She did it for the kids. Taken in any other context, this might have been a good thing. But this was part of a conversation I overheard in a coffee shop in south city, and it was far from good. Two humans, both presenting as women, were discussing Jamie Reeds essay calling out the Washington University Transgender Center for bad practices and mal-efficiencies in patient care and operation procedures.

I knew the heart of their discussion, and I knew it well. I also knew that the way those six short words were voiced across the table, over two freshly poured cups of coffee, that those ladies were about to settle in for a long talk and that the coffee wasnt the only thing heated at that table. I decided my to-go cup and I needed to sit for a minute and took a nearby seat.

What I heard echoed so many of the shared posts that have been bouncing around social media since Reeds piece was published on February 9. A lot of feelings can build up in people in two months; a lot of information can be shared across internet platforms in that time and so can a lot of untruths. Half the vitriol-filled posts Ive seen on any given day in recent weeks could have been the script for this pairs coffee klatch.

Its one thing to scroll past the online posts, but to hear people discussing Reeds trumped-up story in a setting where others would only hear only snippets as they passed, and quite likely use those snippets as fodder for the continuous and ugly game of Did You Hear was enough for me to realize that Id been quiet long enough.

First of all, you are entitled to your opinion. However, no matter how right you think you are, no matter how much good youve convinced yourself youre doing, no one has the right to put another human being in harms way. And while this may seem pointed at Reed, I assure you I am also addressing anyone who believes they know how to better care for a transgender human than the parents, the licensed mental-health professionals, the licensed physicians, the medical-facility administrators, or even the trans human living the experience. A medical community has made nationally and internationally recognized standards of care for trans humans, but, surethrow in your two cents.

Full disclosure, I met Reed in 2019 when, as a freelance writer for a trans-centered online magazine, I attended community meetings hosted by the Transgender Center. We are not friends, nor have we remained in contact. I am also a patient at the Transgender Center.

So, when you read Reeds accounting of the trans experience or even watch the video circulating social media of her sharing her experience working at the center, understand this: Her position at Washington University did not afford her the luxury of speaking on behalf of transgender humans or their families. She was a case worker. She was not the mental-health professional providing care to patients, nor was she the medical doctor treating folks or making recommendations for treatment. To my knowledge, she formed her opinions based on case files, not from being in the treatment rooms with patients. Not once as a patient has anyone other than a medical professional or a student with prior authorization by both the teaching physician and me been allowed in the exam room.

If you are relying on someone to make a life-altering diagnosis for your childs care or your own care, and you are turning to estimations thrust on you by the state attorney general or your state legislators or your neighbor who voted for so-and-so based on information from a disgruntled case worker; none of whom hold medical licenses, who are you helping? You are advocating a cattle-call version of care where everyone is given the same diagnosis and the same treatment. No longer is the child an individual.

The last time I looked, no two kids were the same. And when it comes to transitioning, no two humans take the same path. This is not a one transition fits all game. Thats exactly why we need facilities like the Washington University Transgender Center and why there are currently around 100 other facilities available across the United States providing gender-affirming care. Truthfully, that isnt nearly enough. When we turn to science as we should we understand that gender-affirming care is life-saving care. We lean into the science for nearly every other medical treatment, yet those who would have you believe the anti-transgender rhetoric are telling you the science is wrong here and that trans health care is unnecessary.

Listen closely, people, because they are talking out of both sides of their mouths. They are using scientific findings about mental health concerns among transgender people to argue against medical interventions. If folks were using science in an honest way, they would see that medicine supports gender-affirming health care. Some truly bad actors say that theres no scientific evidence that transgender people exist at all.

Opponents of gender-affirming care conveniently forget to tell you that the same respected major medical associations that support trans care are the ones on which you have relied your entire life. These are the same doctors and medical associations that have given you medicine for an infection, treated your high blood pressure, or diagnosed your diabetes or cured your cancer. Like all other treatments, gender-diverse health care is evidence-based health care. To deny any human basic health care is not only wrong, but also dangerous and life-threatening. You would not knowingly withhold medical treatment for any other health-related diagnosis if you could improve the well-being of an individual, would you?

Well, Attorney General Andrew Baileys Emergency Rule does just that. It will prevent both youth and adult transgender humans from receiving necessary basic health care and put lives at risk. It ignores science.

So where are we now, folks? Some of you following this story may already know that the Transgender Center has had an independent study conducted to address the concerns Reed brought forth. All of her points of contention were unsubstantiated. Reed, of course, stands by her allegations. But her voice is not the end-all-be-all of this issue. Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Missouri, and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP were able to block Baileys emergency rule at least through May 15.

Not only are many of you or people you know currently madly trying to figure out their next step for health care, many are considering moving out of state. Im not there yet. Admittedly, I dont know if my next prescription for testosterone will be filled. I have a surgery scheduled for May at the Transgender Center which is currently on hold, and my doctors at the facility are not optimistic that it will even take place because of this Emergency Rule. But what I do know is this: The Washington University physicians at the Transgender Center are not only renowned in their fields, they are also educators. These are the humans who are making sure the next generation of gender-diverse kids have health care professionals to care for them. That they also get to treat your friends and family in a consistently award-winning facility at Barnes Jewish Hospital is significant. And that those same doctors have been standing together to support the trans community speaks to their commitment. They are the doctors I want on my side.

So now what? Its time to get vocal and stay vocal. Contact your legislators and make your voice heard with your vote.

Its time to stand by the center and the doctors that stand by us. Listen to your gender-diverse friends and family when they tell you who they are and what they need. Trans rights are human rights.

It is not hyperbole to state that if we do not change the culture now, humans will die.

RELATED: DeWald: A parents perspective on transgender health care

Follow this link:

Willits: As a Patient at the Transgender Center, I Urge You to Stand ... - Out in STL

A prophetic warning?H+ 2004Singularity Timeline. Daily Mail Online.

Hiking alone in the High Sierras a few years ago, I was daydreaming while walking somewhat nonchalantly near a mountain top at 11,000 feet. Suddenly I reeled back in shock and terror. With one more step I would have fallen over a cliff into a chasm, a vast emptiness that went straight down at least 3,000 feet. With my heart beating faster than an airplane propeller, I stood aghast on the precipice. I had reached the brink and, Gott sei dank, I had stopped at the brink. Whew!

Geoffrey Hinton, nicknamed Godfather of AI, has similarly stopped at the brink. Hinton pioneered understanding neural networks and shaped artificial intelligence systems powering many of todays products. He just announced his resignation from Google. Hinton no longer plays AI brinkmanship. Why? Because generative AI is scary.

The Arrival of ChatGPT and OpenAIs announcement of GPT4 has placed the worlds techies on the AI brink. The voices of Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and a chorus of in-the-know computerettes are chanting: pause AI development for six months while we think this over. Heres their open letter: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter. I added my signature to this letter.

Brinkmanship is the practice of following a dangerous trail toward the limits of safety before stopping. Stop playing AI brinkmanship! Thats todays prophetic message.

I foresee two brinks, not just one. The first brink is the Singularitythat is, an AI takeover of planetary communication and decision-making. The second brink is more immediatenamely, malicious use of AI power to pillage and destroy.

Our transhumanist friends invite AI brinkmanship, because they envision utopia just beyond the brink. If by the year 2045 superintelligence takes over, as Ray Kurzweil has forecasted, humanity will cross the Singularity threshold when technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible. A new posthuman species will be born and take over management of our worlds systems. Singularity will open the door for a future techno-utopia.

But those who find AI brinkmanship scary such as Hinton are issuing a warning. Lets keep AI management in human hands! To prevent AI brinkmanship, we need guardrails put up by ethics and public policy. Heres how the Open Letter assesses our situation this side of the brink.

Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves: Shouldwe let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth?Shouldwe automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones?Shouldwe develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart,obsolete and replaceus?Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders.Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive, and their risks will be manageable.

Its time for Homo sapiens to pull the wagons into a circle and consult about ethical issues and formulate the policies which will prevent falling over the brink.

Therefore,wecall on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.

Regarding a general maxim to guide ethical deliberation broadly, Im pondering the wisdom of a recent principle enunciated by Noreen Herzfeld. Dr. Herzfeld emphasizes that AI should be thought of as a tool to enhance human wellbeing. Just a tool. Only a tool. Not a person.

We approach the scary AI brink when we try to humanize AI. Why do we pursue AGI? Why do we manufacture sex bots? Why do we refine the chat box? Stop it! Herzfelds principle: let AI be AI, and let humans be human. Dont interbreed them.

Is Silicon Valley providing bad actors with the computer equivalent of the AR-15s used by todays mass murderers? American and Austrian gun manufacturers went over the brink. And now blood flows like rivers in our schoolyards.

Some armies have already launched autonomous lethal weapons. Once released, theres no calling them back. And sometimes they kill untargeted people. Is this the future our AI techies wish for our planet?

Malicious actors the other side of the AI brink are ready and eager to pull the trigger to flood social media with fake news, re-edit distorting pictures, sway elections, and drain our bank accounts. Should the present generation of AI techies distribute the digitized equivalent of AR-15s to malefactors who are ready to rob, pillage, and destroy?

