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If You Loved Greedfall, Try These 3 Games Like It – KeenGamer News
Posted: February 6, 2021 at 8:22 am
If youre on PlayStation, chances are youve had easy access to the developerSpiders best game yet, and by now, are probably nearing the end of your journey. You wont be able to continue playing after completion, but you will be able to return to a previous save file. So if you want more from the island, the best thing to do is complete the extremely interesting and rewarding companion side quests (especially if youd also like a pirate face tattoo). If youve been there and done that and still want more, here are other games like Greedfall to think about.
A sequel to the PS3s Mars: War Logs, which you dont need to have played in order to enjoy its successor, The Technomancer is incredibly similar due to its mechanics. As an electricity-wielding, melee-proficient soldier on Mars, youre able to utilize three different combat styles (one with a staff, one with a gun, and one with a shield). The combat has essentially the same PS3-era, arcade-like feel, and similar character appearance and animation style.
Speaking of appearance, you can edit Zachariahs hair and face to a modest degree, and you can outfit him with the gear you find along your journey by looting enemies and opening chests around the maps. Other RPG elements also endure; skill trees enable you to devote more focus towards improving specific combat styles and your technomancy powers overall, and another menu allows you to upgrade other, less combat-oriented Talents, such as Charisma, Science, and Lockpicking.
Just as the settings of Teer Fradee are divided by faction and aesthetic, so too are the cities of Mars. Ophir is cold and sort of cyberpunk in style, while Noctis is like a Martian bazaar. The games story is decent, and though the premise is not quite as original as Greedfalls, the elaboration upon the premise is. Simply put, its not like any interpretation of Martian colonization youve already seen a hundred times before.
Finally, the hallmark of a Spiders game is undoubtedly its satisfying companion system. Each of them has a different combat style and benefits to offer, and three (two women and one man) can be romanced. Now, dont get discouraged by the first options offered to you. Just trust me, there are much better folks waiting to help you, like Beg, the sun-scarred and seemingly dull mutant.
An ambitious RPG, Vampyrs story revolves around doctor/vampire Jonathan Reid. The emphasis on communication and diplomacy between characters is there, as is the skill tree progression system. The combat shares the same foundation asour previous Mars themed entry, plus a sort of toned-down version of Bloodborne. I draw this comparison mainly from the shared gun mechanics; melee definitely comes first, but an easy, close-range shot from a pistol will help damage and disorient enemies. However, your most useful tools wont be your weapons but your supernatural powers.
Enemies are scattered throughout the open world, but every kill seems to pose possible consequences and ramifications. Reid is no legate of any congregation, like De Sardet, but he certainly has to pick his words and actions just as carefully. 20th-century London is a close-knit place.
Ive only played the latest installment of the Dragon Age series. Though previous entries of these games might be more like Greedfall, I feel confident in recommending Dragon Age: Inquisition to almost anyone. The massive world is divided into sections to which you can fast travel; this allows for incredibly diverse locations. The combat is arcade-ish, but the true appeal for those reading this would be the stellar companion system.
Playing as a Qunari rogue, I romanced Dorian, my mage companion. I found my partner to be valuable in combat, and I complimented his and my skills with the long-range weaponry of Varric and the brute strength of Blackwall, whom I outfitted with the finest armor I could craft. Truly one of the best games Ive ever played.
With that, you now know of three games like Greedfall to pick up and enjoy.
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Robinhood Screwed Its Users But Is More Popular Than Ever – VICE
Posted: at 8:22 am
Despite facing criticism from users and lawmakers as well as being hit with a class action lawsuit after it imposed trading restrictions on GameStop, AMC, and other stocks targeted by the r/WallStreetBets community, Robinhood has seen a flood of new capital and users.
The popular fee-free investment app, which bills itself as "democratizing" investing while selling its users' trading data to hedge funds, was a nexus of the amateur trading activity that buoyed dark horse stocks and walloped short-sellers like Melvin Capital. After it restricted trading on popular stocks to sell-only as prices fell last Thursday, though, Robinhood became something of a villain as users felt it had turned heel and lawmakers demanded hearings.
Now, just like the massive investment funds that had the value of their ownership stakes in GameStop inflated astronomically thanks to all this activity by amateur investors, it's starting to seem like Robinhood will make it out OK after all.
For one, Robinhood is seemingly still very popular. According to The New York Times, Thursdaythe day of Robinhood's strictest trading restrictionswas also its best ever: it saw over 177,000 downloads (twice the previous week's daily rate) and had 2.7 million daily users.
Robinhood also announced on Monday that it raised another $2.4 billion in a new funding round led by Ribbit Capital and including existing investors such as ICONIQ Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and NEA. Bloomberg reported that the investment would convert into equity at a $30 billion valuation or a 30 percent discount on its initial public offering (IPO), and then would be followed by another $1 billion infusion converting to equity at either a $33 billion or a 30 percent IPO discount. Robinhood has been planning to go public in May since late last year, either through an initial public listing, a direct listing, or a merger with a SPAC.
