percent as a statistical error.

Many adapted this line of thinking to make exceptions for those with mixed ancestry. Nearly 500 posts made appeals by misapplying theories of genetics or by saying whiteness is a culture, not just biology an apparent contradiction to the mission of forming a pure ethnostate. This trend led some white supremacists to debate the boundaries of their ethnostate, Panofsky said.

They start to think about the genetic signs and markers of white nationalism that might be useful for our community, Panofsky said. [They say] maybe there are going to be lots of different white nations, each with slightly different rules for nationalism? Or an overlapping set of nations, that are genetically defined in their own ways?

But these arguments are moot, because these genetic ancestry boundaries are inherently built on shaky ground.

If it seems white supremacists are making arbitrary decisions about their ancestry tests, its hard to blame them. Direct-to-consumer ancestry testing is a slippery, secretive industry, built largely upon arbitrary scientific definitions.

Its black box because its corporate, said Jonathan Marks, biological anthropologist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The way these answers are generated depends strongly on the sampling, the laboratory work that you do and the algorithm that you use to analyze the information. All of this stuff is intellectual property. We cant really evaluate it.

White nationalists carry torches on the grounds of the University of Virginia, on the eve of a planned Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S. August 11, 2017. Picture taken August 11, 2017. Photo by Alejandro Alvarez/News2Share via REUTERS

Genetic ancestry companies assess a persons geographic heritage by analyzing DNA markers in their autosomal DNA (for individual variation), mitochondrial DNA (for maternal history) or their Y chromosome (for paternal history). The latter two sources of DNA remain unchanged from parent to child to grandchild, aside from a relatively small number of mutations that occur naturally during life. These mutations can serve as branch points in the trees of human ancestry, Panofsky and Donovan wrote, and as DNA markers specific to different regions around the world.

When genetic anthropologists examine the full scope of humans, they find that historical patterns in DNA markers make the case that everyone in the world came from a common ancestor who was born in East Africa within the last 100,000 to 200,000 years. Plus, groups intermingled so much over the course of history that genetic diversity is a continuum both within American and Europe, through to Asia and Africa, Novembre of the University of Chicago said.

WATCH: Years after transatlantic slavery, DNA tests give clarity

Genetically, the idea of white European as a single homogenous group does not hold up. The classic geographic boundaries of the Mediterranean, Caucasus, and Urals that have shaped human movement and contact are all permeable barriers, said Novembre. Most of the genetic variants you or I carry, we share with other people all across the globeIf you are in some ethnic group, there are not single genetic variants that you definitely have and everyone outside the group does not.

Commercial ancestry companies know these truths, but bend them to draw arbitrary conclusions about peoples ancestry, researchers say. They compare DNA from a customer to the genomes of people or reference groups whose ancestries they claim to already know.

23andMe, for instance, uses reference dataset that include genomes from 10,418 people who were carefully chosen to reflect populations that existed before transcontinental travel and migration were common (at least 500 years ago). To build these geographic groups, they select individuals who say all four of their grandparents were born in the same country, and then remove outliers whose DNA markers do not match well within the group.

These choices willfully bias the genetic definitions for both geography and time. They claim that a relatively small group of modern people can reveal the past makeup of Europe, Africa and Asia and the ancestral histories for millions of customers. But their reference groups skew toward the present and overpromise on the details of where people came from.

While 23andMe denounces the use of their services to justify hateful ideologies, they do not actively ban known white supremacists from their DNA testing.

A study by 23andMe reported that with their definition of European ancestry, there is an average of 98.6 percent European ancestry among self-reported European-Americans. But given all Ive said, we should digest this with caution, Novembre said. An individual with 100 percent European ancestry tests is simply someone who looks very much like the European reference samples being used.

Though ancestry companies cite research that claims genetic tests can pinpoint someone within 100 miles of their European ancestral home, thats not always the case. Marks offered the recent example of three blond triplets who took an ancestry test for the TV show The Doctors. The test said the triplets were 99 percent European. But one sister had more English and Irish ancestry, while another had more French and German. Did we mention they are identical triplets?

That shows you just how much slop there is in these kinds of of ancestry estimates, Marks said.

Marks described commercial ancestry testing as recreational science because its proprietary nature lacks public, academic oversight, but uses scientific practices to validate stereotypical notions of race and ethnicity.

While 23andMe denounces the use of their services to justify hateful ideologies, they do not actively ban known white supremacists from their DNA testing, BuzzFeed reported.

But white supremacists arent the only ones to buy into these wayward notions when genetic ancestry tests support their self-prescribed identities or reject the science when things dont pan out as expected. African-Americans do it too, as Columbia University sociologist Alondra Nelson found in 2008.

Consumers have what I call genealogical aspiration, Nelson told NewsHour. They often make choices among dozens of companies based on the kind of information theyre seeking. If youre interested in finding whether or not youre a member of the small group that has, for example, some trace of Neanderthal DNA, then youre going to go to a company that focuses on that.

She said Panofsky and Donovans study shows that white nationalists will engage in a process of psychic and symbolic negotiation when genetic ancestry results fail to satisfy their impossible idea for racial purity.

But Panofsky, who doesnt support or sympathize with white nationalists, believes these negotiations are not a reason to dismiss white nationalists as ignorant and stupid.

I think that is actually a dangerous view, Panofsky said. Our study reveals that these white nationalists are often engaging with genetic information in extraordinarily sophisticated ways.

Many white supremacists are dealing with toxic shame, a perpetual subconscious belief system where their sense of identity is negative.

White supremacists are trying to deal with the issue of identity as an intellectual problem, said Tony McAleer, the co-founder and board chair of Life After Hate, a counseling organization that rehabs white supremacists. But he said the rehab of white nationalist views doesnt start with challenging their mental gymnastics with data.

We need to deal with the emotional drivers first, McAleer said. University of Maryland did a study of violent extremists and what they found was the number one correlated factor with someone joining a violent extremist group was childhood trauma.

But McAleer continued that the emotional trauma fueling white supremacy extends past physical and sexual abuse. Many white supremacists are dealing with toxic shame, a perpetual subconscious belief system where their sense of identity is negative.

The person feels at a subconscious level theyre not good enough, McAleer said. One way to react to that is to perpetually spend all of your efforts to prove to the world that you are a winner.

So, Life After Hates antidote to this shame is compassion and empathy, he said. Rather than toss statistics about how Muslims arent flooding the country and do not lead to spikes in crime, they will take a white supremacist to an Islamic center and have them sit down and spend time there.

A personal connection is a much more powerful way to change the dynamics within a person, than it is to re-educate the dataset thats in their head, McAleer said.

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Antonio Silva is on a troubling career trajectory, and there’s no one who can stop him – MMAjunkie.com

Posted: August 23, 2017 at 4:45 am

Heres what Antonio Silvas career looks like over the past two years: Win (TKO), loss (TKO), loss (KO), loss (KO), loss (decision), loss (KO).