What we need are carefully constructed guard rails. The human geniuses of AI should unite with one another this side of the AI brink to construct those moral guardrails. Thats what Elon Musk, Geoffrey Hinton, and Steve Wozniak urge us to do before its too late.

Our Jewish, Muslim, and Christian colleagues at AI and Faith are accepting the Open Letter invitation to contribute to ethical deliberation and public policy formulation. The mission of AI and Faith is to equip and encourage people of faith to bring time-tested, faith-based values and wisdom to the ethical AI conversation.

In a newsletter article, David Brenner readies us for the challenge.

Working together, we have a better chance to affect the larger AI ethics conversation by speaking in respectful, robustly pluralist voices, with no faith tradition toning down its faith beliefs, unified in our common contention that faith values of three quarters of the worlds peoples are essential to the debate. That approach has gained us admission as the only overtly faith-oriented partner among the 106 organizations in the global Partnership on AI.

Brenner offers what I call public theology at work.

Ethical guard rails this side of the AI brink just might be what safety requires.

AI has great power to do good and evil, wrote Elon Musk in a Tweet. Better the former.

You betcha, Elon!

Ted Peters (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is a public theologian directing traffic at the intersection of science, religion, and ethics. Peters is an emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union, where he co-edits the journal, Theology and Science, on behalf of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, USA. He recently co-edited Astrobiology: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy (Scrivener 2021) as well as Astrotheology: Science and Theology Meet Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Cascade 2018). He also co-edited Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics (Lexington 2022) and The CRISPR Revolution in Science, Ethics, and Religion (Praeger 2023). Peters is author of Playing God: Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom (Routledge, 2nd ed, 2002) and The Stem Cell Debate (Fortress 2007). See his blogsite [https://www.patheos.com/blogs/publictheology/] and his website [TedsTimelyTake.com].

See his fiction thriller,Cyrus Twelve,with its transhumanist plot.

Link:

AI Brinkmanship: A Prophetic Warning? | AI brink - Patheos

By JEREMY CARL

It takes a lot to make national news out here in Montana. We dont have any big cities, and we are far from Americas population centers and even further from the corridors of power.

Yet in the past week, transgender-identified Montana State House Member Zooey Zephyr, who attracted some notice upon his initial election in 2022, has exploded to national prominence after accusing members of the Montana State House GOP supermajority, who passed legislation to block genital mutilation and cross-sex hormonal treatment of children, of having blood on their hands when they were praying.

It was a clear and obvious breach of House rules during a floor debate and Zephyr refused to apologize for violating them.

After the House Speaker refused to call on him again until he apologized, dozens of radical activists, spurred in part by Zephyr, then disrupted the Montana Legislature (which has an enormous workload and meets for just three months every two years). Almost overnight, Zephyr was interviewed by numerous national media outlets and became a political celebrity, with far more Twitter followers than either of Montanas congressmen.

Both Montana and national media seem incurious, and even a fairly thorough Internet search revealed only snippets of Zephyrs earlier life (residences in Washington and Montana, a background in wrestling, and competitive video games).

But a more exhaustive search revealed a more disquieting story, one that shows a disturbed young man with a troubled past and a series of relationships with dubious characters.

Much of this information about Zephyr was pieced together from posts on Kiwi Farms, a trollish but at times sophisticated online message board that is strongly opposed to gender ideology and delights in both juvenile insults and what once would have been recognized as investigative journalism.

Zephyr was born Zachary Raasch in Billings, MT and grew up there and in Washington state, where he was a champion high school wrestler.

The media has been so negligent in their vetting of Zephyr that, as far as I am aware, this is the first time his birth name has been publicly revealed in an article.

Zooey Zephyr, currently in the state and national headlines, did not even exist until 2019, when, after several months of taking female hormones, Raasch publicly transitioned.

He had surgical vaginoplasty in 2022 (indeed he was not in Missoula on election night when he was elected to the Montana House, but was flying to New York for post-operative care of the permanent wound where his natural genitals used to be).

He seems to have had a number of marketing jobs in Seattle before moving to Missoula, getting involved in the activist community and working at the University of Montana.

According to Raasch, his parents (who were conservative Christians) disowned him when he decided to transition. Raasch was originally motivated to run for the stateLegislature in response to the attempts to ban transgender girls from girls and womens sports.

This enraged Raasch who claims, contrary to both common sense and scientific evidence, that men who transition to female do not have an advantage in sports, a proposition increasingly rejected even by politically correct athletic bodies.

Raasch is intelligent and extremely interested in transhumanism (the melding of man and machine through technological enhancement of the human body)the subject of an abandoned masters thesis at the University of Montana, and a subject relevant to his decision to radically modify his own body.

He was also a video gaming champion in a game called Super Smash Brothers; some pre-transition performances of his tournament videogaming can be seen online. In 2020, a huge scandal erupted in the Super Smash Brothers community involving mass sexual harassment and abuse of minors during in-person gaming meetups. Raasch publicly expressed regret that he may have put children at risk in taking them to these events.

It may be just a coincidence that serious child sexual abuse broke out in a community with which Raasch was heavily involved, or it is possible that he been a perpetrator or a victim of such abuse, but we dont know, as none of the puff piece legacy media has bothered to investigate Raaschs background.

What can be said is that childhood experiences of abuse, such as those that were going on around him, are often precursors to those involved developing non-standard sexual identities.

Raasch is also a noted fan of Manga and anime, a hobby enjoyed by many perfectly healthy people, but also a favorite of transgender individuals, such as Chris Tyson, an important member of Mr. Beast, the worlds most popular YouTube channel, who announced a love of anime involving sexualized children in the years before he came out as trans.

Raasch has posted disturbing sexualized anime images such as the one below that as of this writingstill on his official Twitter account.

He shows all the classic signs of an autogynephilica man who (often spurred by pornography or fetish) becomes sexually aroused by the idea of themselves as a woman. This existence of this condition and its popularity among certain kinds of transgender-identifying men was first observed by Dr. Ray Blanchard and then popularized by Northwestern University psychologist and transgender scholar J. Michael Bailey in his pathbreaking 2003 book The Man who Would Be Queen.

For the last year or so, Raasch has been dating Anthony Erin Reed, one of the most prominent transgender activists in America. Reed has a disturbing background himself, and one again that has been almost completely ignored by the national media in which he has frequently appeared.

Once married with a child, he got divorced and came out as transgender, eventually, like Raasch, opting for hormones and surgery.

Reeds family was (unsurprisingly) unhappy about his decision to transition complaining that his family would not use his pronouns or his fake name. He is divorced enough from reality that he expressed anger that his ex-wife Told me that I cant have the name mom because she gave birth. He later expressed frustration because his ex-wife was fighting him for custody after he came out as trans.

In his spare time Reed maintains an informed consent map of the many clinics in America where you can get cross-sex hormones just on your own say-so without any previous therapy or confirmed gender dysphoria required. Sadly, four such clinics exist even in Montana.

Prior to Reed, Raaschs previous girlfriend @stardustdog was a trans-identified man and a furry someone who enjoys dressing up as anthropomorphic animal characters, often with an explicit sexual component. Needless to say, the picture I have painted above is not a picture of a healthy man with values that most Montanans share. Nor is it the picture of a healthy woman.

Neiher Raasch nor his boyfriend Anthony believe that parents should have any right to know if a child is transitioning at school, and Anthony is on record saying that those dating a trans person do not have the right to know that the trans person is trans because trans women are women.

Most heterosexual men, I daresay, would beg to differ.

Finally, it is notable that Raaschs own tantrum on the Montana House floor directly contradicts the professional advice of a host of organziations that Raasch supports including GLAAD, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the Trevor Project, and the Transgender Law Center. These organizations stress that you should not say that a specific anti-LGBT law or policy will cause suicide.. . . Linking suicide directly to external factors like. . . Anti-LGBT laws can normalize suicide by suggesting that it is a natural reaction to such experiences or laws.

If there is anyone with blood on his hands, it is Raasch, not those legislators who are attempting to protect Montanas kids.

Montana Republicans dont want transgender-identified Montanans (especially children) to die we want them to live, not to be seduced by gender ideology and social contagion into sterilizing themselves, mutilating their bodies with permanent wounds, and stuffing themselves with hormones entirely foreign to their natural condition.

And we know this doesnt just happen to bad people or the children of bad parents. As with any social contagion, good young people and people from caring families can fall prey to it. Thats why were spending so much time and energy fighting back against radical gender ideology.

Raasch himself and the rest of the transgender-identified Montanans are the victims of this ideology. But through the false media martyrdom that he always desired, the victim has also become a perpetrator.

Jeremy Carl (@jeremycarl4 on Twitter) is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. He lives with his family in the foothills of the Bridger Mountains near Bozeman, Montana. This column first appeared in Montana Talks. Carl is available for speaking engagements in Alaska, where he has been an invited speaker in recent years.

Like Loading...

More:

Jeremy Carl: Who is Montana's rogue Rep. Zooey Zephyr? - Must Read Alaska

Transhuman, or trans-human, is the concept of an intermediary form between human and posthuman.[1] In other words, a transhuman is a being that resembles a human in most respects but who has powers and abilities beyond those of standard humans. These abilities might include improved intelligence, awareness, strength, or durability. Transhumans appear in science-fiction, sometimes as cyborgs or genetically-enhanced humans.

