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Sunday: September 28, 2008
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Contact Us
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P. O. Box 100223
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Shalom in Christ Jesus,
Below are some of the most
recent articles on the topic of human and animal genetic engineering. Although
there is no debate that the apostasy in the church and Jews turning to their
Messiah in large numbers are the top two signs of the soon return of Christ,
this sign is of always grave concern to me because it brought God's direct
involvement during the days of Noah to prevent man from being completely wiped
out. We do not know the full implications once man begins to flirt with the
altering of his own makeup but there can be nothing good to come from it.
BE/\LERT!
Scott Brisk
Recent Alerts on this topic:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days
Cloning & DNA: Sowing with two kinds of seed
Reminder:
Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets) is on Tuesday
(Monday night), 1 Tishrei 5769 (September 30, 2008).
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Genesis 6:12
God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.
Genesis 6:4
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown
Leviticus 19:19
`You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.
Matthew 13:24-30
Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. "But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. "But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. "The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, `Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' "And he said to them, `An enemy has done this!' The slaves *said to him, `Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?' "But he *said, `No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. `Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.""'
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Are Bibles 'giants' set for return?
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Author warns genetic engineering could bring back 'Nephilim'
WORLDNETDAILY - September 19, 2008
"The benei Elohim saw the daughters of Adam, that they were fit extensions."
- Genesis 6:2 (Interlinear Hebrew Bible)
New experiments in genetic engineering could open the doors for the return of fearsome "giants" described in the Bible - the offspring of human women and fallen angels - warns author Thomas Horn in his best-selling book, "Nephilim Stargates: The Year 2012 and the Return of the Watchers."
In the Book of Genesis, beings of great stature called "giants" appear, which some biblical scholars believe came into existence after powerful angels known as 'Watchers' descended to earth and used women (or their biological matter) to construct bodies of flesh, which they used to "extend" themselves into the material world.
The Apocryphal books of Enoch, 2 Esdras, Genesis Aprocryphon and Jasher support the Genesis story, adding that the sin of the angels grew to include genetic modification of animals as well as humans. The Book of Jasher, mentioned in the Bible in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18, says, "After the fallen angels went into the daughters of men, the sons of men taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order to provoke the Lord" (4:18).
"This clear reference to the Genesis 6 record illustrates that animals were included in whatever cross-species experiments were being conducted, and that this activity resulted in judgment from God," explains Horn. "The Book of Enoch also supports this species-crossing report, saying that the fallen angels who merged with women also sinned 'against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish' (7:5,6). The Old Testament contains associated reference to genetic mutations, which developed among humans following this activity, including unusual size, physical strength, six fingers, six toes, animal appetite for blood and even lion-like features among men (2 Sam 21:20; 23:20)."
Now, in "Nephilim Stargates: The Year 2012 and the Return of the Watchers," he asks, "What if, by corrupting the species barrier in which each creature was to recreate after its 'own kind,' Watchers (or demons) had successfully mingled human-animal DNA, creating something new, a construct that God had not made, manipulating genetic material and crossing the species barrier, which God had forbade, resulting in a body they could incarnate within?"
Horn believes the fact that these powerful angels blended species in this way is vital to understanding how they were able to leave their plane of existence, and to enter ours, activity that the New Testament writers Peter and Jude say led to the judgment of God (see 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6).
"The reason these beings had to blend species in order to create a suitable body into which they could extend themselves," he says, "is because every creature as it existed at that time had its beginning in God. All life extended back to the Creator's divine order. God spoke living organisms into existence, something the angels could not do, setting the various species in motion and then commanding that 'each kind' would reproduce after its 'own kind.'"
Horn continues: "This would have been problematic for the Watchers who wanted to leave their 'estate' and to enter our three dimensional reality in bodily form. But they could no more displace the innate spirit of any of the creatures God had made than can an exorcist cast a person's innate spirit out of them. These rebel angels wanted to do more than 'possess' humans, they wanted incarnation, and the divine order was keeping them from becoming embodied."
Horn hypothesizes that, through genetic engineering, they created blended beings, not entirely human or animal - creatures that neither humans nor animal spirits would indwell, for they were neither man nor beast. This provided bodies into which they could extend themselves, just as is described in numerous ancient texts.
"The results of this genetic modification were the giants known as Nephilim," he says.
Given what is happening in science today, Horn wonders if modern biotechnology may be about to repeat the science of Watchers, and, worse, provide a pathway for the return of the Nephilim.
Today, molecular biologists classify the functions of genes within native species but are unsure in many cases how a gene's coding might react from one species to another. In recombinant DNA technology, a "transgenic" organism is created when the genetic structure of one specie is altered by the transfer of a gene or genes from another. This could change not only the genetic structure of the modified animal and its offspring, but its adaptive development, sensory modalities, disease propensity, personality and behavior traits among other things.
Such transgenic tinkering already exists in many parts of the world including the United States, Britain and Australia, where animal eggs are being used to create hybrid human embryos from which stem cell lines can be produced for medical research. A team at Newcastle and Durham universities in the UK recently announced plans to "create hybrid rabbit and human embryos, as well as other 'chimera' embryos mixing human and cow genes." The same researchers have already managed to reanimate tissue "from dead human cells in another breakthrough which was heralded as a way of overcoming ethical dilemmas over using living embryos for medical research." In the United States, similar studies led Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California to create mice with partly human brains, causing some ethicists to raise the issue of "humanized animals" in the future that could become "self aware" as a result of genetic modification. President Bush in his Jan. 31, 2006, State of the Union Address, called for legislation to "prohibit ... creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos."
Not everybody shares these concerns. A radical, international, intellectual, and cultural movement known as "Transhumanism" supports the use of new sciences including genetic modification to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes so that "human beings will eventually be transformed into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label 'posthuman.'"
Dr. James Hughes, executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, is a transhumanist who teaches at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.. He is also the author of "Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future," a sort of bible for transhumanist values.
Over the last two years numerous law schools including Stanford and Oxford have hosted "Human Enhancement and Technology" conferences where transhumanists, futurists, bioethicists and legal scholars merged to discuss the ethical and legal ramifications of posthumans.
In his book "Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenges of Bioethics," the former chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, Leon Kass, provided a status report on transhumanism. He warned in the introduction that "Human nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for eugenic and psychic 'enhancement,' for wholesale redesign. In leading laboratories, academic and industrial, new creators are confidently amassing their powers and quietly honing their skills, while on the street their evangelists are zealously prophesying a posthuman future. For anyone who cares about preserving our humanity, the time has come for paying attention."
"But imagine the staggering implications of such science if dead Nephilim tissue was discovered with intact DNA and a government or rogue agency somewhere was willing to clone or mingle the extracted organisms to make Homo-nephilim," says Horn. "If one accepts the biblical story of giants as real, such discovery could actually be made someday, or perhaps already has been and was covered up. The technology to resurrect the extinct species may already exist, and cloning methods are being studied now for use with bringing back Tasmanian Tigers, Wooly Mammoths and other extinct creatures."
