Category Archives: Post Human

By Berivan Orucoglu By Berivan Orucoglu July 28 at 2:47 PM

Correction: An earlierversion of this post incorrectly said the McCain Institute was founded by Sen. John McCain and his family. The institute was named for the McCain family. This version has been updated.

Berivan Orucoglu is the program coordinator of the Supporting Human Rights Defenders program at the McCain Institute for International Leadership. (Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the McCain Institute.)

Im a Turkish journalist. Ive spent my career criticizing politicians. I have always seen that as my job.

Yet I now find myself in the unaccustomed position of singing the praises of one of them the remarkable Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). When we learned last week that he was afflicted with brain cancer, the news not only jolted Washingtons political scenebut also sent a shock wave through the community of human rights defenders around the globe. Its important to appreciate just how unusual this is. These two worlds the politicians and the activists almost never agree on anything. Yet McCain enjoys immense respect in both of them.

That should help to explain why his medical diagnosis was top news not only in the United States but also across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Since the news of his illness broke, my phone hasnt stopped ringing. Journalist and activist friends from Afghanistan and Ukraine, from Egypt and Turkey have been calling in shock and dismay, refusing to accept the news.

The first time I met McCain was at a meeting in Brussels during the George W. Bush administration. At the time, the European Union was outraged by the CIAs clandestine flights and torture policies. McCains clear and resolute stance against torture came as a huge relief to the United States allies in Europe. The world would be a safer place if Sen. McCain was the U.S. president, one Dutch diplomat told me.

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I next met the senator several years later, in a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey. By then, I had been to many camps and covered several high-level meetings. In striking contrast to other high-level visitors, McCain spent most of his time actually talking with the Syrians who had been forced to flee their war-torn homeland. It was refreshing to see a politician who didnt care about photo ops and who paid more attention to the refugees themselves than to the official statement from the camp authorities. I wasnt the only one impressed by the senators visit. One Syrian who attended the meeting with McCain told me: He was the only visiting politician to give us more than lip service.

I havent always agreed with all of McCains policies, but from the minute I met him, I have had the utmost respect for his bravery and his loyalty to what he believes in. Hes a man who has always stuck to his values even when they arent popular. While many politicians remember human rights and democracy only when its convenient, the senator has consistently championed human rights, democracy and the rule of law. He has been one of Washingtons most consistent defenders of the late Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, a man many U.S. politicians have been reluctant to praise for fear of offending China. He called for the closure of the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay when this wasnt exactly calculated to make him friends in his own party. Even though Egypt is one of the United States closest military allies, he has been willing to call Egypt out on its harsh treatment of dissidents.

Full disclosure: Three years ago, I was fortunate enough to come to the United States as one of the fellows of the Next Generation Leaders program at the McCain Institute in Washington. The institute, named for McCain and his family, is a testament to the senators lifelong devotion to human rights. Over the past five years, the institute has created a network of 44 emerging leaders from 33 countries and five continents who are committed to good governance, leadership and human rights. Every year, the institute gives human rights defenders a unique opportunity to gather in Arizona, where they speak about their fight against tyranny and their desire to make the world a better place.

By doing this, McCain hasnt just given human rights defenders a chance to make their case to people in the United States. He has also given them an opportunity to share lessons and expertise with one another, creating a worldwide community of people working for positive change. Apparently, some Americans dont know Sen. McCain as well as we do, one Ukrainian activist told me when he heard the news about the senators illness. Hell never back down from a fight because the odds arent in his favor.

McCain has been a guardian angel for many activists who have been fighting for their freedoms despite the odds. That might help Americans to understand why they arent the only ones who are now appreciating his legacy afresh. From Syria to Russia, from Burma to Ukraine, those who truly believe in freedom are praying for a speedy recovery of their true friend in the United States.

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Why human rights defenders love John McCain - The Washington Post - Washington Post

Scientists in Portland, Ore., just succeeded in creating the first genetically modified human embryo in the United States, according to Technology Review. Ateam led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health & Science University is reported to have broken new ground both in the number of embryos experimented upon and by demonstrating that it is possible to safely and efficiently correct defective genes that cause inherited diseases.

The U.S. teamsresults follow two trials one last year and one in April by researchers in Chinawho injected genetically modified cells into cancer patients.Theresearch teamsused CRISPR, a new gene-editing system derived from bacteria thatenables scientists to editthe DNA of living organisms.

The era of human gene editing has begun.

In the short term, scientists are planning clinical trials to use CRISPR to edit human genes linked to cystic fibrosis and other fatal hereditary conditions. But supporters of synthetic biology talk up huge potential long-term benefits. We could, they claim, potentially edit genes and build new ones to eradicate all hereditary diseases. With genetic alterations, we might be able to withstand anthrax attacks or epidemics of pneumonic plague. We might revive extinct species such as the woolly mammoth. We might design plants that are far more nutritious, hardy and delicious than what we have now.

But developments in gene editing are alsohighlighting a desperate need for ethical and legal guidelines to regulate in vitro genetic editing and raising concerns about a future in which the well-off couldpay for CRISPR to perfect their offspring. We will soon be faced with very difficult decisions aboutwhen and how to use this breakthrough medical technology.For example, if your unborn child were going to have a debilitating disease that you could fix by taking a pill to edit theirgenome, would you take the pill? How about adding some bonusintelligence? Greater height or strength? Where would you draw the line?