In his Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri coined the word "trasumanar" meaning "to transcend human nature, to pass beyond human nature" in the first canto of Paradiso.[2][3]

The use of the term "transhuman" goes back to French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who wrote in his 1949 book The Future of Mankind.

Liberty: that is to say, the chance offered to every man (by removing obstacles and placing the appropriate means at his disposal) of 'trans-humanizing' himself by developing his potentialities to the fullest extent.[4]

And in a 1951 unpublished revision of the same book:

In consequence one is the less disposed to reject as unscientific the idea that the critical point of planetary Reflection, the fruit of socialization, far from being a mere spark in the darkness, represents our passage, by Translation or dematerialization, to another sphere of the Universe: not an ending of the ultra-human but its accession to some sort of trans-humanity at the ultimate heart of things.[5]

In 1957 book New Bottles for New Wine, English evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley wrote:

The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. "I believe in transhumanism": once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Peking man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny.[6]

One of the first professors of futurology, FM-2030, who taught "new concepts of the Human" at The New School of New York City in the 1960s, used "transhuman" as shorthand for "transitional human". Calling transhumans the "earliest manifestation of new evolutionary beings", FM argued that signs of transhumans included physical and mental augmentations including prostheses, reconstructive surgery, intensive use of telecommunications, a cosmopolitan outlook and a globetrotting lifestyle, androgyny, mediated reproduction (such as in vitro fertilisation), absence of religious beliefs, and a rejection of traditional family values.[7]

FM-2030 used the concept of transhuman as an evolutionary transition, outside the confines of academia, in his contributing final chapter to the 1972 anthology Woman, Year 2000.[8] In the same year, American cryonics pioneer Robert Ettinger contributed to conceptualization of "transhumanity" in his book Man into Superman.[9] In 1982, American Natasha Vita-More authored a statement titled Transhumanist Arts Statement and outlined what she perceived as an emerging transhuman culture.[10]

Jacques Attali, writing in 2006, envisaged transhumans as an altruistic vanguard of the later 21st century:

Vanguard players (I shall call them transhumans) will run (they are already running) relational enterprises in which profit will be no more than a hindrance, not a final goal. Each of these transhumans will be altruistic, a citizen of the planet, at once nomadic and sedentary, his neighbor's equal in rights and obligations, hospitable and respectful of the world. Together, transhumans will give birth to planetary institutions and change the course of industrial enterprises.[11]

In March 2007, American physicist Gregory Cochran and paleoanthropologist John Hawks published a study, alongside other recent research on which it builds, which amounts to a radical reappraisal of traditional views, which tended to assume that humans have reached an evolutionary endpoint. Physical anthropologist Jeffrey McKee argued the new findings of accelerated evolution bear out predictions he made in a 2000 book The Riddled Chain. Based on computer models, he argued that evolution should speed up as a population grows because population growth creates more opportunities for new mutations; and the expanded population occupies new environmental niches, which would drive evolution in new directions. Whatever the implications of the recent findings, McKee concludes that they highlight a ubiquitous point about evolution: "every species is a transitional species".[12]

Examples of transhuman entities in fiction exist within many popular video games. For example, the Bioshock media franchise depicts individuals receiving doses of a substance called ADAM, harvested from a fictional type of sea slugs, able to give the user fantastical powers through genetic engineering. Thus, previously standard humans can gain the ability to summon ice, wield lightning, turn invisible, and commit other seeming miracles due to their enhancement.[13]

A 2014 article from Ars Technica speculated that mutating clumps of mobile genetic elements known as "transposons" could possibly be used as a semi-parasitic tool to raise people to a higher status in terms of their abilities, making at least part of the game's scenario theoretically plausible.[13] Similar commentary later occurred from gamers with the advent of CRISPR gene editing.

Transhumans also have played a major role in the Star Trek media franchise. For example, in "Space Seed", the twenty-second episode of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series that initially aired on February 16, 1967, a charismatic and physically intimidating genius called Khan Noonien Singh attempts to take control of the Enterprise operated by the show's protagonists. The selectively bred individual had advanced beyond simple human status and nearly succeeds. The starship's crew opt to exile the leader and his league of similar beings to a habitable but isolated alien planet instead of assigning a true punishment per se, a ruling which he accepts without protest. Played by Ricardo Montalbn, Khan returns in the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which broadly serves as a sequel to the episode. References to "Space Seed" appear in episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, and the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness as well.

Read more from the original source:

Transhuman - Wikipedia

This list is a mere starting point for you, to do your own research. Dr. Madej studied this for twenty years, so the actual basis of her knowledge is much larger than this list.

https://pubs.rsc.org/--/content/articlelanding/2015/ra/c5ra01508a#!divAbstract

Why “Operation Warp Speed” Could Be Deadly

https://www.facebook.com/1780584826/posts/10213711458378968/?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/

https://kenfm.de/bill-gates-predicts-700000-victims-from-corona-vaccination/

https://www.national-geographic.com/science/2020/05/moderna-coronavirus-vaccine-how-it-works-cvd/?fbclid=IwAR1EFM74n4ulVp8pEufYOA9vN13CCyYeKoXdnWpk-R_0gZoDgflr3w5N0T4#close

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2020/07/29/modernas-mysterious-coronavirus-vaccine-delivery-system/#2226d81562d9

Gene Drive Files Expose Leading Role of US Military in Gene Drive Development.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/11/30/gene-drive-research-fight-diseases-can-proceed-cautiously-un-group-decides/

https://youtu.be/iMl0ty6evhU https://steemit.com/life/@pranavsinha/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-kicked-out-of-india

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=ksEVaO806Oo

https://youtu.be/Ofdd4ILdpVY https://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=biotech.2011.136.148

http://ir.inovio.com/news-releases/news-releases-details/2020/INOVIOs-COVID-19-DNA-Vaccine-INO-4800-Demonstrates-Robust-Neutralizing-Antibody-and-T-Cell-Immune-Responses-in-Preclinical-Models/default.aspx

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232740966_What_you_always_needed_to_know_about_electroporation_based_DNA_vaccines

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-astrazeneca-to-be-exempt-from-coronavirus-vaccine-liability-claims-in/

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/20-things-you-didn't-know-about-dna

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/gene-editing-moderna-and-transhumanism/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715095500.htm

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC33911/

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-potential-coronavirus-vaccine-could-be-as-easy-as-sticking-on-a-bandage-2020-04-08

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3675524/#!po=0.446429

https://www.genengnews.com/topics/drug-discovery/quantum-dots-deliver-vaccines-and-invisibly-encode-vaccination-history-in-skin/

https://newatlas.com/snake-fang-microneedle-patch/60868/

Scientists Propose ‘Tattoos’ To Solve Vaccination Issues

https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/references/gibco-cell-culture-basics/transfection-basics/introduction-to-transfection.html

Injectable Body Sensors Take Personal Chemistry to a Cell Phone Closer to Reality

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarwantsingh/2017/11/20/transhumanism-and-the-future-of-humanity-seven-ways-the-world-will-change-by-2030/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715095500.htm

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/invisible-ink-could-reveal-whether-kids-have-been-vaccinated/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338044557_Biocompatible_near-infrared_quantum_dots_delivered_to_the_skin_by_microneedle_patches_record_vaccination

https://sciencebusiness.technewslit.com/?p=36802

See the original post here:

