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Category Archives: Transhuman News

We’re Now Closer To Bringing Frozen OrgansAnd PeopleBack To Life – Vocativ

Posted: March 1, 2017 at 8:43 pm

A surgeons dream isa macabre bank of organs, tissues, and digits, readily available body parts for when patients need a quick transplant.

But that doesnt exist, at least in part because those tissues would have to be frozen and reanimated without ruining how they function. Today, scientists are pretty good at the freezing part. But the thawing is still an issue. The current gold standard, which involves putting the frozen tissue into a warm vat for a gradual thaw, doesnt work for anythingwith a volume larger than three millileters. A kidney is on average about 205 milliliters. Thats not going to work.

Now researchers have taken a big step in the right directionthey have figured out how to warm up frozen organs using magnetic nanoparticles.

Heres how their system works. The tissue is frozen in a solution that contains iron oxide nanoparticles, which are coated in a silicone material to make them biocompatible. When its time to thaw, a copper coil is wrapped around the frozen sample. When its electrified, it creates an electromagnetic current that stimulates the nanoparticles, making them magnetic and heat-generating as their magnetic fields flip-flop in a complex action of physics. The process allows the tissue to heat up rapidly and uniformly, protecting it from damage.

In the study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the researchers tested their warming technique on frozen individual cells, then on different frozen pig arteries and heart valves measuring up to 80 milliliters in volume. Ninety percent of the tissues defrosted with this technique were intact, with fewer cracks and damaging ice crystals than the standard method. Sophisticated imaging techniques showed that the thawed tissues were more comparable to fresh ones than to those that had been defrosted the standard way.

This isnt the first time complex tissues have been successfully defrostedanother team did this with a comparable technique, on a rabbit brain, in 2016. But the nanoparticles technique can be scaled up for larger, more complex tissues, like whole organs or limbs, the researchers said.

Theres a chance that a system like this could someday be used on an entire human. There are some 350 people who are currently cryogenically frozen in the U.S. and in Russia. A number of them are biding their time until scientists find the cure for what ailedthem, like cancer; others are seeking a type of immortality. This method probably, however, wouldnt help those in particular since the nanoparticles have to be frozen in the solution.

The researchers arent thinking on that kind of scale quite yet, however. Theyre more concerned with expanding their experiments past rabbit organs to human samples, with finding the right ways to wash the nanoparticles out of thawed organs with lots of nooks and crannies (like hearts), as well as probably regulatory hurdles. They have already received a grant from the U.S. Army to continue their work on composite, donated human tissues that combine skin, muscles, and large blood vessels. They suspect it will take another seven to 10 years before their technique could be used reliably on large organs. But who knows, maybe someday it could even be used to defrost a whole human.

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Canidae – Wikipedia

Posted: at 8:42 pm

Canids[1] Temporal range: 39.750Ma Late Eocene-Holocene Major extant canid genera left-to-right, top-to-bottom: Canis, Cuon, Lycaon, Cerdocyon, Chrysocyon, Speothos, Vulpes, Nyctereutes, Otocyon and Urocyon Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Carnivora Suborder: Caniformia Family: Canidae G. Fischer de Waldheim, 1817[2] Genera and species

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The biological family Canidae [3] is a lineage of carnivorans that includes domestic dogs, wolves, foxes, jackals, dingoes, and many other extant and extinct dog-like mammals. A member of this family is called a canid (, ).[4]

The cat-like feliforms and dog-like caniforms emerged within the Carnivoramorpha 43 million years before present.[5] The caniforms included the fox-like Leptocyon genus whose various species existed from 34 million years before present before branching 11.9 million YBP into Vulpini (foxes) and Canini (canines).[6]:1745

Canids are found on all continents except Antarctica, having arrived independently or accompanied human beings over extended periods of time. Canids vary in size from the 2-m-long (6ft 7 in) gray wolf to the 24-cm-long (9.4in) fennec fox. The body forms of canids are similar, typically having long muzzles, upright ears, teeth adapted for cracking bones and slicing flesh, long legs, and bushy tails. They are mostly social animals, living together in family units or small groups and behaving cooperatively. Typically, only the dominant pair in a group breeds, and a litter of young is reared annually in an underground den. Canids communicate by scent signals and by vocalizations. They are very intelligent. One canid, the domestic dog, long ago entered into a partnership with humans and today remains one of the most widely kept domestic animals.

