Category Archives: Transhuman News

Technobabble is our look at the more colorful aspects of technology and the tech industry.Be sure to check out our most recent edition, which has microchips on the brain.

In the last few weeks humans became a part of the technological infrastructure with employee microchipping. Potential privacy concerns aside,employees of Three Square Market volunteered for the seemingly sci-fi microchipping.

While many of us would prefer to keep technical hardware outside our immediate biology, two DNA researchers decided to reverse that idea. In fact, they used DNA to infiltrate technology and their experiment proved successful.

This week, researchers from the University of Washington tested a self-inflicted malware attack within their DNA research lab, according to Wired. The team introduced malicious code into a sample of DNA that when tested by a gene sequencer, the resulting data became malware on the computer that received it.

In conducting their experiment, the researchers intentionally created a high-risk environment, susceptible to a "bioterrorist" attack. This included muting security programs and creating vulnerabilities in their software.

The attack is supposedly the first "DNA-based exploit of a computer system," according to MIT Technology Review.

While genetic specialists have shrugged off the effort, claiming the attack was destined to succeed because of the controlled environment, it is now evident that such an attack is possible. Hackers could become biohackers or something even more sinister.

Vulnerabilities in security and software systems are common on the cybersecurity landscape. In fact, most cyberattacks depend on them, as was the case with May's WannaCry attack. The only difference between the deliverance of a traditional cyberattack and a DNA attack,is their point of entry.

The University of Washington researchers are now arguing that biohackers could send faulty, manipulated or simply fake DNA samples with malicious encryptions to industries that study and store such data. These include college campuses, police forensics and genetic processing labs. The idea is that hackers, motivated by the plethora of personal data stored in these industries, could send maliciously coded DNA to be tested and thus infect computers and networks.

Previously, DNA scientists only had to worry about genetic miscalculations or those that could harm the human biology, not the safety of their computer software.

Traditional cyberattacks are estimated to cost the U.S. $121 billion per year. Companies are highly scrutinized and legally penalized when personal information is either leaked or exposed to malicious actors. Now that DNA could become the next phishing scam, it seems like threats within cybersecurity have expanded once again. When hacking evolves, so must cybersecurity.

Since a corrupt sample of saliva could potentially be the next ransomware or wiper, what developments will take place to test a genetic sampling before they reach a networked gene sequencer?

For the first time since its inception 16 years ago, an American has won Certiport's annual Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship in the Excel division, according to an announcement. John Dumoulin, a 17-year-old from Virginia, took home a $7,000 cash prize and serious bragging rights for his college applications.

Most of the other 560,000 worldwide student entries and 157 finalists ranging from ages 13 to 22 were not so fortunate in their efforts to prove their mastery of Microsofts Excel, Word and PowerPoint products.

Students were required to take a Microsoft Office Specialist certification exam, and finalists were selected at regional competitions. The project-based tests not only highlight the technical skills of youth worldwide, but also engage students with computer-based technology and develop competitive skills tailored to real-world applications.

With past and present victors hailing from every continent except Antarctica, the championship offers a small glimpse into the global presence of and dependence upon office technology.

It stands among the ranks of other prestigious international technology competitions such as the IEEE Student Branch Website Contest, the ACMInternational Collegiate Programming Contest and Microsoft's Imagine Cup.

Augmented and virtual reality is taking off, with leading companies investing heavily in enterprise and consumer technology. Now, AR is even finding a home in earnings calls.

That's right, Evan Spiegal, CEO of Snap Inc., declared SnapChat's dancing hot dog the "worlds first augmented reality superstar," BuzzFeed reports.

The hot dog was a hit, viewed 1.5 billion times on SnapChat since its debut. Snap's earnings, however, were not quite so hot. In its latest earnings report, Snap Inc. missed analysts' earnings expectations and its stock is down 16%.

The internet caught fire earlier this week when it was revealed the creator of current password policies has regrets. In 2003, Bill Burr wrote an 8-page document on password policies for the National Institute of Standards and Technology advising users to change passwords regularly, employing a mix of characters, numbers and capital letters, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Those password policies became law, triggering hair-pulling and vehement exclamations every 90 days when programs insisted users change passwords.

But Burr, now retired, said those 2003 policies don't actually stop hackers. After all, is there really much difference between PaSsWord1! and PaSsWord!1? Changes are too subtle, making passwords easy to guess. And, it just causes problems for users too.