Dr. Carrie Madej: why vaccines alter the human DNA - Stop World Control

YearTitleRole1986Rambo: The Force of FreedomAdditional voices19861987My Little PonyPrincess Tiffany / Princess Starburst19861989The SmurfsAdditional voices1987Pound PuppiesArf / Mrs. VanderspiffFoofurAdditional voices19871991The Real GhostbustersJanine Melnitz / Jabberwock / First Technician / Poodle Starlet / Dixie / Insect Ghosts / Pie-Face / Kid #3 / Screaming Woman / Magician's Assistants / Scabitha / Spectral Mother / Second Kid / Spectral Mass / Space TV Announcer / Spook / Crowd / Ghoul Crowd / Dockworkers / Bully Leader / Bullies / Fans / Crowd (2) / Kid (5) / Mrs. Beagle / Ghostworld Jury / Operator (2) / Factory Worker / Chuckie's Mom / Chuckie / Upperclass Lady / Customers / Janine (Ghost) / Sun Bathing Ghost 2 / Female Bootician / Woman #21988JemIngrid "Minx" KrugerA Pup Named Scooby-DooPrestinaThe New Yogi Bear ShowLittle Yog19881990Denver, the Last DinosaurCasey / Heather / Marsha Mylar / Joy / Jeremy's Crush / Betty / Mrs. Baxter / HeidiThe Adventures of Raggedy Ann and AndyRaggedy Cat1989X-Men: Pryde of the X-MenKitty Pryde19891990Dink, the Little DinosaurJerry / Melodi19891991Adventures of the Gummi BearsPrincess Marie19901991TaleSpinClementine Clevenger / Princess Lotta L'Amour / Phonograph VoicesFox's Peter Pan & the PiratesThe Girl in the MoonWake, Rattle, and RollCindy BearTimeless Tales from HallmarkTeddy Bear / Rapunzel's mother / Baby Rapunzel19901992Attack of the Killer TomatoesTara Boumdeay / Mary Jo Nagamininashy / additional voicesWidget, the World WatcherBrian / Kristine / Nat ElephantPretty PiggiesPatricia19901993Tom & Jerry KidsBabysitter / Baby / Mom / Sugar Belle19901995Tiny Toon AdventuresFifi La Fume / Li'l Sneezer / Margot Mallard / Bimbette / Mother of Li'l Sneezer (as Kath Souci)19901996Captain Planet and the PlaneteersLinka[5]1991Toxic CrusadersYvonne1991, 1999Little DraculaMrs. Dracula / Millicent19911992Darkwing DuckMorgana MacawberYo Yogi!Cindy Bear / Secret SquirrelJames Bond Jr.Goldie Finger / Barbella / Marcie BeaucoupSpace CatsYvette Meow / Lollipop19912004RugratsPhil DeVille / Lil DeVille / Betty DeVille / Alyssa Carmichael / Buster Carmichael / Squeaky Chicken Girl / Shawna / Girl (1) / Woman (2) / Builder / Crybaby / Sondra / Nurse (2) / Belinda / Feldman Batterries / Crowd Members / Ms. Trencherman / Dotti / Edie / Morgana / Frances / Girl / Loudspeaker / Bird / Tiffany / Tullulah / Boy (1) / Bodhi / Rich Kid #1 / Barnaby / Woman #2 (2) / Germs / Diana / Anchorwoman / Kid #1 / Toddler / Saleswoman / Elderly Lady / Friends / Kid / Superhero / Cheerleaders / Goth Teens1992Raw ToonageGirlThe Plucky Duck ShowFifi La Fume19921993Goof TroopDebbieWild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo MesaCarly19921993Super DaveAdditional voices19921994The Little MermaidAttina / Flo1993AnimaniacsFifi La Fume19931994Mighty MaxBeaSonic the HedgehogSally Acorn / NICOLE[6]199319952 Stupid DogsMartha / Granny Fanny / Youngest Daughter19931996SWAT Kats: The Radical SquadronTurmoilThe Pink PantherThelma / Cleopatra1994Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?Maria, Claire E. Net, Cora Net19941995AladdinPoor village motherBeethovenAlice Newton / Teacher 2 / Teacher 3Superhuman Samurai Syber-SquadElizabeth CollinsThe CriticOld Lady / Billy / Paulina Simms / Madonna / Faye Dunaway / Rosie Perez Robot1994-1996Phantom 2040Jenna / Analytical / Food-Tube Machine / Zoo Greeter / Biot / Maria Aguilar / Actress / Newscaster / Lynn Wu / Warning System / Woman / Biot Guard / Security Biot / Biot Tech / Driver19941997Aaahh!!! Real MonstersDusty / Stewardess / Boy (1) / Whiney BoyGargoylesCornelia Stallman / Maggie "the Cat" Reed / Ophelia / Princess Katherine / The Weird Sisters / Princess Elena / Mary1995Biker Mice from MarsHarley19951996Dumb and DumberWaitress / Allie Mae / # 27Savage DragonAlex Wild / MaThe Hot Rod Dogs and Cool Car CatsBaby Bumper / Spare PartsEarthworm JimPrincess What's-Her-Name / Evil Princess / Johnny's mom19951997The Cartoon Cartoon ShowBubbles / Ms. Keane / Dexter's Mom / Reporter / Screaming Baby / Girl / Alien #1 / Nadine / MargeryThe Mask: Animated SeriesEvelyn / Dragon Lady19951998Timon & PumbaaLara / Suzie1996Quack PackDaisy Duck / Agent X / Nelly The Dragon19961997Mighty Ducks: The Animated SeriesLucretia DeCoyBruno the KidGrace19961998The Spooktacular New Adventures of CasperKathleen "Kat" Harvey / Marilyn KrumpJungle CubsWinifred / Leah / Mother Duck / Mother Mouse / Mountain Sheep19962000Adventures from the Book of VirtuesAnnie Redfeather / Aurora the Red-tailed Hawk / George Washington / Aunt Polly / Joshua / Mouse / Peter's Children / Lars / Queen Vashti / Snake-Child / Dick / Kara / Morning Star / The Lass / Emma / The Little Girl / Tiberius Gracchus / Caius Gracchus / Chip / Dedrich / Helen Keller / Guillermo's Son / Toshi19961999, 20012003Dexter's LaboratoryDexter's Mom / Quadraplex T-3000 Computer / Agent Honeydew / Lee Lee / Pony Puff Princess / Becky / Oceanbird / Darbie / Teacher #1 / Rat / Kid #3 / Kid #4 / Susan Storm / Newslady / Susie / Mom / Ghost / She-Thing / Sofie / Girl / Alien Mom / Kid / Book Boy / Queen Ant / Waitress / Midge / Lunch Lady / Librarian / Girl (2) / Neighbor Lady / Amoebae #1 / Vicky / Bus Driver / Katka / Snack Buyer / Granny / Kids / Woman #2 / Baby / Little Girl / Woman (2) / Muffins / Baby (2) / Boy (2) / Queen (2) / Old Woman (2) / School Counselor / Girl (4) / Science Mom / Mom #2 / Timothy's Mom / Candi / Girl #1 (2) / Spastic Sister / Scientist #3 / Betty Rubble / Dance Instructor / Receptionist / Lil Girls / Lady (2) / Mrs. Morris / Old Lady / Girl #1 (3) / Girl #2 (3) / Great Aunt Dextamina / Girl #4 / Girl #6 / Empowering Penny Doll / Worker Aliens / Sue / Girl (7) / Secretary (2) / Doll / Girl (8)19962004Hey Arnold!Miriam Pataki / Marilyn Berman / Mrs. Vitello (only in episode "The Vacant Lot") / Nancy / Baby Oskar / Yolanda / Hillary / Real Cecil / Mrs. Ryle / Nancy Woman / Lunch Lady / Woman (2) / Danny / Agent / Mother (2) / Old Lady / Clowns / Old Woman / TV Announcer / Parasail Girl / Dispatcher (2) / Customer / Nun19971999Todd McFarlane's SpawnCyan Fitzgerald101 Dalmatians: The SeriesCadpig / Rolly / Anita Dearly / Young Cruella (in episode, "A Christmas Cruella")Cow and ChickenSquirrel (2) / Additional voices19972000Pepper AnnCissy Rooney / Mrs. Little19972001RecessButch / Cindy / Jeffery / Baby / Various Kindergartners19972004Johnny BravoBabe #2 / Queen (1) / Cashier (1) / Little Girl (2) / Woman (5) / Award Presenter / Harem Girl #1 / Queen (2) / Robot (1) / Woman #2 (1) / Judge (2) / Oonta / Perfume Lady / Social Worker / Aunt Katie / Sheila / Mountie / Inspector Jeanine / Captain Nemo / Train Company Executive19972006Space GoofsHank's Wife1998ToonsylvaniaAshley DeadmanInvasion AmericaRita Carter / Sonia LearI Am WeaselTimmy's Mom / Squirrel19981999The Secret Files of the Spy DogsCollar Communicator VoiceThe MagicianMona / AngelHerculesAndromeda / Additional Voice Talent19982000CatDogLorraineOh Yeah! CartoonsDot / Tooth Fairy / Secretary / Grande / Mother / Angela / Terry / Cat / Woman / Librarian / Baby Duck / Wife1999The Powerpuff GirlsJulie Smith / Maryanne Smith / Reporter / additional voicesThe Kids from Room 402Desk Clerk / ReporterCourage the Cowardly DogLittle Muriel / Carmen the SerpentMickey Mouse WorksClarabelle's Instructor19992000Mike, Lu & OgMargery / Pig19992013FuturamaCubert Farnsworth / Albert / Nina / Punk Kid2000; 2002Clerks: The Animated SeriesLady with the dead baby / Jay's granddaughter20002001Buzz Lightyear of Star CommandKid #3 / Flon / School Teacher / Miss Harper / Villager #2 / Galaxy / Villager #6 / PA Voice2000-2011God, the Devil and BobAndy Alman20002002Baby BluesRodney Bitterman / Megan Bitterman20002003Clifford the Big Red DogJetta Handover / Mrs. Handover / MaryAs Told by GingerBlake Gripling / 9th Grade Girl / Reporter / Check in Girl / Cinnamon Ann / Cute Girl #1 / Ms. Conners / Euphrasia Weinstein / Diva / Bethany / Karina / Cop (2) / Reporter (2)20002004The WeekendersPedratishkovna "Tish" Katsufrankis / Ruby / Fashion Commentator / Totie Weems / Digital Girl / Actor #2 / Juliet / Twin Girl #1 / Twin Girl #2 / Trooper Sue2001Time SquadAdditional voices20012002Grim & EvilOld LadyCrayon Shin-chan (Vitello Dub)Shinnosuke Nohara,[7] Misae Nohara (name changed to "Mitsy")20012003House of MouseBimbettes / PerditaThe Book of PoohKanga20012004Samurai JackOlivia / Sandals Boy's Mother / Kid A / Daughter #1 / Daughter #2Totally Spies!Stella / Jason Hightower / Toll / Shirley Rogers / Barber / Redhead Girl2002ChalkZoneYadda Yadda YetiWhat's New, Scooby-Doo?Susan Dinwiddie2002-2003Butt-Ugly MartiansAngela Young / Shaboom Shaboom / Mrs. Ellis20022006The Cramp TwinsLucien Cramp / Mrs. Phelps / Innocent GirlThe Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy GeniusBetty Quinlan20022007Kim PossibleKaitlin / Co-pilot / French girl / Moopey Girl / Spirit Squad Weekly Interviewer / Rocket Booster #12003Ozzy & DrixNaurine / Celly KatzDuck DodgersHandmaiden20032006Clifford's Puppy DaysDaffodil / GeorgeLilo & Stitch: The SeriesTrick or Treater20032007Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley WinksMillie / Missy Sue20032009My Life as a Teenage RobotXJ-2 / XJ-4 / XJ-5 / Man 1 / Kid (2) / Machine Voice (2)20032008All Grown Up!Phil and Lil DeVille / Betty DeVille / Beverly Jones / Friend #12004The BatmanYelena Klimanov and Young Artie / Young Artie BrownStatic ShockEl GataDetroit DoconaSuzy Anders20042005Stroker & HoopAshley Brittany / Brittany Ashley / Doctor20042006Justice League UnlimitedAdditional voicesW.I.T.C.H.Nerissa / Sandpit20042007Danny PhantomMaddie Fenton / The Lunch Lady Ghost / Avatar Maddie / Box Lunch / Sales Girl / Connie / Concessions Kid / Geek Kid / Brenner / Ida / Little Girl / She-Wolf / Walla 2 / Girls on Beach / Girl 2 (2)ToonamiSARA 22005The Grim Adventures of Billy & MandyHappy Huggy Stuffy Teddy Bear20052007The Life and Times of Juniper LeeRay Ray / Speed Demon / Reggie / Old Woman / Ashley / Gigi / Jean-Claude's groupie / Heather / Dog Show Worker / Bombat / Laundromax / Gym Teacher / Henchman #220052008Ben 10Edwin Smith / Little Boy / Tiffany / Joan / Teen 2 / Cowgirl2006Ben & IzzyIzzy20062007My Gym Partner's a MonkeyDeidre Koala / Deb ApeLola & VirginiaHaide20062009The ReplacementsKaren "Agent K" Daring / additional voices20062011Handy MannyDusty / Mrs. Bouffant / Steven / Kevin / Junior20062015Curious GeorgeMrs. Renkins / Mrs. Quint2007Codename: Kids Next DoorLizzie's sister ("Operation: "G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D.")20072009Transformers: AnimatedProfessor Princess / Dispatcher / Trisha20072010My Friends Tigger & PoohKanga20082009The Spectacular Spider-ManDr. Martha Connors / Anna Watson / Trina the Waitress20082013Star Wars: The Clone WarsMon Mothma / Mina Bonteri / Jek2009ChowderMs. Butterscotch / Pelican Lady / Unicorn / Lady20102013Scooby-Doo! Mystery IncorporatedNan Blake / Waitress / Vampire / Female Parent #1 / Female Parent #2 / Female Tourist / additional voices2011Generator RexMouse / Female Party Goer2011-2021Young JusticeJoan Garrick / Lori Lemaris / Queen Mera / Artur20112012Winx ClubCountess Cassandra20112013Pound PuppiesFlip / Blip / Sexy Woman / Trixie / Babette / Greasy / Yorkie #1 / Passenger #1 / Ginger / Mom (3) / Girl / Dot's Mom / Mrs. Beasley / Molly / Kay / Jilly / Simon / Molly (2) / Gail / Checkers / Winnie (2) / Additional voices2012Special Agent OsoDusty20122013MadRainbow Dash / Starfire / Magic Magic Marker Boy / Wyatt Bernstein20122016Transformers: Rescue BotsProfessor Anna Baranova / Celine Greene / Dr. Elma Hendrickson / Lady of Griffin Rock / Ghost Cook / Mrs. Neederlander (Young) / Technician 2 / Ms. Lima2014Doc McStuffinsCeleste20142021The Tom and Jerry ShowTuffy / Mimi / Aunt Claire / Cozette / Gigi20142018Star Wars RebelsMinister Maketh Tua / Mira Bridger2015Transformers: Robots in DisguiseTour GuideGoldie & BearTwigsBear in UnderwearRossman2015-2018Lost in OzCyra / Huckster #5 / Dandelion Seed #2 / Traffic Flower / Quadling Woman / Female Bun Person / Nome / Tineth / Toofah20152020New Looney TunesLola Bunny / Sniffles / The President / Little Kid / Claudette Dupri / Pampreen2016KulipariRainbow Serpent / Pippi / Additional voices2017The Lion GuardFujo's MomOK K.O.! Let's Be HeroesPeej / Gnarlio Jr.2018The Loud HouseMrs. Vaporciyan / Club ManagerStretch Armstrong and the Flex FightersSandy Violette2019If You Give a Mouse a CookieMail Lady2021Star Wars: The Bad BatchJek2021presentRugratsPhil DeVille / Lil DeVille

