Category Archives: Post Human

Adraft reporton the science of climate change estimates that it is extremely likely that more than half of the rise in temperatures over the past four decades hasbeen causedby human activity. This activity, it estimates,is responsiblean increase in global temperatures of 1.1 to 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1951 to 2010.

Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse [heat trapping] gases, are primarily responsible for the observed climate changes, notes the Climate Science Special Report, which wasavailable on requestduring a public comment periodearlier this yearbut which received little attention until it was reported on byThe New York Timesthis week. There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate, said the report.

Penned by scientists at13 federal agenciesthis year, the draft report is a special science section of The National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and it now awaits permission from the Trump administration to officially release the document.

Thedraft report suggeststhat even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would warm at least an additional 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit (0.30 degrees Celsius) over this century compared with today. More greenhouse emissions will lead to higher temperatures.

The draft study follows reports byThe Hillthat staffers at a U.S. Department of Agriculture were told earlier this year toavoid the termclimate change in communications and to use phrases like weather extremes instead.

We wont change the modeling, just how we talk about it, Bianca Moebius-Clune, the Natural Resources Conservation Services director of soil health,wrote in an e-mailto staff.

On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationreportedthat the United States experienced its second warmest year to date and 10th warmest July on record.

Court Extends Delay on Clean Power Plan; Vacates HFC Rule

In a 21decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found Tuesday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)does not have the authorityto enact an Obama-era rule ending the use of hydroflurocarbons (HFCs). The2015 EPA rulebanned 38 individual HFCs or HFC blends in four industrial sectorsaerosols, air conditioning for new cars, retail food refrigeration and foam blowingunder the Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program (subscription).

A lawsuitMexichem Fluor, Inc. v. EPAchallenged EPAs use of SNAP, saying that HFCs do not deplete the ozone. On Tuesday, the court found thatbecause HFCsare not ozone-depleting substances, the EPA could not use section 612 of the Clean Air Act to ban them.

However much we might sympathize or agree with EPAs policy objectives, EPA may act only within the boundaries of its statutory authority. Here, EPA exceeded that authority, Judge Brett Kavanaughwrote for the court. Indeed, before 2015, EPA itself maintained that Section 612 did not grant authority to require replacement of non-ozone-depleting substances such as HFCs. EPAs novel reading of Section 612 is inconsistent with the statute as written. Section 612 does not require (or give EPA authority to require) manufacturers to replace non-ozone depleting substances such as HFCs.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuitinstituteda new 60-day abeyance of the long-running legal battle over the EPAs Clean Power Plan, which would require reductions of carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector. The court order, which also directs the EPA to file status reports every 30 days, reminds the Trump administration of the2009 endangerment finding, which means the EPA has an affirmative statutory obligation to regulate greenhouse gases.

In late April, the court grantedan initial delayof the litigation as the White House considers how to replace it.

United States Formally Announces Intention to Withdraw from the Paris Agreement

Last week U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told U.S. diplomats tosidestep questionsabout conditions for the Trump administration to re-engage in the Paris Agreement, according to a diplomatic cable published yesterday byReuters. But the communication leaves no doubt about President Trumps intentions: there areno plans to seek to re-negotiateor amend the text of the Paris Agreement. Moreover, the August 4 cable instructs diplomats to let other countries know that the United States wants to help them use fossil fuels.

The cable was sent on the day that the United States formally announced itsintention to withdrawfrom the Paris Agreement but said that it willcontinue to participatein international climate change negotiations during thethree-year withdrawal process. The earliest date for the United States to completely withdraw from the agreement isNovember 4, 2020.

President Donald Trump is open to re-engaging in the Paris Agreement if the United States can identify terms that are more favorable to it, its businesses, its workers, its people, and its taxpayers,said the State Department memo, which noted the U.S. role in future climate talks.

The United States will continue to participate in international climate change negotiations and meetings . . . to protect U.S. interests and ensure all future policy options remain open to the administration, the State Department said. Such participation will include ongoing negotiations related to guidance for implementing the Paris Agreement.

A United Nations statement acknowledging receipt of the notice from the United States reiterated Secretary-General Antnio Guterres disappointment in the decision.

It is crucial that the United States remains a leader on climate and sustainable development. Climate change is impacting now,said Guterres spokesman Stphane Dujarric.