CRISPRs potential for misuse by changinginherited human traits has prompted some genetic researchers to call fora global moratorium on usingthe techniqueto modify human embryos. Such use is a criminal offense in 29 countries, and the United States bans the use of federal funds to modify embryos.

Still, CRISPRs seductiveness is beginning to overtake the calls forcaution.

In February, an advisory body from the National Academy of Sciences announcedthe academys support for usingCRISPR to edit the genes of embryos to remove DNA sequences that doctors saycause serious heritable diseases. The recommendation came with significant caveats and suggested limiting the use of CRISPR to specific embryonic problems. That said, the recommendation is clearly an endorsement of CRISPR as a research tool that is likely to become a clinical treatment a step from which therewill be no turning back.

CRISPRs combination of usability, low cost and power is both tantalizing and frightening, with the potential tosomeday enableanyone to edit a living creature on the cheap in their basements. So, although scientists might use CRISPR to eradicate malaria by making the mosquitoes that carry it infertile, bioterrorists could use it to create horrific pathogens that could kill tens of millions of people.

With the source code of life now so easy to hack, and biologists and the medical world ready to embrace its possibilities, how do we ensure the responsible use of CRISPR?

Theres a line that A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor uses whendescribing the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, whereall the children are above average. Will we enter a time when those who can afford a better genome will live far longer, healthier lives than those who cannot? Should the U.S. government subsidize genetic improvements to ensure a level playing field when the rich have access to the best genetics that money can buy and the rest of society does not? And what if CRISPR introduces traits into the human germ line with unforeseen consequences perhaps higher rates of cardiac arrest or schizophrenia?

Barriers to mass use of CRISPR are already falling. Dog breeders looking to improve breedssuffering from debilitating maladies are actively pursuing gene hacking. A former NASA fellow in synthetic biology now sells functional bacterial engineering CRISPR kits for $150 from his online store. Its not hard to imagine a future in which the big drugstore chains carry CRISPR kits for home testing and genetic engineering.

The release ofgenetically modified organisms into the wildin the past few years has raised considerable ethical and scientific questions. The potential consequences of releasing genetically crippled mosquitoes in the southern United States to reduce transmission of tropical viruses, for instance, drew a firestorm of concern over the effects on humans and the environment.

So, while the prospect of altering the genes of people modern-day eugenics has caused a schism in the science community, research with precisely that aim is happening all over the world.

We have arrived at a Rubicon. Humans are on the verge of finally being able to modify their own evolution. The question is whether they can use this newfound superpower in a responsible way that will benefit theplanet and its people. And a decision so momentous cannot be left to the doctors, the experts orthe bureaucrats.

Failing to figure out how to ensure that everyonewill benefit from this breakthroughrisks the creation of a genetic underclasswho must struggle to compete with the genetically modified offspring of the rich. Andfailing to monitor and contain how we use itmay spell global catastrophe. Its up to us collectively to get this right.

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If you could 'design' your own child, would you? - Washington Post

You know the scenario from 19th-century fiction and Hollywood movies: Mankind has invented a computer, or a robot or another artificial thing that has taken on a life of its own. In Frankenstein, the monster is built from corpses; in 2001: A Space Odyssey, its an all-seeing computer with a human voice; in Westworld, the robots are lifelike androids that begin to think for themselves. But in almost every case, the out-of-control artificial life form is anthropomorphic. It has a face or a body, or at least a human voice and a physical presence in the real world.

But what if the real threat from artificial life doesnt look or act human at all? What if its just a piece of computer code that can affect what you see and therefore what you think and feel? In other words what if its a bot, not a robot?

For those who dont know (and apologies to those who are wearily familiar), a bot really is just a piece of computer code that can do things that humans can do. Wikipedia uses bots to correct spelling and grammar on its articles; bots can also play computer games or place gambling bets on behalf of human controllers. Notoriously, bots are now a major force on social media, where they can like people and causes, post comments, react to others. Bots can be programmed to tweet out insults in response to particular words, to share Facebook pages, to repeat slogans, to sow distrust.

Slowly, their influence is growing. One tech executive told me he reckons that half of the users on Twitter are bots, created by companies that either sell them or use them to promote various causes. The Computational Propaganda Research Project at the University of Oxford has described how bots are used to promote either political parties or government agendas in 28 countries. They can harass political opponents or their followers, promote policies, or simply seek to get ideas into circulation.

About a week ago, for example, sympathizers of the Polish government possibly alt-right Americans launched a coordinated Twitter bot campaign with the hashtag #astroturfing (not exactly a Polish word) that sought to convince Poles that anti-government demonstrators were fake, outsiders or foreigners paid to demonstrate. An investigation by the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab pointed out the irony: An artificial Twitter campaign had been programmed to smear a genuine social movement by calling it ... artificial.

That particular campaign failed. But others succeed or at least they seem to. The question now is whether, given how many different botnets are running at any given moment, we even know what that means. Its possible for computer scientists to examine and explain each one individually. Its possible for psychologists to study why people react the way they do to online interactions why fact-checking doesnt work, for example, or why social media increases aggression.

But no one is really able to explain the way they all interact, or what the impact of both real and artificial online campaigns might be on the way people think or form opinions. Another Digital Forensic Research Lab investigation into pro-Trump and anti-Trump bots showed the extraordinary number of groups that are involved in these dueling conversations some commercial, some political, some foreign. The conclusion: They are distorting the conversation, but toward what end, nobody knows.