View post:

Kath Soucie - Wikipedia

The Overwatch Transhuman Arm, or OTA (as it is commonly abbreviated to) is the military backbone of the Combine-unlike Civil Protection. They are infrequently seen within city limits. (colloquially referred to as Combine Soldiers) are transhuman infantry units, well-armored with Pre-War Ceramic Plate Armor, heavily augmented, and conditioned into post-human killing machines.

Most of the time, OTA units will remain garrisoned in stasis, and are only deployed when necessary.

Unmodified CW:HL2RP will give you 150 health and 150 armor to start. This makes you difficult to kill; yet remember that you are still vulnerable alone. As a result, it is best to coordinate with your allies and use tactics such as flanking and suppression fire to defeat enemies in S2K or S2RP engagements. But remember that Rebels have the critical advantage of surprise and guerrilla warfare to counter you in-turn.

The Overwatch Transhuman Arm is composed of several different divisions, also known as detachments. Each detachment either serves a different purpose, or possess different weaponry and attributes.

ECHO units are standard Overwatch Soldiers, and are usually armed with an MP7, OICW, or AR2. Most of the time, they will remain garrisoned in stasis, only being deployed in critical situations.

DAGGER/MACE units are Overwatch Soldiers that wield a shotgun. They operate similarly to standard Overwatch Soldiers and bear reddish-brown armor instead of the usual dark blue. On certain servers, MACE is a division of the MPF.

HURRICANE/AIRWATCH is an Overwatch detachment that is responsible for the control of Combine gunships and hunter-choppers. Instead of a standard Overwatch helmet, they will wear a helmet outfitted with a visor.

RANGERs specialize in long-range combat, serving as the sniper division of the transhuman arm. They wield an OSR, though weaponry can depend on server.

GHOST/PHANTOM units are deployed for stealth operations where their deadly accuracy and efficiency are required. Most servers will use GHOST and PHANTOM as MPF divisions.

X-RAY is simply a medical division that are usually armed with standard weaponry.

The SENTINEL division are usually Overwatch Elites that guard the highest ranking members of the Combine, such as the Earth Administrator. They will often wield an AR2.

KINGs are Overwatch Elites that command standard OTA ECHO squads. They are highly trained and skilled combatants.

Add OTA Shotguner in Mace and Elite on King photos

Originally posted here:

Overwatch Transhuman Arm | HL2RP Wiki | Fandom

Join DeAnna Lorraine on her new show Shots Fired! with DeAnna Lorraine! DeAnna first goes over hottest headlines of the day, joined by Lauren Wtizke - they discuss the disastrous Hurricane Ian and potential weather manipulation, the sabotage of Nord Stream, another huge fire at a major food production plant that feeds millions, Coolio dead, and more.

Then DeAnna is joined by a prominent natural doctor, Dr. Jason Dean, who goes into more depth about the new demonic Executive Order that Biden just signed, which will be accelerating Transhumanism and Genetic Modification - and even creating an army using immigrants and minorities! Must watch and share interview!

Subscribe to Red Voice Media Premium using promo code DEANNA to watch the full Shots Fired show with DeAnna Lorraine, weekdays every Thursday at 6pm CT!

Make sure you FOLLOW DeAnna on Gettr, Truth Social, Telegram and Gab: @RealDeAnnaLorraine and join her Telegram channel and live chat during the show and throughout the week! http://t.me/deannasChannel

Read this article:

Biden Builds Transhuman Cyborg Army using Immigrants!

Iranian-American-Belgian transhumanist philosopher and futurist

FM-2030

FM-2030 (originally born as Fereidoun M. Esfandiary; Persian: ; October 15, 1930 July 8, 2000) was a Belgian-born Iranian-American [1] author, teacher, transhumanist philosopher, futurist, consultant, and Olympic athlete.[2]

He became notable as a transhumanist with the book Are You a Transhuman?: Monitoring and Stimulating Your Personal Rate of Growth in a Rapidly Changing World, published in 1989. In addition, he wrote a number of works of fiction under his original name F.M. Esfandiary.