Hes been stopped by strikes in seven of his past 10 bouts. He has just two victories since 2012 one over Soa Palelei, and one over Alistair Overeem, who was beating him soundly until a sudden third-round comeback by Silva.

If you do some combat sports math on the 37-year-old Bigfoot, what you see is a fighter on a dangerous trajectory. That path took him out of the UFC and into two fights for smaller Russian promotions, both of which he lost. His last knockout loss was two months ago.

So why did Silva (19-12-1 MMA)just sign on for a kickboxing bout against GLORY heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven (51-10-1 kickboxing)in China this October?

Obviously, its not a good fight for Bigfoot, Silvas longtime manager Alex Davis told MMAjunkie. Jumping right into (GLORY) to go against the current champ, whos a murderer? Yeah, we get it.

But Silvas doing it anyway, and for reasons that are as old as the fight game.

For one, he thinks he can win. According to Davis, Bigfoot is back on testosterone-replacement therapy, which he used somewhat controversially for a time in the UFC, before the practice was effectively banned.

Now, fighting in places like Russia and China, and for organizations whose anti-doping policies are notably less stringent, hes free to resume the use of synthetic testosterone, which makes a huge difference for him, Davis said.

And also he needs money, Davis said. He cant turn down fights at the moment for that reason. If it was up to me, he would not take this fight. But at the end of the day, my job is to inform him, give him my advice, and the one who has to make the final decision is him.

Here we get into a persistent problem for fighters and fight sports. No one can tell Silva to stop. They can suggest and argue and recommend. Promoters can cut him and trainers could refuse to train him. Even Davis, a longtime friend, could stop managing him.

But as long as Silva can find someone willing to pay for his name and his willingness to walk face-first into someone elses fists, he gets to keep going.

It was the same with Gary Goodridge, another MMA fighter who turned to kickboxing later in his career. He lost about twice as many kickboxing bouts as he won, but his appeal for promoters was that, when you booked Big Daddy, you knew someone would get knocked out even if the someone was usually him.

For Goodridge, those years of damage contributed to brain trauma that eventually left him unable to remember conversations moments after theyd ended. By the evening, he couldnt tell you what hed done during the afternoon.

But Goodridge also needed the money. Even when he knew he shouldnt fight anymore, he was a man in his forties with no real work history outside of cages and rings. What else was he supposed to do?

According to Davis, Silvas brain health has been closely monitored with testing done at the Cleveland Clinics Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas.

Physically, Bigfoot has no problems whatsoever, Davis said. He has no brain damage. Weve done extensive research and testing, even before he left the UFC. So hes OK on that end.

But then, some signs of degenerative brain diseases like CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), which researchers have found in the brains of deceased fighters and football players, are sometimes not apparent until years after the actual trauma.

And clearly, Silva is doing himself no favors. He went less than five months between knockout losses in 2016. Youd have to go back to 2010 to find a single calendar year in which he didnt suffer at least one knockout.

This fight against Verhoeven doesnt promise to be any easier on his brain. Verhoeven is younger, faster, and riding a winning streak thats about as good as Silvas losing streak is bad. If anything, the kickboxing rules will likely only lead to Silva absorbing more punishment than he would in an MMA bout. And then what?

Soon the paycheck will be spent and Silva will face the same questions about his future that he faces now. So far, he only seems to know one answer.

Ill be very sincere and tell you, I cant defend a man from himself, Davis said. If he fights and doesnt manage his money, hell go looking for the next fight. This is a very common problem with many fighters, not just Bigfoot. Thats what creates situations like Gary Goodridge.

As for Goodridge, he also had people telling him he should stop. Then he had people telling him that there was something troubling happening to him. The damage sneaks up on you, he said later. When he finally realized the full extent of it, it was too late to stop it.

I had no idea it was coming, Goodridge said in 2012. You dont know. Everyone around you tells you its happening, but you dont notice it yourself.

For more on the upcoming MMA schedule, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.

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‘There is no contradiction to being a vegan and eating GMO foods’ – Genetic Literacy Project

Posted: August 23, 2017 at 4:44 am

My names Diana Pea, and I am a yoga-loving, bicycle-riding, palm oil-avoiding. environmentalist, ingredient list-reading vegan. I get 92.4 percent of my monthly calories from simple foods: rice, beans, tofu, and soybean oil (yes, I calculated it). I calculated the ecological impact of the rice I eat assuming it came from California vs. Arkansas. Essentially, Im a walking stereotype.

The reason why I state these things about myself is because I want to make it clear that I share the same concerns as the rest of the vegan population, particularly an adherence to the central tenant of the vegan philosophy: an optimization of agriculture to minimize suffering and pain of sentient beings. However, regardless of my stereotypically vegan behavior, I, unlike many vegans, am in favor of biotechnology, particularly GMOs, in agriculture, and I think that all vegans should be.

Lets take one simple example first: genetically-engineered wheat and other staples or seeds to produce omega-3 fatty acids. Crops like these could very well be an excellent replacement of fish for omega-3 fatty acids, taking away any excuse for people to continue eating fish. This would reduce the suffering within aquatic ecosystems, and it could be implemented if we got burdensome governments out of the way of innovation. There is no plausible mechanism of harm to such an idea. We know that the staples we eat are safe and that omega-3 fatty acids are safe. Thus, a staple that is engineered to produce omega-3 wouldnt be dangerous.

One might argue that we can simply use flaxseeds instead of GE foods; however, this isnt a very practical idea. First of all, staples are already widely eaten, making it much easier to get people to switch from fish to a staple with GEO-derived oils than to flaxseeds. Additionally, 96 percent of the US flaxseeds are grown in North Dakota. This isnt a coincidence. This is because of the fact that different places have varying soil conditions, climates, and other factors that lead to different yields of different crops.

Farmers want to optimize yields, which is why farmers in Idaho grow lots of potatoes, while those in Arkansas grow lots of rice. If we were to decide to suddenly eat more flaxseed as a nation, then not only would many farmers have to switch to growing these seeds, but yields wouldnt be optimal everywhere. This would mean more land being devoted to agriculture, which would hurt natural ecosystems. These practical limitations make GE staples a much better substitute source for omega-3 than flax seeds.

A vegans view of GE innovations

Many of my fellow vegans might argue whether such an innovation will be vegan at all. They might say that they dont want fish genes in their wheat, ignoring the fact that fish genes dont exist (All humans share many genes in common with fish: are they human genes or fish genes?). There is no need to use genes from an actual fish in the first place. Modern technology, being as cool as it is today, gave us DNA synthesizers that enable the construction of synthetic genes from known genomic templates, making an actual fish totally unnecessary in the process of genetically engineering staple crops to make omega-3. Besides, even if we did need the fish, there would be no need to kill one to get DNA. Youd simply need one cell sample, and you could then use PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to make thousands of copies of the gene in question for R&D. Lets not make the perfect the enemy of the good here. Nonetheless, the genes in question would come from algae since fish dont have them, so the entire debate is moot. Although the point still stands for any crops modified with genes originally found in animals.