Which is my point: Maybe weve been imagining this scenario incorrectly all of this time. Maybe this is what computers out of control really look like. Theres no giant spaceship, nor are there armies of lifelike robots. Instead, we have created a swamp of unreality, a world where you dont know whether the emotions you are feeling are manipulated by men or machines, and where once all news moves online, as it surely will it will soon be impossible to know whats real and whats imagined. Isnt this the dystopia we have so long feared?

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Maybe the AI dystopia is already here - Washington Post

There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of futurology, the utopian and the apocalyptic. In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari, like the Book of Revelation, offers a bit of both. And why not? The function of imaginary futures is to deliver us from banality. The present, like the past, may be a disappointing muddle, but the future had better be very good or very bad, or it wont sell.

Harari, an Oxford-educated Israeli historian who teaches in Jerusalem, is the author of Sapiens (2015), a provocative, panoramic view of human evolution and history upward from apedom. It became an international bestseller, recommended by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Barack Obama. Hararis style is breezy and accessible, sprinkled with allusions to pop culture and everyday life, but his perspective is coolly detached and almost Machiavellian in its unflinching realism about power, the role of elites, and the absence of justice in history. He is an unapologetic oracle of Darwin and data. And he is clearly a religious skeptic, but he practices a form of Buddhist meditation, and among the best things in his new book, like his previous one, are his observations on the varieties of religious experience.

Harari begins by assuring us that humanity is on a winning streak. Famine and plague, two historical scourges, are disappearing, and a third, war, is no longer routine statecraft. For the first time in history, more people die of eating too much than eating too little. More people succumb to ailments related to old age than to infectious diseases. Victims of all kinds of violence are, as percentages of the population, at historical lows in most places. The next stop, presumably, is Utopia.

But if its the best of times, its also the worst of timesat least for other species. In the present era, which Harari follows other writers in calling the Anthropocene epoch, a dominant, overbreeding humanity is playing the role of the dinosaur-dooming asteroid 65 million years ago. Were transforming the planet. Many species of larger wild animals are reaching the vanishing point, while the now far more numerous domesticated animals raised for food have been bred into miserable, bloated, immobilized travesties of their wild ancestors. We live in an age of mass extinctions. The question Harari raises is whether we are going to be the next victims of our own success.

In a few decades, we might have a new caste society that, in Hararis account, looks something like the Egypt of the pharaohs. Most of humanity, made redundant by artificial intelligence and robots, will be ushered into subservience or virtual-reality obliviousness. But there will be a rich elite whose technical mastery will bring them something approaching omniscience. They will periodically arrange complete biochemical makeovers, giving themselves perpetual youth, and they will have assorted injections and brain prosthetics to bestow unflagging confidence and intelligence and bliss. They will be beings apart, experiencing mental states unknown to all previous merely human beings. It will make them, in effect, a new species, Homo deusjust as the cognitive revolution 70,000 years ago gave rise to our own human species, Homo sapiens, with unheard-of powers of abstraction and imagination, thereby turning an insignificant African ape into the ruler of the world.

On the other hand, this god-incubating project might just be a mad-scientist experiment that blows up in our genetically enhanced faces. Harari concedes that revamping the human mind is an extremely complex and dangerous undertaking since we dont really understand the mind. He would seem to agree with critics who think that any such transhumanist or posthumanist enterprise should proceed with caution and be carefully considered and debated in advance. His book is only meant, he says, to enable us to think in far more imaginative ways about the future, and it is a historical prediction, not a political manifesto. But he isnt optimistic about halting the project of redesigning humanity and merging it with machines, even if it turns out to be a big mistake. After all, history is full of big mistakes. Given our past record and our current values, we are likely to reach out for bliss, divinity and immortalityeven if it kills us.

As for the other, more conventionally apocalyptic ways of killing us, Hararis book is remarkable for tiptoeing past the usual suspects, like climate catastrophe and nuclear war. He does bring up something he calls the logic bombembedded malicious software that could be activated during a geopolitical crisis, producing power blackouts, plane and train crashes, and the obliteration of financial records (in other words, all the money you thought you had squirreled away in a safe place).

Harari has nothing to say about how todays technology seems to be aiding and abetting our descent into an increasingly crude, inarticulate, and barbaric societyonline bullying and abuse, livestreamed suicides and rapes and murders, terrorist recruitment and incitement, and so onand thus fails to project those trends into the future. In fact, he downplays terrorism as a desperate measure adopted by historys losers.

So much for the good news. Harari describes several other current technological fads and intellectual trends that might remake the world. The Quantified Self movement involves monitoring and measuring human activities; for many people, using a Fitbit can bring about improvements in physical health. But what Harari describes is more like an obsession or an ideology, reducing the self to nothing but mathematical patterns. Then there is Dataism, which he rightly calls a current scientific dogma. It holds that all life is basically just hardware and software: Organisms are algorithms and giraffes, tomatoes and human beings are just different methods for processing data. Harari seems to suggest that if these ideas prevail, humanity may drown in a biblical-caliber flood of numbers, with no ark of autonomy in sight.

In 1888, Edward Bellamy, an American socialist, published his immensely popular novel Looking Backward, which envisioned a happy future in the year 2000: We would have no wars, no banks, no money to put in them, no poverty, no wealth, no prisons, no politicians to put in them, no advertisements, no professional sports, no bad manners, and (now comes the good part) no lawyersjust a rather genteel Industrial Army receiving equal rations of modest middle-class amenities. No mention of computers and the Internet, nor even radios, but there would be telephone connections in every home to a symphony orchestra playing live music.