FM-2030 was born Fereydoon M. Esfandiary on October 15, 1930 in Belgium to Iranian diplomat Abdol-Hossein A. H. Sadigh Esfandiary (1894-1986), who served from 1920 to 1960. [3] He travelled widely as a child, having lived in 17 countries including Iran, India, and Afghanistan, by age 11.[4] He represented Iran as a basketball player and wrestler at the 1948 Olympic Games in London. He attended primary school in Iran and England and completed his secondary education at Colleges Des Freres, a Jesuit school in Jerusalem. By the time he was 18, aside from his native Persian, [5],he learned to speak 4 languages: Arabic, Hebrew, French and English.[6][7] He then started his college education at the University of California, Berkeley, but later transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he graduated in 1952.[8] Afterwards, he served on the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine from 1952 to 1954.[9]

In 1970, after publishing his book Optimism One,[10] F.M. Esfandiary [7] started going by FM-2030 for two main reasons: firstly, to reflect the hope and belief that he would live to celebrate his 100th birthday in 2030; secondly, and more importantly, to break free of the widespread practice of naming conventions that he saw as rooted in a collectivist mentality, and existing only as a relic of humankind's tribalistic past. He legally changed in 1988. He viewed traditional names as almost always stamping a label of collective identity varying from gender to nationality on the individual, thereby existing as prima facie elements of thought processes in the human cultural fabric, that tended to degenerate into stereotyping, factionalism, and discrimination. In his own words, "Conventional names define a person's past: ancestry, ethnicity, nationality, religion. I am not who I was ten years ago and certainly not who I will be in twenty years. [...] The name 2030 reflects my conviction that the years around 2030 will be a magical time. In 2030 we will be ageless and everyone will have an excellent chance to live forever. 2030 is a dream and a goal."[11] As a staunch anti-nationalist, he believed "There are no illegal immigrants, only irrelevant borders."

In 1973, he published the political manifesto UpWingers: A Futurist Manifesto in which he views the ideological left and right as outdated and instead proposed a schema of UpWingers: those who looked into the sky and future and DownWingers, those who looked into the Earth and past. FM-2030 identified with the former. He argued that the nuclear family structure and the idea of a city would disappear, being replaced by modular social communities called mobilia, powered by communitarianism and would persist and then disappear.[12]

FM-2030 believed that synthetic body parts would one day make life expectancy irrelevant and shortly before his death, he described the pancreas as a "a stupid, dumb, wretched organ."[13]

In terms of civilization, he stated: No civilization of the past was great. They were all primitive and persecutory, founded on mass subjugation and mass murder. In terms of identity, he stated The young modern is not losing his identity. He is gladly disencumbering himself of it. He believed that eventually, nations would disappear and that identities would shift from cultural to personal. In a 1972 op-Ed in The New York Times, he wrote that the Arab-Israeli conflict had failed leadership, the warring sides acting like adolescents, refuse to resolve their wasteful 25-year-old brawl and believed that the World was irreversibly evolving beyond the concept of national homeland.[14]

He was a lifelong vegetarian and said he would not eat anything that had a mother. He famously refused to answer any questions about his nationality, age and upbringing, deeming them to be irrelevant and that he was a global person.[15] FM-2030 once said, "I am a 21st century person who was accidentally launched in the 20th. I have a deep nostalgia for the future."[16] As he spent much of his childhood in India, he was noted to have spoken a slight Indian accent.[17] He taught at The New School, University of California, Los Angeles, and Florida International University.[2] He worked as a corporate consultant for Lockheed and J. C. Penney.[2] He was also an atheist.[18]FM-2030 was, in his own words, a follower of "upwing" politics, in which he meant that he endorsed universal progress.[19][20] He had been in a non-exclusive "friendship" (his preferred term for relationship) with Flora Schnall, a lawyer and fellow Harvard Law Class of 1959 graduate from the 1960s until his death. FM-2030 and Schnall attended the same class as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.[21] He resided in Westwood, Los Angeles as well as Miami.[22]

FM-2030 died on July 8, 2000 from pancreatic cancer at a friends apartment in Manhattan. He was placed in cryonic suspension at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, where his body remains today. He did not yet have remote standby arrangements, so no Alcor team member was present at his death, but FM-2030 was the first person to be vitrified, rather than simply frozen as previous cryonics patients had been.[15] FM-2030 was survived by four sisters and one brother.[7]

See the rest here:

FM-2030 - Wikipedia

COP Out

Ever since she lambasted world leaders at a UN conference in 2018 when she was only 15 years old, Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has had the ear of the international community.

Now, Thunberg says she's skipping out on next week's COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt. Why? Because it's rife with "greenwashing."

"I'm not going to COP27 for many reasons, but the space for civil society this year is extremely limited," Thunberg said at a press event for her book, "The Climate Book," as quoted by The Guardian. "The COPs are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing."

Ultimately, in Thunberg's view, the COP conferences "are not really meant to change the whole system" and instead only promote incremental change. Bluntly put, they're feel-good events that don't accomplish much, so she's bowing out.

Wasted Breath

It's not an unfair assessment. For all the pledges made to drastically cut back emissions and achieve net carbon zero by 2050, very few nations have followed through in the short term. And in Europe, the energy crisis in the wake of the war in Ukraine has further sidelined those climate commitments.

So we can't blame her for not going. But it's a bit disheartening that even a tenacious young spokesperson like Thunberg has given up on convincing world leaders at the biggest climate summit in the world.

Maybe it's indicative of the frustrations of her generation at large. When Thunberg was asked what she thought about the recent wave of Just Stop Oil protests that included activists throwing soup on a Van Gogh painting, she said that she viewed what many detractors perceived as a dumb stunt to be symptomatic of the world's failure to effect meaningful environmental change.

"People are trying to find new methods because we realize that what we have been doing up until now has not done the trick," she replied, as quoted by Reuters. "It's only reasonable to expect these kinds of different actions."

Maybe the real question is: if even a UN climate conference isn't the place to get the message out and change hearts, where's the right place, and what's the right way? If the headlines are any indication, zoomers are struggling to figure that out.

More on Greta Thunberg: Greta Thunberg Thinks Germany Shutting Down Its Nuclear Plants Is a Bad Idea

The post Greta Thunberg Says UN Climate Conference Is a Scam and She's Not Attending appeared first on Futurism.

Continue reading here:

Greta Thunberg Says UN Climate Conference Is a Scam and She's Not Attending

AI-lands in the Stream

Sorry, but not even Dolly Parton is sacred amid the encroachment of AI into art.

Holly Herndon, an avant garde pop musician, has released a cover of Dolly Parton's beloved and frequently covered hit single, "Jolene." Except it's not really Herndon singing, but her digital deepfake twin known as Holly+.

The music video features a 3D avatar of Holly+ frolicking in what looks like a decaying digital world.

And honestly, it's not bad — dare we say, almost kind of good? Herndon's rendition croons with a big, round sound, soaked in reverb and backed by a bouncy, acoustic riff and a chorus of plaintive wailing. And she has a nice voice. Or, well, Holly+ does. Maybe predictably indie-folk, but it's certainly an effective demonstration of AI with a hint of creative flair, or at least effective curation.

Checking the Boxes

But the performance is also a little unsettling. For one, the giant inhales between verses are too long to be real and are almost cajolingly dramatic. The vocals themselves are strangely even and, despite the somber tone affected by the AI, lack Parton's iconic vulnerability.

Overall, it feels like the AI is simply checking the boxes of what makes a good, swooning cover after listening to Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" a million times — which, to be fair, is a pretty good starting point.

Still, it'd be remiss to downplay what Herndon has managed to pull off here, and the criticisms mostly reflect the AI's limited capabilities more than her chops as a musician. The AI's seams are likely intentional, if her previous work is anything to go off of.

Either way, if you didn't know you were listening to an AI from the get-go, you'd probably be fooled. And that alone is striking.

The Digital Self

Despite AI's usually ominous implications for art, Herndon views her experiment as a "way for artists to take control of their digital selves," according to a statement on her website.

"Vocal deepfakes are here to stay," Herndon was quoted saying. "A balance needs to be found between protecting artists, and encouraging people to experiment with a new and exciting technology."

Whether Herndon's views are fatalistic or prudently pragmatic remains to be seen. But even if her intentions are meant to be good for artists, it's still worrying that an AI could pull off such a convincing performance.

More on AI music: AI That Generates Music from Prompts Should Probably Scare Musicians

The post This Deepfake AI Singing Dolly Parton's "Jolene" Is Worryingly Good appeared first on Futurism.

Read more:

This Deepfake AI Singing Dolly Parton's "Jolene" Is Worryingly Good

A provocative manslaughter case is about to kick off in Los Angeles later this month, involving a fatal crash caused by a Tesla vehicle that had the company's controversial Autopilot feature turned on.

It's the first case of its kind, and one that could set a precedent for future crashes involving cars and driver-assistance software, Reuters reports.

We won't know the exact defense until the case gets under way, but the crux is that the man who was behind the wheel of the Tesla is facing manslaughter charges — but has pleaded not guilty, setting up potentially novel legal arguments about culpability in a deadly collision when, technically speaking, it wasn't a human driving the car.

"Who's at fault, man or machine?" asked Edward Walters, an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University, in an interview with Reuters. "The state will have a hard time proving the guilt of the human driver because some parts of the task are being handled by Tesla."