Robinhood was also given a platform from which it could explain itself to a reasonably friendly audience. In a conversation with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the social media app Clubhouse on January 31, Robinhood chief executive Vlad Tenev said that the National Securities Cleaning Corporation asked for $3 billion in collateral to back up trades of increasingly volatile stocks on its platform.
This ask was "an order of magnitude" larger than usual, Tenev said, adding that "Robinhood up until that point has raised around $2 billion in total venture capital." This is what led to Robinhood restricting trades and tapping credit lines at six banks as well as seeking emergency cash infusions.
Musk was there to speak directly to his biggest fans about crowd-favorite topics like Mars colonization and artificial intelligence. It was undoubtedly a friendly audience for Musk full of acolytes, and he threw seemingly "tough" questions at Tenev only for them to be calmly explained. Clubhouse, where the conversation took place, is a hangout for Silicon Valley and Valley-adjacent types primarily backed by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, which was an investor in Robinhood's latest funding round.
Still, Robinhood isn't in for smooth sailing, exactly. The company now faces increased regulatory scrutiny and saw a class-action lawsuit shortly after it began restricting trades. This recent spectacle will likely refocus attention on accusations from Massachusetts securities regulators in late December that the company takes advantage of inexperienced customers. In a 50 page response released late Friday, Robinhood insisted that it has actually gone out of its way to democratize finance and dismissed claims that it gamifies investing, lets customers engage in risky trades, and that any of its techniques could be considered illegal.
The truth is that Robinhood has momentum, a hooked user base, and a business model that seems empowering for users but rather exploits them. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Robinhood's senior director of product management Madhu Muthukumar said that the app's gambling-adjacent interface is intentional and designed to make it feel like something thats familiar to populations that historically have not been served. And for all the rhetoric around "democratizing" finance, Robinhood sells all its users' trades to huge firms such as Citadel Securities which sees them before they are even executed on the market. Indeed, the SEC fined Robinhood $65 million recently for losing investors tens of millions of dollars due to its business dealings with market makers.
Robinhood is reminiscent of another company here: Facebook. The tech giant skates through every controversy no matter how outrageous and becomes more powerful while directly exploiting its users' privacy and at the same time claiming to "give people the power to build community."
As Jacob Silverman writes in The New Republic, the troubles it's facing now are unlikely to halt Robinhood's advance. In a time of rampant poverty, precarity, and also absurd wealth, we are heading towards becoming a nation of gamblers hoping to strike it rich. That Robinhoods siren call is more popular than ever should be read as a omenthe app is simply bringing more people to a casino when they have less to gamble with. And in a casino, the house always wins.
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Bill Maher welcomes another late night host to Real Time tonight – Last Night On
Posted: at 8:14 am
Two of late night televisions best will share the spotlight tonight on an all-newReal Time with Bill Maher. Jimmy Kimmel is set to be Bill Mahers featured guest.
Kimmel and Maher will have plenty to talk about on tonights show. Both are trying to figure how to do a late night comedy show in these times, both have been targets of former President Donald Trump, and both have set their comedic sights on Republicans like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Anytime there is a crossover event among late night television hosts, fans get excited. Combinations like Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon or Stephen Colbert and Conan OBrien have resulted in some memorable moments.
OnReal Time, Kimmel will be even more free to speak his mind than when hes on ABC. Any uncertainty about how he feels about the news should be put to rest tonight.
Real Time with Bill Maheris currently at the start of season 19 on HBO. Maher jumped headfirst into the discussion surrounding the Capitol insurrection and former President Donald Trumps impeachment.
Meanwhile,Jimmy Kimmel Live!recently celebrated its 18th year on ABC. The show has become increasingly political in the past five years and it has paid off.
It was actually Jimmy Kimmel whom ABC tapped to fill the late night slot left behind when Bill MahersPolitically Incorrectwas canceled.
Kimmel has made one previous appearance onReal Time with Bill Maher. It came in April of 2003, just a few months afterJimmy Kimmel Live!premiered on ABC.
It all worked out for both comedians as Maher has thrived on HBO and Kimmel currently sits in second place behindThe Late Show with Stephen Colbertin the late night ratings. Now the two are back together for what should be an entertaining conversation.
Real Time with Bill Maherairs tonight at 10:00 P.M. The other guests are journalist and author Charlotte Alter and author, pundit, and podcast host Matt Welch.You can watch on HBO or on HBO Max. Be sure to check back with Last Night On for all the highlights.
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Jimmy Kimmel Compares Bill Maher To Tom Brady, Admitting He Is Pulling For The Super Bowl Quarterback – Deadline
Posted: at 8:14 am
Jimmy Kimmel and Bill Maher had a wide-ranging, late-night comedy love-in to kick off tonights episode of Real Time, with the guest comparing the host to starting Super Bowl quarterback Tom Brady.
Sundays Super Bowl LV pits Bradys Tampa Bay Buccaneers against quarterback Patrick Mahomes defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. Maher groaned, If I have to listen to sportscasters or anyone else on TV sucking Tom Bradys dk Hearing the hype, Maher said he has been praying, Please, Mahomes, beat this motherfker!
