Category Archives: Post Human

Im looking for a famous (or at least interesting) human vs. machine contest to use as an analogy in an article. The one that of course comes to mind is John Henry vs. the steam drill, but John Henry was so unusually strong that the contest was pointless: To succeed, the steam drill didnt have to beat John Henry, since no railroad could have a work force of John Henrys instead, the steam drill just had to beat the ordinary steel-driving man. (Indeed, the steam drill might succeed even if it was less effective than the ordinary man, if it was still cheaper and thus more cost-effective; but lets set that aside.)

Likewise, Garry Kasparov vs. Deep Blue was a good test of whether a machine could beat the best chess players, and that might make sense for fundamentally non-utilitarian tasks such as playing chess. But Im looking for something which measures as a machines practical utility, and that would need to be a contest against ordinary human workers.

Anything comes to mind? The winner will get heartfelt thanks! Acknowledged in a footnote in a law review article, yet! (And of course in a blog post.)

Extra points for submissions that provably come from AI programs.

UPDATE: The broader discussion in the comments is very interesting, and I dont want to derail it; but if someone can point to specific contests in which a human was matched up against a machine to see who does better (as with John Henry vs. the steam drill, but with ordinary humans rather than extraordinary ones), that would be especially helpful. (I originally asked for competitions, and while I meant contests specific events I think some people interpreted this as referring to broader processes of competition.)

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Human vs. machine contests (real or fictional) but involving ordinary humans - Washington Post

CAIRO Saudi Arabia is defending its decision to execute 14 minority Shiites whose verdicts sparked criticism in the United States and Europe declaring in a rare public statement that their trials were conducted fairly.

The men were arrested for their involvement in demonstrations in 2011 and 2012 during the Arab Spring revolts and were later sentenced to death in a secretive counterterrorism court, according to human rights activists and the mens relatives, who also say that some of the men were tortured and forced into making false confessions.

The group included a teenager who was arrested at the airport before boarding a flight to visit a university in Michigan, and a youth who is half-deaf and nearly blind, activists said.

Shiites in the Sunni-majority kingdom have long complained of discrimination and harassment by authorities.

Last month, the kingdoms highest court upheld the death sentences, clearing the way for the executions to take place any day now.

A spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Justice, Mansour al-Ghafari, said in a statement released Friday that the trials met international standards for fairness and due process and that the defendants enjoy full legal rights. All of them had access to lawyers and all court hearings were in the presence of the media and human rights observers, Ghafari said.

In a response Saturday, a prominent human rights group said the Saudi governments statement made several false claims and was at odds with assessments by the U.N. and rights groups.

Saudi Arabias attempts to justify these 14 unlawful executions are appalling, said Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, an advocacy group based in Britain. This statement is a serious mischaracterization of the trial process against the 14 men.

At least one defendant was never permitted to see a lawyer, and in another defendants case, no evidence against him was presented at trial, said Reprieve.

Officials with the United Nations last year said the secretive counterterrorism court raises serious concerns about its lack of independence and due procedure. Its judges, they said, often refused to act on claims by defendants that they had been subjected to torture.

Ghafari said the death sentences were handed down only for the most dangerous crimes. Saudi officials in state media have claimed that the 14 men were arrested on terrorism-related charges. But activists say the Saudi government continues to conduct executions for alleged nonviolent crimes.

Some of the 14 men were convicted of using cellphones to organize protests and of using social media, according to Reprieve.

Governments close to Saudi Arabia including the Trump administration and the U.K. must urgently call on the Kingdom to halt these executions, Foa said.

Sheikha Aldosary in Riyadh contributed to this report.

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Saudi Arabia defends decision to execute 14 Saudi Shiites - Washington Post

SALT LAKE CITY One of several hikers who formed a human chain across a river swollen with flash flood waters in the Utah desert said Thursday it was powerful watching people help each other through the dangerous situation.

Jhonatan Gonzalez said rainfall upstream transformed the calm water on a hot and sunny day at Utahs red-rock Zion National Park into a waist-high rushing river on Saturday morning.

Theres no way out you just have to go through, said Gonzalez, 40, of Maui, Hawaii.

He and a group of about 15 family members turned back when they saw the current become strong during a river hike known as The Narrows, but they soon reached an area where the water was higher.

Gonzalez and his brothers originally stood in the water together to help several younger family members ranging from 1 to 8 years old cross the river.

Strangers joined their line as they continued to help dozens of other hikers cross the river choked with logs and debris.