The upcoming trial is about a fatal collision that took place in 2019. The crash involved Kevin George Aziz Riad, who ran a red light in his Tesla Model S, and collided with a Honda Civic, killing a couple who were reportedly on their first date.

According to vehicle data, Riad did not apply the brakes but had a hand on the steering wheel. Perhaps most critically, though, the Tesla's Autopilot feature was turned on in the moments leading up to the crash.

Riad is facing manslaughter charges, with prosecutors arguing his actions were reckless.

Meanwhile, Riad's lawyers have argued that he shouldn't be charged with a crime, but have so far stopped short of publicly placing blame on Tesla's Autopilot software.

Tesla is not directly implicated in the upcoming trial and isn't facing charges in the case, according to Reuters.

A separate trial, however, involving the family of one of the deceased is already scheduled for next year — but this time, Tesla is the defendant.

"I can't say that the driver was not at fault, but the Tesla system, Autopilot, and Tesla spokespeople encourage drivers to be less attentive," the family's attorney Donald Slavik told Reuters.

"Tesla knows people are going to use Autopilot and use it in dangerous situations," he added.

Tesla is already under heavy scrutiny over its Autopilot and so-called Full Self-Driving software, despite conceding that the features "do not make the vehicle autonomous" and that drivers must remain attentive of the road at all times.

Critics argue that Tesla's marketing is misleading and that it's only leading to more accidents — not making the roads safer, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has argued in the past.

In fact, a recent survey found that 42 percent of Tesla Autopilot said they feel "comfortable treating their vehicles as fully self-driving."

Regulators are certainly already paying attention. The news comes a week after Reuters revealed that the Department of Justice is investigating Tesla over Autopilot.

Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced an investigation of accidents in which Teslas have smashed into emergency response vehicles that were pulled over with sirens or flares.

This month's trial certainly stands the chance of setting a precedent. Was Riad fully at fault or was Tesla's Autopilot at least partially to blame as well?

The answer now lies in the hands of a jury.

READ MORE: Tesla crash trial in California hinges on question of 'man vs machine' [Reuters]

More on Autopilot: Survey: 42% of Tesla Autopilot Drivers Think Their Cars Can Drive Themselves

The post Manslaughter Case Has a Strange Twist: Tesla That Killed Couple Was on Autopilot appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original:

Manslaughter Case Has a Strange Twist: Tesla That Killed Couple Was on Autopilot

Astronomers are puzzled by the strange behavior of certain crooked clusters of stars, which appear to be violating our conventional understanding of gravity.

Massive clusters of stars usually are bound together in spirals at the center of galaxies. Some of these clusters fall under a category astrophysicists call open star clusters, which are created in a relatively short period of time as they ignite in a huge cloud of gas.

During this process, loose stars accumulate in a pair of "tidal tails," one of which is being pulled behind, while the other moves ahead.

"According to Newton’s laws of gravity, it’s a matter of chance in which of the tails a lost star ends up," Jan Pflamm-Altenburg of the University of Bonn in Germany, co-author of a new paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in a statement. "So both tails should contain about the same number of stars."

But some of their recent observations seemingly defy conventional physics.

"However, in our work we were able to prove for the first time that this is not true," Pflamm-Altenburg added. "In the clusters we studied, the front tail always contains significantly more stars nearby to the cluster than the rear tail."

In fact, their new findings are far more in line with a different theory called "Modified Newtonian Dynamics" (MOND).

"Put simply, according to MOND, stars can leave a cluster through two different doors," Pavel Kroupa, Pflamm-Altenburg's colleague at the University of Bonn and lead author, explained in the statement. "One leads to the rear tidal tail, the other to the front."

"However, the first is much narrower than the second — so it’s less likely that a star will leave the cluster through it," he added. "Newton’s theory of gravity, on the other hand, predicts that both doors should be the same width."

The researchers' simulations, taking MOND into consideration, could explain a lot. For one, they suggest that open star clusters survive a much shorter period of time than what is expected from Newton's laws of physics.

"This explains a mystery that has been known for a long time," Kroupa explained. "Namely, star clusters in nearby galaxies seem to be disappearing faster than they should."

But not everybody agrees that Newton's laws should be replaced with MOND, something that could shake the foundations of physics.

"It’s somewhat promising, but it does not provide completely definitive evidence for MOND," University of Saint Andrews research fellow Indranil Banik told New Scientist. "This asymmetry does make more sense in MOND, but in any individual cluster there could be other effects that are causing it — it’s a bit unlikely that would happen in all of them, though."

The researchers are now trying to hone in on an even more accurate picture by stepping up the accuracy of their simulations, which could either support their MOND theory — or conclude that Newton was, in fact, correct the first time around.

More on star clusters: Something Is Ripping Apart the Nearest Star Cluster to Earth

The post There's Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say appeared first on Futurism.

Read the rest here:

There's Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say

Latest Feud

Another day, another Elon Musk feud on Twitter — except now, he's the owner of the social network, and he's beefing with a sitting member of Congress.

The whole thing started innocently enough earlier this week, when firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY, and better known by her initials, "AOC") subtweeted the website's new owner.

"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," the New York Democratic Socialist tweeted in a post that, upon Futurism's perusal, appeared to load only half the time.

Sweat Equity

Not one to be shown up, Musk later posted a screenshot of an AOC-branded sweatshirt from the congressperson's website, with its $58 price tag circled and an emoji belying the billionaire's alleged affront at the price.

In response, Ocasio-Cortez said she was proud her sweatshirts were made by union labor, and that the proceeds from their sales were going to fund educational support for needy kids. She later dug in further, noting that her account was "conveniently" not working and joking that Musk couldn't buy his way "out of insecurity."

Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?

This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me pic.twitter.com/e3hcZ7T9up

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022

Bricked

To be clear, any suggestion that Musk personally had anything to do with any Twitter glitches on AOC's part would seem ludicrously petty. But then again, this is a guy who once hired a private detective to investigate a random critic.

Occam's razor, though, suggests that it was probably AOC's mega-viral tweet that broke the site's notoriously dodgy infrastructure. Of course, that's not a ringing endorsement of the site that Musk just acquired for the colossal sum of $44 billion.

More on Twitter: Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

The post AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk appeared first on Futurism.

More here:

AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk

Core Dump

Scientists studying a group of stars made an astonishing but "serendipitous" discovery when they realized that Gamma Columbae, a fairly average celestial body, might actually be the "stripped pulsating core of a massive star," according to a study published this week in Nature Astronomy.

If true, that means Gamma Columbae is missing the envelope, or vast shroud of gas, that hides a star's nuclear fusion powered core.

What caused the stripping of this atmospheric envelope is not definitively known, but the scientists posit that Gamma Columbae running out of hydrogen could've caused its envelope to expand and swallow up a nearby star, likely its binary partner. But in the middle of that relatively common process, something appears to have horrifically gone wrong and ejected the envelope — and possibly even led to the two stars merging.

Naked Core

Before the disaster, the scientists believe Gamma Columbae could have been up to 12 times the mass of our Sun. Now, it's a comparatively meager 5 stellar masses.

Although a naked stellar core missing its envelope has been theorized to exist, it's never been observed in a star this size.

"Having a naked stellar core of such a mass is unique so far," said study co-author Norbert Pryzbilla, head of the Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck, in an interview with Vice.

Astronomers had an idea of what the cores of massive and low mass stars looked like, Pryzbilla continued, but there wasn't "much evidence" for cores of masses in between.

Star Power

It's an exceedingly rare find because the star is in a "a short-lived post-stripping structural re-adjustment phase" that will only last 10,000 years, according to the study.

That's "long for us humans but in astronomical timescales, very, very short," Przybilla told Vice. "It will always stay as a peculiar object."

The opportunity to study such a rarely exposed stellar core could provide scientists an invaluable look into the evolution of binary star systems. And whatever astronomers learn from the star, it's a fascinating glimpse at stellar destruction at a nearly incomprehensible scale.

More on stars: Black Hole Spotted Burping Up Material Years After Eating a Star

The post Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original:

Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident

Rock of Riches

After disappointing setbacks and a delay over the summer, NASA says it's finally reviving its mission to explore a tantalizing and giant space rock lurking deep in the Asteroid Belt.

Known as 16 Psyche, the NASA-targeted asteroid comprises a full one percent of the mass of the Asteroid Bet, and is speculated to be the core of an ancient planet. But Psyche's size isn't what intrigues scientists so much as its metal-rich composition, believed to be harboring a wealth of iron, nickel, and gold worth an estimated $10 quintillion — easily exceeding the worth of the Earth's entire economy. Although, to be clear, they're not interested in the metals' monetary value but rather its possibly planetary origins.

Back On Track

Initially slated to launch in August 2022, NASA's aptly named Psyche spacecraft became plagued with a persistent flight software issue that led the space agency to miss its launch window that closed on October 11.

But after surviving an independent review determining whether the mission should be scrapped or not, NASA has formally announced that its spacecraft's journey to Psyche will be going ahead, planned to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as early as October 10, 2023.

"I'm extremely proud of the Psyche team," said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. "During this review, they have demonstrated significant progress already made toward the future launch date. I am confident in the plan moving forward and excited by the unique and important science this mission will return."