Is the world on the verge of bringing back demonic giants?
Horn believes so.
Original Report
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Changing the nature of human beings
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This outspoken professor advocates cloning, genetic screening and drugs in sport
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD [Fairfax-Syme Group] - By Jacqueline Maley - August 10, 2008
Professor Julian Savulescu, scientist and ethicist, used to be a believer. Then when he was working as a young doctor in the emergency department of Melbourne's Prince Alfred hospital, he had what you might call a non-religious experience, a reverse-epiphany. He had to certify the death of one of his first ever corpses and was surprised to find the deceased's mouth was open, the jaw slack.
"The guy from the mortuary came in and said: 'We always sew the mouth closed, for appearance'," Savulescu says. "That, for me, just made the meaninglessness of death extremely vivid. You think there's something beautiful and peaceful about death. There's not. People's mouths are sewn together."
It was partly his acquaintance with death that drove Savulescu to leave medicine and move into the complex field of bioethics. He realised life was short and random, and he didn't want to get stuck on the decade-long intern-registrar-specialist treadmill that is a doctor's lot.
So he hopped off it to complete a PhD on "good reasons to die".
Savulescu's decision has paid off - in 2002 he became the director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. He holds the Uehiro Chair of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. Since then he has made waves with his controversial views on cloning, genetic screening and performance enhancing drugs in sport: he is in favour of all three.
Savulescu also advocates a spot of social engineering and is open to the development of human-animal hybrids. "There's probably a more significant revolution going on around us now than the industrial revolution," he says, perched at his computer in his Oxford office, which is crammed with books, papers, discarded sports socks, a pair of well-worn sneakers and several cycling helmets.
"People have predicted there'll be a huge spike in computing power and artificial intelligence.
"At some point this century people could upload into machines."
Scientists have created an artificial bacterium from scratch, the world's first-ever synthetic life-form. They have also made a fluorescent embryo by transferring jellyfish genes to a human embryo.
"We could radically change the nature of human beings," Savulescu says excitedly.
"If novel viruses and microbiological insults emerge that threaten humanity, we may need to engineer human resistance by introducing either novel gene sequences or sequences from non-human animals."
So one day we could have people with sonar like bats, or people with the ability to create their own energy by photo-synthesising sunlight like plants.
But with the exciting possibilities come the terrifying ones.
Savulescu says recent anxiety over the use of embryos in stem cell research and therapeutic cloning is misplaced. The real danger we face from technological progress is the threat of destruction.
"Today it's not inconceivable that millions of people will be able to access technology such as bioweapons," he says. "Weapons that could, if not destroy humanity, put a serious dint in it." . . .
For this reason, Savulescu advocates genetic screening. He says that when we can pinpoint specific genes which cause disease, we have a positive responsibility to remove them. He extends this reasoning beyond weeding out genetic illness and thereby preventing suffering. He advocates using gene manipulation not to just correct imperfections like disease, but to enhance human intelligence and behaviour. For example, he says if we could screen out the genes and proteins responsible for poor impulse control, we would have fewer violent criminals.
Likewise, if we could find a way to raise the IQs of society's lowest percentile, we would have less welfare dependency and less crime.
"I don't think there's any moral difference between treatment of diseases and enhancement," he says. . . .
Some people, I venture, would have a serious problem with any state intervention of that nature and scale. "So you think the government should not put fluoride in the water?" Savulescu counters. "At the end of the day some countries will adopt this and gain an advantage."
Savulescu is difficult to argue with. He is so logical and intense that it is easy to miss the fact that he has just equated the prevention of teeth decay with mass, prenatal intervention into intelligence. - - - -
Source: The Sun-Herald [Fairfax-Syme Group]
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Animal Farm
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THE TIMES OF INDIA [Times Group-Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd./Sahu Jain] - Editorial - August 9, 2008
Scientists in South Korea have successfully cloned dogs, and a recent attempt has created five pit bulls from Booger, a pet dog's genetic material. The request was from an American woman who lost Booger to cancer and who sought to replicate him with his genetic material. Among animals that have been cloned successfully for commercial purposes are cows that produce higher yield and better quality milk, and racing horses known for their speed.
Scientists are also trying to clone genetically modified pigs that pose the least threat of rejection when their organs are used to replace human ones - in a procedure that is referred to as xeno-transplantation - to save patients' lives when viable human organs are not available. However, the most useful application of animal cloning technology could be in the recreation of service animals that are trained to acquire special skills, some of which might get imprinted in their genes. . . .
. . . .If these skills could be easily replicated in a cloned animal, the technique's commercial viability would increase manifold, helping to cut down costs that are high right now.
Could the technique of cloning to recreate a loved one move from pets to human beings? It needs to be said here that a clone is not a perfect photocopy of the original, as things like upbringing, environment and perhaps even volition conspire to produce the characteristics of an individual.
However, despite the current ban on efforts to clone human beings for reproductive purposes, the sheer desire to bring into being replicas of loved ones, coupled with advances in animal cloning, might one day make replication of the Booger experiment with human beings inevitable.
Original Report Here
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Human blood vessels grown in mice
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BBC NEWS [PSB operated by BBC Trust] - July 18, 2008
Scientists have used human cells to grow new blood vessels in a mouse for the first time, a US journal reports. . . .
A mixture of "progenitor" cells, taken from blood and bone marrow, made cells lining the vessels, and also those surrounding the lining.
A UK expert said that the Harvard research was "promising", and could eventually help lab-grown organs to be implanted successfully.
The ability to develop swiftly a new network of tiny blood vessels - known as capillaries - would be a prize for scientists.
There are dozens of potential applications in medicine, particularly in the treatment of conditions which involve damage to a tissue's blood supply, such as that to the heart muscle following a heart attack.
However, the complex structure of these vessels has slowed progress.
The latest study, published in the journal Circulation Research, uses two types of "progenitor" cells, which have the ability, like stem cells, to form different cell types.
In this case, "endothelial" progenitor cells have the ability to form the cells which line blood vessels, while "mesenchymal" progenitor cells can form the cells adjacent to this lining, which help to support it.
Unlike more controversial stem cell therapies, which might require cells taken from an embryo, these progenitor cells can be harvested from the blood or bone marrow of an adult, or from the umbilical cord.
They were mixed together in growth-promoting chemicals in the laboratory, then implanted into mice whose immune systems had been weakened to avoid rejection. . . .
"Although this approach is not yet suitable for clinical use, it is interesting that they have demonstrated you have all the elements you need to create a functional network of capillaries from a small amount of blood."
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MPs back creation of human-animal embryos
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THE TIMES of LONDON [News Corporation/Murdoch] - By Mark Henderson and Francis Elliott - May 19, 2008
British scientists will be allowed to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons tonight rejected a ban.
An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of "human admixed embryos" for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160, preserving what Gordon Brown regards as a central element of the legislation. . . .
A second amendment, that would have banned the creation only of "true hybrids" made by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm, or vice-versa, was also defeated by a majority of 63. Another free vote later tonight is expected to approve the use of embryo-screening to create "saviour siblings" suitable to donate umbilical cord blood to sick children.
Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough, moving the amendment to ban all admixed embryos, said mingling animal and human DNA crossed an "ultimate boundary". He said that exaggerated claims were giving patients false hope and that the dangers of the research were unknown. . . .
The amendment to ban all admixed embryos was defeated by 336 votes to 176. The prohibition on true hybrids was defeated by 286 votes to 223.
The main type of admixed embryo permitted by the Bill are "cytoplasmic hybrids" or "cybrids", made by moving a human nucleus into an empty animal egg. These are genetically 99.9 per cent human. As well as true hybrids, it also allows chimeras that combine human and animal cells and transgenic human embryos that include a little animal DNA.
The most immediate implication of the Commons vote will be to allow teams at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and King's College, London, who already hold licences to create a particular type of admixed embryo, to continue their research. . . .
Both teams are trying to create cybrids, which could carry the DNA of patients with genetic conditions to create stem-cell models.
The idea is to make stem cell models of diseases, to study their progress and to test new treatments. Human eggs could be used, but they are in short supply as they cannot be donated without risk to women.
It is legal to culture admixed embryos for a maximum of 14 days but it is illegal to transfer them to a human or animal womb. A Times/Populus poll found last month that 50 per cent of the public supports this work, with only 30 per cent opposed.
The decision will also encourage a third team, who plans to use admixed embryos to study motor neuron disease, to apply for a licence. The group, led by Professor Chris Shaw of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, had been waiting for the vote. - - - -
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Exclusive: Half man, half chimp - should we beware the apeman's coming?
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THE SCOTSMAN, Edinburgh, Scotland [Johnston Press] - By Jenny Haworth - April 29, 2008
A LEADING scientist has warned a new species of "humanzee," created from breeding apes with humans, could become a reality unless the government acts to stop scientists experimenting.
In an interview with The Scotsman, Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, warned the controversial draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill did not prevent human sperm being inseminated into animals.
He said if a female chimpanzee was inseminated with human sperm the two species would be closely enough related that a hybrid could be born.
He said scientists could possibly try to develop the new species to fill the demand for organ donors.
Leading scientists say there is no reason why the two species could not breed, although they question why anyone would want to try such a technique. . . .
Dr MacKellar said he feared the consequences if scientists made a concerted effort to cross humans with chimpanzees. He said: "Nobody knows what they would get if they tried hard enough. The insemination of animals with human sperm should be prohibited.
"The Human Fertilisation and Embryo Bill prohibits the placement of animal sperm into a woman The reverse is not prohibited. It's not even mentioned. This should not be the case."
He said if the process was not banned, scientists would be "very likely" to try it, and it would be likely humans and chimps could successfully reproduce. . . .
Dr MacKellar said the resulting creature could raise ethical dilemmas, such as whether it would be treated as human or animal, and what rights it would have.
"If it was never able to be self-aware or self-conscious it would probably be considered an animal," he said. "However, if there was a possibility of humanzees developing a conscience, you have a far more difficult dilemma on your hands."
He said fascination would be enough of a motive for scientists to try crossing the two species.
But he also said there was a small chance of scientists using the method to "humanise" organs for transplant into humans. "There's a desperate need for organs. One of the solutions that has been looked at is using animal organs, but because there's a very serious risk of rejection using animal organs in humans they are already trying to humanise these organs.
"If they could create these humanzees who are substantially human but are not considered as humans in law , we could have a large provision of organs." . . . .
HYBRIDS ARE AT CROSS PURPOSES
EVEN though hybrids of humans and animals have never been created, many other creatures have been crossed successfully.
Lions and tigers have been bred to create ligers, the world's largest cats.
And there are also zorses (zebra and horse), wholphins (whale and dolphin), tigons (tiger and lion), lepjags (leopard and jaguar) and zonkeys (zebra and donkey).
As well as these hybrid mammals, there are also hybrid birds, fish, insects and plants.
Many hybrids, such as mules, are sterile, which prevents the movement of genes from one species to another, keeping both species distinct. However, some can reproduce and there are scientists who believe that grey wolves and coyotes mated thousands of years ago to create a new species, the red wolf. - - - -
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Genetically modified human embryo stirs criticism
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ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Malcolm Ritter - May 12, 2008
NEW YORK - News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it's a step toward creating "designer babies."
But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway.
"None of us wants to make designer babies," said Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
The idea of designer babies is that someday, scientists may insert particular genes into embryos to produce babies with desired traits like intelligence or athletic ability. Some people find that notion repugnant, saying it turns children into designed objects, and would create an unequal society where some people are genetically enriched while others would be considered inferior.
The study appears to be the first report of genetically modifying a human embryo. It was presented last fall at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, but didn't draw widespread public attention then. The result was reported over the weekend by The Sunday Times of London, which said British authorities highlighted the work in a recent report.
Rosenwaks and colleagues did the work with an embryo that had extra chromosomes, making it nonviable. Following a standard procedure used in animals, they inserted a gene that acts as a marker that can be easily followed over time. The embryo cells took up the gene, he said.
The goal was to see if a gene introduced into an abnormal embryo could be traced in stem cells that are harvested from the embryo, he said. Such work could help shed light on why abnormal embryos fail to develop, he said.
No stem cells were recovered from the human embryo, said Rosenwaks, noting that abnormal embryos frequently don't develop well enough to produce them.
Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, said the Cornell scientists were developing techniques that others might use to make genetically modified people, "and they're doing it without any kind of public debate." - - - -
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Genetic modification could mean a scary future
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TALK RADIO NEWS SERVICE - By Staff - June 19, 2008
The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade met to discuss the regulation of "Genetics and other Human Modification Technologies." Chairman of the Subcommittee, Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), said that growth in genetic and human modifications means that the future will be like a "science fiction movie."
But, he said that international regulation is necessary to prevent new technologies from harmful, unethical use. He said that not all of the technology is in the hands of the moral, and could be used to achieve national security advantages. Also, he expressed concerns about states performing unethical research in mixing animal and human DNA, and implanting chips in humans. - - - -
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Pentagon Scientists Fear Brain-Modified Foes
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WIRED NEWS [Advance/Newhouse] >Danger Room Blog - By Noah Shachtman - June 9, 2008
There's concern in some corners of the U.S. military about "enemy activities in sleep research," neuro-pharmaceutical performance enhancement, and "brain-computer interfaces." And it's not coming from the Pentagon's scientific fringe, or from some tin-hat kook with a Defense Department badge. The celebrated scientists on the Pentagon's most prestigious scientific advisory panel, JASON, are the ones worried about adversaries' ability "to exploit advances in Human Performance Modification, and thus create a threat to national security."
In a recent report, unearthed by Secrecy News, the JASONs are recommending that the American military push ahead with its own performance-enhancement research -- and monitor foreign studies -- to make sure that the U.S.' enemies don't suddenly become smarter, faster, or better able to endure the harsh realities of war than American troops.