Gonzalez paused briefly to take a video of the effort with his cellphone.

It felt good. It was a chilling experience. It almost made me feel teary, just seeing how everyone was helping each other, he said.

Zion closed the area later that afternoon after a flash-flood warning. Ranger John Marciano says rangers work hard to warn people to watch weather reports and be careful of fast-moving water. Anyone caught in risky weather should get to high ground immediately, especially in the river where rocks can quickly become treacherously slippery.

Flash floods at Zion have proved fatal in the past, including a devastating 2015 flood in a deep, narrow canyon that killed seven people.

In Arizona, dozens of hikers have been rescued from floodwaters in recent weeks. Ten people died in mid-July when a sudden rainstorm thundered through a tranquil swimming area about 100 miles northeast of Phoenix.

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Hikers form human chain to cross river after flash-flood - New York Post

Gregory Okin is quick to point out that he does not hate dogs and cats. Although he shares his home withneither he is allergic, so his pets are fish he thinks it is fine if you do.But if you do, he would like you to consider what their meat-heavy kibble and canned foodare doing to the planet.

Okin, a geographer at UCLA, recently did that, and the numbers he crunched led to some astonishing conclusions. Americas180 million or so Rovers and Fluffies gulpdownabout25 percent of all the animal-derived calories consumed in the United States each year, according to Okins calculations. If these pets established a sovereign nation, it wouldrank fifth in global meat consumption.

Needless to say, producingthat meat which requires more land, water and energy and pollutes more than plant-based food creates alot of greenhouse gases: as many as 64 million tons annually, or about the equivalent ofdriving more than 12 million cars around for a year. That doesnt mean pet-keeping must be eschewed for the sake of the planet, but neither is it an unalloyed good, Okin wrote in a study published this week in PLOS One.

If you are worried about the environment, then in the same way you might consider what kind of car you buy this is something that might be on your radar, Okin said in an interview. But its not necessarily something you want to feel terrible about.

This research was a departure for Okin, who typically travels the globe to studydeserts things such aswind erosion, dust production and plant-soil interactions. But he said thebackyard chicken trend in Los Angeles got him thinking about how cool it is that pet chickens make protein, while dogs and cats eat protein. And he discovered that even as interest growsin the environmental impact ofour own meat consumption, therehas been almost no effort to quantify the part our most common pets play.

To do that, Okin turned todog and catpopulation estimates from the pet industry, average animal weights, and ingredient lists in popular pet foods. Thecountrysdogs and cats, he determined, consume about 19 percent as many calories as the human population, or about as much as 62 million American people. But because their diets are higher in protein, the pets total animal-derived calorie intake amounts to about 33 percent ofthat ofhumans.

Okins numbers are estimates, but they do a good job of giving us some numbers that we can talk about, said Cailin Heinze, a veterinary nutritionist at Tufts Universitys Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine who has written about the environmental impact of pet food. They bring up a really interesting discussion.

Okin warns that thesituation isnt likely to improveany time soon. Pet ownership is on the rise in developing countries such asChina, which means the demand for meaty pet food is, too. And in the United States, the growing idea of pets as furry childrenhas led to an expandingmarket of expensive, gourmet foods that sound like Blue Apron meals. That means not just kale and sweet potato in the ingredient list, but grain-free and human-grade concoctions that emphasizetheiruse of high-quality meat rather than the leftoverbyproducts that have traditionally made up much of our pets food.

The trend is that people will be looking for more good cuts of meat for their animals and more high-protein foods for their animals, Okin said.

What to do about this? Thats the hard part.Heinze said one place to start is by passing on the high-protein or human-grade foods. Dogs and cats do need protein and cats, which are obligate carnivores, really do need meat, she said. But the idea that they should dine onthe equivalent of prime rib and lots of it comes from what she calls the pet food fake news machine. Theres no need to be turned off by some plant-based proteins in a foods ingredients, she said, and dog owners in particular can look for foods with lower percentages of protein.

Human-grade, Heinze said, doesnt even have a regulatory definition, but it does suggest that a product might be using protein that humans wouldeat. Meat byproducts all the organs and other animal parts that dont end up at the supermarket are perfectly fine, she said.

Dogs and cats happily eat organ meat, Heinze said. Americans do not.

Okin has some thoughts about that. Theargument that pet foods use of byproducts is an efficiency in meat production is based on the premise thatoffal and organs are gross, he says. (Look no further than the collective gag over a finely textured beef product known as pink slime.) But if wewould reconsider that, his study found, about one-quarter of all the animal-derived calories in pet foodwould be sufficient for all the people of Colorado.