In the quarter-century after Bellamy, more than 200 futurist tracts and novels appeared in English, almost all optimistic, though a few grim futures began raining on the utopian paradethe first drops of the later dystopian deluge that included Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Some were memorable; all were wrong.

Except for a few remarks about Marxist mistakes, Harari doesnt deal with the picturesque ruins of the bright futures of the past. And he confesses, reassuringly, that he does not know what the future will be like. Nobody does. He is, he claims, only sketching a few indistinct possibilities and not endorsing any of them. But like Bellamy and other past futurologists, he is extrapolating current technological and social tendencies and cutting and pasting them onto the blank slate of the future, and his chances of being right are not any greater than theirs were. What makes his book readablehis sweeping, high-altitude style of analysisalso makes it somewhat facile.

Harari does acknowledge a few cracks in his own tentative utopian faade. Weve managed to achieve unprecedented levels of prosperity, comfort, safety, and choice, but these things do not always translate into true happiness or full human flourishing. Indeed, we find ourselves living distracted, disconnected lives. We have more choice than ever before, Harari writes, but we have lost the ability to really pay attention to whatever we choose. Rates of depression, drug use, and suicide are, Harari notes, higher in some affluent, high-tech societies than in some indigent but tradition-rich places.

Modernity, he says, came to us as a deal in which humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power. Until recently, most cultures believed that humans play a part in some great cosmic plan that gave meaning and purpose to their lives but also limited their power, since ultimate power always resided with the gods or the natural order. Human hubris of the Tower of Babel or Greek tragedy varieties earned quick retribution. But modern humanity has developed powers of its own that match the awe-inspiring powers once attributed to the godsmiracle-working medicines, instant global communication, nuclear bombs, and so forth. Power, however, tends not only to corrupt, it makes the absence of meaning more glaring. On the practical level, Harari writes, modern life consists of a constant pursuit of power within a universe devoid of meaning.

Its not that modernity completely gave up on meaning. It just withdrew it from the cosmos and reinvested it in humanity, creating humanism, which is, Harari says, the real religion of the modern world. Liberal humanism, allied with democracy and consumerist capitalism, has prevailed over its totalitarian rivals by anchoring meaning to the autonomous individual self. Since Rousseau, weve been looking inward and consulting our feelings to find meaning and purpose in life. Life thus becomes, as far as possible, a series of freely chosen, emotionally gratifying, significant experiences; whole industries, like the travel industry, have sprung up to provide them.

Trying to build a humanist church on the shifting sands of feeling has had some unintended consequencesa sentimental, subjective morality; politics in a feel-good or touchy, outrage-driven key; and a self-absorbed therapeutic culture in which everyone is healing and no one is well. Harari gives almost no attention to these. But he demonstrates throughout the book that history has always been a record of unintended consequences, and he offers no reasons for thinking that will change.

The one thing we can be reasonably sure of about the future is that the best-laid plans of mice and men and computerized societies will, as is the custom, go awry. Amid his Homo deus conjectures, Harari remarks that by achieving immunity to disease and aging, the new technocratic elite will be potentially immortal, but they would still be vulnerable to death by accident (or assassination, I would add). In other words, the supergeeks of tomorrow may have godlike aspirations, but they will be extremely nervous little gods. They may never get out of the house.

In Dostoyevskys Notes from Underground, his ranting antihero predicts that people will sabotage the precisely calculated, number-ruled technological utopias of the future by doing self-destructive things and committing random acts of violence just to assert their freedom. You might argue that this is already happening.

Maybe computers will take over the world. But, as Harari admits, scientists have so far failed to come up with an explanation for human consciousness and subjectivity, let alone replicate them in computers. Computers lack not only consciousness but the self-doubt, inner ambivalence and conflict, and sheer self-loathing that are its faithful companions and the source of all our trouble and creativity. Harari says that they may not need consciousness, doubt, and creativity to replace us. But I suppose if they begin saying, like St. Paul, I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate, or, like Montaigne, what we believe we do not believe, and we cannot disengage ourselves from what we condemn, we should start to worry.

Subverting the prospective techno-apotheosis Harari describes may not require drastic Dostoyevskian measuresmaybe just imagination, which, for Harari, echoing a famous remark by Napoleon, is what rules human life. Lives of artificial bliss handed to us on a platter of biochemical and neuroelectronic manipulation may well turn out to be stifling, unchallenging lives, and the human imagination, if it is not stunted and stupefied by virtual reality and other illusions, is likely to find unpredictable ways to subvert them. We will have found out that gods are never happy.

Lawrence Klepp is a writer in New York.

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Inevitably Posthuman? - The Weekly Standard

During a speech to law enforcement on July 28, President Trump said "please don't be too nice" to suspects who are arrested. (The Washington Post)

On Friday, President Trump traveled to Long Island to address a group of law enforcement officials and speak about the administrations efforts to eradicate the gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. His speech stuck largely to that theme, though he also made note of Thursday nights failed health-care vote.

Trumps speech was noteworthy, though, for its embrace of aggressive tactics by police officers. He insisted that his team was rough and encouraged police officers not to be concerned about preventing physical harm to people being taken into custody. The laws, he said, were stacked against the police.

Please dont be too nice, Trump told the officers, to applause. Below, his comments, as provided by the White House, with our highlights and annotations. To see an annotation, click on the yellow, highlighted text.