The host of ABCs Jimmy Kimmel Live conceded that even though Brady has certainly won his share of everything, he is nevertheless rooting for Brady on Sunday for a reason that he said is universal. This is a guy who was told by his employer he said, preparing to describe Bradys departure from the New England Patriots, before a thought occurred to him. By the way, this reminds me a little bit of you, he told Maher. When you were at ABC, they said, Alright, thats it were done. You went on to become tremendously successful here at HBO. Youre like the Tom Brady. I think you want the accolades for yourself! In other words, he seemed to suggest, Maher is in some way jealous of Brady for possibly pulling off a revenge act that would outdo Mahers rebound from being bounced from ABCs Politically Incorrect.
Everybody whos been fired from a job goes, Ugh, Id love to see this guy leave this job,' Kimmel reasoned. They go in the toilet, he goes to Tampa which is also a toilet, lets be honest. I lived there, I know. And then hes in the Super Bowl again and, who knows, he might win it.
The pair covered a few other topics during the chatty segment, including Mahers 10-year investment in the New York Mets baseball team which Maher said reached its end during the near-death experience of 2020. Even though he was constantly writing checks during a period when the team was unable to play, he still made out like a fking bandit on his original outlay.
Noting how many people seem to be wanting to leave California (a pet topic of Mahers), the host asked Kimmel to describe a recent road trip he took to Idaho in an RV with his family. He admitted that after sweating it out in a hot tent Did you know tents dont have air conditoning? Kimmel asked. Tents?! Maher replied the family packed up and drove to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. They have parking for RVs there! Kimmel added. Of course they do, Maher said, after admitting he pines for his tour dates in Vegas lost to Covid-19.
Speaking of the pandemic, the two also compared notes on having to perform to an audience consisting only of their own writing staffs due to health and safety restrictions. Kimmel joked that his writers are sick of listening to him. We should switch staffs! he proposed. It will be like swinging, he explained, but for talk shows.
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Canada becomes first nation to declare the Proud Boys a terrorist organization – USA TODAY
Posted: at 8:14 am
Expert: Hate group 'Proud Boys' part of Trump base AP Domestic
The Canadian government addedthe Proud Boys,an extremist group with ties to white nationalism, to its list of terrorist organizations.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair announced Wednesday the Proud Boys were one of 13 groups now designated as terrorist organizations, includingthe Russian Imperial Movementand two neo-Nazi groups the Atomwaffen Division and The Base.
Canada will not tolerate ideological, religious or politically motivated acts of violence, Blair said.
Canada is the first country to designate the Proud Boysas a terrorist entity.
Designating a groupa terrorist organization allows the government to seize its assets and increase terrorism-related penalties.
A government official said just because a person is a member of the organization doesnt mean they will automatically be charged with a crime. But if that personwas to engage in violent acts, they could face terrorism charges.
Sending money to the organization or buying Proud Boys paraphernalia would also be a crime.
The announcement comes a little more than a week after Canada'sHouse of Commons unanimously passed a motioncalling for the government to use all available tools to address the proliferation of white supremacists and hate groupsstarting with the immediately designating the Proud Boys as a terrorist entity," Global News reported.
The motion was introduced by the leader of the country's New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, who urged Canadians to "keep the pressure on" Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal government to formally add the group to the list of terrorist organizations, which includes Boko Haram, the Taliban and al-Qaida.
Singh celebrated the announcement, calling it a victory for young people, working people and Black, brown and Indigenous people on Twitter.
The Proud Boyswere founded in 2016 byVice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, a Canadian, anddescribed themselves at the time as a politically incorrect mens club for Western chauvinists."
Who are the Proud Boys?Far-right group has concerned experts for years
McInnes quit the Proud Boys after an October2018clashbetween group members and antifa that followedhis speech at New Yorks Metropolitan Republican Club.
The group is known for its"anti-Muslimand misogynistic rhetoric," according toThe Southern Poverty Law Center, a legaladvocacy organizationthat has designated the Proud Boys as a hate group. The SPLC has been warning about the group's violent tendencies for years.
The Canadian government calls the Proud Boys a neo-fascist organization with semiautonomous chapters located in Canada, the United States and other countries. It said the groupengages in political violence and that members espouse misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrantand white supremacist ideologies.
The group has faced renewed criticismafter several members were arrested for participating in the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol building in support of former President Donald Trump.A Canadian government senior official said the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol contributed to the designation.
More: Proud Boys organizer Joseph Biggs charged in deadly Capitol riot
Enrique Tarrio, the group's current leader,was arrestedlast month in Washington, D.C., and charged with destruction of property in connection with a Decemberincidentwhere set fire toaBlack Lives Matter banner after a Trump rally. The banner had been taken from a historic Black church.
Contributing: Joel Shannon and Will Carless, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg
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Ode to J – The Cancer Letter
Posted: at 8:14 am
publication date: Feb. 5, 2021
By Hagop M. Kantarjian, MD
Professor and chairman, Department of Leukemia,
Samsung Distinguished University Chair in Cancer Medicine,
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Humans cannot live without hope. Hopelessness is the greatest trauma a person has to suffer.Emil J Freireich, MD
Dr. Emil J Freireich gave me hopejust as he did for millions of patients, loved ones, physicians and researchers. He brought me from Lebanon to the United States and provided me with endless opportunities to develop as a leukemia researcher and as a human being.