Ive traveled around the world and Im cognizant that what is considered human edible is culture-specific, he said. Maybe we need to have a conversation about what we will eat.

In the meantime, Okin suggests that people thinking about getting a dog might consider a smaller one a terrier rather than a Great Dane, say. Or, if you think a hamster might fulfill your pet desires, go that route.

Heinze, for her part, sometimesoffers the same counsel to vegetarian or vegan clients who want their pets to go meat-free. Theyare typically motivated by animal welfare concerns, not environmental ones, she said, but such diets are not always best for dogs, and they never are for cats.

There have been a few times in my career where Ive honestly said to my clients, We need to find a new home for your pet,' she said, and you need to get a rabbit or a guinea pig or something like that.

Read more:

Dire wolves were real. Now someone is trying to resurrect them.

Goodbye my brother: A Marines loving sendoff for the cancer-stricken dog who saved him

Watch what happens when kittens come to yoga. (So much more than downward dog.)

Long before they conquered the Internet, cats took over the world

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The hidden environmental costs of dog and cat food - Washington Post

Through a heart wrenching social media post describing the miscarriage of twins, a mother is hoping to shed a new light on the sanctity of human life.

Felicia Cash took to Facebook on Monday to share that she had recently lost not one but two babies after 14 weeks of pregnancy. As though the news wasnt painful enough, Cash made the brave decision to post photos of one of her stillborn children to demonstrate thateven at just three and half months gestationa child is more than a cluster of cells and lump of tissue.

WATCH: Parents Surprise Kids With Newly Adopted Baby Sister Their Reactions are Priceless

For 13 years, Felicia Cash and he husband had struggled to start a family of their own. They finally made the decision to foster three sisters, and they adopted the girls two years later. Soon after, they received the remarkable news that they were expecting their first child.

[T]he morning after we signed their adoption papers in court, we found out that we were expecting, Cash told Live Action News. Eight months later, our oldest son was born. A few years after that, we were blessed with another.

Cash and her husband were elated when they discovered they were pregnant with twins this past spring, but things quickly took a turn for the worse. She started experiencing complications about six weeks into her term and was forced to go to the hospital with bleeding.

They did an ultrasound and told us that we had lost one of two, but that the second baby looked healthy and strong, she said. We had other scares when bleeding started again and again, but were told it was just due to the first loss and a hematoma beneath the placenta.

Unfortunately, the doctors were wrong about the second child. Late last month, Cash woke up to more bleeding, which was followed by pain. She knew she had to go to the hospital, but before her husband could get home from work, her water broke, and she delivered her son, Japeth Peace Cash, in her home.

Holding her tiny baby, who was all of 14 weeks and six days old, Cash was taken with how developed the young boy was. It was then that she decided to document her tragic experience on Facebook.

Our beautiful Japeth Peace, miscarried July 24th at 14 weeks 6 days. He is perfectly and wonderfully formed, right down to his amazing tiny toes and fingers, the post began. Even his fingernails are formed and visible. Tiny veins that carried his own blood to his precious body can be seen through his delicate skin, even his wonderfully formed muscles are visible.

Cash went on to explain that her post was meant to show people a real, tangible example of what a human being looks like in the earliest stages of life. It is abundantly clear from her photos that, even at less than half gestation, a baby is far more than a blob of unformed flesh.

At less than half gestation he is very obviously human, not a cluster of cells, not a lump of tissue, not a blob of unformed flesh. He is a beautiful child, formed by God, and now gone to be with Him.

I am posting this in hopes of offering information to those who may not know how completely a child of only 14 weeks gestation is formed. And therefore not something to be taken lightly.

His tiny heart was beating within 16 days of conception, pumping his own blood. That is usually before anyone knows that they are pregnant. There seems to be a misconception that unless you can hear or see it, it isnt happening, but that tiny heart is beating, even if it is too small to hear or see.

As someone who has a beautiful blended family of adopted and biological children, Cash also pleaded with women contemplating abortion to consider alternatives.

As a final plea, if you are considering abortion, please take time to find the truth and reconsider. This is not an effort to shame, belittle, or condemn anyone in any way. It is the plea of a woman who just lost her child for you to at least consider other options.

There are people who are willing to help. I am willing to help. If you feel you have no one and no place to go, please reach out. Whether you keep your precious baby or choose the gift of adoption, you do have options.