In the history of the carnivores, the family Canidae is represented by the two extinct subfamilies designated as Hesperocyoninae and Borophaginae, and the extant subfamily Caninae.[7] This subfamily includes all living canids and their most recent fossil relatives.[6] All living canids as a group form a dental monophyletic relationship with the extinct borophagines with both groups having a bicuspid (two points) on the lower carnassial talonid, which gives this tooth an additional ability in mastication. This together with the development of a distinct entoconid cusp and the broadening of the talonid of the first lower molar, and the corresponding enlargement of the talon of the upper first molar and reduction of its parastyle distinguish these late Cenozoic canids and are the essential differences that identify their clade.[6]:p6

Within the Canidae, the results of allozyme and chromosome analyses have previously suggested several phylogenetic divisions:

DNA analysis shows that the first three form monophyletic clades. The wolf-like canids and the South American canids together form the tribe Canini.[9] Molecular data imply a North American origin of living Canidae some ten million years ago and an African origin of wolf-like canines (Canis, Cuon, and Lycaon), with the jackals being the most basal of this group. The South American clade is rooted by the maned wolf and bush dog, and the fox-like canids by the fennec fox and Blanford's fox. The grey fox and island fox are basal to the other clades, however this topological difference is not strongly supported.[10]

The cladogram below is based on the phylogeny of Lindblad-Toh et al (2005),[10] modified to incorporate recent findings on wolf-like Canis species by Koepfli et al (2015).[11]

The Canidae today includes a diverse group of some 34 species ranging in size from the maned wolf with its long limbs to the short-legged bush dog. Modern canids inhabit forests, tundra, savannahs and deserts throughout tropical and temperate parts of the world. The evolutionary relationships between the species have been studied in the past using morphological approaches but more recently, molecular studies have enabled the investigation of phylogenetic relationships. In some species, genetic divergence has been suppressed by the high level of gene flow between different populations and where the species have hybridized, large hybrid zones exist.[12]

Carnivorans evolved from miacoids about 55 million years ago (Mya) during the late Paleocene.[13] Some five million years later, the carnivorans split into two main divisions: caniforms (dog-like) and feliforms (cat-like). By 40 Mya, the first member of the dog family proper had arisen. Called Prohesperocyon wilsoni, its fossilized remains have been found in what is now the southwestern part of Texas. The chief features which identify it as a canid include the loss of the upper third molar (part of a trend toward a more shearing bite), and the structure of the middle ear which has an enlarged bulla (the hollow bony structure protecting the delicate parts of the ear). Prohesperocyon probably had slightly longer limbs than its predecessors, and also had parallel and closely touching toes which differ markedly from the splayed arrangements of the digits in bears.[14]

The canid family soon subdivided into three subfamilies, each of which diverged during the Eocene: Hesperocyoninae (about 39.74-15 Mya), Borophaginae (about 34-2 Mya), and Caninae (about 34-0 Mya). Caninae is the only surviving subfamily and all present-day canids including wolves, foxes, coyotes, jackals, and domestic dogs belong to it. Members of each subfamily showed an increase in body mass with time, and some exhibited specialised hypercarnivorous diets that made them prone to extinction.[15]:Fig. 1

Evolution of the Canids

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By the Oligocene, all three subfamilies of canids (Hesperocyoninae, Borophaginae, and Caninae) had appeared in the fossil records of North America. The earliest and most primitive branch of the Canidae was the Hesperocyoninae lineage, which included the coyote-sized Mesocyon of the Oligocene (38-24 Mya). These early canids probably evolved for the fast pursuit of prey in a grassland habitat; they resembled modern civets in appearance. Hesperocyonines eventually became extinct in the middle Miocene. One of the early members of the Hesperocyonines, the genus Hesperocyon, gave rise to Archaeocyon and Leptocyon. These branches led to the borophagine and canine radiations.[16]

Around 910 Mya during the Late Miocene, Canis, Urocyon, and Vulpes genera expanded from southwestern North America, where the canine radiation began. The success of these canines was related to the development of lower carnassials that were capable of both mastication and shearing.[16] Around 8 Mya, the Beringian land bridge allowed members of the genus Eucyon a means to enter Asia and they continued on to colonise Europe.[17]

During the Pliocene, around 45 Mya, Canis lepophagus appeared in North America. This was small and sometimes coyote-like. Others were wolf-like in characteristics. Canis latrans (the coyote) is theorized to have descended from Canis lepophagus.[18]

The formation of the Isthmus of Panama, about 3 Mya, joined South America to North America, allowing canids to invade South America, where they diversified. However the most recent common ancestor of the South American canids lived in North America some 4 Mya and the likelihood is that there were more than one incursion across the new land bridge. One of the resulting lineages consisted of the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargentus) and the now extinct dire wolf (Canis dirus). The other lineage consisted of the so-called South American endemic species, the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), the short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis), the bush dog (Speothos venaticus), the crab-eating fox (Cerdocyon thous) and the South American foxes (Lycalopex spp.). The monophyly of this group has been established by molecular means.[17]