Not only was he my mentor, I considered him my third parent. After losing both my parents, in 2000 and 2001my mother being the most intelligent person I have ever known and my father being the hardest-working person I have ever metI realized that the people I loved most outside my immediate family were those in my professional one.
Foremost among them was Freireich.
When I started my career as a medical student at the American University of Beirut in 1972, I had decided I wanted to cure cancer (like millions of others). I told my father, but he said, There is no such specialty. Dont waste your time.
This was somewhat true considering that the field of cancer research and care was in its infancy. When Freireich joined the National Institutes of Health in 1955, he was among the first generation of cancer doctors, perhaps a dozen, that included Gordon Zubrod, James Holland, Emil Frei, and otherstodays pioneering giants in cancer.
He was the inaugural leukemia expert, and soon enough demonstrated that leukemia was the first cancer that could be cured with drugs. Before him, M.C. Li had shown that choriocarcinomas could be cured with methotrexate (1955), but a common belief then was that this was a tumor of the fetus, thus foreign or allogeneic, but that syngeneic tumors were incurable. But I digress
Despite my fathers objections, I was reading the 1970s literature, and the name of Freireich and his colleagues from MD Anderson came up over and over in many of the innovative cancer discoveries and papers: Gerald Bodey, Edmond Gehan, Michael Keating, Kenneth McCredie, Evan Hersh, Jordan Gutterman (the list goes on and on).
Memorial Sloan Kettering was then the only other fully dedicated cancer research center. So, in 1978, as a fourth-year medical student, I applied to both Memorial Sloan Kettering and MD Anderson for a four-month elective rotation.
Memorial rejected me immediately. Freireichwho led the Developmental Therapeutics department at MD Andersonaccepted me immediately, sans voir (as they say in poker). I thought it was because I was so great, but I realized later that Freireichs motto was similar to a line in Georges Brassenss poetry: Embrasse-les tous, Dieu reconnaitra le sien (Embrace them all, God will sort his own).
He accepted us all, the geniuses and the less so, the hardest working and the lesser ones, and molded us over time into the best cancer researchers we could be. And perhaps because of Freireichs massive magnetic personality, his dashing expansive charisma, his unlimited innovative capacities, his larger-than-life figure, and his infinite optimism, he attracted a certain breed of physicians, students, cancer researchers and followers destined to remain in cancer research and transformed them into the cancer researchers he wanted them to become.
And he attracted then from the four corners of the world. Fernando Cabanillas tells this story:
When Freireich welcomed the new fellows in July 1974, in his welcome speech he said that all of us in the room had been selected because we were geniuses. I was so naive that I believed him. I did not consider myself a genius, and was even worried that I had been accepted at MD Anderson through a bureaucratic error, and that I would eventually be discovered. Nevertheless, I started believing him, and he made us all feel important and capable of anything, which I obviously think was what he wanted.
When Freireich came with Frei to MD Anderson in 1965, the institution was barely on the map. Freireich was tasked with starting a cancer research program for developmental therapeutics, or DT.
Ten years later, DT became the largest cancer research program in the world, with more than 100 experts drawn from over 60 countries: New Zealand (Kenneth McCredie), Australia (Michael Keating,Andrew Burgess, Gary Spitzer, John Seymour), Japan (Ryuzo Ohno), Sweden (Borje Andersson),Czechoslovakia (Miloslav Beran), Germany (Bart Barlogie and Axel Zander), Hungary via Colombia (Gabriel Hortobagyi), Canada (Razelle Kurzrock), Holland (Karl Dickie, Lejda Vellekoop), India (Sewa Legha, Sunda Jagannath, Varsha Gandhi), Israel (Giora Mavligit, Moshe Talpaz, Zeev Estrov, Meir Wetzler), Lebanon (Elias Anaissie, Issam Raad, Fadlo Khuri,Philip Salem), Mexico (Jorge Quesada, Jorge Cortes), Panama (Adan Rios), Puerto Rico (Fernando Cabanillas), Peru (Manuel Valdivieso, Carlos Vallejos, who later became minister of health in Peru), and on and on.
There were even Americans: Gerald Bodey, Edmond Gehan, Evan Hersh, William Plunkett, Walter Hittleman, Susan OBrien, Jeane Hester, Jordan Gutterman, Robert Benjamin, Elihu Estey, etc
The 1974-75 fellowship class included the four bearded ones: Keating, Hortobagyi, Cabanillas, Barlogie. Each became one of the most prominent cancer researchers in his field (leukemia, breast, lymphoma, myeloma, respectively). The Department of Developmental Therapeutics was not only the largest, but also the most diverse in the world, akin to the Tower of Babel.