Furthermore, yield-preserving traits like Bt and Roundup-Ready allow for crops to beat pests like insects and weeds in a safe, effective way, and there are hundreds of independent studies to prove it. This means less land for agriculture being needed, allowing for more habitats for animals around the world. On top of that, Simplots Innate Potato resists browning and bruising and allows for long-term storage, with a future generation model resisting late blight fungus, all with the FDA seal of approval.

These traits mean fewer fungicides used, less food waste (on the field, in the store, and at home), less land needed to grow the same amount of potatoes, and more affordable crops. All of these traits are good for optimizing agriculture for the environment and consumers, and are just a few examples of traits that could be and are being utilized as we speak. Imagine what more could be done if we stopped hampering this amazing technology with burdensome regulations. We could do a lot of good for the world of agriculture with such beneficial innovation.

Additionally, biotechnology could generate synthetic animal products. We already use genetically engineered yeast and bacteria to produce all sorts of valuable substances, from insulin to the vitamins in the tablets I personally use in place of many foods. They are also used in making many common foods, such as almost all of the hard cheese made in the world, and many beersalthough many GMO labeling laws exempt these foods. The rennet used in the cheese-making process used to come from calves, making GE microorganisms a more humane source. There is no reason why we cant use this same biotechnology to produce milk proteins to make cheese free of cows or to accelerate growth in cell cultures to make synthetic meats.

In fact, many groups are working on these sorts of projects, and some dont involve genetic engineering at all. Memphis Meats, New Wave Foods, and many other groups are doing the admirable work of taking animals out of agriculture, while feeding the world more efficiently in the process. Its extremely unfortunate that many of those getting in the way of such goals are vegans, but would rather let their naturalist ideology and dogma supersede their opposition to animal exploitation

Harmless biopsies allow for the collection of cells from donor animals, and these cells can be used to make tons of meat to make millions of burgers. Yes, you read that right. Even if this technology involved the deaths of a few animals to harvest the substrate medium and scaffolding structure for the cultured beef, that doesnt change the fact that this is a net benefit to preventing animal deaths. This technology could lower the death toll from the current unimaginable number (go ahead and try to imagine 10,000,000,000 per year of anything; its literally unimaginable) to a much smaller amount that is a net benefit to livestock. Once again, lets not make the perfect the enemy of the good here. Being purists will only hurt animals.

Other technologies such as induced-pluripotent stem cells (regular cells turned into stem cells) can take what little animal involvement that takes place in cellular agriculture and reduce it even further to almost nothing Scientists are already developing gel-based scaffolding methods to replace the collagen used normally, along with growth media free from fetal bovine serum. Cellular agriculture is progressively lessening its reliance on animals to produce food to feed the world. Its important for vegans to come together to support this technology to back research that could improve it even more. I cannot stress enough the point that being purists will only hurt our cause; we can make cellular agriculture rely as little on animals as possible, which is a net benefit to animals.

Call for vegan action

Unfortunately, people arent choosing to adopt a vegan diet. The reasons are irrelevant, as the end result is still the same: less than 2 percent of the population consists of vegans at any given time. We are never going to convince the large majority of people to adopt a collective vegan diet. Attempting to do so is admirable, but its not working. As unfortunate as that is, we can still do a lot more good for livestock animals with the aforementioned technology. There is no good reason to eschew it and stand in the way of perfectly good solutions through fear mongering and obstruction.

I became a vegan as an extension of my pacifist and environmentalist leanings. Because of this, I would hate to see fellow vegans stand in the way of protecting our fellow earthlings for baseless ideological reasons. Vegans could come together through finances, promotional manpower, and even by becoming researchers and educators to create a new generation of scientists to work on cellular agriculture.

With that being said, I think we should all remember the following: The best argument against the outreach method is a five-minute conversation with the average meat eater.

Im sorry to say that, but its true. People view the animal rights movement negatively, and extremist organizations like PETA have only hardened stereotypes. Organizations like Mercy for Animals utilize proven, effective methods of advocacy, but, while commendable, is not enough.

My goal is the same as that of many ethical vegans: sending the animal-based food industry as close to obsolescence as is practically possible. Im going to side with the winning team to make that goal a reality, and I truly hope that fellow vegans will side with me on that front in principle, participation, and finances. Our fellow earthlings demand it. Please dont let them down.

Diana Pea is an ethical/ecological vegan at Brooklyn College training to educate people about science. A long-time advocate, she promotes biotechnology and other evidence-based agricultural solutions to optimize food production and distribution, feed the world and to finally put an end to animal agriculture. Follow her on Twitter @Inorganic_Vegan.

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Bloodborne, Transhumanism and Cosmic Cyberpunk – Kotaku UK (blog)

Posted: August 22, 2017 at 5:45 am

With all its morbid decadence, the richly-layered Gothic imagination and cosmic horror of Bloodborne tends to overshadow some of its more (post)modern influences. Bloodborne isnt a traditionalist, after all, but a punk: or to be more precise, a cyberpunk. It may not havesinister corporations or hackers, yet this sci-fi renegade still conjures the rebellious ghost in the machine.

Most obviously, theres the overpowering presence of that looming megalopolis Yharnam as dependent on monumental, almost brutalist architecture as any good futuristic urban sprawl. The social dynamics within Yharnam echo the politics of cyberpunk, the hegemonic power of the Healing Church pitted against the social outcasts roaming the grimy streets. Dangerous social experiments and unchecked technological advancements have led to a Victorian dystopia. There are even cyberspaces, simulated, subordinate worlds in the form of the Dreams, which can be accessed and even hacked by those who are privy to secret knowledge.

Yharnham:

Ridley Scott'sBlade Runner:

And just like cyberpunk, the world of Bloodborne is held captive by the promise of transhumanism the idea that humankind will, one day, be able to transcend our fleshlylimitations and become something more. Whether it is Deus Ex or Bloodborne, the tool for this quasi-religious endeavour is cutting edge research and technology. In Deus Ex, that means body modification through nanotech or even merging consciousnesses with an omnipresent AI. In Bloodborne, its the Healing Church and Byrgenwerth researching into the old ones and their blood that drives this change: aiming to transform humans, in theory, into celestial beings that have entirely discarded their humanity. Not unlike in Blade Runner, the eye becomes an omnipresent symbol of self-directed evolution and the dangerous knowledge necessary to pursue it.