The JASONs are particularly concerned about (and excited by) new drugs that promote "brain plasticity" -- rewiring the mind, essentially, by helping to "permanently establishing new neural pathways, and thus new cognitive capabilities." The military has already tested these neuro-modulators as a way to keep troops alert after sleepless nights.
But these new drugs will certainly have extensive off-label use for improvement of memory and cognitive performance. [They] may have the additional effect of weakening or overwriting existing memories. Depending on the ultimate performance of these drugs, adversaries might use them in training programs or field operations... to increase troop effectiveness or modify troop behavior and/or emotional responses.
The scientific group also wants the military to keep close watch on the hardware and software which connects the human brain to machines. American researchers have used these brain-computer interfaces to develop new prosthetics -- and to train monkeys to control robotic limbs. Northrop Grumman just won a Pentagon contract to develop binoculars that will tap the subconscious mind. The JASONs believe "the primary threat potential for adversarial use of a Brain-Computer interface... - - - -
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FrankenFighters: Be More Than You Can Be
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WIRED NEWS [Advance/Newhouse] - By Noah Shachtman - March 2007
- - - - For nearly 50 years, Darpa has engineered technological breakthroughs from the Internet to stealth jets. But in the early 1990s, as military strategists started worrying about how to defend against germ weapons, the agency began to get interested in biology. "The future was a scary place, the more we looked at it," says Michael Goldblatt, former head of Darpa's Defense Sciences Office. "We wanted to learn the capabilities of nature before others taught them to us."
By 2001, military strategists had determined that the best way to deal with emerging transnational threats was with small groups of fast-moving soldiers, not hulking pieces of military hardware. But small groups rarely travel with medics - they have to be hardy enough to survive on their own. So what goes on in Grahn's dank little lab at Stanford is part of a much larger push to radically improve the performance, mental capacity, and resilience of American troops - to let them run harder and longer, operate without sleep, overcome deadly injury, and tap the potential of their unconscious minds. . . .
The agency had already enlisted an unusual team of bioscience experts. One program manager had been a chemist at the Naval Research Laboratory working on biomimetics; soon he was funding research on artificial limbs. Another early member of the team, Joe Bielitzki, studied the effects of space travel on animals while he was NASA's chief veterinary officer. To head the push, Darpa had turned to Michael Goldblatt, VP of science and technology at McDonald's. He'd helped develop a self-sterilizing package and pitched Darpa on the material's potential as a bandage, figuring that what was good for a Big Mac might be good for bullet wounds. The agency offered him a job... which he turned down. But two years later Darpa supersized the offer - Goldblatt was hired to head the Defense Sciences Office, a division with a major focus on human enhancement.
Grahn and his research partner, biologist Craig Heller, started working on the Glove at Stanford in the late 1990s as part of their research on improving physical performance. Even they were astounded at how well it seemed to work. Vinh Cao, their squat, barrel-chested lab technician, used to do almost 100 pull-ups every time he worked out. Then one day he cooled himself off between sets with an early prototype. The next round of pull-ups - his 11th - was as strong as his first. Within six weeks, Cao was doing 180 pull-ups a session. Six weeks after that, he went from 180 to more than 600. Soon, Stanford's football trainers asked to borrow a few Gloves to cool down players in the weight room and to fight muscle cramps.
In 2001, Heller went to Darpa. The agency saw the potential of the Glove for training recruits; the Stanford researchers received their first funding in 2003 and got $3 million.
In trying to figure out why the Glove worked so well, its inventors ended up challenging conventional scientific wisdom on fatigue. Muscles don't wear out because they use up stored sugars, the researchers said. Instead, muscles tire because they get too hot, and sweating is just a backup cooling system for the lattices of blood vessels in the hands and feet. The Glove, in other words, overclocks the heat exchange system. "It's like giving a Honda the radiator of a Mack truck," Heller says. After four months of using it himself, Heller did 1,000 push-ups on his 60th birthday in April 2003. Soon after, troops from Special Operations Command were trying out the Glove, too. - - - -
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Schoolchildren could be given 'smart drugs' in a bid to boost brainpower
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LONDON DAILY MAIL [Associated Newspapers/DMGT] - By Laura Clark - September 19, 2008
Schools will soon have to ensure all pupils have access to brain-enhancing 'smart drugs', according to officially funded experts.
They said teachers risk claims of bias against poorer children if they fail to give all pupils the same chance to take a new generation of pills which boost attention, concentration and memory.
Researchers predict that within a generation, cognition enhancing drugs - or 'cogs' - will be so advanced that parents and teachers will be able to 'manipulate biology' to enhance pupils' brainpower.
But schools will have to address 'ethical issues about haves and have-nots', said the scientists led by Bristol University.
'If "cogs" are only available to those who can afford them, what does this mean for equality?' their report asked.
'It may be unethical to deny the chance for pupils to take advantage of such enhancements.
'Educators will at least need to know about what smart drugs are being taken by their pupils.
'They may need to have a hand in deciding whether some pupils need to take such drugs.'
Schools may also need to hold drug tests to monitor and regulate the use of performance-enhancers, according to the researchers.
They were commissioned by Futurelab, a think-tank and charity funded by the Government to help shape the future of education.
The study depicts a brave new world, where pupils' DNA profiles would be stored on memory sticks.
Brain scanners would give staff real-time read-outs of pupils' thinking, allowing them to tailor lessons more effectively.
It also predicted that within 25 years, so-called 'smart drugs' will be specific enough for pupils to choose drugs for particular mental faculties.
These could include improving memory, attention, mood or motivation.
Doctors are already reporting that healthy students are taking Ritalin, the controversial hyperactivity medication, as it is thought to boost concentration. Modafinil, a stimulant known as the 'stay awake' pill, is also being taken to boost exam performance.
There is a booming Internet black market in the drugs, with reports of parents encouraging children taking exams to use them.
Some students at Oxford University are believed to be trading them in college libraries.
Meanwhile, procedures designed to treat degenerative diseases are also being developed to assist with learning and concentration.
Dubbed 'Botox for the brain', they involve magnetic pulses stimulating particular brain regions.
Yesterday's report, part of a £1.5million project on the future of schooling, warns that the sideeffects of long-term use of smart drugs are unknown.
The Academy of Medical Sciences has previously warned that smart drugs need to be regulated.
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Scientists take drugs to boost brain power: study
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AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - April 9, 2008
Twenty percent of scientists admit to using performance-enhancing prescription drugs for non-medical reasons, according to a survey released Wednesday by Nature, Britain's top science journal.
The overwhelming majority of these med-taking brainiacs said they indulged in order to "improve concentration," and 60 percent said they did so on a daily or weekly basis.
The 1,427 respondents -- most of them in the United States -- completed an informal, online survey posted on the "Nature Network" Web forum, a discussion site for scientists operated by the Nature Publishing Group.
More than a third said that they would feel pressure to give their children such drugs if they knew other kids at school were also taking them.
"These are academics working in scientific institutions," Ruth Francis, who handles press relations for the group, told AFP.
The survey focused on three drugs widely available by prescription or via the Internet.