Many will say that the foster homes are overflowing already or that no child should be unwanted. But that does not mean that your child should be discarded. As an adoptive mother, I want to encourage you that there are hundreds, thousands of families who would love a child that did not come from their own bodies, and there are thousands of families who do. Reach out. There is hope.

If you have made up your mind to choose abortion, no one can stop you. If you have already chosen abortion, I do not condemn you. And there are many who are willing to counsel you through your loss and grief. Again, reach out. There is hope.

To those who have experienced a similar loss, my heart goes out to you, she concluded. Your love for your lost ones is not in vain. God is good, even still.

In speaking with Live Action News, Cash said she has heard from countless women in the days following her post. Some are remorseful for their decision to abort babies at around the same age as Japeth, while others have suffered miscarriages of their own. Ultimately, she believes God had a plan for her son.

As miserable as this event has been, and as heart rending and tearful, Cash said, I still thank God that I have been able to share Japeths precious life.

(H/T: Live Action News)

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'Obviously Human': Mother Posts Heart-Wrenching Photos of Baby She Lost at 14 Weeks - CBN News

Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms. Mathematics is about understanding. William Paul Thurston

According to the World Economic Forum, the age of AI and smart machines will create three types of jobs in the future of work: 1. those that will disappear (replaced by automation and machines), 2. those that are in collaboration with machines and algorithms, and 3. those jobs that are completely new or remain largely untouched. The new jobs created by AI will require a combination of technology and liberal arts skills in order to optimize business outcomes. According to IDC research, AI powered CRM will create $1.1 trillion dollars of incremental revenue and more than 2 million net new jobs.

To learn more about the future of work and the impact of artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science business strategies, Ray Wang and I invited one of the foremost authorities and expert on application of machine intelligence, organizational leadership and strategy to our weekly show DisrupTV.

Angela Zutavern is Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton and Board of Directors ICE Foundation. Zutavern has pioneered the application of machine intelligence to organizational leadership and strategy. She is an inventor of the machine intelligence and data science strategies that are now helping business and government organizations make better decisions and gain competitive advantages. Zutavern led Booz Allens most advanced data science research and development efforts, including the areas of deep learning and quantum machine learning. She has worked with clients in every major U.S. government cabinet-level department as well as in sub-level agencies. In addition, Angela advised manyFortune500 companies and led teams across every major industry.

A frequent industry, academic, and media speaker on the power of data science, Angela convenes the Chief Data Officer (CDO) Council for the U.S. federal government community. In addition, she is actively involved in strengthening diversity and inclusion, especially in technology, and is an enthusiastic champion of women in data science. Angela also serves on the board of directors of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports ICE employees in their homeland security and public safety missions.

Zutavern co-authored the 2017 book The Mathematical Corporation, which explores how organizations and their leaders can beat the competition by coupling human ingenuity with the mathematical power of machine intelligence. Zutavern shows business leaders how to compete in this new era: by combining the mathematical smarts of machines with the intellect of visionary leaders.

Salesforce

Multiplying our potential capabilities by showing us how to merge human intelligence and machine intelligence, The Mathematical Corporation reveals how leaders can score strategic triumphs and fulfill missions that once seemed out-of-reach or even impossible to attain, said Zutavern. Here are some use cases from the book:

Several companies were referenced as mathematical corporations, including Tesla. Teslas vehicles include software that aids customers limited self-driving. Another set of software, with no effect on the car, records all driver behavior so Tesla can accumulate the data to build future full-service self-driving capability. Whereas it took Google six years to gather a million miles of actual self-driving car data, Teslas 70,000 cars produce a million miles of driver data every ten hours. Who will succeed first in using the data for the next breakthrough?

Here are 7 top takeaways from THE MATHEMATICAL CORPORATION - According to the authors: If the past was about analytics and big data, the future is about the big mind of the mathematical corporation. Big mind comes from combining the mathematical smarts of machines with your own imaginative human intellect. It requires the following shifts in thinking:

Here are the key takeaways from our conversation with Zutavern:

Digital savvy businesses leaders are pioneering the use of machine intelligence within their organizations - the combination of machine and human talent will unleash a whole new set of capabilities for products, services and most importantly business model innovation.

AI is another seat at the boardroom table - a mathematical corporation will use data and the predictive power of data to better understand future trends and adapt accordingly. The combination of machine and human intelligence will accelerate concept to commercialization of capabilities.