However, Bloodborneisa punk that refuses to slavishly follow in the tracks of those that came before. The differences are the most fascinating thing here. The futuristic vision of transhumanism, whether it is presented as a utopian promise or a dystopian threat, is seen as an evolutionary culmination or perhaps even singularity that severs the umbilical cord that connects us to our evolutionary history. The human is a product of natural processes, distant cousin of the apes. The posthuman the product of transhumanism is something different (strangely, it is our human arrogance that leads to this fallacy of teleological evolution.)

Blade Runner

Eye of a Blood-Drunk Hunter

Bloodbornes idea of transhumanism is recognisable, but different. Its still a morally complex idea, both pursued by individuals and institutions while also causing societal upheaval, but its vector is in the opposite direction. The path to transcendence doesnt lead the inhabitants of Yharnam away from humankinds evolutionary history, but confronts it head-on in a retrogressive journey. The first enemies our hunter encounters are beastmen, many of them recognisably human but some, like the werewolves or Vicar Amelia, almost devoid of human characteristics. Theyre hairy and canine, clearly mammalian despite their deformities. So far, this is in keeping with stories like Robert Louis Stevensons The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or H.P. Lovecrafts tales of human degeneracy, such as Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, in which a British nobleman burns himself alive after discovering that one of his ancestors was an ape goddess from the Congo. These stories play with our post-Darwinian revulsion at being the offspring of mere animals.

But as you progress through Bloodborne, the hunter descends deeper down the evolutionary ladder. Soon, enemies resemble snakes, insects, arachnids. Later, they become more alien still, strange variations of squids, snails, slugs (that is, molluscs) or even fungi. They have names like Celestial Emissary, or Celestial Child and are closely related to the Great Ones, some of whom, like Ebrietas or Kos, share similarities with the games mollusc-like creatures. Bloodborne displays a special fascination with mushrooms and molluscs, as well as the creatures of the ocean (especially in The Old Hunters DLC). These creatures are associated with the primordial, the early origins of life on earth, and their strange forms, both beautiful and disturbing, gives them a semblance of otherworldliness. And since they dont seem to belong to this world, perhaps they originally visited earth from unknown regions of the cosmos?

Kos

Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos

Celestial Child

Nudibranch, Nembrotha Kubaryana. Photo by Nick Hobgood

Nudibranch, Nembrotha Cristata. Photo by Chriswan Sungkono.

Nudibranch, Tritoniopsis Elegans. Photo by Sean Murray.

From this anthropocentric perspective, becoming like these creatures means getting closer to the miraculous origins of life, when the earth and the cosmos had yet to be disentangled. The transhumanism of Bloodborne thus turns the usual teleological view of human evolution on its head; the forces of evolution, whether natural or self-directed, will not bring humans closer to the gods, but have instead distanced them from the celestial spring of life. To fulfil their atavistic yearning to return to the lap of the cosmos, the inhabitants of Yharnam must regress to earlier evolutionary stages. The horror and tragedy of turning into wolf-like beasts, therefore, isnt just due to a revulsion to our animal ancestors or the destruction they cause, but the knowledge that those beastmen didnt regress far enough. If only they hadnt gotten lost in this evolutionary valley, they could have emerged on the other side as transcendental beings, as kin not of the earth, but the cosmos. At least, thats one way of looking at the complex picture Bloodborne paints.

The transcended hunter as slug-like Great One in Bloodbornes true ending

The beautiful thing about this is that it doesnt just fly in the face of transhumanism as it is usually understood, but the most problematic aspects of Lovecrafts work, too. The ugly concept of degeneracy, with all its overt racism, was an integral part of Lovecrafts fictional worlds. The ancient and unambiguously evil powers of the Great Old Ones is tied to primitives and mongrels, marginalised humans seen as genetically impure and degraded. They are easily manipulated by the old gods and worship them in the hidden and remote corners of the earth.

In Bloodborne, the blame of Yharnams ruin is dramatically shifted. The hidden corners of worship arent foreign jungles or secluded villages, but the sacred spaces of a church that is the backbone and centre of a sprawling megalopolis; the mysteries of the Great Ones are still secret knowledge, but secrets of a powerful, manipulative elite (as you would expect in the conspiracy-filled worlds of cyberpunk stories). But while this elites endeavours clearly lead to a horrific dystopia, the moral issues of this regressive transhumanism stay ambiguous throughout. The degenerate beastmen are hapless, unfortunate victims rather than villains. The experiment of transcendence through reverse evolution seems doomed to fail, but it is not at all clear whether that goal is inherently misguided. After all, the Great Ones seem amoral rather than evil (not unlike the people of Yharnam), and the hunter is no stranger to the allure these celestial beings exert through their disturbing kind of beauty. Perhaps their apparent darkness stems purely from the human minds failing to comprehend their true nature? Either way, Lovecrafts ideas of degeneracy doesnt entirely fit into Bloodbornes world.

Being kin to both the Lovecraftian as well as cyberpunk, Bloodborne, too, is a kind of mongrel. But this impurity is precisely what enables it to distinguish itself and comment meaningfully on its ancestral genres. It reshapes its influences by letting disparate ideas collide and creates something fresh from the wreckage. Its not unique in its subversion of transhumanist idealism or Lovecraftian racist tropes, but the way it combines these separate issues in a seamless if ambiguous whole is entirely original.

Bloodborne is both a cyberpunk dystopia in which the end point of self-directed evolution is not a disembodied mind, but a slug or a squid, as well as a tale of cosmic horror where that dubious degeneracy stems not from shady outsiders or social outcasts, but squarely from within organised mainstream religion and science. It shares with cyberpunk an awareness and distaste for the unequal power dynamics in a world governed by the amoral ambitions of hegemonies, but, like Lovecraft, looks backwards to our distant origins rather than to the future. And soBloodborne transcends its influences, and challenges us on new planes of existence.

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Ambrosia: the startup harvesting the blood of the young | Society … – The Guardian

Posted: August 22, 2017 at 5:45 am

What we now call intergenerational fairness has suffered a lot lately, and its not about to be improved by the news that the Baby Boomers are sucking the blood of the young. Although, in fairness, they are only after the plasma.

In Monterey, California, a new startup has emerged, offering transfusions of human plasma: 1.5 litres a time, pumped in across two days, harvested uniquely from young adults.

Ambrosia, the vampiric startup concerned, is run by a 32-year-old doctor called Jesse Karmazin, who bills $8,000 (6,200) a pop for participation in what he has dubbed a study. So far, he has 600 clients, with a median age of 60. The blood is collected from local blood banks, then separated and combined it takes multiple donors to make one package.

Its no coincidence his scheme is based near San Francisco. The idea has become faddish in tech circles. While anti-ageing products usually hold more appeal with women, two-thirds of the more than 65 participants who have signed up for this trial are men. Mike Judges Silicon Valley sitcom recently parodied the notion, with arch-tech guru Gavin Belson relying on a blood boy following him around to donate pints of sticky red at inopportune moments.