Ritalin, a trade name for methylphenidate, is a stimulant normally used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, especially in children. Modafinil -- marketed at Provigil -- is prescribed to treat sleep disorders, but is also effective against general fatigue and jet lag.
Both medications are common currency on college campuses, used as "study aids" to sharpen performance and wakefulness. . . .
The third class of drugs included in the survey was beta blockers, prescribed for cardiac arrhythmia and popular among performers due to its anti-anxiety effect. - - - -
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Stem Cells: Rock stars of science still evoke hope and horror
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As the laws on stem-cell research are debated, Kate Wighton looks at the issues
THE TIMES of LONDON [News Corporation/Murdoch] - May 10, 2008
Controversial and powerful - stem cells, it seems, are the rock stars of science. They are rarely out of the headlines, but why are stem cells so contentious, and will they live up to their promise of providing cures for a vast range of diseases?
Embryonic stem cells are the master cells of the body, capable of forming any type of human cell. Scientists believe that this unique ability makes them ideal tools for studying disease, and developing new treatments. For instance, researchers are investigating whether they can turn stem cells into brain cells, to replace those lost in Parkinson's disease.
Further, by turning stem cells into, say, lung cells, scientists can use them to discover what goes wrong in the course of certain diseases, such as cystic fibrosis.
Adult stem cells also exist; we have clusters in various parts of our body, such as the brain, bone marrow and muscle. They repair wear and tear by forming new cells to replace those that are damaged or dying. Scientists hope to discover a way of beefing up our adult stem cells to enable them to repair more substantial damage, such as that sustained during a stroke.
However, the cells have their limitations. Unlike embryonic stem cells, they can form only the type of body part, or tissue, that they reside in. Brain stem cells can make only brain cells, and the stem cells found in the muscle can make only new muscle cells.
Embryonic stem cells are steeped in controversy. Researchers obtain them from very early embryos, when they are five to six days old and about the size of a full stop. The embryos are left over from IVF procedures, and would otherwise be destroyed. Instead, they are donated to research with the consent of the donors.
But the process of extracting the cells destroys the embryo, and some people believe that this constitutes the destruction of human life. Pro-life organisations and certain religious groups vocally object to the research.
There may, however, be a way of generating embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos. Researchers in Japan have announced that they have devised a method of turning back the biological clock of a fully formed adult cell, and reverting it to an embryonic stem cell. This could dispense with the need for embryos, although the work is still in the early stages.
Scientists believe that we should investigate both adult and embryonic stem cells, as both hold great therapeutic potential.
Research on human embryos is heavily regulated in the UK, but the laws are set for an overhaul. The current regulations are 18 years old: most scientists feel they are out of date and do not reflect current scientific capabilities. A new set of regulations are outlined in the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill, set to air in the House of Commons on Monday.
The Bill has provoked huge controversy, as it could give the green light to the creation of human-animal embryos, or human admixed embryos. These are made by replacing the DNA in an animal egg with human DNA. The resultant embryo would be 99.9 per cent genetically human. Why do this? Well, the human DNA could, for example, come from an Alzheimer's patient, and scientists could then use the extracted embryonic stem cells to find new treatments. Animal eggs are favoured over human eggs as the latter are hard to obtain.
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Discovery clears the way for stem cell alternative
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THE WASHINGTON POST [Wash Post Group/Graham] - By Rob Stein - September 26, 2008
Ed. Note: This may be the
only article in this entire issue that can be viewed as positive news in that
if this technology can be worked out the destruction of human embryos for
medical use can be stopped.
WASHINGTON -- Scientists are reporting they've overcome a major obstacle to using a promising alternative to embryonic stem cells, bolstering prospects for bypassing the political and ethical tempest that has embroiled hopes for a new generation of medical treatments.
The researchers said they found a safe way to coax adult cells to regress into an embryonic state, alleviating what had been the most worrisome uncertainty about developing the cells into potential cures.
"We have removed a major roadblock for translating this into a clinical setting," said Konrad Hochedlinger, a Harvard University stem cell researcher whose research was published online yesterday by the journal Science. "I think it's an important advance."
"This is a huge step forward -- it could be the breakthrough we've been looking for," said Dr. Robert Lanza, a stem cell researcher at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass.
Embryonic stem cells are believed to be capable of becoming any type of cell in the body. Researchers hope eventually to use them to create replacement tissue and body parts tailored to individual patients.
But the work has been mired in controversy because the cells were obtained by destroying very early embryos. As a result, President Bush has restricted federal funding for such work.
Scientists last year shook up the scientific and political landscape by discovering how to manipulate genes in adult cells to revert them into the equivalent of embryonic cells -- entities dubbed "induced pluripotent stem," or "iPS," cells -- which could then be transformed into any type of cell in the body. Work since has found that the cells can alleviate symptoms of Parkinson's disease and sickle-cell anemia in mice.
But the first iPS cells were created by ferrying four genes into the DNA of adult cells using retroviruses, which can cause cancer in animals. There was also concern because the viruses integrated their genes into the cells' DNA in the course of transforming them.
In the new work, Dr. Hochedlinger and his colleagues used a different type of virus, known as an adenovirus, which does not integrate its genes into a cell's DNA and thus is believed to be harmless, to ferry the same four transformative genes into the DNA of mouse skin and liver cells.
"The adenovirus will infect the cells, but then will clear themselves from the cells. After a few cell divisions, there are no traces of the virus in the cell," he said.
Tests showed that the cells were indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells and could be transformed into any type of tissue -- including lung, brain, heart and muscle.
Original Report
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Tissue of dead humans to be cloned
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THE SUNDAY TIMES of LONDON [News Corporation/Murdoch] - By Marie Woolf, Whitehall Editor - June 1, 2008
Scientists are to be permitted to use tissue from dead people to create cloned human stem cells for research, under a legal change put forward by the government.
Health ministers have proposed that laboratories should be allowed to use stored human tissue to create cloned embryonic stem cells without the explicit consent of the tissue donor. This would allow research to be done on tissue donated for medical research as long as 30 years ago. Scientists would also be able to use cells from people who have died since they donated their tissue or who cannot be contacted.
Many laboratories have banks of stored tissue which act as DNA libraries that can play a vital role in finding cures for serious disorders such as diabetes and motor neurone disease.
Ministers have until now insisted that scientists contact tissue donors to gain explicit consent before DNA can be used to create cloned embryonic stem cells.
Leading scientists, including three Nobel prize winners, say gaining such consent is sometimes impossible because the donors have died, donated anonymously or cannot be contacted. . . .
Ministers have tabled an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, now passing through parliament, which would allow stored tissue and cells to be used without the explicit consent of donors. - - - -
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Clones' offspring may be in food supply: FDA
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REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Christopher Doering - September 2, 2008
WASHINGTON - Food and milk from the offspring of cloned animals may have entered the U.S. food supply, the U.S. government said on Tuesday, but it would be impossible to know because there is no difference between cloned and conventional products.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in January meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their offspring were as safe as products from traditional animals. Before then, farmers and ranchers had followed a voluntary moratorium on the sale of clones and their offspring.