In every industry, businesses leaders can leverage the power of data sciences to bolster business strategy - Zutavern references Tesla versus Google and the use of same technology, but different strategies, where Tesla is leaning into capturing far more user data from their autonomous cars to improve the user experience and innovation velocity.

In the AI economy, diversity of backgrounds is key to success - The liberal arts graduates have a great opportunity to impact product design and innovation strategies. Zutavern references innovation competitions and hackathons that benefit from groups from diverse backgrounds. An example of developing algorithms for detecting lung cancer was used to demonstrate the benefits of diversity of experience. The first step is figuring out what you dont know and then inviting domain experts to collaborate as a team.

Video and image recognition will be a significant growth areas - There are many consumer, retail, government and safety applications that will require further advancements and application of AI-powered video and image recognition solutions. The power of deep learning and machine learning advancements in these areas will surely create new business model innovation opportunities.

Ethics and privacy must the first thing business leaders think about - The opt-out model is not sufficient framework for businesses to grow market share and gain stakeholder trust. Zutavern advises law makers, business leaders and entrepreneurs to lead the effort with respect to defining ethical and privacy issues as a community.

To become a mathematical corporation you must begin thinking differently and then acting differently. You must be inclusive, collaborative and open-minded to diversity of talent and expertise. Leaders must graduate from gut instincts and mental models and begin embracing advanced analytics and artificial intelligence. Please watch our video conversation with Angela Zutavern (Twitter: @AngelaZutavern) to learn more about how to become a mathematical corporation.

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AI-Powered Companies Combine Machine Intelligence And Human Ingenuity - HuffPost

By Sharif Hassan By Sharif Hassan August 2

A Baltimore man was charged Wednesday with multiple counts of human trafficking after an investigation revealed he was forcing multiple women into prostitution in Howard County, police said.

Kamal Goodwyn, 43, also known as Kamal Dorchy of Charles Plaza in Baltimore, is being held in Howard County without bond in the trafficking after allegedly posting ads for the women on Backpage, police said.

Police began investigating the case July 23 after a woman called police from a motel in Laurel and told them she was a victim of human trafficking by a man and that she was tired of working for him, according to charging documents filed in the case.

Goodwyn was arrested after the police located him when he rented a motel room in Prince Georges County, police said. Three more women were discovered in the room, all believed to be trafficking victims and between the ages of 17 and 24, according to police.

Police charge that he coordinated and arranged appointments at motels for the women and forced them to perform sex acts for money. He found women by running ads offering jobs in massage work or prostitution, police said, and took half of the money they earned through performing sex acts and also controlled their access to cellphones, food and sleep.

Police said Goodwyn also physically assaulted the women, threatened them with a handgun and supplied them with drugs. He recently beat one woman who tried to hide money from him and threw her from a car onto a road, according to the charging documents that also said one of the women told police he hits you like a man.

The public defender assigned to Goodwyn could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.

All four women were taken to a safe location, police said.

Goodwyn faces a preliminary hearing set for Aug. 30 in Howard County, according to Wayne Kirwan, Director of Community Justice and Public Information Howard County State's Attorney's Office.

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Man charged with human trafficking in Howard County - The ... - Washington Post

John Cooke wants it to be clear that he and his fellow researchers at the Houston Methodist Research Institute have not discovered the fountain of youth.

Im not Ponce de Leon, Cooke said in an interview on Tuesday, referring to the 16th century Spanish explorer who, legend has it, was seeking a water source capable of reversing aging.

But in a research letter just published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Cooke and his colleagues report they have developed technology in their laboratory that rejuvenates human cells, raising the possibility of treatment for an array of age-related diseases.

Working with cells from children suffering from progeria, an extremely rare genetic disorder marked by rapid aging, the scientists from the Houston Methodist Research Institute discovered a dramatic effect on the lifespan and function of the cells.

We can at least stall or slow down accelerated aging, and thats what were working toward, Cooke, department chair of cardiovascular sciences at Houston Methodist, said in a news release. Our next steps are to start moving this therapy toward clinical use. We plan to do so by improving existing cell therapies. I want to develop a therapy for these children.

The new research focused on telomeres, which are found at the end of chromosomes. Cooke likened a telomere to the tip of a shoelace, holding the chromosome together. They have also been compared to the fuse on a bomb, because they get shorter every time a cell divides. Eventually the cell can no longer divide and it dies.

Such shortening is typically associated with aging, and 12 of the 17 progeria patients studied the oldest of whom was 14 had shortened telomere, similar to what would be found in a healthy 69-year-old. The average person with progeria lives just 13 years, with heart attack and stroke a common cause of death.