This year, NIST has revamped its password policies and done away with some of the long-standing best practices for passwords. The new framework gets rid of arbitrary characters and frequent password resets, instead favoring long password phrases and password resets only if there is evidence of a compromised password.

Soon the most-common passwords could change from "123456" to "thequickbrownfoxjumpsoverthelazydog."

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Technobabble: Dancing hot dog is AR's first king and yes, DNA is hackable - CIO Dive

In what reads like science fiction becoming reality, researchers at the University of Washington have been able to successfully infect a computer with malware coded into a strand of DNA. In order to see if a computer could be compromised in that way, the team included a known security vulnerability in a DNA-processing program before creating a synthetic DNA strand with the malicious code embedded. A computer then analyzed the infected strand, and as a result of the malware in the DNA, the researchers were able to remotely exploit the computer. The results were published in a recent paper.

We wanted to understand what new computer security risks are possible in the interaction between biomolecular information and the computer systems that analyze it, the researchers wrote, led by Tadayoshi Kohno, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington.

The basic structural units of DNA are called nucleotides, and theyre stored as letters A, C, G, and T. Sequencing allows scientists to determine the order of the nucleotides, which in turn means scientists are able analyze the genetic information carried in the strands. The cost of sequencing has sharply fallen by over 100,000 times in the last 10 years.

After sequencing, this DNA data is processed and analyzed using many computer programs. Modern technology means hundreds of millions of DNA strands can be processed at the same time. Though taking over computers using DNA seems like something out of the movies, creepily played out in real life, the researchers say theres no reason for concern. We have no evidence to believe that the security of DNA sequencing or DNA data in general is currently under attack. Instead, we view these results as a first step toward thinking about computer security in the DNA sequencing ecosystem, the scientists said.

A primary goal of this study was to better understand the feasibility of DNA-based code injection attacks. We also know of no efforts by adversaries to compromise computational biology programs, they explain.

Just last month, scientists revealed they were able to insert a GIF of a horse into the DNA of living bacteria.

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Scientists successfully infiltrate computer using malware coded into DNA - The Verge

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The scene in Rosslyn Avenue, Sunderland, after an explosion at a house.

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Police on Goose Lane bridge which goes over the M11 motorway near Birchanger which is closed after a van driver was killed in a motorway crash after what "appears to be a lump of concrete" struck his windscreen and his vehicle hit a tree.

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Emergency services at the scene in Lavender Hill, southwest London, after a bus left the road and hit a shop.

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Guards march up to Windsor Castle in the rain as a yellow weather warning for rain has been issued for parts of the UK. Heavy rain has brought flooding to the north-east of England

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A post-Brexit trade deal with the US could see a massive increase in the amount of cancer-causing toxins in British milk and baby food

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New world 100m champion Justin Gatlin pays respect to Usain Bolt after the Jamaicans last solo race

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Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Great Britain (Lane 6) and Carolin Schafer of Germany (Lane 7) and their opponants compete in the Women's Heptathlon 100 metres hurdles during day two of the 16th IAAF World Athletics Championships London 2017 at The London Stadium.

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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is greeted by PSNI and Garda police officers representative of the gay community as he attends a Belfast Gay Pride breakfast meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Irish Prime Minister is on a two day visit to the province having already met with DUP leader Arlene Foster yesterday. The DUP, Northern Ireland's largest political party have so far blocked attempts to legalise gay marriage.

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Members of Unite employed by Serco at Barts Health NHS Trust, on strike over pay, protest outside Serco's presentation of financial results at JP Morgan, in London.

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Athletics - IAAF World Athletics Championships Preview - London, Britain - August 3, 2017 Great Britain's Mo Farah takes a photo in the stadium

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Britain's Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, addresses journalists during a press conference to deliver the quarterly inflation report in London, August 3, 2017. REUTERS

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Bank of England and British Airways workers stage a protest outside the Bank of England in the City of London.

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Britain's Prince Philip, in his role as Captain General, Royal Marines, attends a Parade to mark the finale of the 1664 Global Challenge, on the Buckingham Palace Forecourt, in central London, Britain.The 96-year-old husband of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, made his final solo appearance at the official engagement on Wednesday, before retiring from active public life.