While the FDA evaluated the safety of food from clones and their offspring, the U.S. Agriculture Department was in charge of managing the transition of these animals into the food supply.
"It is theoretically possible" offspring from clones are in the food supply, said Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokeswoman.
Cloning animals involves taking the nuclei of cells from adults and fusing them into egg cells that are implanted into a surrogate mother. There are an estimated 600 cloned animals in the United States.
Proponents, including the Biotechnology Industry Organization, say cloning is a way to create more disease-resistant animals that produce more milk and better meat. The cloning industry and the FDA say cloned animals and their offspring are as safe as their traditional counterparts.
Critics contend not enough is known about the technology to ensure it is safe, and they also say the FDA needs to address concerns over animal cruelty and ethical issues. . . .
FDA and USDA have said it is impossible to differentiate between cloned animals, their offspring and conventionally bred animals, making it difficult to know if offspring are in the food supply. . . .
Major food companies including Tyson Foods Inc, the largest U.S. meat company, and Smithfield Foods Inc have said they would avoid using cloned animals because of safety concerns.
The list grew on Tuesday after the Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth said 20 food producers and retailers vowed not to use ingredients from cloned animals.
The list, provided by the two groups, included Kraft Foods Inc, General Mills Inc, Campbell Soup Co, Nestle SA, California Pizza Kitchen Inc and Supervalu Inc.
In a letter to the Center for Food Safety, Susan Davison, director of corporate affairs with Kraft, said product safety was "not the only factor" the company considers.
"We must also carefully consider additional factors such as consumer benefits and acceptance ... and research in the U.S. indicates that consumers are currently not receptive to ingredients from cloned animals," she said.
(Editing by Christian Wiessner and David Gregorio)
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Coming Soon to a Grocery Near You: Genetically Engineered Meat
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DISCOVERY NEWS - September 18, 2008
The Food and Drug Administration proposed rules today to regulate genetically engineered animals that are raised for food or to produce medications. The agency would use its existing authority over animal drugs to regulate genetic engineering, the addition of genes to animals to improve food quality, build disease resistance or produce medicines for humans, the FDA said in a statement. Producers would have to demonstrate that altered animals, if intended for use as food, are safe to eat [Bloomberg].
The step is being viewed as yet another official vote of confidence in the safety of genetically engineered food products. Genetic engineering is already widely used in plants in the United States, where several government agencies oversee its use in agriculture. Crops like corn, cotton, and soybeans have been altered to be more resistant to pests or to endure high doses of weed-killers (like Monsanto's blockbuster Roundup Ready crops). The FDA has previously said that cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat and don't require regulation, although squeamish consumers may put a damper on that market. It remains to be seen if consumers will accept genetically engineered steak and eggs.
The FDA's proposed approval process for genetically modified animals would be more stringent than the existing process for altered plants, but the rules are still receiving mixed reviews from consumer and environmental groups. "They are talking about pigs that are going to have mouse genes in them, and this is not going to be labeled?" said Jean Halloran, director of food policy for Consumers Union. "We are close to speechless on this." Nonetheless, Gregory Jaffe, who heads the biotechnology project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest called the FDA action a "good first step" [AP].
While the rules, which have been under consideration for about 15 years, are not likely to surprise the biotech industry, their formal appearance after years of discussion is expected to energize a field whose commercial potential is huge but so far unrealized [Washington Post]. Companies are reportedly already developing pigs, cows, and goats that either produce substances in their bodies that are useful for human medicine, or else improve the yield of meat and milk for farmers. The first animal to go through these regulatory steps would probably be an Atlantic salmon developed by Aqua Bounty Technologies of Waltham, Mass. It contains DNA from another type of salmon and from pout, another ocean fish, that allows the salmon to grow to market weight in 18 months instead of 30 [The New York Times].
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* Emphasis Added
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Booger the pit bull is back! All five of him...
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REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - August 5, 2008
SEOUL - The loss of Booger the pit bull terrier was almost more than Bernann McKinney could bear.
Now she is happy, minus $50,000 and her house, and owner of five cloned Booger puppies.
"It is a miracle for me because I was able to smile again, laugh again and just feel alive again," McKinney told a news conference in the South Korea capital to show off the week-old black puppies -- all of whose names include the word Booger.
They are the work of the biotech firm RNL Bio, affiliated with the South Korean lab which produced the world's first cloned dog and is staffed with former associates of disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk.
She sold her house in the United States to raise the $50,000 for RNL scientists to turn skin cells taken from Booger before he died two years ago into embryos carried by two surrogate dogs for two months until giving birth to the puppies last week. . . .
RNL has said it expected to clone about 100 dogs next year and for the price to drop as technology improves. - - - -
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Extinct 'tiger' DNA implanted in mouse cells
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Scientists have taken a gene from an extinct creature, the Tasmanian tiger, and made it work in a mouse embryo, writes Science Editor Roger Highfield.
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH [Barclay - PA: Conservative/centre-right] - By Roger Highfield - May 20, 2008
The pioneering work shows how researchers can investigate the biology of an extinct species by putting its genes in a living organism.
They say that the prospect of cloning the tiger, the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times, remains distant.
The last known Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in Hobart Zoo in 1936 after being hunted to extinction in the wild in the early 1900s.
Fortunately, young and adult tissues were preserved in alcohol in several museum collections.
Using century-old specimens from Museum Victoria in Melbourne, researchers from the University of Melbourne and the University of Texas extracted a gene from the creature, isolated DNA, and inserted it into mouse embryos.
The DNA showed a biological function in the developing mouse cartilage, which will later form the bone.
"This is the first time that DNA from an extinct species has been used to induce a functional response in another living organism," said Dr Andrew Pask at the University of Melbourne, who led the research.
"As more and more species of animals become extinct, we are continuing to lose critical knowledge.
"Up until now, we have only been able to examine gene sequences from extinct animals. This research was developed to go one step further to examine extinct gene function in a whole organism."
Prof Richard Behringer, of the University of Texas, added: "This research has enormous potential for many applications including gaining a better understanding of the biology of extinct animals."
"At a time when extinction rates are increasing at an alarming rate, especially of mammals, this research discovery is critical," says Professor Marilyn Renfree, the University of Melbourne's senior author on the paper.
"For those species that have already become extinct, our method shows that access to their genetic biodiversity may not be completely lost." - - - -
Click here to read the paper in full.
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Jurassic Park comes true
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How scientists are bringing dinosaurs back to life with the help of the humble chicken
LONDON MAIL ON SUNDAY [Associated Newspapers/DMGT- PA: Conservative/Right-Wing] - By Zoe Brennan - June 13, 2008
Deep inside the dusty university store room, three scientists struggle to lift a huge fossilised bone.
It is from the leg of a dinosaur. . . .
Now, with hammer and chisel poised, the academics from Montana State University in America gather round.
They are about to shatter this rare vestige of the past.
Why would they do such a thing?