The technology used by the researchers involved prompting cells to produce a protein, telomerase, which can lengthen the telomere. This was done by delivering RNA to the cells that encode telomerase.

When we lengthen telomeres, we can reverse a lot of the problems associated with aging, Cooke said in a video accompanying the publication.

We were not expecting to see such a dramatic effect on the ability of the cells to proliferate. They could function and divide more normally, and we gave them extra lifespan, as well as better function, Cooke said.

The challenge now is finding a way to deliver the RNA into a human body as opposed to cells in a petri dish. RNA is fragile and breaks down quickly in the bloodstream, so Cooke said they are studying the use of nanoparticles to deliver the treatment.

Animal studies will first have to be conducted to ensure safety before any testing on humans, but he is optimistic clinical treatment could be available within a few years.

In his medical practice, Cooke sees a lot of patients suffering from heart and vascular diseases caused by aging. He is hopeful the new findings will be as beneficial to them as they are to children undergoing rapidly accelerated aging.

About a third of the people in this country succumb to strokes and heart attacks, he said. If we can fix that, well fix a lot of diseases.

A study published in the journal Nature in 2010 found that triggering telomerase production reversed aging in mice. But other studies have shown an increased cancer risk as cells stimulated with telomerase are again able to replicate.

Telomerase has become popular among many people hoping to combat aging, with some companies marketing costly telomerase activators in pill or liquid form.

Cooke does not want his research lumped in with the over-the-counter treatments for which he has seen no evidence of their effectiveness.

Im a physician. Im skeptical, and any new therapies have to undergo the rigor of a randomized clinical trial and be shown to be safe and effective, he said.

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Scientists discover method to rejuvenate aging human cells - National Post

Scientists have successfully edited the DNA of human embryos to erase a heritable heart condition that isknown for causingsudden death in young competitive athletes, cracking openthe doors toa controversial new era in medicine.

This is the first time gene editing on human embryos has been conducted in theUnited States. Researcherssaid in interviews this weekthat theyconsider their work very basic. The embryos were allowed to grow for only a few days, and there was never any intention to implant them to create a pregnancy. But they also acknowledged that they will continue to move forward with the science, with theultimate goal of being able to correct disease-causing genes in embryos that will develop into babies.

News of the remarkable experiment began to circulate last week, but details became public Wednesday with a paper in the journal Nature.

The experiment is the latest example of how the laboratory tool known as CRISPR (orClustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), a type of molecular scissors, is pushing the boundaries of our ability to manipulate life, and it has been receivedwith both excitement and horror.

The most recent work is particularly sensitive because it involves changes to the germ line that is, genes that could be passed on to future generations. The United States forbids the use of federal funds for embryo research, and theFood and Drug Administration is prohibited from considering any clinical trials involving genetic modifications that can be inherited. A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in February urged caution in applying CRISPR to human germ-line editingbut laid out conditions by whichresearch should continue. The new study abides by those recommendations.

This animation depicts the CRISPR-Cas9 method for genome editing a powerful new technology with many applications in biomedical research, including the potential to treat human genetic disease or provide cosmetic enhancements. (Feng Zhang/McGovern Institute for Brain Research/MIT)

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, one of the lead authors of the paper and a researcher at Oregon Health & Science University, said that he is conscious ofthe need for a larger ethical and legal discussion about genetic modification of humans but that his team's work isjustified because it involves correcting genes rather than changing them.

Really we didnt edit anything. Neither did we modify anything, Mitalipov said. Our program is toward correcting mutant genes.

Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who is co-chair of the National Academies committee that looked at gene editing,said that concerns about the work that have been circulating in recent days are overblown.

What this represents is a fascinating, important and rather impressive incremental step toward learning how to edit embryos safely and precisely, she said. However, no matter what anybody says, this is not the dawn of the era of the designer baby. She said that characteristics that some parents might desire, such as intelligence and athleticism, are influenced by multiple genes and that researchers don't understand all the components of how such characteristics areinherited, much less have the ability to redesign them.

The research involved eggs from 12 healthy female donors and sperm from a male volunteer who carries the MYBPC3 gene, which causes hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. HCM is a disease that causes an abnormal thickening of the heart muscle butcan cause no symptoms and remain undetected until it causes sudden cardiac death. There's no way to prevent or cure it, and it affects1 in 500 people worldwide.