Signatories to the Paris Agreement vowed to keep the worldwide rise in temperatureswell below two degrees Celsius(3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial times and to pursue efforts to hold the increase under 1.5 degrees Celsius. The U.S. pledge, under former President Barack Obama, was a cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of as much as28 percentfrom 2005 levels by 2025.

Prior to release of the climate policy guidance cable, the Trump administrations reiteration of plans to depart from the Paris climate deal hadraised questionsabout what re-engaging in the deal meant and how U.S. participation in climate talks could play out (subscription). With regard to negotiations, the Trump administration could adopt an obstructionist role by pushing for measures to enable reduction of emissions-cut ambitions. Or it could play a constructivist role by advancing rules for transparency (the United States and China co-chair the working group writing those rules). Other areas in which the Trump administration could exert its influence include emissions reporting requirements, monitoring land-use change and developing market mechanisms.

The Climate Postoffers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday byDuke Universitys Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Wake up to the day's most important news.

Originally posted here:
The Climate Post: Federal Science Report Finds Human Activity Does Influence Climate Change - HuffPost

A team of researchers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have hit a breakthrough in their quest to develop pigs whose organs and other tissues can be transplanted into humans.

The team, led by a biotechnology company called eGenesis, announced Thursday that it has successfully used a powerful gene-editing technique known as CRISPR to modify the DNA in pig cells and remove a number of viruses that make pig organs unsuitable for human transplant. (Read more here on how CRISPR works and its potential for humans.)

Those virus-free cells were then used to fertilize several pig embryos, which were implanted in sows who have since given birth to virus-free pigs.

eGenesis

Its a huge step, as those viruses (more specifically known as porcine endogenous retroviruses, or PERVs) pose a not-yet-fully-understood but potentially significant health threat to humans.

In a clinical trial in Europe, for example, researchers genetically modified a similar retrovirus from mice to help treat severe immunodeficiency in children. Most of the children benefited from the treatment, notes the Food and Drug Administration, but some developed leukemia.

In other words, we dont need to know the exact effects of the viruses to know we dont want them around.

Creating PERV-free pigs is the first step in a four-step process to ultimately create pig organs suitable for human transplant or xenotransplantation, Dr. Luhan Yang, a co-founder of eGenesis and the companys chief science officer, explained to HuffPost.

(Doctors have long used pig and cow valves to replace their leaky equivalents in the human heart, but kidneys and more complex organs represent a much bigger achievement.)

Next, the company needs to make sure it can consistently replicate virus-free pigs, which its already well on its way to doing.

After that, Yang explained, it will need to test how the human immune system responds to the organs and modify them so they arent rejected, creating what she referred to as pig 2.0, featuring advanced immune compatibility.

eGenesis

Step four will be developing the infrastructure to produce and deliver lifesaving organs worldwide.

Yang didnt want to speculate on a precise timeline for when xenotransplantation might be a common procedure, but the company is making very real, tangible progress toward that goal.

Other promising technologies in development include 3D-printing organs and growing them in a petri dish.

In the United States alone, almost 117,000 people are currently awaiting a lifesaving organ transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.About 60 percent of transplant operations since 1988 have been for a kidney(which has anaverage wait time of five years), 22 percent a liver (wait time: 11 months), 10 percent a heart (four months), and 5 percent a lung (four months).

Originally posted here:
Scientists Hit Breakthrough In Quest To Transplant Pig Organs Into Humans - HuffPost

Friendly or or a Dalek plot? Random Internationals Zoological, part of Wayne McGregors +/- Human Photograph: Ravi Deepres/Alicia Clarke

In Ren Magrittes surrealist painting La Voix des Airs (1931), three inscrutable spheres hover in an empty blue sky above green fields. Ive always wondered what these enigmatic objects really are. Do they come from outer space? Are they about to open and unleash a robot army? What strange message do they bring from their impersonal dimension?

At last I know, because I have met them. I have even danced with them. In the darkened heights of the Roundhouse in north London, a flying flock of white spheres that uncannily resemble Magrittes dream objects float intelligently and curiously, checking out the humans below, hovering downward to see us better. They are the most convincing embodiment of artificial intelligence I have ever seen. For these responsive, even sensitive machines truly create a sense of encounter with a digital life form that mirrors, or mocks, human free will.