The answer is that they believe that this single fragment of a beast which stalked the earth untold millions of years ago could hold the key which will unlock the secrets of the dinosaurs.
Extraordinarily, they contend that it could lead to a real life Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs are once again unleashed on the world by scientists.
For just like in the hit Steven Spielberg movie, these men and women are intent on cracking the genetic code of the dinosaurs and opening the possibility of bringing them back to life.
It poses the question: will scientists ever be able to resurrect the dinosaur?
According to Jack Horner, professor of palaeontology at Montana State University, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
He says: 'Of course we can bring them back to life. Their ancestral DNA is still present. . . .
[I]n 2003, ... Horner, who acted as an advisor on the Jurassic Park films, made a remarkable discovery while his team were excavating a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in Montana.
The site was so remote, the skeleton had to be removed by helicopter - the operation led to a huge thighbone splitting in two.
Horner gave a piece of the bone to one of his students, palaeontologist Mary Schweitzer.
Examining it, she noticed a strange structure inside the hard outer case. . . .
Six hours later, there was a knock on the door.
'Jennifer ran into the room saying, "You're not going to believe this,"' recalls Schweitzer.
'When she picked up a small piece, it stretched and moved all over the place. . . .
The magnitude of the discovery was immediately apparent to the Montana University team - the material appeared to be well preserved flesh from a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Horner says: 'It's unimaginable to find soft tissue. It was just assumed that everything had been fossilised.'
More extraordinary yet, was the next find in neighbouring parts of the dinosaur bone.
'Out popped the blood vessels,' says Schweitzer.
'I said, "I don't believe it, that's not possible". It was one of those goose bump moments.'
Horner and his team knew that blood vessels should not exist in fossilised bone.
Many scientists believed organic matter from a living thing could not survive more than 100,000 years - let alone 68 million years.
Ed. Note: If they believed
scripture, that the world is only around 6000 yrs. old appearing to be millions
and billions due to the degradation of the speed of light maybe they would
understand.
Next came the team's attempt to salvage DNA from other bones kept in the university storerooms. - - - -
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More Women Donating Eggs
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Some Women Say They Donate For Money
KVUU-TV FOX 5/9 LAS VEGAS, NEVADA [Meredith] - July 30, 2008
LAS VEGAS -- Now more than ever, women are donating their eggs to make ends meet.
So, who's doing it, and how easy is the process?
Melissa, who declined to give her last name, admitted the main reason she's donating eggs is because she's struggling financially.
"My husband has had me stay home for the last five years. I stayed home for my children, so the money definitely benefited my family," she said.
At the Center For Egg Options in Illinois, the number of women donating has increased significantly since April.
"There's no reason to think that suddenly there's 30 percent more people who have suddenly had this inner feeling to help out people and what's changed, it's the economy," said fertility specialist Ed Marut.
Across the country, fertility centers have also seen a surge in repeat donors and surrogates.
A woman who passes the health and psychological screenings can get thousands of dollars in return for her donation.
"The donors will make in the area of $7,000, and the surrogates will make anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 plus," said Nancy Block, founder of the Center For Egg Options.
In the Valley, Dr. Bruce Shapiro at the Fertility Center of Las Vegas said compensation is closer to $3,000 to $5,000. - - - -
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Congress Passes Bill to Bar Bias Based on Genes
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NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Amy Harmon - May 2, 2008
A bill that would prohibit discrimination by health insurers and employers based on the information that people carry in their genes won final approval in Congress on Thursday by an overwhelming vote.
The legislation, which President Bush has indicated he will sign, speaks both to the mounting hope that genetic research may greatly improve health care and the fear of a dystopia in which people's own DNA could be turned against them.
On the House floor on Thursday, Democrats and Republicans alike cited anecdotes and polls illustrating that people feel they should not be penalized because they happened to be born at higher risk for a given disease.
"People know we all have bad genes, and we are all potential victims of genetic discrimination," said Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York, who first proposed the legislation. The measure passed the House on Thursday by a 414-to-1 vote, and the Senate by 95-to-0 a week earlier.
If the bill is signed into law, more people are expected to take advantage of genetic testing and to participate in genetic research. Still, some experts said people should think twice before revealing their genetic information.
Doctors say a fear of discrimination on the part of patients has prevented thousands at risk of genetic disease from taking advantage of tests that might help them make better health care choices. Some patients worry that they may be denied jobs or face higher insurance premiums if a genetic red flag shows up in their medical records.
Many who do learn that they are at higher risk for a disease opt not to ask their insurance companies to cover the costs of the genetic test, to keep the information secret. Some try to persuade medical professionals not to enter the test results in their health records; others keep the information from even their own doctors. - - - -
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Bill to Ban Human-Animal Hybrid Creation Introduced in Congress
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LIFESITENEWS.com - By John-Henry Westen - April 25, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC - Yesterday, Rep. Chris Smith introduced the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act, H.R. 5910, to ban the creation of part-human, part-animal hybrid beings. The legislation is timely as researchers are already tinkering with human-animal hybrid technologies. British scientists are actively perfecting the hybrid technique. On April 1, 2008 the BBC reported that, "Scientists at Newcastle University have created part-human, part-animal hybrid embryos for the first time in the UK."
The Act places a ban on the creation, transfer, or transportation of a human-animal hybrid. Human-animal hybrids are defined as:
1) A human embryo into which animal cells are introduced, making its humanity uncertain.
2a) An embryo created by fertilizing a human egg with non-human sperm.
2b) An embryo created by fertilizing a non-human egg with human sperm.
3a) An embryo created by introducing a non-human nucleus into a human egg.
3b) An embryo created by introducing a human nucleus into a non-human egg.
4) An embryo containing mixed sets of chromosomes from both a human and animal.
5) An animal with human reproductive organs.
6) An animal with a whole or predominantly human brain.
The matter is not only of interest to pro-life advocates. Environmental activists and those concerned for public health also have reasons to seek a ban on such experimentation.
From a public health standpoint, a backgrounder on the legislation points out that "The world has recently experienced an increase in infections emerging from animal populations that threaten human health. Human-animal hybrids present an optimal opportunity for genetic transfer that could increase the risk for transmission of both human and animal diseases, such as Bird Flu and SARS."
Environmental advocates have also pointed out that genetically modified hybrids could have a devastating effect on the natural environments of native animal populations. The introduction of human genetics could lead to hybrids with superior abilities who could "out-compete" the native populations, causing unforeseen problems to the ecosystem.
Original Report Here
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Britons may be more vulnerable to Aids due to Roman invasion
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Britons may be more vulnerable to Aids due to the Roman invasion, new findings suggest
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH [Barclay - PA: Conservative/centre-right] - September 4, 2008
Researchers found that people who live in lands conquered by the Roman army have less protection against HIV than those in countries they never reached
They say a gene which helps make people less susceptible to HIV occurs in greater frequency in areas of Europe that the Roman Empire did not stretch to.
The gene lacks certain DNA elements, which means HIV cannot bind to it as easily and is less able to infect cells.