That fictionalised account may well be based on the real-life adventures of Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder, who has expressed interest in having transfusions (Gawker even reported that he was spending $40,000 (31,000) a quarter on regular transfusions from 18-year-olds).He, and various other thinkers who radiate out towards the death-evading transhumanist movement, are fascinated by heterochronic parabiosis the sewing together of two animals in order to create a living chimera. Studies going back decades show the regenerative effects of one organism being joined to another. In the 17th century, Robert Boyle he of Boyles Law suggested replacing the blood of the old with the blood of the young.

In 2012, the University of Cambridges Dr Robin Franklin led a group that showed blood from young mice could replace myelin sheaths crucial for combatting MS in older mice. But it was a 2014 Harvard report that seems to have kickstarted the present revival of interest in transfusions. There, scientists injecting old mice with the plasma of a younger generation found it improved their memory and their ability to learn. Conversely, injecting old blood into young seemed to knobble the young rodents.

The scientific community has rolled its eyes at the trial element of Ambrosia. There is no control group and, with participation costing so much, no one involved is very randomised. Despite these criticisms of the science, Dr Karmazin is still reporting positive results. His team has found that levels of carcino-embryonic antigens fell by around 20%, as did the level of amyloids proteins involved in cancer and Alzheimers disease respectively.

Improvements in sleep seem to be the most glittering prize to emerge so far: As people get older, they have much more difficulty sleeping, Dr Karmazin noted. Improve that and you get benefits in mood, immune system, weight management and much else.

It answers the question: how do you sleep at night after leeching the blood out of busboys and students? Just fine, thanks.

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Bio-inspired Materials Give Boost to Regenerative Medicine – Bioscience Technology

Posted: August 22, 2017 at 5:43 am

What if one day, we could teach our bodies to self-heal like a lizards tail, and make severe injury or disease no more threatening than a paper cut?

Or heal tissues by coaxing cells to multiply, repair or replace damaged regions in loved ones whose lives have been ravaged by stroke, Alzheimers or Parkinsons disease?

Such is the vision, promise and excitement in the burgeoning field of regenerative medicine, now a major ASU initiative to boost 21st-century medical research discoveries.

ASU Biodesign Institute researcher Nick Stephanopoulos is one of several rising stars in regenerative medicine. In 2015, Stephanopoulos, along with Alex Green and Jeremy Mills, were recruited to the Biodesign Institutes Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics (CMDB), directed by Hao Yan, a world-recognized leader in nanotechnology.

One of the things that that attracted me most to the ASU and the Biodesign CMDB was Haos vision to build a group of researchers that use biological molecules and design principles to make new materials that can mimic, and one day surpass, the most complex functions of biology, Stephanopoulos said.

I have always been fascinated by using biological building blocks like proteins, peptides and DNA to construct self-assembled structures, devices and materials, and the interdisciplinary and highly collaborative team in the CMDB is the ideal place to put this vision into practice.

Yans research center uses DNA and other basic building blocks to build their nanotechnology structures only at a scale 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Theyve already used nanotechnology to build containers to specially deliver drugs to tissues, build robots to navigate a maze or nanowires for electronics.

To build a manufacturing industry at that tiny scale, their bricks and mortar use a colorful assortment of molecular Legos. Just combine the ingredients, and these building blocks can self-assemble in a seemingly infinite number of ways only limited by the laws of chemistry and physics and the creative imaginations of these budding nano-architects.

Learning from nature

The goal of the Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics is to usenatures design rulesas an inspiration in advancing biomedical, energy and electronics innovation throughself-assembling moleculesto create intelligent materials for better component control and for synthesis intohigher-order systems, said Yan, who also holds the Milton Glick Chair in Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Prior to joining ASU, Stephanopoulos trained with experts in biological nanomaterials, obtaining his doctorate with the University of California Berkeleys Matthew Francis, and completed postdoctoral studies with Samuel Stupp at Northwestern University. At Northwestern, he was part of a team that developed a new category of quilt-like, self-assembling peptide and peptide-DNA biomaterials for regenerative medicine, with an emphasis in neural tissue engineering.

Weve learned from nature many of the rules behind materials that can self-assemble. Some of the most elegant complex and adaptable examples of self-assembly are found in biological systems, Stephanopoulos said.

Because they are built from the ground-up using molecules found in nature, these materials are also biocompatible and biodegradable, opening up brand-new vistas for regenerative medicine.

Stephanopoulos tool kit includes using proteins, peptides, lipids and nucleic acids like DNA that have a rich biological lexicon of self-assembly.

DNA possesses great potential for the construction of self-assembled biomaterials due to its highly programmable nature; any two strands of DNA can be coaxed to assemble to make nanoscale constructs and devices with exquisite precision and complexity, Stephanopoulos said.

Proof all in the design

During his time at Northwestern, Stephanopoulos worked on a number of projects and developed proof-of-concept technologies for spinal cord injury, bone regeneration and nanomaterials to guide stem cell differentiation.

Now, more recently, in a new studyin Nature Communications, Stephanopoulos and his colleague Ronit Freeman in the Stupp laboratory successfully demonstrated the ability to dynamically control the environment around stem cells, to guide their behavior in new and powerful ways.

In the new technology, materials are first chemically decorated with different strands of DNA, each with a unique code for a different signal to cells.

To activate signals within the cells, soluble molecules containing complementary DNA strands are coupled to short protein fragments, called peptides, and added to the material to create DNA double helices displaying the signal.

By adding a few drops of the DNA-peptide mixture, the material effectively gives a green light to stem cells to reproduce and generate more cells. In order to dynamically tune the signal presentation, the surface is exposed to a soluble single-stranded DNA molecule designed to grab the signal-containing strand of the duplex and form a new DNA double helix, displacing the old signal from the surface.

This new duplex can then be washed away, turning the signal off. To turn the signal back on, all that is needed is to now introduce a new copy of single-stranded DNA bearing a signal that will reattach to the materials surface.

One of the findings of this work is the possibility of using the synthetic material to signal neural stem cells to proliferate, then at a specific time selected by the scientist, trigger their differentiation into neurons for a while, before returning the stem cells to a proliferative state on demand.

One potential use of the new technology to manipulate cells could help cure a patient with neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinsons disease.

The patients own skin cells could be converted to stem cells using existing techniques. The new technology could help expand the newly converted stem cells back in the lab and then direct their growth into specific dopamine-producing neurons before transplantation back to the patient.

People would love to have cell therapies that utilize stem cells derived from their own bodies to regenerate tissue, Stupp said. In principle, this will eventually be possible, but one needs procedures that are effective at expanding and differentiating cells in order to do so. Our technology does that.