They are the most convincing embodiment of artificial intelligence I have ever seen

Nobody is hidden behind a screen piloting this robotic airborne dance troupe. Each sphere has its own decision-making electronic brain. They fly in elegant unison yet also break ranks as they check their positions against the images recorded by infra-red cameras surrounding the circular space where they float and their human visitors walk. It is fitting to experience this eerily beautiful vision of the future in the steampunk setting of a Victorian railway building whose architectural grandeur evokes the first industrial revolution. It can feel like a Doctor Who episode come to life. What are those flying spheres, Doctor are they friendly or is this a Dalek plot?

Random International, the creators of this post-human visitation, have form in boggling minds. People queued for as long as four hours to get into their interactive installation the Rain Room at the Barbican in 2012. This deserves to be as popular and is arguably a lot more thought-provoking. Working with choreographer Wayne McGregor, whose dancers will perform with the ascendant orbs at weekends, these technologically adept art wizards extend the technology of drones to genuinely and movingly ponder the nature of life itself.

Looked at coldly, these devices are just inflated plastic balls whose movements are guided by rotors, like a toy drone. Yet the crucial fact that they guide themselves, mimicking conscious choice in their unplanned and to all intents and purposes spontaneous actions, is apparent without knowing anything about their design. You can tell by the way they move that they are free entities. Their behaviour is by turns entrancing and mildly menacing. They rise one after another from their resting positions in an upper gallery and calmly hover out into the open domed arena where their human guests are waiting. They are never at rest. As they glide in formation one or another is always changing its position, approaching the people below with what seems like curiosity. Then they all follow. It is when the entire swarm gathers directly above you that it suddenly becomes a threatening, sinister presence.

Surely science could learn a lot from this advanced work of art. McGregors understanding of dance is clearly as crucial as Random Internationals engineering ingenuity in creating what amounts to a fascinating illusion of life. Experiments in robotics often produce disturbing doll-faced machines and stilted conversationalist computers. Yet the true secret of copying life, this installation shows, lies in movement. Dance, the oldest human art, turns out to be a key to comprehending life itself, and reproducing it. The orbs dance with you. They locate and follow members of the audience, not with mechanical inevitability but a complex, gracious harmony. Making and breaking patterns, coming together and loosely floating apart, they dance with each other, too.

This artwork that opens visions of a future in which life evolves beyond biology itself.

Its alive! Its alive!, as Frankenstein would say. Ever since Mary Shelley wrote that novel in 1818, the fantasy of creating life, whether by re-animating dead flesh like her overweening scientist or, now, by building robots, has tended to fixate on the human form. We assume robots will walk and talk like us. This installation demonstrates how very different a future of digital intelligence may look. Far from resembling the human, these entities are completely alien. They have no faces, voices or limbs. They do have openings underneath through which their machinery can be glimpsed. Marcel Duchamp as well as Magritte would recognise their post-human grace. In his masterpiece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, left unfinished in 1923, a large panel of glass carries images of a floating mechanical bride and chocolate-grinding male admirers. Duchamp imagined a future where the organic and inorganic are one. He would be entranced by this artwork that opens visions of a future in which life evolves beyond biology itself. When our robot great-grandchildren drift in great electronic herds to the stars, this is what it may look like. That wont be such a bad legacy for us to leave.

More:
+/- Human review Is this the future of artificial intelligence? Bring it on - The Guardian

The discovery of a 13 million-year-old skull shows what human ancestors may have looked like. (Paul Tafforeau /ESRF)

To the untrained eye, the area west of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya appears to be barren of anything but rocky hills and volcanic ash.

But anthropologists know the Napudet region of the Turkana Basinas a promising new dig site for fossils from the Middle Miocene era, about 13 million years ago.And one professor's persistence there would pay off in a monumental discovery: a rare, complete skull of a baby ape that could give scientists a glimpse at what our common ancestors looked like.

The discovery almost didn't happen.

When Isaiah Nengo, an anthropology professor at De AnzaCollege in California,sought to assemble a team for a three-week expedition there in 2014, no one wanted to go.

There was nothing useful to be found, Nengo said others told him.

Undeterred, Nengo, who had just spent two years at the University of Nairobi on a Fulbright scholarship, returned to Kenya andgathered a ragtaggroup of local fossil finders.There were six of them in total, including the camp cook.