During the Pleistocene, the North American wolf line appeared, with Canis edwardii, clearly identifiable as a wolf, and Canis rufus appeared, possibly a direct descendent of Canis edwardii. Around 0.8 Mya, Canis ambrusteri emerged in North America. A large wolf, it was found all over North and Central America, and was eventually supplanted by its descendant, the dire wolf, which then spread into South America during the late Pleistocene.[19]

By 0.3 Mya, a number of subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus) had developed and had spread throughout Europe and northern Asia.[20] The gray wolf colonized North America during the late Rancholabrean era across the Bering land bridge, there being at least three separate invasions, with each one consisting of one or more different Eurasian gray wolf clades.[21] MtDNA studies have shown that there are at least four extant C. lupus lineages.[22] The dire wolf shared its habitat with the gray wolf but became extinct in a large-scale extinction event that occurred around 11,500 years ago. It may have been more of a scavenger than a hunter; its molars appear to be adapted for crushing bones and it may have died out as a result of the extinction of the large herbivorous animals on whose carcases it relied.[19]

In 2015, a study of mitochondrial genome sequences and whole genome nuclear sequences of African and Eurasian canids indicated that extant wolf-like canids have colonised Africa from Eurasia at least 5 times throughout the Pliocene and Pleistocene, which is consistent with fossil evidence suggesting that much of African canid fauna diversity resulted from the immigration of Eurasian ancestors, likely coincident with Plio-Pleistocene climatic oscillations between arid and humid conditions. When comparing the African and Eurasian golden jackals, the study concluded that the African specimens represented a distinct monophyletic lineage that should be recognized as a separate species, Canis anthus (African golden wolf). According to a phylogeny derived from nuclear sequences, the Eurasian golden jackal (Canis aureus) diverged from the wolf/coyote lineage 1.9 million years ago but the African golden wolf separated 1.3 million years ago. Mitochondrial genome sequences indicated the Ethiopian wolf diverged from the wolf/coyote lineage slightly prior to that.[11]:S1

Wild canids are found on every continent except Antarctica, and inhabit a wide range of different habitats, including deserts, mountains, forests, and grasslands. They vary in size from the fennec fox, which may be as little as 24cm (9.4in) in length and weigh 0.6kg (1.3lb),[23] to the gray wolf, which may be up to 160cm (5.2ft) long, and can weigh up to 79kg (174lb).[24] Only a few species are arboreal the North American gray fox, the closely related Channel Island fox,[25] and the raccoon dog habitually climb trees.[26][27][28]

All canids have a similar basic form, as exemplified by the grey wolf, although the relative length of muzzle, limbs, ears and tail vary considerably between species. With the exceptions of the bush dog, raccoon dog, and some domestic breeds of Canis lupus, canids have relatively long legs and lithe bodies, adapted for chasing prey. The tails are bushy and the length and quality of the pelage varies with the season. The muzzle portion of the skull is much more elongated than that of the cat family. The zygomatic arches are wide, there is a transverse lambdoidal ridge at the rear of the cranium and in some species, a sagittal crest running from front to back. The bony orbits around the eye never form a complete ring and the auditory bullae are smooth and rounded.[29]

All canids are digitigrade, meaning they walk on their toes. The tip of the nose is always naked, as are the cushioned pads on the soles of the feet. These latter consist of a single pad behind the tip of each toe and a more-or-less three-lobed central pad under the roots of the digits. Hairs grow between the pads and in the Arctic fox, the sole of the foot is densely covered with hair at some times of year. With the exception of the four-toed African hunting dog (Lycaon pictus), there are five toes on the forefeet but the pollex (thumb) is reduced and does not reach the ground. On the hind feet, there are four toes, but in some domestic dogs, a fifth vestigial toe, known as a dewclaw, is sometimes present but has no anatomical connection to the rest of the foot. The slightly curved nails are non-retractile and more or less blunt.[29]

The penis in male canids is supported by a bone called the baculum. It also contains a structure at the base called the bulbus glandis which helps to create a copulatory tie during mating, locking the animals together for up to an hour.[30] Young canids are born blind, with their eyes opening a few weeks after birth.[31] All living canids (Caninae) have a ligament analogous to the nuchal ligament of ungulates used to maintain the posture of the head and neck with little active muscle exertion; this ligament allows them to conserve energy while running long distances following scent trails with their nose to the ground.[32] However, based on skeletal details of the neck, at least some Borophaginae (such as Aelurodon) are believed to have lacked this ligament.[32]

Most canids have 42 teeth, with a dental formula of: 3.1.4.23.1.4.3. The bush dog has only one upper molar with two below, the dhole has two above and two below, and the bat-eared fox has three or four upper molars and four lower ones.[29] The molar teeth are strong in most species, allowing the animals to crack open bone to reach the marrow. The deciduous, or baby teeth, formula in canids is 3.1.33.1.3, molars being completely absent.[29]