Well, thank you very much. This is certainly being home for me. I spent a lot of time right here. I was in Queens, so Id come here, and this was like the luxury location for me. And I love it. I love the people here. Even coming in from the airport, I sat with Nikki Haley, whos here someplace. Wheres our Nikki? Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is so incredible. (Applause.) And shes seen crowds in her life, and she said, boy, those are really big crowds. Crowds of people all lining the streets, all the way over to here. And its really a special place. And so when I heard about this, I said, I want to do that one.

But I really wanted to do it not because of location, but because, as you know, I am the big, big believer and admirer of the people in law enforcement, okay? From day one. (Applause.) From day one. We love our police. We love our sheriffs. And we love our ICE officers. And they have been working hard. (Applause.) Thank you. They have been working hard.

Together, were going to restore safety to our streets and peace to our communities, and were going to destroy the vile criminal cartel, MS-13, and many other gangs. But MS-13 is particularly violent. They dont like shooting people because its too quick, its too fast. I was reading one of these animals was caught in explaining, they like to knife them and cut them, and let them die slowly because that way its more painful, and they enjoy watching that much more. These are animals.

Were joined today by police and sheriffs from Suffolk, Nassau, Dutchess and Ulster counties; state police from New York and New Jersey many of you I know, great friends; Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers; and law enforcement personnel from a number of federal agencies. So were loaded up with great people thats what I call it.

And I want to just tell you all together, right now, the reason I came this is the most important sentence to me: On behalf of the American people, I want to say, thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you.

And I dont think you know how much the public respects and admires you. Youre saving American lives every day, and we have your backs believe me we have your backs 100 percent. Not like the old days. Not like the old days. (Applause.)

You know, when you wanted to take over and you used military equipment and they were saying you couldnt do it you know what I said? That was my first day: You can do it. (Laughter.) In fact, that stuff is disappearing so fast we have none left. (Laughter.) You guys know you really knew how to get that. But thats my honor. And I tell you what its being put to good use.

I especially want to thank ICE Director Tom Homan, who has done an incredible job in just a short period of time. Tom, get up here. I know you just (applause) Tom is determined to rid our nation of cartels and criminals who are preying on our citizens. And I can only say to Tom: Keep up the great work. Hes a tough guy. Hes a tough cookie. Somebody said the other day, they saw him on television, and somebody they were interviewed after that; they said, he looks very nasty, he looks very mean. I said, thats what Im looking for. (Laughter.) Thats exactly what I was looking for.

And for that, I want to congratulate John Kelly, who has done an incredible job of Secretary of Homeland Security. Incredible. (Applause.) One of our real stars. Truly, one of our stars. John Kelly is one of our great stars. You know, the border is down 78 percent. Under past administrations, the border didnt go down it went up. But if it went down 1 percent, it was like this was a great thing. Down 78 percent. And, in fact, the southern border of Mexico, we did them a big favor believe me. They get very little traffic in there anymore, because they know theyre not going to get through the border to the United States.

So that whole group has been incredible, led by General Kelly.

Let me also express our gratitude to the members of the New York Delegation here today: Congressman Chris Collins. Wheres Chris? Oh, Chris, right from the beginning he said, Trump is going to win. Trump is going to win. So I like him. (Laughter.) I didnt like him that much before; now I love him. (Laughter and applause.) Dan Donovan thanks, Dan. (Applause.) Thank you, Dan. And Lee Zeldin, who I supported right from the beginning, when they said he didnt have a chance of beating a pretty popular incumbent. (Applause.)

And I saw him in a debate. I said, I think this guy is going to win. But he fought a pretty popular guy, and I said, I think hes going to win and went heavy for him, and he won. And he won pretty easily, didnt you? Pretty good. Im proud of you. Great job.

And, of course, a legend, somebody that we all know very well, sort of my neighbor because I consider him a neighbor but hes really a great and highly respected man in Washington, Congressman Peter King. (Applause.) Very respected guy. He is a respected man that people like to ask opinions of. I do.

Congressman King and his colleagues know the terrible pain and violence MS-13 has inflicted upon this community and this country. And if you remember just a little more than two years ago, when I came down the escalator with Melania, and I made the speech people coming into this country. Everyone said, what does he know? Whats he talking about?

And there was bedlam. Remember bedlam? And then about two months later, they said, you know, hes right. So Im honored to have brought it to everybodys attention. But the suffering and the pain that we were going through and now you can look at the numbers its a whole different world.

And it will get better and better and better because weve been able to start nipping it in the bud. Weve nipped it in the bud lets call it start nipping in the bud.

And MS-13, the cartel, has spread gruesome bloodshed throughout the United States. Weve gotten a lot of them out of here. Big, big percentage. But the rest are coming theyll be out of here quickly, right? Quickly. Good. (Applause.)

So I asked Tom on the plane he was never on Air Force One I said, how do you like it? He said, I like it. (Laughter.) But I said, hey, Tom, let me ask you a question how tough are these guys, MS-13? He said, theyre nothing compared to my guys. Nothing. And thats what you need. Sometimes thats what you need, right?

For many years, they exploited Americas weak borders and lax immigration enforcement to bring drugs and violence to cities and towns all across America. Theyre there right now because of weak political leadership, weak leadership, weak policing, and in many cases because the police werent allowed to do their job. Ive met police that are great police that arent allowed to do their job because they have a pathetic mayor or a mayor doesnt know whats going on. (Applause.)

Were you applauding for someone in particular? (Laughter.) Its sad. Its sad. You look at whats happening, its sad.

But hopefully certainly in the country, those days are over. You may have a little bit longer to wait.

But from now on, were going to enforce our laws, protect our borders, and support our police like our police have never been supported before. Were going to support you like youve never been supported before. (Applause.)