For two weeks in August, the team dug and found nothing. Though Nengo knew it wasn't unusual for the site (You could go for days and days, weeks and weeks without finding anything"), he began hoping to come across some fossil scraps or bone fragments anything to make the expedition worth it.

On Sept. 4, 2014, the team once again worked for hours at the dig site and came up empty-handed. Exhausted and disappointed, the crew packed up and began walking back to their land cruiser, parked about a mile away from where they had beenworking.

One team member, Kenyan fossil hunter John Ekusi, pulled out some tobacco and began rolling a cigarette.

Man, you're gonna kill us with that smoke, Nengo told him.

Ekusi ambled ahead until he was a couple hundred yards away from the group. After a short while, Nengo noticed Ekusi had stopped, and was inspecting something with a familiar fervor.

If you're a fossil finder, you know that look, he said. It's like an atomic bomb can go off, and you don't care, you're so focused at what you're looking for.

By the time the group caught up with Ekusi, he had brushed out the top of a fossil.

Almost instantly we knew it was the skull of a primate, Nengo said. We just broke into a dance, we were so happy.

What the team later excavated would end up being what is thought to be the most complete skull of an extinct ape species in the fossil record.After more than two years of sophisticated imaging work and additional geological research at the dig site, the discovery was published in the Aug. 10 issue of the journal Nature.

According to the article, younger fossil finds those 6- to 7-million-years-old have shed light on humans' common ancestors with chimpanzees. However, far less is known about the common ancestors of all living apes and humans from before 10 million years ago.

Relevant fossils are scarce, consisting mostly of isolated teeth and partial jaw bones, a statement accompanying the Nature article reads. It has therefore been difficult to find answers to two fundamental questions: Did the common ancestor of living apes and humans originate in Africa, and what did these early ancestors look like?

The discovery of the infant ape skull nicknamed Alesi after the local Turkana word for ancestor helps bridge some of those gaps, not only because of how intact the outside of the skull is but for what was preserved on the inside.

In September 2015, about a year after the fossil was excavated, Nengo obtained government clearance to hand-carry the skull from Kenya to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. It was, he would later admit, one of the most nerve-racking airtravel experiences he had ever had.

I sat with that specimen in my lap all the way until we got to Grenoble, Nengo said. It did not leave my sight. If I was in the bathroom, it went with me.

At the facility, which produces the world's most intense X-rays, scientists scanned the skull and arrived at startlingly clear 3-D images of thewhat it held.

We were able to reveal the brain cavity, the inner ears and the unerupted adult teeth with their daily record of growth lines, Paul Tafforeau, an ESRF scientist, said in a statement. The quality of our images was so good that we could establish from the teeth that the infant was about 1 year and 4 months old when it died.

At first, researchers suspected Alesi had been a baby gibbon because of the small snout. However, once scans revealed fully developed bony inner ear tubes and the unerupted adult teeth, it was clear Alesi had been an ape.

Gibbons are well known for their fast and acrobatic behavior in trees, said Fred Spoor, of University College London and the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology. But the inner ears of Alesi show that it would have had a much more cautious way of moving around.

Alesi's teeth showed that the infant skull hadn't just belonged to just any ape, but one of a previously undiscovered species, now namedNyanzapithecus alesi. Up until then, scientists hadn't been certain if theNyanzapithecus species were apes at all, or whether they had originated in Asia or Africa. Now, Nengo said, they could conclude thatN. alesi had been part of a group of primates that lived more than 10 million years ago, and that they had originated in Africa.

It's always very important to know when you're looking for ancestral lineages which continent they evolved. Ithelps you to explain the evolution of that particular group, Nengo said. Alesi provides an important link between apes' and humans' common ancestors and the earliest humans.

To find this little baby that perished in volcanic ash 13 million years ago it's a glimpse of what our prehuman stage looked like.

Alesi is now back in Kenya.Nengo said he plans to continue fieldwork there and also to use Alesi as kind of an anchor for the study of babies and the role of babies in the evolution of apes and humans.

The real work is coming now, he said.

Read more:

These boys thought theyd found a big, fat rotten cow. It was a 1 million-year-old fossil.