Almost all canids are social animals and live together in groups. In general, they are territorial or have a home range and sleep in the open, using their dens only for breeding and sometimes in bad weather.[33] In most foxes, and in many of the true dogs, a male and female pair work together to hunt and to raise their young. Gray wolves and some of the other larger canids live in larger groups called packs. African wild dogs have packs which may consist of twenty to forty animals, and packs of fewer than about seven individuals may be incapable of successful reproduction.[34] Hunting in packs has the advantage that larger prey items can be tackled. Some species form packs or live in small family groups depending on the circumstances, including the type of available food. In most species, some individuals live on their own. Within a canid pack, there is a system of dominance so that the strongest, most experienced animals lead the pack. In most cases, the dominant male and female are the only pack members to breed.[35]

Canids communicate with each other by scent signals, by visual clues and gestures, and by vocalizations such as growls, barks, and howls. In most cases, groups have a home territory from which they drive out other conspecifics. The territory is marked by leaving urine scent marks, which warn trespassing individuals.[36] Social behaviour is also mediated by secretions from glands on the upper surface of the tail near its root and from the anal glands.[35]

Canids as a group exhibit several reproductive traits that are uncommon among mammals as a whole. They are typically monogamous, provide paternal care to their offspring, have reproductive cycles with lengthy proestral and dioestral phases and have a copulatory tie during mating. They also retain adult offspring in the social group, suppressing the ability of these to breed while making use of the alloparental care they can provide to help raise the next generation of offspring.[37]

During the proestral period, increased levels of oestradiol make the female attractive to the male. There is a rise in progesterone during the oestral phase and the female is now receptive. Following this, the level of oestradiol fluctuates and there is a lengthy dioestrous phase during which the female is pregnant. Pseudo-pregnancy frequently occurs in canids that have ovulated but failed to conceive. A period of anoestrus follows pregnancy or pseudo-pregnancy, there being only one oestral period during each breeding season. Small and medium-sized canids mostly have a gestation period of fifty to sixty days while larger species average sixty to sixty-five days. The time of year in which the breeding season occurs is related to the length of day, as has been demonstrated in the case of several species that have been translocated across the equator to the other hemisphere and experiences a six-month shift of phase. Domestic dogs and certain small canids in captivity may come into oestrus more frequently, perhaps because the photoperiod stimulus breaks down under conditions of artificial lighting.[37]

The size of a litter varies, with from one to sixteen or more pups being born. The young are born small, blind and helpless and require a long period of parental care. They are kept in a den, most often dug into the ground, for warmth and protection.[29] When the young begin eating solid food, both parents, and often other pack members, bring food back for them from the hunt. This is most often vomited up from the adult's stomach. Where such pack involvement in the feeding of the litter occurs, the breeding success rate is higher than is the case where females split from the group and rear their pups in isolation.[38] Young canids may take a year to mature and learn the skills they need to survive.[39] In some species, such as the African wild dog, male offspring usually remain in the natal pack, while females disperse as a group, and join another small group of the opposite sex to form a new pack.[40]

Because the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) largely exists in fragmented small populations, its existence is endangered. Inbreeding avoidance via mate selection is characteristic of the species and has important potential consequences for population persistence.[41] Inbreeding is rare within natal packs. Computer-population simulations indicate that all populations continuing to avoid incestuous mating will become extinct within 100 years due to the unavailability of unrelated mates.[41] Thus the impact of reduced numbers of suitable unrelated mates will likely have a severe demographic impact on the future viability of small wild dog populations.

Red wolves primarily live in packs composed of a socially monogamous breeding pair and offspring of different ages. Using long-term data on red wolf individuals of known pedigree, it was found that inbreeding among first-degree relatives was rare.[42] A likely mechanism for avoidance of inbreeding is independent dispersal trajectories from the natal pack. Many of the young wolves spend time alone or in small non-breeding packs composed of unrelated individuals. The union of two unrelated individuals in a new home range is the predominant pattern of breeding pair formation.[42]

Among Ethiopian wolves, most females disperse from their natal pack at about two years of age, and some become "floaters" that may successfully immigrate into existing packs. Breeding pairs are most often unrelated to each other, suggesting that female-biased dispersal reduces inbreeding.[43]

Grey wolves and Arctic foxes also exhibit inbreeding avoidance.[44]

Inbreeding is ordinarily avoided because it leads to a reduction in progeny fitness (inbreeding depression) due largely to the homozygous expression of deleterious recessive alleles.[45] Cross-fertilization between unrelated individuals ordinarily leads to the masking of deleterious recessive alleles in progeny.[46][47]