Before meeting Freireich, I was very much a person who followed established medical traditions and textbooks. I accepted medical standards and norms without questioning and believed everything that was in the booksunchallenged. At the American University of Beirut as in many other places in the world, knowledge is acquired by absorption of existing facts and information.
Freireich emphasized that all knowledge is contemporary and transient, that medical knowledge doubles every two years, and that 90% of what we hold as true in cancer research and care will be obsolete in 10 years. He taught me to think outside of the box, to always challenge concepts of leukemia care and research.
When I first arrived at MD Anderson in 1978, I started going to the DT meetings, attended by over 40-50 of the then best known cancer researchers in the world, the ones whose work and research I was reading in numerous publications (Bodey, Hersh, Gutterman, Benjamin, Hortobagyi, Keating, McCredie, Barlogie, Cabanillas, Legha, etc.).
I was still a 24-year-old who accepted established authorities, but I realized that this was Texas, the Wild West, a true Babel of cacophonies and opposing views espoused by brilliant researchers with big egos, brought together to advance the cancer cause.
Meetings would get tense, as many opinions were shared, sometimes even shouted. I would leave that dangerous environment four months later to return home to the safety of the civil war in Lebanon.
But I was already infected by the Freireich bug and returned to MD Anderson in 1981 to join his fellowship program. In 1983, I became an associate faculty member in the Leukemia Department and spent the next three to four years rounding with Freireich, McCredie, Keating and Estey almost every other month.
Each was a great teacher, and all had a great sense of humor. For me, these were the happiest, most fun memories. Freireich was a great raconteur, and I learned much through his humor.
Freireich, Michael Keating, and Hagop Kantarjian at a 1985 meeting in Sicily Source: Hagop Kantarjian
The so called Freireichs Laws were often funny, and he delivered them, as he did many of his conversations, with the perfect pitch and timing of a great comedian, while they still carried an unparalleled depth of wisdom and knowledge.
Discussing a famous statement attributed to Hippocrates, First do no harm, Freireich pointed out in his Karnofsky lecture that Primum non nocere fails to do the possible and the necessary (Law number 5; physicians creed).
Certainly, any lay person is qualified to do no harm. The physicians admonition must clearly bedo what can possibly be done and, perhaps more important, do that which is necessary.
Law number 1 (clinical investigators creed): The primary beneficiary of clinical research is the patient participating in that research.
Law number 2 (optimists creed): Always be prepared for success. Failure creates problems.
Law number 7 (regulators creed): The general solution to a specific problem will soon become a specific problem requiring a general solution.
Law number 17: Dont let toxicity interfere with success. Figure out a way to avoid it The worst toxicity is progressive cancer.
Another unnumbered law: Any research not worth doing is not worth doing well.
Freireichs laws in the treatment of sarcomas
Clinical Investigators Creed: The primary beneficiary of clinical research is the patient participating in that research.
Optimists Creed: Always be prepared for success. Failure creates problems.
The Academic Question: If we must experiment on patients to obtain medical information, then we had best do without that information.
Statisticians Creed: The best therapeutic research gives the best results.
Physicians Creed: Primum Non Nocere fails to do the possible and the necessary.
Health Service Delivery Creed: The best care (service) is clinical research. Alternate form: the best clinical research offers the patient the best possible care.
Freireich loomed over our lives. On our best days, we could only wish to be what Freireich was on any one of his average days.
Still, because of his dominating personality, strong opinions and unfiltered counsel, the world of Freireich was divided into two kinds of people: Those who loved him unconditionally and those who resented him unconditionally. Yet, even in their resentment, they admired him, respected him and continued to follow his research.
Still, because of the clashes with the cancer establishment, he never received his full due. He was the first leukemia researcher ever and the first to cure leukemia, yet he never received any of the American Society of Hematology awards. He was never awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, but then, greatness is not measured in awards.
Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel, the two greatest French poets ever, and Van Morrison were never awarded the Nobel in literature (although Bob Dylan finally was). And neither were Philip Roth or Salman Rushdie (yet).
But as controversial as Freireich was in leukemia and cancer, he was extremely respectful of the opinions of individuals he loved.
Freireich, Michael Keating, and Hagop Kantarjian at a 1985 meeting in Sicily Source: Hagop Kantarjian
As an example, he and I were on far opposite ends of the political spectrumIll let you guess which endsbut we never had a cross word about this.
Yes, he was larger than life, bombastic, abrasive, and politically incorrect at times. He was good at ruffling feathers, but he also had a sense of humor in abundance and a magnetism so irresistible that he made everyone who worked with him feel like they were the most important and favorite person to him.
If you asked the hundreds of researchers who worked with Freireich, each would categorically state that they were his favorite and they are carrying the torch of his legacy. And we all are.
Freireich always said, We are going to cure all the leukemias in my lifetime.
Initially, it was thought of as a pipe dream. When he started, none of the leukemias were curable. When I joined the MD Anderson faculty in 1981, only 20% of acute leukemias were cured, but none of the chronic leukemia were.
By 2018, all the chronic leukemiasCML and CLLhad become functionally or molecularly curable, and the cure rate of acute leukemia had reached more than 60-70%. We started to think his prophecy might actually be realized in his lifetime.