In the future, it might be possible to perform this process entirely within the body. The stem cells would be implanted in the clinic, encapsulated in the type of material described in the new work, and injected into a particular spot. Then the soluble peptide-DNA molecules would be given to the patient to bind to the material and manipulate the proliferation and differentiation of transplanted cells.

Scaling the barriers

One of the future challenges in this area will be to develop materials that can respond better to external stimuli and reconfigure their physical or chemical properties accordingly.

Biological systems are complex, and treating injury or disease will in many cases necessitate a material that can mimic the complex spatiotemporal dynamics of the tissues they are used to treat, Stephanopoulos said.

It is likely that hybrid systems that combine multiple chemical elements will be necessary; some components may provide structure, others biological signaling and yet others a switchable element to imbue dynamic ability to the material.

A second challenge, and opportunity, for regenerative medicine lies in creating nanostructures that can organize material across multiple length scales. Biological systems themselves are hierarchically organized: from molecules to cells to tissues, and up to entire organisms.

Consider that for all of us, life starts simple, with just a single cell. By the time we reach adulthood, every adult human body is its own universe of cells, with recent estimates of 37 trillion or so. The human brain alone has 100 billion cells or about the same number of cells as stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

But over the course of a life, or by disease, whole constellations of cells are lost due to the ravages of time or the genetic blueprints going awry.

Collaborative DNA

To overcome these obstacles, much more research funding and recruitment of additional talent to ASU will be needed to build the necessary regenerative medicine workforce.

Last year, Stephanopoulos research received a boost with funding from the U.S. Air Forces Young Investigator Research Program (YIP).

The Air Force Office of Scientific ResearchYIP award will facilitate Nicks research agenda in this direction, and is a significant recognition of his creativity and track record at the early stage of his careers, Yan said.

Theyll need this and more to meet the ultimate challenge in the development of self-assembled biomaterials and translation to clinical applications.

Buoyed by the funding, during the next research steps, Stephanopoulos wants to further expand horizons with collaborations from other ASU colleagues to take his research teams efforts one step closer to the clinic.

ASU and the Biodesign Institute also offer world-class researchers in engineering, physics and biology for collaborations, not to mention close ties with the Mayo Clinic or a number of Phoenix-area institutes so we can translate our materials to medically relevant applications, Stephanopoulos said.

There is growing recognition that regenerative medicine in the Valley could be a win-win for the area, in delivering new cures to patients and building, person by person, a brand-new medicinal manufacturing industry.

Stephanopoulos recent research was carried out at Stupps Northwesterns Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology. The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research of the National Institutes of Health (grant 5R01DE015920) provided funding for biological experiments, and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences provided funding for the development of the new materials (grants DE-FG01-00ER45810 and DE-SC0000989 supporting an Energy Frontiers Research Center on Bio-Inspired Energy Science (CBES)).

The paper is titled Instructing cells with programmable peptide DNA hybrids. Samuel I. Stupp is the senior author of the paper, and post-doctoral fellows Ronit Freeman and Nicholas Stephanopoulos are primary authors.

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New method for the 3D printing of living tissues – Scientist Live

Posted: August 22, 2017 at 5:43 am

Scientists at the University of Oxford have developed a new method to 3D-print laboratory- grown cells to form living structures.

The approach could revolutionise regenerative medicine, enabling the production of complex tissues and cartilage that would potentially support, repair or augment diseased and damaged areas of the body.

In research published in the journal Scientific Reports, an interdisciplinary team from the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at Oxford and the Centre for Molecular Medicine at Bristol, demonstrated how a range of human and animal cells can be printed into high-resolution tissue constructs.

Interest in 3D printing living tissues has grown in recent years, but, developing an effective way to use the technology has been difficult, particularly since accurately controlling the position of cells in 3D is hard to do.

They often move within printed structures and the soft scaffolding printed to support the cells can collapse on itself.

As a result, it remains a challenge to print high-resolution living tissues. But, led by Professor Hagan Bayley, Professor of Chemical Biology in Oxfords Department of Chemistry, the team devised a way to produce tissues in self-contained cells that support the structures to keep their shape.

The cells were contained within protective nanolitre droplets wrapped in a lipid coating that could be assembled, layer-by-layer, into living structures.

Producing printed tissues in this way improves the survival rate of the individual cells, and allowed the team to improve on current techniques by building each tissue one drop at a time to a more favourable resolution.

To be useful, artificial tissues need to be able to mimic the behaviours and functions of the human body. The method enables the fabrication of patterned cellular constructs, which, once fully grown, mimic or potentially enhance natural tissues.

Dr Alexander Graham, lead author and 3D Bioprinting Scientist at OxSyBio (Oxford Synthetic Biology), said: We were aiming to fabricate three-dimensional living tissues that could display the basic behaviours and physiology found in natural organisms. To date, there are limited examples of printed tissues, which have the complex cellular architecture of native tissues. Hence, we focused on designing a high-resolution cell printing platform, from relatively inexpensive components, that could be used to reproducibly produce artificial tissues with appropriate complexity from a range of cells including stem cells.

The researchers hope that, with further development, the materials could have a wide impact on healthcare worldwide. Potential applications include shaping reproducible human tissue models that could take away the need for clinical animal testing.

The team completed their research last year, and have since taken steps towards commercialising the technique and making it more widely available. In January 2016, OxSyBio officially spun-out from the Bayley Lab. The company aims to commercialise the technique for industrial and biomedical purposes.

Over the coming months they will work to develop new complementary printing techniques, that allow the use of a wider range of living and hybrid materials, to produce tissues at industrial scale. Dr Sam Olof, Chief Technology Officer at OxSyBio, said: There are many potential applications for bioprinting and we believe it will be possible to create personalised treatments by using cells sourced from patients to mimic or enhance natural tissue function. In the future, 3D bio-printed tissues maybe also be used for diagnostic applications for example, for drug or toxin screening.

Dr Adam Perriman from the University of Bristols School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, added: The bioprinting approach developed with Oxford University is very exciting, as the cellular constructs can be printed efficiently at extremely high resolution with very little waste. The ability to 3D print with adult stem cells and still have them differentiate was remarkable, and really shows the potential of this new methodology to impact regenerative medicine globally

The full citation for the paper is High-resolution patterned cellular constructs by droplet-based 3D printingA.D. Graham et. al. Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 7004 (2017).

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Spanish town struggles to reconcile locals as extremist cell – Medicine Hat News

Posted: August 21, 2017 at 4:44 am

By Lori Hinnant, Alex Oller And Joseph Wilson, The Associated Press on August 20, 2017.

RIPOLL, Spain They were brothers and boyhood friends from a town with no unfamiliar faces. They were linked by Moroccan roots and equally tied by their upbringings in Ripoll, an ancient hub in the Catalan foothills known for its monastery and passageways dotted with cafes and kebab shops.