On the basis of an analysis of data on 42,855 dachshund litters, it was found that as the inbreeding coefficient increased, litter size decreased and the percentage of stillborn puppies increased, thus indicating inbreeding depression.[48]

One canid, the domestic dog, entered into a partnership with humans a long time ago. This partnership is documented as far back as 26,000 years ago, when the footprints of a young boy aged about eight to ten were found in Chauvet Cave in southern France, walking alongside what was identified as a large dog or wolf.[49] The earliest recorded fossil of a dog was found to be around 36,000 years ago in Goyet Cave in Belgium.[50] Even earlier, wolves were found fossilized in the same locations as humans at sites that date back 300,000 years, showing how far back humans and wolves had interactions with one another.[51] The fact that wolves are pack animals with cooperative social structures may have been the reason that the relationship developed. Humans benefited from the canid's loyalty, cooperation, teamwork, alertness and tracking abilities while the wolf may have benefited from the use of weapons to tackle larger prey and the sharing of food. Humans and dogs may have evolved together.[52] The bond between humans and dogs can be seen in the burial of dogs with their owners as early as 11,000 years ago in the Americas and 8,500 years ago in Europe.[51]

Among canids, only the gray wolf has widely been known to prey on humans.[53] Nonetheless, at least two records have coyotes killing humans,[54] and two have golden jackals killing children.[55] Human beings have trapped and hunted some canid species for their fur and, especially the gray wolf, coyote and the red fox, for sport.[56] Canids such as the dhole are now endangered in the wild because of persecution, habitat loss, a depletion of ungulate prey species and transmission of diseases from domestic dogs.[57]

All extant species of family Canidae are in subfamily Caninae.

Except where otherwise stated, the following classification is based on a 1994 paper by Xiaoming Wang, curator of terrestrial mammals at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County on the systematics of the subfamily Hesperocyoninae,[58] a 1999 paper by Wang, together with the zoologists Richard H. Tedford and Beryl E. Taylor on the subfamily Borophaginae,[59] and a 2009 paper by Tedford, Wang and Taylor on the North American fossil Caninae.[60]

(Mya = million years ago) (million years = in existence)

(Mya = million years ago)

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Canidae - Wikipedia

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The Transhumanist’s Quest for Godhood: ‘Remember, Thou Art Mortal’ – CNSNews.com

Posted: at 8:42 pm


CNSNews.com
The Transhumanist's Quest for Godhood: 'Remember, Thou Art Mortal'
CNSNews.com
History tells us that when victorious generals in ancient Rome returned home, they would hold triumphal processions through the streets. Singers, dancers, and ...

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The Transhumanist's Quest for Godhood: 'Remember, Thou Art Mortal' - CNSNews.com

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Mass Killer Breivik Loses Human Rights Case Against Norway – Huffington Post

Posted: at 8:41 pm

Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik lost a human rights case on Wednesday when an appeals court overturned a lower court verdict that his near-isolation in a three-room cell was inhuman.

Breivik, an anti-Muslim neo-Nazi, massacred 77 people in Norways worst peacetime atrocity in July 2011. He killed eight with a bomb in Oslo and then gunned down 69, many of them teenagers, at a youth meeting of the then-ruling Labour Party.

The Borgarting Court of Appeal has determined that Anders Behring Breivik is not, and has not been, subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, the court said in a statement.

Strict conditions for Breivik, who has no contact with other inmates and has not repented for the attacks, were justified because there was a high risk that he would use violence in future and because other prisoners might attack him, it said.

Wednesdays verdict overturned a lower Oslo court ruling in 2016 that Breivik was held in a completely locked world with frequent strip searches in violation of a ban on inhuman or degrading treatment under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Survivors and relatives of the 77 dead welcomed the verdict after denouncing last years ruling as a perversion of a Convention that starts with the sentence everyones right to life shall be protected by law.

Were very relieved, Lisbeth Roeyneland, whose 18-year-old daughter Synne was shot dead and who now leads the main support group, told Reuters. I hope we dont hear any more about that terrorist for many, many years.

Breivik, now 38, is serving Norways longest sentence, 21 years, which can be extended if he is still considered a threat.

Breiviks lawyer Oeystein Storrvik said he would appeal to Norways Supreme Court. If that fails, Breivik can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. His isolation is the main problem, Storrvik said.

But the Norwegian Supreme Court generally only accepts cases that raise wider issues of legal principle.

The appeals court noted that Breiviks three-room cell includes a gym for exercise, and he can watch television and read newspapers. Limited contact with other inmates is under consideration, it said.

Some aspects of Breiviks detention have already been relaxed. Since late last year, Breivik can meet his lawyer separated by bars, allowing more contact than a previous thick glass wall rigged with microphones and speakers.