Oldest Homo sapiens fossils discovered in Morocco

Archaeology shocker: Study claims humans reached the Americas 130,000 years ago

The rest is here:
Discovery of 13 million-year-old ape skull shows what human ancestors may have looked like - Washington Post

Suspected human trafficking victims are crammed on a Thai trawler, which was rescued by the Bangladesh Coast Guard, in southern Bangladesh on June 11, 2014, in this handout picture provided by the Bangladesh Coast Guard.

To tackle human trafficking from Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar into Thailand, governments must first better understand it as part of the broader phenomenon of irregular migration from those three countries, according to a new report launched today by UNODC and the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ).

The report,Trafficking in persons from Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar to Thailand, is the first joint report of its kind to explore human trafficking in the sub-region, and emphasises the need to combine robust criminal justice responses that cripple trafficking networks with approaches that protect migrants and maximise the benefits of international migration.

It is estimated that four million migrants live in Thailand, 90% of whom come from the neighbouring countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar. Many of these migrants enter the country irregularly and remain in an irregular situation. They are therefore not only vulnerable to deception, coercion, violence, and exploitation whilst travelling, but also once they have arrived at their destination. The vulnerabilities and risks are amplified for children.

While trafficking to Thailand occurs for a range of purposes, the most common form is labour trafficking. People seeking higher wages are recruited by traffickers that exploit their vulnerabilities using physical violence or threats to work in industries such as fishing or construction. Many victims of trafficking, women and children in particular, are also brought to Thailand for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

While the lack of data and information remains one of the biggest challenges when it comes to countering trafficking in persons within Asia, this report aims to address some of the gaps in the understanding of human trafficking - and related migrant smuggling - in Thailand. Some new areas of focus include profiles of victims and traffickers, the contemporary push and pull factors, the routes taken by regular and irregular migrants, the fees paid to smugglers and traffickers, and the behaviours and methods of traffickers and their networks. It also explores the circumstances that make Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar source countries for the majority of persons trafficked into and through Thailand.

Stressing the need for a more complete picture of the current trafficking situation in the target countries. UNODCs Regional Representative, Jeremy Douglas stated, We now understand the situation better, and have identified some challenges and opportunities for enforcement and justice authorities in the countries. Importantly, the study provides a platform for us to expand our cooperation and assistance. He added, We are also considering if the findings might be helpful across the Mekong beyond the four countries that participated.

Promoting the development of data and research on crime and justice issues is a central part of the TIJ mission. Building on Thailands engagement in UN crime and justice forums, the TIJ is working to bridge global debates and local practice, and is looking to enhancing justice reforms within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region, said Professor Dr Kittipong Kittayarak, Executive Director of the TIJ.

The subversive nature of trafficking further underscores the difficulties in detecting cases and identifying victims. While limited information is a global challenge, it is particularly acute in Asia. Maritime movements are opaque and the flow of boats around and between national waters are too unregulated to generate data. Crimes including migrant smuggling often remain hidden amongst daily traffic.

To help combat migrant smuggling, UNODC runs a secure, online database the Voluntary Reporting System on Migrant Smuggling and Related Conduct (VRS-MSRC) for the collection and sharing of law enforcement data between member countries. UNODC Regional Coordinator, Benjamin Smith, highlighted that, As migration flows grow and crimes such as human trafficking and migrant smuggling become more complex, increased law enforcement cooperation and information sharing is essential.

There is growing awareness among target countries on the necessity of better data collection and better documentation. This includes initial measures to accurately report on investigations, arrests, prosecutions, and convictions of cases involving trafficking. In undertaking systematic national collection methods regularly and consistently, a basis can be established on which to conduct further research, identify trends and patterns, and develop informed policies and countermeasures.

Download the report, Trafficking in persons from Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar to Thailand.

Get full Bangkok Post printed newspaper experience on your digital devices with Bangkok Post e-newspaper. Try it out, it's totally free for 7 days.

Read the original:
New UN report spotlights human trafficking into Thailand - Bangkok Post

Testosterone is the most effective solvent for human brain tissue. Just a drop or two can render a perfectly functional human cortex completely stupid. As evidence, I offer all of human history.

This is a bold statement. I also believe it to be true. (I am currently struggling with my own testosterone levels to try to write this column coherently.) Naturally, I have a right to express this statement, much as did Google Bro James Damore, when he wrote his now infamous manifesto suggesting women were less successful in tech jobs because of certain biological impediments. For example, he suggested women were naturally too neurotic for high-stress jobs. Apparently, he did not have a mother.