Around the time the sperm was injected into the eggs, researchers snipped out the gene that causes the disease. The result was far more successful than the researchers expected: As the embryo's cells began to divide and multiply, a huge number appearedto be repairing themselves by using the normal, non-mutated copy of the gene from the women'sgenetic material. In all, they saw that about 72 percent were corrected, a very high number. Researchers also noticed that theredidn't seem to be any off-target changes in the DNA, which has been a major safety concern ofgene-editing research.

Mitalipov said he hoped the technique could one day be applied to a wide variety of genetic diseases and that one of the team'snext targets may be the BRCA gene mutation, which is associated with breast cancer.

The first published work involving human embryos, reported in 2015, was done in Chinaand targeted a gene that leads to theblood disorder beta thalassemia. But those embryos were abnormal and nonviable, and there were far fewer than the number used in the U.S. study.

Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a researcher at the Salk Institute who is also a co-author on the new study, saidthat there are many advantages to treating an embryo rather than a child or an adult. When dealing with an embryo in its earliest stages, only a few cells are involved, while in a more mature human being there aretrillions of cells in the body and potentially millions that must be corrected to eradicate traces of a disease.

Izpisua Belmonte said that even if the technology is perfected, it could deal with only a small subset of human diseases.

Idont want to be negative with our own discoveries, but it is important to inform the public of what this means, he said. In my opinion the percentage of people that would benefit from this at the current way the world is rather small. For the process to make a difference, the child would have to be born through in vitro fertilization or IVF and the parentswould have to know the child has the gene for a disease to get it changed. But the vast majority ofchildren are conceived the natural way, and this correction technology would not work in utero.

For years, some policymakers, historians and scientists have been calling for a voluntary moratorium on the modification of the DNA of human reproductive cells. The most prominent expression of concern came in the form of a 2015 letter signed by CRISPR co-inventor Jennifer Doudna, Nobel Laureate David Baltimore and 16 other prominent scientists. They warned that eliminating a genetic disease could have unintended consequences on human genetics, society and even the environment far into the future.

On Wednesday,Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, warned that the O.H.S.U. research would result in fertility clinics offering genetic upgrades to those able to afford them.

Once those commercial dynamics kick in, we could all too easily find ourselves in a world where some peoples children are considered biologically superior to the rest of us, she said in a statement. We need to ask ourselves whether we want to add that new kind of excuse for extreme social disparities to the ones we already tolerate.

Researchers who worked on the heart-condition experiment appear to have differing views on where their work is headed.

Paula Amato, a reproductiveendocrinologist with O.H.S.U., was excited about the idea of being able to editout diseases before birth. She said that while pre-implantation genetic screening of embryos is now available, it isn't perfect.She talked about how one of her patients went through three cycles of in vitro fertilizationbut all theeggs that were harvested hadthegene mutation that causes diseases.

With gene correction technology, Amatosaid, we could have rescued some of those embryos.

ButIzpisua Belmonte said he is focusing on using thefindings from this study to further research into gene modifications during a pregnancy or after birth into adulthood.

Ifeel that the practical thing to do is deal with the diseases people have, not with the disease they may have, he said.

Mitalipov said he hopes regulators will provide more guidance on what should or should not be allowed.

Otherwise, he said, this technology will be shifted to unregulated areas, which shouldnt be happening.

This story has been updated.

Read more:

A new CRISPR breakthrough could lead to simpler, cheaper disease diagnosis

Scientists debate the ethics of CRISPR

Ethicists urge caution in applying CRISPR to humans

Jennifer Doudna ponders 'what it means to be human' on the frontier of gene editing

See the original post here:
First human embryo editing experiment in US 'corrects' gene for heart condition - Washington Post

Although climate change may now rank alongside ISIS as the worlds most feared security threat according to a new Pew report, the horrors that global warming will unleash in the future, are far worse than you think warns David Wallace-Wells.

In his sobering piece in New York Magazine, he says that even within the lifetime of a teenager today .. parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable.

He cites the melting Arctic permafrost as one alarming example: It contains 1.8 trillion tons of carbon. Thats twice as much CO2 that is currently trapped in our atmosphere from burnt fossil fuels. And, when it thaws, it will evaporate as methane, a greenhouse gas 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of cooking the planet.

And, methane is not the only thing that will be released: hidden within the ice lie diseases that have not circulated in the air for millions of years. And, as human beings have never been exposed to them, our immune systems will be woefully unprepared to deal with such prehistoric plagues when they finally emerge from the ice.