At a 2016 hearing in the district court, Breivik had said he was feeling bad in jail, complained about cold coffee and grumbled that jail food was worse than waterboarding.

But the appeals court heard in January that he wrote a thank you note to his guards after the lower court hearing, saying he did not mean to seem critical of them. He has also resumed a university course in international relations.

On Wednesday the appeals court upheld a finding by the lower court that extreme restrictions on Breiviks letters and visitors were justified. Breiviks only family visitor was his mother, who gave him a hug shortly before she died in 2013.

Norways Attorney General Fredrik Sejersted, the governments top lawyer sent to lead the appeal, said the verdict vindicated prisons and prison staff, who he said had been unfairly criticized in the lower courts decision.

The verdict recognizes the work done by the correctional service, he said, adding that prisons had invested far more to guard Brevik than a normal inmate.

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

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Humans have caused an explosion of never-before-seen minerals all over the Earth – Washington Post

Posted: at 8:41 pm

The human handprint on the natural world has become evident in all too many ways in recent decades. The changing climate, the decline of wildlife and the loss of forests and other natural landscapes all of these factors have led many scientists to conclude that were living in a new age theyve dubbed the Anthropocene, in which the planet is dominated by human, rather than natural, influences.

Now scientists have presented some stunning new evidence in support of this idea. Theyve found human activity is responsible for a huge explosion in the diversity of minerals on Earth possibly the biggest such event in the history of the planet, according to Robert Hazen, a scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washingtons Geophysical Laboratory who led the new research. The last major mineral diversification event is believed to have occurred about 2 billion years ago.

The research team, which includes Hazen and colleagues Marcus Origlieri and Robert Downs of the University of Arizona and Edward Grew of the University of Maine, published their findings Wednesday in the journal American Mineralogist.

Humans are doing this amazing increase in the number of crystals and the kinds of crystals that occur at or near a surface and many of these minerals are going to persist for billions of years, Hazen said. If youre a geologist who came back 100,000 years or a million or a billion years from now you would find amazing mineralogical evidence of a completely different time.

The International Mineralogical Association (IMA) recognizes about 5,000 different mineral species. Every mineral must have a certain type of crystal structure, and it must be naturally occurring, forming on its own through geological processes. But the strict definition of a mineral may be growing a little hazier, Hazen said.

For one thing, many of the minerals accepted by the IMA originate as a result of human activities, even if they technically form on their own. For example, there are many minerals associated with mining. They form on the walls of mine tunnels or precipitate out of mine water. Others have been found in piping systems or onmetal artifacts, and at least one new mineral was discovered in a storage cabinet in a museum, Hazen said.

After an exhaustive look throughthe 5,000 IMA-official minerals, the researchers concluded that 208 of them are the inadvertent result of human activities.

Additionally, humans have produced a huge assortment of mineral-like crystals through deliberate chemical processes. But theyre not defined as true minerals because they didnt arise naturally. For instance, there are mineral-like compounds produced specifically for use in cement, magnets, batteries, synthetic gemstones and a wide variety of other commercial applications. Altogether, there are tens of thousands of these mineral-like compounds. TheInorganic Crystal Structure Database lists 180,000, the researchers note in the paper, adding: the Anthropocene Epoch is an era of unparalleled inorganic compound diversification.

Theres been some debate among scientists across all fields about when the Anthropocene era began. Climate scientists have pointed to the industrial revolution, which marked the beginning of large-scale greenhouse gas emissions and the rapid, human-caused warming of the atmosphere.

From a mineralogical perspective, scientists are finding human-mediated minerals on structures or artifacts dating back thousands of years. ButHazen added that the biggest diversity explosion comes with the rise of chemistry about the time of 1800, very close to the industrial revolution and thats where you see this incredible spike, the greatest diversification of crystals on earth.

The huge human-mediated diversity of minerals is a major way mankind will leave its mark on geological history, but there are other signs humans will probably leave behind as well. For instance, humans are not only responsible for the creation of all kinds of minerals and mineral compounds but theyvealso been carting them all over the planet. The jewelry business, for instance, has led to the trade of mineral gems all over the world. Thousands of years from now, there will be rubies and sapphires lying around in places they would have never naturally formed.

Human engineering and construction is also likely to leave apermanent markon the geological landscape.

The largest impacts are our roads, our buildings, our cities places where we have huge quantities of transported stones and stone-like materials, Hazen said. These materials will persist, even as they become covered with layers upon layers of sediments over thousands of years, leading to large buried deposits of stone and mineral that only exist in that location because humans placed them there long ago.

Perhaps more than anything, thepapers findings speak to the power and long-lasting influence of human innovation. This effect has manifested in a variety of environmentally destructive waysover the past century fromclimate change, air and water pollutionto sharpdeclines in plants and animals. But from a mineralogical perspective, theres also evidence of the boundless nature of human creativity, Hazen said.