Although the new launch date is only a little over a year late, the expected arrival at the asteroid Psyche is set back by over three years — 2029 instead of 2026 — due to having to wait for another opportunity to slingshot off of Mars' gravity.

Peering Into a Planet

Once it arrives, the NASA spacecraft will orbit around the asteroid and probe it with an array of instruments, including a multispectral imager, gamma ray and neutron spectrometers, and a magnetometer, according to the agency.

In doing so, scientists hope to determine if the asteroid is indeed the core of a nascent planet known as a planetesimal. If it is, it could prove to be an invaluable opportunity to understand the interior of terrestrial planets like our own.

More on NASA: NASA Announces Plan to Fix Moon Rocket, and Maybe Launch It Eventually

The post NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid appeared first on Futurism.

Read more here:

NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

Fill 'Er Up

A team of Chinese researchers say they managed to convert actual lunar regolith samples into a source of rocket fuel and oxygen — a potential gamechanger for future space explorers hoping to make use of in-situ resources to fuel up for their return journey.

The researchers found that the lunar soil samples can act as a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide and water from astronauts' bodies and environment into methane and oxygen, as detailed in a paper published in the National Science Review.

"In situ resource utilization of lunar soil to achieve extraterrestrial fuel and oxygen production is vital for the human to carry out Moon exploitation missions," lead author Yujie Xiong said in a new statement about the work. "Considering that there are limited human resources at extraterrestrial sites, we proposed to employ the robotic system to perform the whole electrocatalytic CO2 conversion system setup."

That means we could have a much better shot at carrying out longer duration explorations of the lunar surface in the near future.

Set It, Forget It

According to the paper, which builds on previous research suggesting lunar soil can generate oxygen and fuel, this process can be completed using uncrewed systems, even in the absence of astronauts.

In an experiment, the team used samples from China's Chang'e-5 mission, which landed in Inner Mongolia back in December 2020 — the first lunar soil returned to Earth since 1976.

The Moon soil effectively acted as a catalyst, enabling the electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into methane and oxygen.

"No significant difference can be observed between the manned and unmanned systems, which further suggests the high possibility of imitating our proposed system in extraterrestrial sites and proves the feasibility of further optimizing catalyst recipes on the Moon," the researchers conclude in their paper.

Liquified

But there's one big hurdle to still overcome: liquifying carbon dioxide is anything but easy given the Moon's frosty atmosphere, as condensing the gas requires a significant amount of heat, as New Scientist reported earlier this year.

Still, it's a tantalizing prospect: an autonomous machine chugging away, pumping out oxygen and fuel for future visitors. But for now, it's not much more than a proof of concept.

READ MORE: Scientists investigate using lunar soils to sustainably supply oxygen and fuels on the moon [Science China Press]

More on lunar soil: Bad News! The Plants Grown in Moon Soil Turned Out Wretched

The post Scientists Use Actual Lunar Soil Sample to Create Rocket Fuel appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original here:

Scientists Use Actual Lunar Soil Sample to Create Rocket Fuel

Cat Burglar

Cats are known for not really minding their own business, getting their furry paws on just about anything they can.

And it turns out, this makes them effective vectors for DNA evidence, according to a study published last month in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetic Supplement Series.

Researchers collaborating with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department in Australia found detectable human DNA in 80 percent of the samples collected from 20 pet cats, with 70 percent of the samples strong enough that they could be linked to a person of interest in a crime scene investigation.

"Collection of human DNA needs to become very important in crime scene investigations, but there is a lack of data on companion animals such as cats and dogs in their relationship to human DNA transfer," said study lead author Heidi Monkman, a forensic scientist at Flinders University, in a statement.

"These companion animals can be highly relevant in assessing the presence and activities of the inhabitants of the household, or any recent visitors to the scene."

Here Kitty

One possible takeaway is that cats — and other companion pets like dogs — could be harboring DNA that could help solve a case.

The bigger issue, though, is that pets could introduce foreign DNA that muddles a crime scene, possibly leading to an innocent person being implicated. A pet could be carrying the DNA of a complete stranger, or it might bring the DNA of its owner into a crime scene that they had nothing to do with.

Monkman's colleague and co-author of the paper, Maria Goray, is an experienced crime scene investigator and an expert in DNA transfer. She believes their findings could help clear up how pets might tamper a crime scene by carrying outside DNA.

"Are these DNA findings a result of a criminal activity or could they have been transferred and deposited at the scene via a pet?" Goray asked.

It's a question worth asking — especially because innocent people have been jailed off botched DNA science far too often.

More on DNA evidence: Cops Upload Image of Suspect Generated From DNA, Then Delete After Mass Criticism

The post Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say appeared first on Futurism.

Read the rest here:

Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, the billionaire has been frantically shuffling through ambitious plans to turn the ailing social media platform into a revenue-driving business.

Case in point, according to internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk is plotting for Twitter to charge users to view videos posted by content creators and take a cut of the proceeds — a highly controversial idea that's already been met with internal skepticism.

The team of Twitter engineers has "identified the risk as high" in the email, citing "risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance."

In short, Musk is blazing ahead with his infamously ambitious timelines — a "move fast and break things" approach that could signify a tidal change for Twitter's historically sluggish approach to launching new features.

Musk has already made some big structural changes to Twitter, having fired high-up positions at the company and dissolved its board of directors.

The company will also likely be facing mass layoffs, according to The Washington Post.

The new feature detailed in the new email, which is being referred to as "Paywalled Video," allows creators to "enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet" and chose from a preset list of prices, ranging from $1 to $10.

"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators," Musk tweeted on Tuesday, adding that "creators need to make a living!"

But whether Twitter users will be willing to pay for stuff that was previously free remains anything but certain.

Musk has already announced that he is planning to charge $8 a month for Twitter users to stay verified, which has been met with derision.

The billionaire CEO is facing an uphill battle. Now that the company is private, he has to pay around $1 billion in annual interest payments, a result from his $44 buyout, according to the WaPo.

Compounding the trouble, Reuters reported last week that Twitter is bleeding some of its most active users.

Meanwhile, Musk's chaotic moves are likely to alienate advertisers, with the Interpublic Group, a massive inter-agency advertising group, recommending that its clients suspend all paid advertising for at least the week.

That doesn't bode well. It's not out of the question that a paywalled video feature may facilitate the monetization of pornographic content, which may end up scaring off advertisers even further — but Twitter's exact intentions for the feature are still unclear.

According to Reuters, around 13 percent of the site's content is currently marked not safe for work (NSFW).

It's part of Musk's attempt to shift revenue away from advertising on the platform. In a tweet last week, he promised advertisers that Twitter wouldn't become a "free-for-all hellscape."

But that hasn't stopped advertisers from already leaving in droves.

All in all, a paywalled video feature could mark a significant departure for Twitter, a platform still primarily known for short snippets of text.

For now, all we can do is watch.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on paid-video feature with ‘high’ risk [The Washington Post]

More on Twitter: Elon Musk Pleads With Stephen King to Pay for Blue Checkmark

The post Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos appeared first on Futurism.

Read more:

Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin claim to have found a way to control how high mice can get on a given amount of cocaine.

And don't worry — while that may sound like a particularly frivolous plot concocted by a team of evil scientists, the goal of the research is well-meaning.

The team, led by University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Santiago Cuesta, was investigating how the gut microbiome can influence how mice and humans react to ingesting the drug.

The research, detailed in a new paper published this week in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, sheds light on a vicious feedback loop that could explain cases of substance abuse disorders — and possibly lay the groundwork for future therapeutic treatments.

In a number of experiments on mice, the researchers found that cocaine was linked to the growth of common gut bacteria, which feed on glycine, a chemical that facilitates basic brain functions.

The lower the levels of glycine in the brain, the more the mice reacted to the cocaine, exhibiting abnormal behaviors.

To test the theory, the scientists injected the mice with a genetically modified amino acid which cannot break down glycine. As a result, the behavior of mice returned to normal levels.

In other words, the amino acid could curb cocaine addiction-like behaviors — at least in animal models.

"The gut bacteria are consuming all of the glycine and the levels are decreasing systemically and in the brain," said Vanessa Sperandio, senior author, and microbiologist from the University of Wisconsin, in a statement. "It seems changing glycine overall is impacting the glutamatergic synapses that make the animals more prone to develop addiction."

It's an unorthodox approach to treating addiction, but could be intriguing — if it works in people, that is.

"Usually, for neuroscience behaviors, people are not thinking about controlling the microbiota, and microbiota studies usually don't measure behaviors, but here we show they’re connected," Cuesta added. "Our microbiome can actually modulate psychiatric or brain-related behaviors."

In short, their research could lead to new ways of treating various psychiatric disorders such as substance use by adjusting the gut microbiome and not making changes to the brain chemistry.

"I think the bridging of these communities is what's going to move the field forward, advancing beyond correlations towards causations for the different types of psychiatric disorders," Sperandio argued.

READ MORE: How gut bacteria influence the effects of cocaine in mice [Cell Press]

More on addiction: Study: Magic Mushrooms Helped 83% of People Cut Excessive Drinking

The post Scientists Found a Way to Control How High Mice Got on Cocaine appeared first on Futurism.

Read more:

Scientists Found a Way to Control How High Mice Got on Cocaine