If thats not terrifying enough, there are plenty of more recent viruses to contend, such as the 1918 flu which killed 100 million. Researchers discovered remnants of it in Alaska, and they suspect that the Siberian Ice holds both smallpox and bubonic plague.

And, to make matters worse, that permafrost may melt sooner than we think: the time scale on which climate change is happening only seems to grow faster and faster with each new report. According to the UNs latest climate survey, the gold standard in global warming analysis, the world is not only warming faster, but its impacts are much worse than originally thought.

Two degrees of warming used to be regarded as the acceptable threshold for climate calamity: never mind that it will unleash tens of millions of climate refugees upon an unprepared world, writes Wallace-Wells. But, now there is only a small chance that we will stay under the 2C ceiling enshrined in the Paris climate deal. And, those odds are even bleaker since Donald Trump pulled the US out of the accord two months ago.

In fact, according to research out this week, there is only a 5 percent chance that Earth will stay under the 2C mark by centurys end: Were closer to the margin than we think. If we want to avoid 2C, we have very little time left, warns Adrian Rafters, a University of Washington academic: The public should be very concerned.

According to the UNs report, we will hit 4 degrees of warming within the next 80 years, and such a temperature rise will usher in changes not seen since the last Ice Age. And, to make matters worse, 4C is only the median projection: the upper end of the curve goes as high as 8C.

And, that doesnt even include the impacts of permafrost melt; or the fact that less ice means that there will be less sun reflected and thus more warming; or that more cloud cover will trap more heat; or that forest dieback will mean that less CO2 is absorbed:

Each of these promises to accelerate warming, and the history of the planet shows that temperatures can shift as much as five degrees Celsius within thirteen years, says Wallace-Wells.

At 4C, the deadly 2003 European heat wave which killed 2,000 people a day, will be just a normal summer. At 7C of warming, it would be impossible to go outside, especially in the tropics where humidity routinely tops 90 percent:

In the jungles of Costa Rica, for instance, simply moving around outside would be lethal, writes Wallace-Wells: And the effect would be fast: Within a few hours, a human body would be cooked to death from both inside and out. At 11 or 12C of warming, more than half the worlds population, as distributed today, would die of direct heat.

And, its not just the heat that we have to contend with. For every degree that the planet warms up, food production falls by 10 - 15 percent. That means that if its 5C warmer by 2100, there will be 50% less food for a world population that has doubled in size.

Moreover, drought will only turn todays lush agricultural lands into parched desert. Unless there is a dramatic fall in emissions by 2080, Southern Europe, most of the Middle East, parts of Australia, Africa, South America and China will all be in a permanent state of drought, drier than the American dust bowl.

There are already 800 million people starving across the globe today. Imagine what that number will be in 60 years time.

And, if thats not alarming enough, warmer temperatures will also bring about more wars as people are forced to migrate from their homes whilst growing hungrier, thirstier, and more irritable in general with the heat. According to experts, every half-degree of warming will lead to a 10 to 20 percentincrease in the chance of armed conflict.

That means that social conflict could more than double this century.

All of this begs the question: can we as a species survive this impending catastrophe?

In the past, the planet has witnessed five mass extinction events which have effectively wiped the evolutionary slate clean.And, all of them, except for the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, were caused by climate change, the most notorious of which happened 252 million years ago.

That episode started when carbon dioxide warmed the planet by 5C, triggered by melting permafrost, culminating in the destruction of 97 percent of all life on Earth. And, according to scientists, this is the future that we are fast heading towards. Whilst this may smack of irrational panic to some, many of the most credentialed scientists that Wallace-Wells interviewed have quietly reached an apocalyptic conclusion, too.

Some have suggested that the lifespan of a civilization may only be several thousand years, and that of an industrial civilization only be a few hundred.Wallace-Wells muses whether this is why weve never found intelligent life from other galaxies:

In a universe that is many billions of years old, with star systems separated as much by time as by space, civilizations might emerge and develop and burn themselves up simply too fast to ever find one another... the mass extinction we are now living through has only just begun.

Although global warming started in England at the dawn of the Industrial Age, more than half of that carbon dioxide has been released in the past three decades. That means that climate change has brought us to the brink of planetary collapse within the span of a single generation.

And yet, in spite of all of this, many of the scientists that Wallace-Wells interviewed are optimists, asserting that humans will find a way to stop this madness simply because we must: our very survival depends on it. After all, as the old cliche goes: necessity is the Mother of all invention.

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Link:
Can Human Beings Survive The Impending Climate Crisis? - HuffPost