When I last saw him, in January 2021, over a span of a 30-minute conversation, he asked me three times, Are you happy? I replied each time in the affirmative.
Of course, I was sad in the moment, but to have spent 40 years with Freireich has made my life on this Earth very much worthwhile. I am the happiest person here because of him. Rest in peace, dearest friend of mine and of many others.
Your prophecy will come true very soon.
The author is professor and chairman,
Department of Leukemia,
Samsung Distinguished University Chair in Cancer Medicine,
MD Anderson Cancer Center
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Genomics and genre – Science
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If the double helix is an icon of the modern age, then the genome is one of the last grand narratives of modernity, writes Lara Choksey in her new book, Narrative in the Age of the Genome. Hybridizing literary criticism with a genre-spanning consideration of a dozen distinct literary works, and imbued throughout with deep concern for the peripheral, the possible, and the political, the book seeks to challenge the whole imaginative apparatus for constructing the self into a coherent narrative, via the lexicon and syntax of the molecular.
To a reading of Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene (1976) as a repudiation of class struggle and E. O. Wilson's Sociobiology (1975) as a defense of warfare, Choksey juxtaposes another kind of ambiguous heterotopia in which genetic engineering is a tool of neoliberal self-fashioning. In Samuel R. Delany's Trouble on Triton (1976), Bron, a transgender ex-gigolo turned informatics expert, is caught between sociobiology and the selfish gene, between the liberal developmentalism of progressive evolution, and the neoliberal extraction and rearrangement of biological information. Even the undulating interruptions and parentheticals of Bron's thoughts [mimic] the description of the activation and silencing of genes, she suggests, tying together gene and genre in a way that encapsulates neoliberal alienation.
Choksey next explores the ways in which collectivist fantasies of biological reinvention under Soviet Lysenkoism fused code and cultivation through a close reading of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic (1972) in which cultivated utopian dreamworlds become contaminated by alien forces, resulting in fundamental ecological transformations beyond the promised reach of human control. The novel brings to light not forgotten Soviet utopias but literal zombies and mutations. In a world where planned cultivation fails entirely in the face of the unfamiliar, even as new biological weapons are being developed, Earth itself viscerally reflects a fractured reality of lost promisesa world in crisis with all meaning gone, and survival itself a chancy proposition.
Framed as a family history, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is actually a horror story, argues Choksey.
As the promise of precision medicine emerged, so too did new forms of memoir. In Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005) and the film Gattaca (1997), for example, the traditional aspirational narrative of a pilgrim's progress is subverted: As the unitary subject disappears into data, algorithms, and commodities, a new grammar of existence emerges, albeit one in which the inherited problems of the pastracism, ableism, and the fiction of heteronormativityremain ever-present.
In Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother (2006) and Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing (2016), Choksey sees a reorientation of genomics away from the reduction of self to code and toward new forms of kinship and belonging that offer a reckoning with the histories of brutalization and displacement upon which liberal humanism is founded. Even as genomics seeks to locate the trauma of enslavement at the level of the molecular, communities seeking reunion and reparation know that technology alone cannot do the cultural work of caring for history that narrative can offer.
Reading Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) as a biography of Black horror which tries, time and again, to resolve itself as family romance, Choksey identifies the perils of narratives unable to recognize their own genre. She argues that by blurring the lines not between fact and fiction but between horror and family history, the dehumanization of Black lives as experimental biomatter echoes inescapably with larger histories of the extraction of Black flesh for the expansion of colonial-capitalist production.
What emerges as most compelling out of this entire tapestry of readings is the author's interpretation of the limits and failures of the extraordinary cultural power of the genome. Concluding that genomics has privileged a particular conception of the human that is in the process of being reconfigured, Choksey ventures that the uncomplicated subject, the Vitruvian Man of the Human Genome Project, has reached its end. What is left is neither dust, stardust, nor a face erased in the sand (as Foucault would have it) but rather whatever might emerge next from the unwieldy kaleidoscope of possible meanings.
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Gene editing: Should livestock and crops be genetically engineered in the UK? – BBC Focus Magazine
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In early January 2021, a consultation was launched that asks whether organisms produced by genetic engineering should continue to be classified as genetically modified, if the organisms could have been developed using traditional breeding methods.
The consultation is especially focused on gene editing, also known as genome editing, a technology that allows scientists to add, remove or alter an organisms DNA.
Unlike older types of transgenic genetic modification, this process doesnt introduce foreign DNA into the gene. In a speech launching the consultation, Environment Secretary George Eustice said gene editing raises far fewer ethical or biological concerns than transgenic modification and respects the rules of nature.
In 2018, the European Court of Justice ruled that gene-edited crops should be considered the same as other genetically modified crops under EU law, a ruling Eustice called flawed and stifling to scientific progress.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson shares a similar view. In 2019 he pledged to liberate the UKs extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic-modification rules.
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Gene editing is a relatively new and fast-evolving technology. The first type of gene editing, using CRISPR/Cas9, was only developed in 2012 (the two women that developed it won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry).