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Jamaica's Usain Bolt gestures during a press conference prior to Bolt's last World Championship, in east London

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A wide view of play during day two of the 3rd Investec Test match between England and South Africa at The Kia Oval

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UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson gestures while posing for a photograph at the Sydney Opera House, in Sydney. Johnson is there to attend AUKMIN, the annual meeting of UK and Australian Foreign and Defence Ministers.

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Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during her visit to the site of Aberdeen Harbour's expansion into Nigg Bay

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Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson arrives at Downing Street for the weekly cabinet meeting

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The EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, right, receives an Arsenal football top from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn prior to a meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels

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Cotswolds village residents shocked after DNA tests show they are less than 50% British - The Independent

DNA extracted from turkey bones buried in the Mesa Verde region before migration from that area and DNA collected from the northern Rio Grande region before and after Mesa Verde was abandoned is cited in a new study which suggests a strong connection between contemporary Tewa Pueblo people in New Mexico and the Pueblo people who lived in Mesa Verde before its collapse. (Camera file photo )

DNA from domesticated turkeys has been used to track the mass exodus of ancestral Pueblo people from Mesa Verde in the late 13th century to the northern Rio Grande north of Santa Fe, N.M., according to a University of Colorado news release.

CU assistant professor Scott Ortman, one of four lead authors on a study documenting the research in a recent issue of the science journal PLOS ONE, said good evidence has been found supporting a substantial influx of turkeys into the northern Rio Grande region that had the same genetic composition as turkeys from the Mesa Verde region.

"This is a new line of evidence suggesting a strong connection between contemporary Tewa Pueblo people in New Mexico and the Pueblo people who lived in Mesa Verde country before its collapse," Ortman said.

The study included co-authors from Washington State University, the University of California, Davis and the University of Oklahoma.

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CU Boulder researcher uses turkey DNA to shed light on ancestral Pueblo people - Boulder Daily Camera

An updated version of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique has set its sights on RNA-associated diseases.

Researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have developed a new technique known as RNA-targeting Cas9 (RCas9) to correct molecular mistakes that can lead to microsatellite repeat expansion diseases including myotonic dystrophy types 1 and 2the most common form of hereditary ALS and Huntingtons disease.

This is exciting because we're not only targeting the root cause of diseases for which there are no current therapies to delay progression but we've re-engineered the CRISPR-Cas9 system in a way that's feasible to deliver it to specific tissues via a viral vector, senior author Gene Yeo, Ph.D., professor of cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, said in a statement.

Microsatellite repeat expansion diseases are causes by errant repeats in RNA sequences that are toxic to the cell because they prevent production of crucial proteins.

Repetitive RNAs will accumulate in the nucleus or cytoplasm of cells to form dense knots called foci.

During the study, the researchers used the new technique to eliminate problem-causing RNAs associated with microsatellite repeat expansion diseases in patient-derived cells and cellular models of the diseases.

Under normal circumstances researchers will design a guide RNA to match the sequence of a specific target gene. The RNA will direct the Cas9 enzyme to the desired spot in the genome to cut the DNA.

The cell repairs the DNA break imprecisely, inactivating the gene. The researchers also can replace the section adjacent to the cut with a corrected version of the gene. RCas9 will work similarly, but the guide RNA directs Cas9 to an RNA molecule instead of DNA.

In the laboratory, the researchers tested the new technique on microsatellite repeat expansion disease RNAs and found that 95 percent or more of the RNA foci linked to myotonic dystrophy type 1 and type 2 one type of ALS and Huntingtons disease were eliminated.

RCas9 also reversed 93 percent of MBNL1a protein that normally binds RNA but is sequestered away from hundreds of its natural RNA targets by the RNA foci in myotonic dystrophy type 1in patient muscles cells and the cells ultimately resembled healthy control cells.

However, challenges must be overcome before RCas9 could be used on patients, as efficient delivery of RCas9 to patient cells is not yet perfected. Non-infectious adeno-associated viruses are commonly used in gene therapy but are too small to hold Cas9 to target DNA.

The researchers developed a smaller version of Cas9 by deleting regions of the protein that were necessary for DNA cleavage but dispensable for binding RNA.

The main thing we don't know yet is whether or not the viral vectors that deliver RCas9 to cells would elicit an immune response, Yeo said. Before this could be tested in humans, we would need to test it in animal models, determine potential toxicities and evaluate long-term exposure.

The study was published in Cell.

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DNA Editing Technique Corrects Defects in RNA-Associated Diseases - R & D Magazine