But most recently, police believe, the young men were drawn together by an imam and an alleged plot to murder on a massive scale an extraordinary secret for 12 people to keep for months on end.

In the suspected extremist cells final days, the group accumulated more than 100 gas canisters, blew up a house in a botched effort to make bombs, drove a van through Barcelonas storied Las Ramblas promenade, and attacked beachside tourists, Spanish authorities said.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks that killed at least 14 people and left scores wounded. Five of the dozen were shot dead by police.

Now, Ripoll is cut off by police roadblocks as the search for an alleged cell member thought to still be on the run continues. Families and friends in the town are torn between horror at the bloodshed and grief for the children they thought they knew.

We dont know whether to cry and mourn them or what to do, said Wafa Marsi, who knew the attackers and stood with their weeping mothers on Saturday as they clustered in small groups in the town square. They have killed 13 or 14 people and wounded a hundred, and we dont know what to do.

What the families finally did, after fiercely debating the issue, was denounce the attack, some holding up homemade signs reading Not in our name.

Police have identified 12 members of the cell, but three remained unaccounted for Sunday. Two are believed to have been killed when the house where the plot was hatched exploded Wednesday, Catalan police official Josep Lluis Trapero told reporters Sunday.

Complicating the manhunt for the suspected fugitive and any other possible accomplices, though, was the fact that police so far have been unable to pinpoint who remained at large. The explosion in Alcanar, 300 kilometres (186 miles) south of Ripoll, nearly obliterated the bomb makers along with the house. A police official has said the imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, is thought to be one of them.

Trapero declined to confirm that Younes Abouyaaquoub, a 22-year-old Moroccan, was the one at large and the suspected driver of the van that plowed down the Las Ramblas promenade Thursday, killing 13 people and injuring 120. Another attack hours later killed one person and injured others in Cambrils, a seaside town south of the city.

We are working in that line, Trapero said. But he added: We dont know where he is.

Another police official did confirm that three vans tied to the investigation were rented with Abouyaaquoubs credit card: The one used in the Las Ramblas carnage, another found in Ripoll, where all the main attack suspects lived, and a third found in Vic, on the road between the two.

Police are investigating whether a man found stabbed to death inside a car in Barcelona may have been killed by an attacker as well.

Police believe the cell members had planned to fill the vans with explosives and create a massive attack in the Catalan capital. Trapero confirmed that more than 100 tanks of butane gas were found at the Alcanar house that exploded, as well as ingredients of the explosive TATP, which was used by the Islamic State group in attacks in Paris and Brussels.

Our thesis is that the group had planned one or more attacks with explosives in the city of Barcelona, he said. The plot was foiled when the house in Alcanar blew up Wednesday night.

None of the 12 had any known history of violent extremism, Spanish police have said.

Trapero confirmed the imam was part of the investigation, but said police had no solid evidence that he was responsible for radicalizing the young men in the cell. Es Satty in June abruptly quit working at a mosque in Ripoll and has not been seen since.

Dont criminalize the mosques because the overwhelming majority of them are places of worship. They are places where people pray, Trapero said. In fact, even though there is an imam implicated in the group, it doesnt mean that the mosque is where they were radicalized.

One woman who was close to multiple attackers and who heard Es Sattys sermons said the imam repeatedly preached about jihad and killing infidels. She spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing she would be attacked for speaking out.

I feel like I could have done something. I feel a little bit guilty now, she said. Everybody knew it. It was an open secret. But I cant say it because these people are dangerous and they could come after me. I dont trust anybody now.

Es Sattys former mosque denounced the deadly attacks, but denied Es Satty was anything other than a normal imam.

Hammou Minaj, secretary of the mosque who knew the attackers as well, described Es Satty as an easygoing preacher.

Its hard to get an imam. When you get one, youre always happy, Minaj said.

The mosque is on a main artery in Ripoll named Progress, occupying an unmarked corner storefront. The Muslim community took the space when it outgrew the towns other mosque, which held just 40 worshippers. Es Satty preached first at the smaller space and eventually lost his job in late 2015 for reasons that the president, Ali Yassine, did not specify.

Es Satty then left to look for work as an imam in Belgium from January to March 2016, according to Hans Bonte, mayor of the Belgian city of Vilvoorde.

Vilvoorde is known for Islamic State recruiting and jihadi activity. Police there contacted the Catalan department of justice and were told Es Satty had no links to extremist violence.

With what we know today, this is remarkable and an eye-opener for everybody, Bonte told De Morgen newspaper.

But Catalonia itself has become increasingly known as a centre of extremism and for tensions within the Muslim community on how to handle it. Nearly one-third of the arrests in Spain for alleged links to the Islamic State group were made in Catalonia, according to an analysis last year by Fernano Reinares of the Royal Institute Elcano, a Spanish think-tank founded by the king.

When Es Satty returned to Ripoll, he again landed a job as imam this time at the new mosque. But at the beginning of the summer, Es Satty announced he wanted a three-month vacation in Morocco and the mosque let him go. His apartment was empty on Saturday.

Ripoll resident Marsi, as well others who spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity, admitted tensions brewed at times between the two mosques, although Marsi pointed out that the differences were not over religious content.

I cant vouch for anybody else, but I can guarantee 100 per cent that there was zero radicalization in either mosque. If the imam had said something about jihad, the people of Ripoll would have ousted him. The women, in particular, are raging right now, Marsi emphasized.

The size of the cell and the close family connections among the attack suspects recalled the November 2015 attacks in Paris, where Islamic State adherents struck the national stadium, a concert hall and bars and restaurants nearly simultaneously, leaving 130 people dead.

Catalan authorities have not released the names of those killed, but Spanish media have reported widely that at least three sets of brothers were among the cells alleged members.

Brothers radicalizing together are a common theme among extremists. They share unbreakable bonds, an ability to keep secrets, and an airtight communication channel. A pair of brothers carried out suicide bombings in March 2016 in Brussels. Two brothers gunned down the staff members of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013, were brothers originally from Chechnya.

On Sunday, many in Ripoll said they didnt see themselves in either the young men who had once seemed familiar or the imam now implicated in the investigation

Those people that heard him talk about jihad and didnt say anything, are they happy now? Why didnt they stop him? Hassan Azzidi, who was holding a sign that read Not in the name of Islam, said.

He added: We are taught not to kill animals for sport, let alone humans.

___

Wilson contributed from Barcelona. Angela Charlton in Paris; Nicole Winfield in Rome; Mystyslav Chernov in Ripoll, Spain; and Oleg Cetinic in Alcanar, Spain contributed.