Views on regulating the use of gene editing in producing genetically modified animals or crops have generally fallen into two camps, says Prof Katherine Denby from the University of York, who works on new ways to improve crops using tools such as gene editing.
The first camp argues that as gene-edited crops or livestock could have arisen through traditional breeding processes, they should not be classed as genetically modified organisms, meaning they wouldnt be subject to genetic modification regulations.
The second camp holds that any organism made through gene editing should be regulated as a genetically modified organism, regardless of whether the final product could have been made using traditional breeding. Countries such as the US, Australia and Japan have taken the former, more relaxed, approach, while the EU has taken the latter, more stringent one.
Current UK regulations mean gene-edited crops can technically come to market, but the regulatory process is both lengthy and extremely costly, says Denby.
Its really prohibiting the development of products, both crops and genome-edited livestock, just because of that cost, she says. This, in turn, is prohibiting the development of traits that are for public good, such as disease resistance, she says.
Gene editing could potentially offer greater food security for the UK, but are there unseen dangers? Getty Images
For example, her own work aims to replicate the disease resistance found in older and wild relatives of lettuce in more modern varieties, a process that will go many times faster using gene editing rather than traditional breeding.
But other scientists are more sceptical about the benefits that gene editing can bring and are concerned about its potential dangers.
This technology comes with innate risks to alter the genetic composition, the patterns of gene function, says Dr Michael Antoniou, head of the gene expression and therapy group at Kings College London. In doing so you change the plants biochemistry.
Antoniou says gene editing is not as highly precise as is often claimed and can bring about unintended mutations. Worryingly, those who are developing gene-edited crops and foods are ignoring the risks, he says.
For instance, gene editing could run the risk of producing novel toxins or allergens, or increasing the levels of pre-existing toxins and allergens, especially in plants, he says.
Without strict safety checks, its possible that crops that are potentially harmful could enter the marketplace unlabelled and would therefore also be difficult to trace if any adverse outcomes were to be found, he adds.
In Antonious view, gene editing is unquestionably a genetic modification procedure and should continue being regulated in the UK as it is in the EU.
But many scientists argue that gene editing is crucial to supporting a more sustainable food system.
Genome editing is already used in medicine and has immense potential for tackling major agricultural challenges related to food security, climate change and sustainability, says Prof Denis Murphy from the University of South Wales.
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Denby agrees and says gene editing can play a part in making the UKs food system more sustainable, healthy and affordable, while admitting its not going to be a magic bullet.
But for Antoniou the focus really needs to be on the agricultural system as a whole, rather than improving individual crops and seeds.
Gareth Morgan, head of farming and land use policy at the Soil Association, has called gene editing a sticking plaster that diverts vital investment and attention from other more effective solutions.
The focus needs to be on how to restore exhausted soils, improve diversity in cropping, integrate livestock into rotations and reduce dependence on synthetic nitrogen and pesticides, he says. We want to see immediate progress in these areas rather than using Brexit to pursue a deregulatory agenda for genetic modification.
Visit the BBCs Reality Check website at bit.ly/reality_check_ or follow them on Twitter@BBCRealityCheck
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Synthetic Biology Used To Develop a New Type of Genetic Design – Technology Networks
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Richard Feynman, one of the most respected physicists of the twentieth century, said "What I cannot create, I do not understand". Not surprisingly, many physicists and mathematicians have observed fundamental biological processes with the aim of precisely identifying the minimum ingredients that could generate them. One such example are the patterns of nature observed by Alan Turing. The brilliant English mathematician demonstrated in 1952 that it was possible to explain how a completely homogeneous tissue could be used to create a complex embryo, and he did so using one of the simplest, most elegant mathematical models ever written. One of the results of such models is that the symmetry shown by a cell or a tissue can "break" under a set of conditions. However, Turing was not able to test his ideas, and it took over 70 years before a breakthrough in biology technique was able to evaluate them decisively. Can Turing's dream be made a reality through Feynman's proposal? Genetic engineering has proved it can.
Now, a research team from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint centre of UPF and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has developed a new type of model and its implementation using synthetic biology can reproduce the symmetry breakage observed in embryos with the minimum amount of ingredients possible.
The research team has managed to implement via synthetic biology (by introducing parts of genes of other species into the E. coli bacteria) a mechanism to generate spatial patterns observed in more complex animals, such as Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) or humans. In the study, the team observed that the strains of modified E. coli, which normally grow in (symmetrical) circular patterns, do as in the shape of a flower with petals at regular intervals, just as Turing had predicted.
"We wanted to build symmetry breaking that is never seen in colonies of E. coli, but is seen in patterns of animals, and then to discover which are the essential ingredients needed to generate these patterns", says Salva Duran-Nebreda, who conducted this research for his doctorate in the Complex Systems laboratory and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the IBE Evolution of Technology laboratory.
Bacteria E. coli forming patterns induced by the new synthetic system. Credit: Jordi Pla /ACS.