Were talking about a time of declining biodiversity, but thanks to human ingenuity, we have a time of increased crystal diversity, he said. In fact, the greatest increase in the history of the globe.

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Tip spurs search for human remains in two parks, Fairfax County police say – Washington Post

Posted: at 8:41 pm

Fairfax County police were searching for human remains in two parks Wednesday after receiving a tip.

Homicide, gang and crime scene detectives, members of the search-and-rescue unit, live find and cadaver dog teams are combing Holmes Run Park, near the 6000 block of Crater Place in the Lincolnia section of Fairfax County, and Lemon Road Park, in the Falls Church area.

Police wrapped up the search of Lemon Road Park without finding anything Wednesday afternoon.

Police declined to say what information led them to those locations, but they said the searches could go on for some time. Holmes Run Park was the scene of a 2013 killing of an MS-13 gang member.

[MS-13 member laughs while recalling killing]

There is a possibility that this situation is gang-related, said Officer Don Gotthardt, a Fairfax County police spokesman. Ive been told its not related to these specific, overlapping investigations that are ongoing.

Gotthardt was referring to the gang-related killing of 15-year-old Damaris A. Reyes Rivas, whose body was found near an industrial area in Springfield on Feb. 11, and the disappearance and return of two other teenage girls from Fairfax County.

Ten people, including six juveniles, have been charged in connection with the killing of the Gaithersburg teen, who police say was held against her will at Springfields Lake Accotink Park, assaulted and then slain on or around Jan. 8.

[Murder charges in slaying of Gaithersburg teen]

Police have declined to name the gang involved, but the girls mother said she had fallen in with MS-13, before voluntarily leaving home in mid-December. Two of those arrested in Damariss killing were also charged in the disappearance of 16-year-old Lizzy Rivera Colindres, who left her Springfield home with her 5-month-old son in mid-January and returned last month.

Damariss killing also has connections to the disappearance of 17-year-old Venus Lorena Romero Iraheta, of Alexandria. Iraheta also left home in mid-January and returned last month.

In addition, Prince William County police said Iraheta had a relationship with a 21-year-old Fairfax man, Christian Alexander Sosa Rivas, who was found dead along the Potomac River in Prince William County on Jan. 12.

Prince William County police have charged six people in the slaying and said it has connections to MS-13.

[Six arrested in MS-13 killing tied to other Va. cases]

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Tip spurs search for human remains in two parks, Fairfax County police say - Washington Post

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Forget Mammoths, We Could Bring Dinosaurs and Neanderthals … – Futurism

Posted: at 8:40 pm

In Brief

The scientific world was set ablazeof late as discussions ramped up aboutthe resurrection of the wholly mammoth. I know what youre thinking: Jurassic Park. Well, not quite but maybe not that far off, either. In an interview with Big Think,Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York, wonders: what if we could clone the Neanderthal, or a dinosaur, based solely off their genomes?

It is a plausible question.George Church, geneticistand director of Harvard Universitys Church Labs, believes that we can clone a Neanderthal in our lifetime. So much so that he thinks all we need is one extremely adventurous human female. While he doesnt advocate for the project to be attempted straight away,he does encourage discussion on the matter. Church believes that with current stem cell technology and our completed sequence of the Neanderthal genome, we are equipped with thepotential to clone a Neanderthal.

The Neanderthals went extinct tens of thousands of years ago, so cloning one from recovered DNA would be impressive enough of a feat but what about something from 65 million years ago? Dr. Kaku addresses this, admitting that cloning a dinosaurwont be as easy ascloning a Neanderthal or a mammoth (which wouldntvery easy to begin with) but that doesnt mean its impossible.

Dr. Kakunotes thatproteins found within the soft tissues of recovered dinosaur femursresemble those of chickens, frogs, and reptiles confirm the theory of their relation. He posits that through theuse of a supercomputer, a genetic sequence could be produced, which would create theoretical potential for cloning through epigenetics.

When it comes to cloning mammoths or dinosaurs, the limitations are mostly technical at this point. With Neanderthals, however, theres an addition element: ethics.Dr. Kaku asks important questions about what scientists would doafter bringing a Neanderthal child to life: Should he or she be placed in captivity like some kind of zoo animal? Would they face a lifetime of study?What if the Neanderthal is naturally aggressive should it be drugged or confined at all times? Many bioethicists debate the ethics of de-extinction, but there are also those thattout genetic diversity.Others believe the act is far too inhumane to even attempt.

Listen to Dr. Kakus argument below and decide where you stand on the should-we-or-shouldnt-we of prehistoric cloning.