What Damore did not have of course, was the permanent right to a job at Google. The tech giant fired him for violating the companys code of conduct on Monday. Google is a private company and is well within its rights to fire people who promote intolerance. And to fire people who demonstrate themselves to be idiots.

But of course, visible ignoramuses like Google Bro are only part of the problem. That is not to minimize the negative effects of Bro-ism. We seem to be living in a golden age of this particular malady as witnessed by the grab them by the p shenanigans of Donald Trump and the exhibitionist, sexist compulsions of the bare-chested 64-year-old Vladimir Putin. Both of them are engaged in the worlds most notorious bromance.

The problem is that the foolishness of bros worldwide has dire global consequences. Indeed, while our eyes are drawn to headlines underscoring the imminent threats we face today, no problem has caused more damage to more people in the course of human history than the subjugation of women, who make up about half of theworlds population. From the millions of girls and women who still die yearly because they are seen as unworthy of equalmedical care as males, to millions who lead less fulfilling lives because they are denied opportunities by male-dominated societies, the suffering involved is not open to debate.

The repression of womens rights is still defended as a cultural prerogative in every corner of the globe. Even in the most educated, prosperous societies, it is a problem perpetuated daily by the wrong-headed, insupportable beliefs of guys such asDamore and by bros in top government and corporate positions worldwide.

Google responded quickly to the Damore issue because it, like the entire tech sector, is rife with anti-woman discrimination. According to the company, women make up only 20 percent of those in tech roles. Even the Labor Department described discrimination there as quite extreme. But the reality is worse. It is not extreme. It is the norm in sector after sector worldwide especially in critical leadership roles, the places from which change can be driven.

According to the United Nations, only 22.8 percent of those in legislatures worldwide are women and only 18.3 percent are government ministers. As of January, only 10 women serve as heads of state worldwide and nineas heads of government. According to the EY Worldwide Women Public Leaders Index, while women account for 48 percent of the employees in governments worldwide, they hold less than 20 percent of senior jobs. In business, Fortune magazine celebrated the fact that women now hold 6.4 percent of top companychief executive officer jobs the highest level ever.

In international politics, Putin celebrated women this International Womens Day by hailing their beauty, tenderness and for always being on time. He also approved a legal change that decriminalized some forms of domestic violence. Trump actually made a living objectifying women with his Miss Universe pageants and modeling agency. But despite his daughter Ivankas efforts at pink-washing his record, his administration has taken his biases and translated them into the U.S. power structure. According to the Brookings Institution, as of March, only 27 percent of the appointments in his administration have gone to women. The American Enterprise Institute has concluded the gender pay gap in the Trump White House has more than tripled that of the Obama years.

In fact, while a woman won the popular vote in the last U.S. presidential election, you would have to go 15 places down the succession list in the U.S. government before you find a woman in a position to succeed Trump. (That would be Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.)

With hiring practices like that, Trump, like Putin and myriad other leaders in business and government, issending an ancient message to the Google Bros of this world saying, Bros before justice, man, bros before what is right. Equity and decency be damned.

Read more here:
Decoding the ancient logic of the Google Bro - Washington Post

A man in southwest China gave security officers a shock when he was found at a bus station with two human arms packed in his luggage, Chinese media reported.

The 50-year-old man was caught with the limbs when he put his bag through a security scanner in Duyun in Guizhou province last week, a news website linked to the Chongqing Morning Post reported.

Security staff thought he may have been involved in a murder and immediately detained him.

The man later explained that his older brother had been electrocuted and had to have his arms amputated.

Grave business: undertakers vie for title of Chinas most skilled handler of the dead

Since it was his villages custom to bury the whole body in death, his brother asked him to carry his amputated arms back to his home so they could be stored.

Police verified the mans account with the hospital where his brother was undergoing further treatment.

Various permits are needed from the authorities in China to transport human body parts.

Employees at the bus station were quoted as saying that travellers are banned from carrying body parts on buses, even with all the necessary permits, to protect the safety and hygiene of passengers.

Chinese passenger in rush to catch train tries to save time by crawling through security baggage scanner

The man will have to find another way to transport the amputated arms back to his hometown, local media reported.

Traditional Chinese culture stipulates that the whole body needs to be cremated or buried.