Few communities have suffered worse at the hands of these MS-13 thugs than the people of Long Island. Hard to believe. I grew up on Long Island. I didnt know about this. I didnt know about this. And then all of a sudden, this is like a new phenomenon. Our hearts and our nation grieve for the victims and their families.

Since January 16 think of this MS-13 gang members have brutally murdered 17 beautiful, young lives in this area on Long Island alone. Think of it. They butcher those little girls. They kidnap, they extort, they rape and they rob. They prey on children. They shouldnt be here. They stomp on their victims. They beat them with clubs. They slash them with machetes, and they stab them with knives. They have transformed peaceful parks and beautiful, quiet neighborhoods into bloodstained killing fields. Theyre animals.

We cannot tolerate as a society the spilling of innocent, young, wonderful, vibrant people sons and daughters, even husbands and wives. We cannot accept this violence one day more. Cant do it, and were not going to do it. Because of you, were not going to be able to do it. Youre not going to allow it to happen, and were backing you up 100 percent. Remember that 100 percent. (Applause.)

It is the policy of this administration to dismantle, decimate and eradicate MS-13 at every other and I have to say, MS-13, thats a name; rough groups thats fine. We got a lot of others. And they were all let in here over a relatively short period of time. Not during my period of time, believe me. But were getting them out. Theyre going to jails, and then theyre going back to their country. Or theyre going back to their country, period.

One by one, were liberating our American towns. Can you believe that Im saying that? Im talking about liberating our towns. This is like Id see in a movie: Theyre liberating the town, like in the old Wild West, right? Were liberating our towns. I never thought Id be standing up here talking about liberating the towns on Long Island where I grew up, but thats what youre doing.

And I can tell you, I saw some photos where Toms guys rough guys. Theyre rough. I dont want to be say it because theyll say thats not politically correct. Youre not allowed to have rough people doing this kind of work. We have to get just like they dont want to have rich people at the head of Treasury, okay? (Laughter.) Like, I want a rich guy at the head of Treasury, right? Right? (Applause.)

I want a rich guy at the head of Commerce. Because weve been screwed so badly on trade deals, I want people that made a lot of money now to make a lot of money for our country.

And, by the way, as I was walking up, they just gave me the numbers. Our numbers just came out this morning. GDP is up double from what it was in the first quarter. (Applause.) 2.6 percent. Were doing well. Were doing really well. And we took off all those restrictions. And some were statutorily stuck with a for a little while, but eventually that statute comes up, and were going to be able to cut a lot more. But weve sort of liberated the world of creating jobs like youre liberating us and the people that live in areas.

But I have to say, one by one, we are indeed freeing up these great American towns and cities that are under siege from gang violence.

Look at Los Angeles. Look at whats going on in Los Angeles. Look at Chicago. What is going on? Is anybody here from Chicago? We have to send some of you to Chicago, I think. (Laughter.) Whats going on?

I mean, you see whats happening there? Theres no do we agree? Is there something maybe (applause) is there something I have to tell you one Chicago story.

So Chicago is having this unbelievable violence; people being killed four, five, six in a weekend. And Im saying, what is going on?

And when I was running, we had motorcycle brigades take us to the planes and stuff. And one of the guys, really good you could see a really respected officer, police officer. He was at the head. He was the boss. And you could see he was the boss. He actually talked like the boss. Come on, get lined up. Because Id always take pictures with the police because I did that. My guys said, dont do it. Dont do it. (Applause.)

Other candidates didnt do it that I was beating by 40 points, can you believe it? But I did it. Maybe thats why I was winning by 40 points. But other candidates wouldnt do it, but I always took the pictures with the police.

But were in Chicago, and we had massive motorcycle bridges, and you know those people have to volunteer. I dont know if you know that, but from what I understand, they have to volunteer. And I had the biggest brigades. I had brigades sometimes with almost 300 motorcycles. Even I was impressed. Id look ahead and it was nothing but motorcycles because theyd volunteer from all over various states.

But this one guy was impressive. He was a rough cookie and really respected guy. I could see he was respected. And he said, All right, come on, get over here. Get over here. Hes got to get to work. Get over here. And I said, So let me tell youre from Chicago? Yes, sir. I said, What the hell is going on? And he said, Its a problem; it can be straightened out. I said, How long would it take you to straighten out this problem? He said, If you gave me the authority, a couple of days. (Laughter.) I really mean it. I said, You really think so? He said, A couple of days. We know all the bad ones. We know them all. And he said, the officers you guys, you know all the bad ones in your area. You know them by their names. He said, We know them all. A couple of days.

I said, You got to be kidding. Now, this is a year and a half ago. I said, Give me your card. And he gave me a card. And I sent it to the mayor. I said, You ought to try using this guy. (Laughter.)

Guess what happened? Never heard. And last week they had another record. Its horrible.

But were just getting started. We will restore law and order on Long Island. Well bring back justice to the United States. Im very happy to have gotten a great, great Justice of the United States Supreme Court, not only nominated, but approved. And, by the way, your Second Amendment is safe. (Applause.) Your Second Amendment is safe. I feel very good about that. It wasnt looking so good for the Second Amendment, was it, huh? If Trump doesnt win, your Second Amendment is gone. Your Second Amendment would be gone.

But I have a simple message today for every gang member and criminal alien that are threatening so violently our people: We will find you, we will arrest you, we will jail you, and we will deport you. (Applause.)