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Forget Mammoths, We Could Bring Dinosaurs and Neanderthals ... - Futurism

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Soon, We’ll Know if There’s Life on TRAPPIST-1’s Exoplanets – Futurism

Posted: at 8:40 pm

An Astounding Discovery

In February, scientists from theEuropean Southern Observatory and NASAannounced the discovery of a new solar system TRAPPIST-1. It has seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a dwarf star, three of which are in the stars habitable zone.

Although TRAPPIST-1 is 40 light-years away, itsremarkable similarities to our own solar system make thediscovery very exciting to scientists. Of allthe solar systems we know of, weve never found one withseven planets let alone multiple Earth-sized planets. TRAPPIST-1sthree habitable planets have density measurements that make them appear to beEarth-like worlds.

Given what TRAPPIST-1s current configuration looks like, the planets located in the habitable zone or goldilocks zonecouldhave water at least theoretically. However, since itssolar systemssun is smaller than ours, theplanets would require a tighter orbitin order to support surface water.

Armed withinsights weve gathered about ourown solar system in recent decades, we have the knowledge and resources to study TRAPPIST-1 and possibly find life beyond our own planet.

Scientists also believe that some of the planets in TRAPPIST-1 are tidally locked to their star. That meansone side of the planet constantly faces their sun, bathing it inperpetual daylight, while the other side is always in the dark. While that doesnt sound much like the life we know on our planet, experts believe it wouldntcompletely negate the possibility of life: what reallymatters is the atmosphere.

We wont have to wait too long to gain further insight into kind of atmosphere these planets have: once the James Webb Space Telescope launches in October of next year, scientists will be able to study the planetsmore in-depth. Our knowledge of how tidally locked planets in our own solar system manage such extreme temperatures based on what weve already learned from Neptune and Jupiter will alsolend itself to a better understanding of how the TRAPPIST-1 planets work.

Granted, everything that we know about life stems from our understanding of life on Earthwhere we experience both day and night. Its wholly possibly that in planets where a diurnal cycle isnt the norm, lifedevelops very differently.

But as Dr. Jessie Christiansen, an astronomer at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, notes while speaking to theChristian Science Monitor, we could liken this to conditions some creatures on our planet know well: the life aquatic. If you think about life in the deep ocean, Dr. Christiansen says, it has evolved without a true diurnal cycle.

Here on our own planet, we are still constantly surprised by life discovered in sea floors, icy climates, deep caves, and other extreme settings. So, that being said,the idea that life could exist in TRAPPIST-1 shouldnt be too hard to fathom.

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Soon, We'll Know if There's Life on TRAPPIST-1's Exoplanets - Futurism

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‘Strategic 4Sight’ collaboration to path Omaha’s future – KETV Omaha

Posted: at 8:40 pm

OMAHA, Neb.

The Greater Omaha Chamber, United Way of the Midlands and Urban League of Nebraska launched a collaboration Tuesday called Strategic 4Sight.

The three groups hired a futurist, Rebecca Ryan, with NEXT Generation Consulting out of Madison, Wisconsin. Through a series of workshops, Ryan will help identify where Omahas headed in the next 20 years and how to ensure a strong future in areas like economic growth, poverty and diversity.

Do some trend research. Try and figure out those things that are probably going to be happening over the next 20 years that will impact us as a community or impact the economy, David Brown, with the Greater Omaha Chamber, said. We have to figure out if those are really things that are going to be important to us and how were going to respond.

The three organizations hope by collaborating, theyll be able to put their minds together and focus on different issues.

"Some of them might fall in education, some of them might fall in race relations, some of them might fall in alleviating poverty, Brown said. So, areas where [the Greater Omaha Chamber doesnt] have mission, but United Way and Urban League do."

Ryan will present her findings in November. Before that happens, young professionals and community members are encouraged to attend workshops and give their input.

Ryan said Omaha is the first community to hire a resident futurist.

"We can be a receptive or a receiver of change, or we can be a causer of change, Brown said. I think this futurist piece enables us to kind of wake up in the morning and realize we're going to think about what's happening down the road. We're going to be prepared for it or we're going to cause it to happen."

The first workshop will focus on nonprofit leaders and is taking place at the Greater Omaha Chamber from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you wish to attend, you must register by contacting the chamber.

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'Strategic 4Sight' collaboration to path Omaha's future - KETV Omaha

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Boeing partnership with Texas firm could triple number of satellites deployed from Space Station – Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)

Posted: February 28, 2017 at 7:47 pm


Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)
Boeing partnership with Texas firm could triple number of satellites deployed from Space Station
Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)
Boeing and Texas-based NanoRacks LLC have joined forces to develop the first privately funded commercial space airlock device for outer space. The companies hope their new module will enable the United States to potentially triple the number of small ...

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Boeing partnership with Texas firm could triple number of satellites deployed from Space Station - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)

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