This preserves the bodys connection to place and family, according to the Journal of Chinese Studies.

Read the original:
Chinese man stopped at bus station with two human arms in bag - South China Morning Post

A climate report based on work conducted by scientists in 13 federal agencies is under active review at the White House, and its conclusions about the far-reaching damage already occurring from global warming are at odds with the Trump administrations views.

The report, known as the Climate Science Special Report, finds it is extremely likely that more than half of the rise in temperatures over the past four decades has been caused by human activity in contrast to Trump Cabinet members views that the magnitude of that contribution is uncertain.

The draft report, which has undergone extensive review, estimates that human impact was responsible for an increase in global temperatures of 1.1 to 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1951 to 2010.

Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate changes, the report notes. There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate.

[Third draft of the Climate Science Special Report]

That counters what Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have said.

It remains unclear how the White House which announced in June that it would pull out of the Paris climate accord will handle the report. Many scientists are looking at it as a test case of the administrations attitude toward science in general.

The current situation will provide an acid test of whether the Trump administration is open to hearing the scientific truth about climate change or is so much in the thrall of fossil fuel interests that they are fixated on hiding the reality from the public, Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, said Monday night.

The Climate Science Special Report is a key element of the National Climate Assessment, which, according to the 1990 Global Change Research Act, is supposed to be issued every four years. However, the assessment has come out only three times. The 2000 assessment, finalized under President Bill Clinton, came under attack once George W. Bush took office. Bush administration officials declined to cite it in subsequent federal reports, arguing that aspects of the data analysis were flawed.

Trump administration officials received a copy of the most recent version of this report several weeks ago, according to senior administration officials.

[Obama left Trump a major climate-change report and independent scientists just said its accurate]

The New York Times reported on the latest draft late Monday. The Washington Post subsequently obtained a third draft of the report. The version at the White House is the fifth draft, but people familiar with both versions say there is no substantive difference.

The report touches on a wide variety of issues, such as receding Arctic ice and an increase in the acidification of the oceans that is unparalleled in at least the past 66 million years.

It also dismisses talk of a so-called hiatus in global warming, noting that the most recent years reinforce longer-term trends. Instead, the report says, the United States faces temperature increases of 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next few decades even under significantly reduced future emissions. And the record-setting temperatures of recent years will become relatively common in the near future.

Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.

Link:
White House reviewing new report that finds strong link between climate change, human activity - Washington Post

The writer is a journalist.

WHAT if you could edit your genetic code as easily as you can edit a sentence you write on Microsoft Word would you do it? And if so, how far would you go? In the near future, that will not be a hypothetical question as the first major step towards successful gene editing has already taken place.

Scientists in the US have now revealed that they have for the first time edited out a dangerous genetic mutation that causes heart disease from a human embryo using a revolutionary gene-editing technique called CRISPR. Last year, China became the first country to use this technique to attempt to cure lung cancer in a human; previously CRISPR has been used to develop TB-resistant cows.

Due to US regulations, which strictly bar allowing edited embryos to develop into babies, none of the embryos were allowed to develop for more than a few days. However, the test has paved the way for a future in which we may not only see genetic disease eliminated, but also the ethically questionable creation of designer babies and, eventually, superhumans.

Wonders and terrors are promised in equal measure.

Welcome to the posthuman age that promises wonders and terrors in equal measure. Take cyborgs. It now seems inevitable that some kind of integration of man and machine will increasingly be the norm; in many ways its already happening. Pacemakers have been used for decades, as have cochlear implants.

Britains National Health Service has also okayed the implantations of the Argus II bionic eye which can restore sight in some cases of blindness, and more recently people with severe spinal injuries resulting in paralysis have been able to regain the partial use of their limbs thanks to computer chips implanted in their brains.

In another experiment, a man paralysed from the waist down was able to control a robotic arm thanks to electrodes implanted in the brain, and actually feel what the robotic arms was grasping. Taken further, brain implants aimed at repairing or enhancing memory can also help patients suffering from Alzheimers and work in this field is advancing at a rapid clip.

There are more mundane applications as well, of course, and identification chips are already in use: Verichip is one example, and is being implanted into Alzheimers patients and contains information about their identity and medical condition, meant to be accessed by doctors or in case the patient gets lost.