Using the new synthetic platform, the research team was able to identify the parameters that modulate the emergence of spatial patterns in E. coli . "We have seen that by modulating three ingredients we can induce symmetry breaking. In essence, we have altered cell division, adhesion between cells and long-distance communication capacity (quorum sensing), that is to say, perceive when there is a collective decision", Duran-Nebreda comments.
The observations made in the E. coli model could be applied to more complex animal models or to insect colony design principles. "In the same way that organoids or miniature organs can help us develop therapies without having to resort to animal models, this synthetic system paves the way to understanding as universal a phenomenon as embryonic development in a far simpler in vitro system", says Ricard Sol, ICREA researcher with the Complex Systems group at the IBE, and head of the research.
The model developed in this study, the first of its kind, could be key to understanding some embryonic development events. "We must think of this synthetic system as a platform for learning to design different fundamental biological mechanisms that generate structures, such as the step from a zygote to the formation of a complete organism. Moreover, such knowledge on the frontier between mechanical and biological processes, could be very useful for understanding developmental disorders", Duran-Nebreda concludes.
Reference: Duran-Nebreda S, Pla J, Vidiella B, Piero J, Conde-Pueyo N, Sol R. Synthetic Lateral Inhibition in Periodic Pattern Forming Microbial Colonies. ACS Synth Biol. 2021. doi:10.1021/acssynbio.0c00318.
This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.
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Berkeley Lab Celebrates 90th Anniversary, Imagines the Next 90 Years | Berkeley Lab – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
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Ninety years ago, in August of 1931, physics professor Ernest Lawrence created the Radiation Laboratory in a modest building on the UC Berkeley campus to house his cyclotron, a particle accelerator that ushered in a new era in the study of subatomic particles. The invention of the cyclotron would go on to win Lawrence the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics.
From this start, Lawrences unique approach of bringing together multidisciplinary teams, world-class research facilities, and bold discovery science has fueled nine decades of pioneering research at the Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). His team science approach also grew into todays national laboratory system.
Over the years, as Berkeley Labs mission expanded to cover a remarkable range of science, this approach has delivered countless solutions to challenges in energy, environment, materials, biology, computing, and physics.
And this same approach will continue to deliver breakthroughs for decades to come.
In 2021, Berkeley Labs 90th year, we invite you to join our anniversary celebration, Berkeley Lab: The Next 90, as we celebrate our past and imagine our future.
The pursuit of discovery science by multidisciplinary teams has brought, and will continue to bring, tremendous benefits to the nation and world, said Berkeley Lab Director Mike Witherell. Our celebration is a chance to honor everyone who has contributed to solving human problems through science, and to imagine what we can accomplish together in the next 90 years.
Berkeley Labs 90th anniversary celebration honors the diverse efforts of the Lab community: from scientists and engineers to administrative and operations staff.
It also celebrates our commitment to discovery science, which explores the fundamental underpinnings of the universe, materials, biology, and more. This research requires patience the dividends can be decades in the future but the results are often surprising and profound, from the cyclotron of yesteryear to todays CRISPR-Cas9 genetic engineering technology.
Its an incredible story were proud to share, and inspired to continue with your support. Over the next several months, well offer many ways to join our celebration. Visit Berkeley Lab: The Next 90 to learn more, and engage with us on Twitter at #BerkeleyLab90.
Here are several ways to join our celebration, all highlighted on the website:
Celebrate the past
90 Breakthroughs: To celebrate Berkeley Labs nine decades of transforming discovery science into solutions that benefit the world, well roll out 90 Berkeley Lab breakthroughs over the next several months.
Interactive Timeline: Explore the Labs many remarkable achievements and events through the decades.
History and photos: Check out our decade-by-decade photo album and historical material.
Imagine the Future
Charitable giving: In 2021, Berkeley Lab will support five non-profit organizations that help prepare young scholars to become leaders and problem solvers.
Basics 2 Breakthroughs: Research at Berkeley Lab often starts with basic science, which leads to breakthroughs that help the world. In this video series, early career scientists discuss their game-changing research and what inspires them.
A Day in the Half Life: This podcast series chronicles the incredible and often unexpected ways that science evolves over time, as told by scientists who helped shape a research field, and those who will bring it into the future.
Speaker series: These monthly lectures offer a look at game-changing scientific breakthroughs of the last 90 years, highlight current research aimed at tackling the nations most pressing challenges, and offer a glimpse into future research that will spur discoveries yet to be made.
Connect
Virtual tours: These live, interactive tours will enable you to learn more about Berkeley Labs research efforts, hear from the scientists who conduct this important work, and peek inside our amazing facilities.
Social media: Join us on social media for fun and engaging content that will help you discover the Labs incredible history, and learn what were imagining for the future. BerkeleyLab#90
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Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest scientific challenges are best addressed by teams,Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratoryand its scientists have been recognized with 13 Nobel Prizes. Today, Berkeley Lab researchers develop sustainable energy and environmental solutions, create useful new materials, advance the frontiers of computing, and probe the mysteries of life, matter, and the universe. Scientists from around the world rely on the Labs facilities for their own discovery science. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory, managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energys Office of Science.
DOEs Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visitenergy.gov/science.
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