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New Study Reveals Stem Cells from Young Hearts May Help Reverse the Aging Process – Futurism

Posted: August 21, 2017 at 4:44 am

In BriefA new study from the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute reveals that stem cells taken from younger rats provided older rats with youthful vigor when injected into their hearts. After a month, the rats ran longer, and regrew hair faster.

Old hearts may find new life, according to a new study, which shows that stem cells taken from younger hearts can be used to reverse the aging process. This could potentially cause older hearts to act and perform like younger ones.Click to View Full Infographic

The study, conducted by the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and published by the European Heart Journal, set out to observe the effects of cardiac stem cells on various aspects of the heart, including its function and structure. Prior applications of Cardiosphere-derived cells (CDC) resulted in positive effects, but this was the first time its effects in the aging process were tested. This is different from the tests performed last month at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where the hypothalamus region of the brain was discovered to be a key part of aging in mice.

Cedars-Sinai researchers instead took CDC cells from newborn mice and injected it into the hearts of older mice, while another group of older mice were injected with saline. Blood, echocardiographic, haemodynamic and treadmill stress tests were performed on all mice after injections, with the older groups tested 1 month later.

The mice given the Cardiosphere-derived cells saw a number of benefits compared to their saline counterparts. They had improved heart functionality, were able to exercise 20 percent longer, regrew hair at a faster rate, and had longer heart cell telomeres. This is important because telomeres are compounds found at the ends of chromosomes whose shortening is directly correlated to the aging process.

The way the cells work to reverse aging is fascinating, said Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute Director and Lead Researcher Eduardo Marbn, MD, PhD. They secrete tiny vesicles that are chock-full of signaling molecules such as RNA and proteins. The vesicles from young cells appear to contain all the needed instructions to turn back the clock.

Tests on ratshave shown that CDCs have shown cardiac and systemic rejuvenation on the aging process, but there is much work to do before the anti-aging treatment is tested on people, let alone over the table. Lilian Griorian-Shamagian, MD, PhD, who was co-primary researcher on the study, notes that its still unclear if the cells actually extend the lifespan of the rats, rather than simply providing a new heart in an old body. Its also unknown if CDCs need to be taken from younger hearts in order to be effective. If any CDCs, regardless of their origin, can be used, it could lead to a new round of tests comparing the effects of CDCs from the young to the CDCs from the old or middle-aged.

If stem cells were used for medical purposes, they couldhelp those suffering from heart failure, or the Duchenne muscular dystrophy Marbn and his team are hoping to treat. Beyond that, it could lessen the number of deaths caused by heart disease, which is currently responsible for over 610,000 deaths a year.

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Let’s Use Pigs as Organ Donors – First Things

Posted: August 21, 2017 at 4:43 am

There are approximately 120,000 Americans on the organ transplant waiting list, about as many people as live in Charleston, South Carolina and Hartford, Connecticut. Many of these peoples lives will ultimately be saved, after long and harrowing waitsas former Vice President Dick Cheneys was. But others on the list will die before their turn comes up and a suitable donor is found.

These tragic deaths are putting increasing pressure on organ transplant ethics. Some jump the queue and travel to China to buy organsmany of which come from executed political prisoners. Others pay destitute people in developing countries for a kidney; this exploitation of the desperate poor became so rampant that Pakistan outlawed live organ donations to non-relatives and the Philippines banned organ transplant surgeries for non-citizens. Here in the U.S., public intellectuals such as Sally Satel of the American Enterprise Institutewho received a kidney from a live donorargue for changing the law to permit organ sales. Of course, people in Satels socioeconomic class would never be the sellers.

Meanwhile, many bioethicists argue that we should eliminate the dead donor rule that requires donors of vital organs to be deceased before procurement. If these advocates get their way, doctors will be allowed to euthanize seriously incapacitated patients by means of organ harvesting.

Fortunately, organ transplant medicine remains a highly ethical enterprise (although some believe that using brain death to determine readiness for organ procurement is highly questionable). But the waiting lists continue to grow, a fact measured in sleepless nights of desperation and the tragedy of avoidable deaths. This is why the news that scientists have made progress in genetically altering pigs to use in human organ transplantation is so exciting.

Specifically, scientists are learning to alter pig organs to avoid tissue rejection when the organs are transplanted and, more recently, have used a gene-editing technique to help prevent interspecies infections. From the New York Times story:

Some might feel squeamish at having an animal organ implanted into their bodies. But if the choice is between death and receiving a pig kidney, most would take the kidney. And why not? Animal body parts are already transplanted into humansfor example, pig heart valves. If it is acceptable to receive part of an animal organ to save human life, why not the entire thing?

Still, some would certainly object. Utilitarian bioethicists such as Peter Singer might claim that killing pigs for their organswhile sparing cognitively disabled humanswould amount to unethical speciesism, because it would treat humans as having greater value than pigs, based solely on their humanity. Singer rejects human exceptionalism, arguing that an individualwhether animal or humanearns the moral status of person based on the individuals mental capacities. Non-personsagain, whether human or animalhave lesser value and may be used for the benefit of persons. In this view, since pigs have greater mental capacities than people with, say, the capacities of a Terri Schiavo, cognitively disabled humans should be used as organ sources before pigs. (Singer has specifically argued that people in a persistent vegetative state should have been used in creating the hepatitis vaccine instead of chimpanzees.) If we ever accept such a philosophy, it will mark the end of universal human rights, since human non-persons could be exploited and killed for the benefit of persons.

The loudest wailing over pig-organ donation will undoubtedly come from animal rights activists. Animal rights ideology (which must be distinguished from animal welfare) holds that the capacity to suffersometimes called painienceis the proper measure of moral value. Since both animals and humans experience pain, they are morally equal. Hence, raising and killing pigs for their organs would be equivalent to killing racial minorities for the same purpose.

That is nonsense. Racism is an invidious evil because it treats intrinsic equalse.g., human beingsas if they were unequal. But there is a hierarchy of moral worth, with humans at the apex. Not only are pigs not our moral equals, but they cannot possess rights, since they are inherently incapable of assuming duties. It would not be wrong to raise these animals to save human lives. Assuming the safety issue is solved, it would be immoral not to.

This does not mean that the grim good of using pig organs would have to be a permanent policy. We must hope that an even more ethical means of supplying organs will be developed, one that would obviate the need to use sentient animals. Scientists have already learned how to change our skin cells into stem cells, and from there into particular organ tissue. Research is advancing on using these induced pluripotent stem cells to repair damaged hearts and lungs, with hope that some day this technology might even be harnessed to grow new organs from a patients own flesh.

Should that hoped-for day arrive, there will be no further moral justification for using pigs for organsany more than it is currently justifiable to hunt whales for their oil. Then we could stop the pig organ harvest and resume arguing about the ethics of eating bacon.

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institutes Center on Human Exceptionalism. He is the author of A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement.

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Let's Use Pigs as Organ Donors - First Things

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