Naturally, corporations are getting into the game as well, and one company in Wisconsin has implanted rice-sized microchips in its employees hands which perform the functions of office entry cards and computer logins. Employees can also receive payments via the chip. While this would certainly ease many routine office activities, the question does arise as to how much data the company may potentially be able to extract and how secure those chips would be to outside interference.

However, once Elon Musks Neuralink project is complete, such chips will seem mundane: Musk intends to inject a mesh into our brains allowing humans to directly interact with, and even control, machines and eventually even communicate mind to mind. If thats not enough, note that steps are also being taken to create a human hive mind by linking the brains of individuals to create a superbrain with enhanced cognitive abilities.

Scientists have already successfully linked the brains of three monkeys, and in a separate experiment, joined the brains of four rats, allowing them to solve a problem that individual rats struggled to complete. Human trials are only then a matter of time, and will eventually define the meaning of brain trust.

Meanwhile, one field worth keeping a close eye on is nanotechnology the engineering of materials and devices on a molecular scale. Technologists anticipate a future in which swarms of tiny robots will be injected into human beings, working to fight diseases like cancer, actively repairing cells and clearing clogged arteries and even enhancing human abilities by providing us with enhanced lifespans, vision and strength, even allowing us to survive in otherwise inhospitable environments.

Just last month, another major threshold was crossed as scientists came a step closer to being able to grow replacement organs for humans by using stem cells implanted in host animals, and now there is research being conducted on enabling humans to re-grow limbs and organs in the way that some reptiles are capable of doing.

Ultimately, how much of this research makes it to the public at large depends less on scientific advancement as it does on ethically driven regulations and laws, which will likely fall by the wayside as nations race to achieve leadership in the biomedical field. What is certain now is that we are entering an era where we will be able to, at least partially, dictate the course of our own evolution.

The writer is a journalist.

Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2017

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Posthuman age - DAWN.com

PROFOUND CHANGE may someday come to Saudi Arabia. The new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, last year offered a soaring blueprint for modernizing the kingdom, Vision 2030, that promised to build a thriving country in which all citizens can fulfill their dreams, hopes and ambitions. The document also vowed to build a tolerant country with moderation as its method that is a global investment powerhouse and an epicenter of trade and the gateway to the world.

This is a tall order, especially in a kingdom where change has been agonizingly slow. The crown prince clearly wants to move Saudi Arabia toward a future not beholden to oil. But in one important respect Saudi Arabia remains mired in the dark ages: Human rights are trampled upon, and free expression crushed. This is entirely out of sync with ambitions to create a thriving and modern state.

The latest sign of this backwardness is the fate of 14 Saudi men, all from the countrys Shiite minority, who are facing execution for allegedly staging protests in the kingdom. As The Posts Sudarsan Raghavan reported , the men are charged with terrorism-related offenses, but human rights groups say confessions from the defendants were extracted under torture. Among those condemned to death are Mujtabaa al-Sweikat, who, after attending pro-democracy protests inspired by the Arab Spring in 2011 and 2012, was arrested at an airport in December 2012 as he was leaving the country to visit the campus of Western Michigan University, which he was thinking of attending. Seventeen years old at the time, he was not given a reason for his arrest and has been in prison ever since, convicted without having access to legal representation, according to human rights activists. In a July 22 statement, Western Michigan faculty and administrators said Mr. Sweikat was subject to sleep deprivations, beatings, cigarette burns, solitary confinement and others forms of torture or suffering. He was sentenced to death on the sole basis of a confession extracted by torture, they added, citing the findings of the U.N. human rights office.

If only this were an isolated case. Another travesty surrounds the fate of blogger Raif Badawi, who has been jailed since 2012 following his online appeal for a more liberal and secular society. His sentence was 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes, of which he has been given 50 lashes. Mr. Badawis aspirations were also for a tolerant and moderate Saudi Arabia, but that was a threat to the kingdoms conservative Islamic establishment. His treatment offers a reason to doubt Crown Prince Salmans commitment to the goals of Vision 2030.

President Trump steered clear of human rights in his May visit to Saudi Arabia, but the kingdoms horrors have not vanished. If Saudi leaders really want to embrace modernism, they could start by reversing the barbaric death sentences imposed on 14 Shiite men for taking part in demonstrations.

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Saudi Arabia must do something about its barbaric human rights practices - Washington Post