And, you know, we had some problems with certain countries. Still do with a couple, but well take care of them dont worry about it. Anytime we have a trade deficit, its very easy which is almost everywhere. We have trade deficits with almost every country because we had a lot of really bad negotiators making deals with other countries. So its almost everywhere, so that takes care of itself.

But we had certain countries in South America where they wouldnt take the people back. And I said, thats okay, no more trade. All of a sudden they started taking their people back. Its amazing, isnt it? They used to send to the former Secretary of State of the country, Please call. Would you please work it so that we can take and they used to just tell her, No, we wont take back. They take back with us, every single time. Were having very little problem. Are we having any problem right now with that? Huh? You better believe it. Give me the names of the few problems. Well take care of it, Im telling you. (Laughter and applause.) Its unbelievable.

One of the old people one of the people that represented the other administration I said, why didnt you use that, the power of economics? Sir, we think one thing has nothing to do with another. I said, oh, really? So well have big deficits and they wont take back these criminals that came from there and should be back there? Well, believe me, to me, everything matters. But theyre all taking them back.

ICE officers recently conducted the largest crackdown on criminal gangs in the history of our country. In just six weeks, ICE and our law enforcement partners arrested nearly 1,400 suspects and seized more than 200 illegal firearms and some beauties, and nearly 600 pounds of narcotics.

The men and women of ICE are turning the tide in the battle against MS-13. But we need more resources from Congress and were getting them. Congress is actually opening up and really doing a job. They should have approved healthcare last night, but you cant have everything. Boy, oh, boy. Theyve been working on that one for seven years. Can you believe that? The swamp. But well get it done. Were going to get it done.

You know, I said from the beginning: Let Obamacare implode, and then do it. I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode. (Applause.)

Right now, we have less than 6,000 Enforcement and Removal Officers in ICE. This is not enough to protect a nation of more than 320 million people. Its essential that Congress fund another 10,000 ICE officers and were asking for that so that we can eliminate MS-13 and root out the criminal cartels from our country.

Now, were getting them out anyway, but wed like to get them out a lot faster. And when you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon you just see them thrown in, rough I said, please dont be too nice. (Laughter.) Like when you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, dont hit their head and theyve just killed somebody dont hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay? (Laughter and applause.)

Its essential that Congress fund hundreds more federal immigration judges and prosecutors and we need them quickly, quickly if were going to dismantle these deadly networks. And I have to tell you, you know, the laws are so horrendously stacked against us, because for years and years theyve been made to protect the criminal. Totally made to protect the criminal, not the officers. If you do something wrong, youre in more jeopardy than they are. These laws are stacked against you. Were changing those laws. But in the meantime, we need judges for the simplest thing things that you should be able to do without a judge. But we have to have those judges quickly. In the meantime, were trying to change the laws.

Were also working with Chairman Bob Goodlatte on a series of enforcement measures and hes a terrific guy to keep our country safe from crime and terrorism and in particular, radical Islamic terrorism. (Applause.) A term never uttered by the past administration. Never uttered. Did anybody ever hear that term? I dont think so.

But you heard it from me.

That includes cracking down on sanctuary cities that defy federal law, shield visa overstays, and that release dangerous criminals back into the United States communities. Thats whats happening. Theyre releasing them. So many deaths where they release somebody back into the community, and they know its going to end that way. Thats the sad they know its going to end that way. Were ending those procedures. (Applause.) Thank you.

We have to secure I spoke to parents, incredible parents. I got to know so many parents of children that were so horribly killed burned to death, beaten to death, just the worst kind of death you can ever stuffed in barrels. And the person that did it was released, and youd look at the file, and there were letter after letter after letter of people begging not to let this animal back into society; that this would happen, it would happen quickly. It wasnt even like it would happen over a long period of time. They were saying it would happen quickly. Its total violence. Hes a totally violent person. You cannot let this person out.

They let the person out, and sometimes it would happen like on the first day. And then you have to talk to the parents and hold the parents and hug them. And theyre crying so I mean crying. Their lives are destroyed. And nobody thinks about those people. They dont think about those people. Theyre devastated.

But were ending so much of that. Were ending hopefully all of that. The laws are tough. The laws are stacked against us, but were ending that. (Applause.)

So were going to secure our borders against illegal entry, and we will build the wall. That I can tell you. (Applause.)

In fact, last night you dont read about this too much, but it was approved $1.6 billion for the phase one of the wall, which is not only design but the start of construction over a period of about two years, but the start of construction for a great border wall. And were going to build it. The Wall is a vital, and vital as a tool, for ending the humanitarian disaster brought and really brought on by drug smugglers and new words that we havent heard too much of human traffickers.

This is a term thats been going on from the beginning of time, and they say its worse now than it ever was. You go back a thousand years where you think of human trafficking, you go back 500 years, 200 years, 100 years. Human trafficking they say think of it, but they do human trafficking is worse now maybe than its ever been in the history of this world.

We need a wall. We also need it, though, for the drugs, because the drugs arent going through walls very easily especially the walls that I build. Im a very good builder. You people know that better than most because you live in the area. Thats why Im here. (Applause.) Well build a good wall.

Now, were going to build a real wall. Were going to build a wall that works, and its going to have a huge impact on the inflow of drugs coming across. The wall is almost that could be one of the main reasons you have to have it. Its an additional tool to stop the inflow of drugs into our country.

The previous administration enacted an open-door policy to illegal migrants from Central America. Welcome in. Come in, please, please.