People with the mutation have some resistance to HIV infection and also take longer to develop AIDS, reports New Scientist.
A study of almost 19,000 DNA samples from across Europe showed the gene variant seemed to dwindle in regions conquered by the Romans.
Generally only people in Europe and western Asia carry the gene and it becomes much less frequent as you move south.
More than 15 per cent of people in some areas of northern Europe carry it compared with fewer than four per cent of Greeks.
It is not clear why this is so since the spread of HIV - which began in the early 1980s - is too recent to have influenced the distribution of the variant. - - - -
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Banana: R.I.P.
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There in trouble.Can biotechnology save the fruit?
THE SCIENTIST - By Dan Koeppel - May 30, 2008
The banana we eat today is not the one your grandparents ate. That one - known as the Gros Michel - was, by all accounts, bigger, tastier, and hardier than the variety we know and love, which is called the Cavendish. The unavailability of the Gros Michel is easily explained: it is virtually extinct.
Introduced to our hemisphere in the late 19th century, the Gros Michel was almost immediately hit by a blight that wiped it out by 1960. The Cavendish was adopted at the last minute by the big banana companies - Chiquita and Dole - because it was resistant to that blight, a fungus known as Panama disease. For the past fifty years, all has been quiet in the banana world. Until now.
Panama disease - or Fusarium wilt of banana - is back, and the Cavendish does not appear to be safe from this new strain, which appeared two decades ago in Malaysia, spread slowly at first, but is now moving at a geometrically quicker pace. There is no cure, and nearly every banana scientist says that though Panama disease has yet to hit the banana crops of Latin America, which feed our hemisphere, the question is not if this will happen, but when. Even worse, the malady has the potential to spread to dozens of other banana varieties, including African bananas, the primary source of nutrition for millions of people.
Crop disease is only half the problem. The other part is denial. One of the most recent places Panama disease struck was Australia. Three years ago, when I was researching my book on bananas, growers down under were bragging that they'd found a way to control the disease, which first appeared in 1997 near the Northern Territory town of Darwin. "We have developed a rapid and accurate DNA-based diagnostic test...used in the detection and management of outbreaks," asserted a brochure issued by the country's Cooperative Research Centre for Plant Protection.
The Australian management program consisted of quick quarantine of fields that were proven by the test to be infected. But early detection doesn't necessarily buy enough time. The plan came apart in March 2006, when Cyclone Larry ravaged Australia's banana growing regions. High winds destroyed more than 85% of the banana crop, and flooding spread infected water and dirt to the surviving banana trees. An October report from the Australia Broadcasting Company documented the rapid spread of the blight on previously-disease free plantations. Reporter Anne Barker wrote that the "industry, which once had such bright prospects, is now facing collapse."
Panama disease hasn't hit our hemisphere yet, and the big banana companies appear unalarmed. Chiquita's 2006 annual report doesn't mention banana disease at all. The company's 2007 end-of-year SEC filing names plant disease as a "risk factor," but only mentions black sigatoka, which can be controlled chemically.
Why should it be? After all, Latin America, where we grow all of our bananas, is a hemisphere away from the places where the disease is now spreading. With all that ocean, could the epidemic could actually reach our bananalands?
Not only is it possible, it might already be happening. In late December, 2007, Philippine agriculture secretary Arthur Yap announced that the U.S. had agreed to import a large shipment of Cavendish bananas from Philippine plantations (overall, we import about 8.5 billion pounds of bananas each year, all from Latin America).
Panama disease is so virulent that a single clump of dirt tracked in on a tire tread or a shoe can spark a country-wide outbreak. It isn't hard to imagine that a stray banana box from the Philippines, loaded into a Dole shipping container could be left unloaded at Long Beach, California, and continue on to Guatemala, where it could infect that nation's crop and tear through Latin America. In fact, the original Panama disease outbreak that decimated the Gros Michel almost certainly went from Asia, to the Caribbean, to Central and South America, though the exact path was never determined. The spread of Panama disease from Asia to the banana plantations of the Western Hemisphere is more than imaginable. With shipping containers traveling the world, and bananas crossing hemispheres, it's likely.
When the first outbreak of Panama disease hit the Gros Michels of South and Central America, it nearly put the entire industry out of business. Only at the last minute was a substitute banana - the Cavendish - found. The Cavendish was thought to be resistant, and for 50 years, that was true. No longer.
Now, the future of the Cavendish lies in genetic engineering. Scientists are on the way to creating bananas that resist Panama disease in the lab. The problem with these engineered bananas, aside from the fact that they have not yet definitively shown resistance to the disease, is that they lack the other characteristics - ideal ripening speed, a thick skin, and the right taste - that make a banana variety attractive for export. Making a single banana with all of those attributes may take years. Another issue is consumer acceptance: surveys have shown that most shoppers would reject modified bananas, even if they were proven to be safe.
Bananas are, however, excellent candidates for genetic modification. They are sterile - no seeds or pollen by which mutations might spread - and reproduce vegetatively. Right now, regulations have prevented even publicly funded research organizations from testing more than a handful of transformed bananas in the field. Most of this research has been conducted under the auspices of Bioversity International, an umbrella group that works mostly on food security issues. The bananas being field tested were developed though a collaborative effort between Ugandan and Belgian scientists in Leuven, Belgium, and are being grown at experimental plots in Uganda, a country where about 80 percent of some local diets is made up of the fruit, and where the consequences of a banana wipe-out would be disastrous. The millions of people like those in Uganda who depend on bananas to survive would be the real beneficiaries of a better banana.
There's little time left. If there is a "grail banana," it is likely to be found in the lab. The question is whether we'll let it split from there.
Original Report
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Video: Saving Seeds In Doomsday Vault
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Ed Note: This article first appeared in the April 20, 2008 Be Alert! Cloning & DNA: Sowing with two kinds of seed, the last alert to cover the topic concerning the evil of the days of Noah that is happening again. That alert came be view in it's entirety here
The article "Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic which appeared in that alert regarded this:
The seed bank is being built inside a mountain on Spitsbergen Island near the small village of Longyearbyen. It's almost ready for 'business' according to their releases. The bank will have dual blast-proof doors with motion sensors, two airlocks, and walls of steel-reinforced concrete one meter thick. It will contain up to three million different varieties of seeds from the entire world, 'so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future,' according to the Norwegian government. Seeds will be specially wrapped to exclude moisture. There will be no full-time staff, but the vault's relative inaccessibility will facilitate monitoring any possible human activity.
Below is a link to a video with more information on this seed vault.
See Video
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Children's Toy - Magog Action Figure: Magog 'Kingdom Come' Action Figure - DC Comics
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Sign of the Times -- Description: The brutal force of the metahuman Magog stands supreme among a new generation of so-called heroes, sworn to bring justice regardless of the cost. Considered by many to be the reason for Superman's reluctant retirement, Magog leads countless bands of renegades into battle, determined to show no mercy. The Magog Action Figure stands approximately 7" tall, has multiple points of articulation, includes a spear accessory, and comes packaged in a 4-color window box.
More Here
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