As a result, MS-13 surged into the country and scoured, and just absolutely destroyed, so much in front of it. New arrivals came in and they were all made recruits of each other, and they fought with each other, and then they fought outside of each other. And it got worse and worse, and weve turned that back.

In the three years before I took office, more than 150,000 unaccompanied alien minors arrived at the border and were released all throughout our country into United States communities at a tremendous monetary cost to local taxpayers and also a great cost to life and safety.

Nearly 4,000 from this wave were released into Suffolk County congratulations including seven who are now indicted for murder. You know about that.

In Washington, D.C. region, at least 42 alien minors from the border surge have been recently implicated in MS-13-related violence, including 19 charged in killings or attempted killings.

You say, what happened to the old days where people came into this country, they worked and they worked and they worked, and they had families, and they paid taxes, and they did all sorts of things, and their families got stronger, and they were closely knit? We dont see that.

Failure to enforce our immigration laws had predictable results: drugs, gangs and violence. But thats all changing now.

Under the Trump administration, America is once more a nation of laws and once again a nation that stands up for our law enforcement officers. (Applause.)

We will defend our country, protect our communities, and put the safety of the American people first. And Im doing that with law enforcement, and were doing that with trade, and were doing that with so much else. Its called America First. Its called an expression Im sure youve never heard of: Make America Great Again. Has anybody heard that expression? (Applause.)

That is my promise to each of you. That is the oath I took as President, and that is my sacred pledge to the American people.

Thank you everyone here today. You are really special, special Americans. And thank you in particular to the great police, sheriffs, and ICE officers. You do a spectacular job. The country loves you. The country respects you. You dont hear it, but believe me, they respect you as much as they respect anything. There is the respect about our country. You are spectacular people. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: Because of the danger of your job, which people also understand fully, I leave you with the following: Thank you and may God bless you. May God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

The rest is here:
Trump's speech encouraging police to be 'rough,' annotated - Washington Post

An epileptic Bronx woman dubbed one of the first human cyborgs was sucker-punched Wednesday morning as she was exiting a Midtown subway station, police sources said Thursday.

The victim, Emily Borghard, 28, had just gotten off the 7 train at the Grand Central-42nd Street subway station and took the escalator to the mezzanine level when she was socked in the left side of her face by 28-year-old career criminal Deaja Hardy at around 6:05 a.m., sources said.

Borghard, who suffered redness and swelling to her face from the blow, quickly flagged down transit officers who arrested Hardy at the scene.

With what Ive been through getting hit in the face is not a good thing, Borghard, a member of the famed subway vigilante group The Guardian Angels, told The Post Wednesday.

Borghard has a computer chip implanted in her brain as a means to prevent chronic seizures, making her one of the first human cyborgs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

During the time that Borghard went undiagnosed, she suffered hundreds of seizures a day.

I was not functioning. I could not recall day to day events and every time I had an episode it was like getting hit in the head with a baseball batmy memory of it was gone, Borghard told Readers Digest in an interview last month.

Borghard had her first terrifying experience with a seizure in 2005 when one occurred while she was driving a car, causing her to drive off the road and plunge into a creek in upstate New York where she grew up.

I was lucky that someone saw it happen because if not, they might not have known I was in the creek, Borghard told Readers Digest.

Borghard says she has no memory of the event and only knows what happened through police reports and what she has been told.

Doctors eventually planted the neuro-stimulating chip inside her head and today shes nearly seizure-free.

It gives it a little zap to the brain to get it to stop what its doing and shock it back into normal rhythm, Borghard told the Wall Street Journal in a podcast interview in May.

If you would have asked me if any of this would have been possible I would have laughed, Borghard told the Wall Street Journal.

Despite her condition, Borghard refused medical treatment at the scene of Wednesdays assault, according to police.

Hardy, her attacker, has 22 prior arrests on his record, including one on Feb. 21, 2013 for assaulting a 75-year-old man in Midtown while the victim was eating breakfast, sources said.

In that instance, Hardy whacked the elderly man in the head multiple times with the victims own set of keys at an office building on West 37th Street when Hardy entered the building and was told he couldnt come in, sources said.

The 75-year-old man suffered a laceration to his head.

At Hardys Manhattan Criminal Court arraignment for the attack on Borghard, he was released without bail.

His next court date is on Sept. 11.

View post:
'First human cyborg' sucker-punched in subway station - New York Post

Ten people died after being crammed in a sweltering tractor-trailer in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas, early Sunday morning. Dozens of others were suffering from heat-related ailments in whatSan Antonio Police Chief William McManus called a horrific tragedy and a human trafficking crime.

McManus said police made the disturbing discovery after a Walmart employee was approached by someone from the truck who asked him for water. The employee complied with the request before calling authorities, who soon arrived on the scene.

A criminal complaint released Monday reveals just how inhumane the conditions were inside the trailer. Several people inside passed out due to the lack of ventilation, food and water. Some tried banging the walls to get someones attention, to no avail. They took turns breathing from a single hole in the trailer wall.

The driver of the vehicle, James Mathew Bradley Jr., was taken into custody, McManus said. Bradley, 60, was aware the trailers refrigeration system was broken and the four vent holes were probably clogged up, the criminal complaint said. He didnt call 911 even though he could tell that at least one person was dead.

Bradley told authorities that he was hauling the trailer from Schaller, Iowa, to Brownsville, Texas, and was unaware of its contents. After parking outside Walmart to urinate, he said he heard movement coming from the trailer and opened the doors.He was surprised when he was run over by Spanish people and knocked to the ground but he did say he attempted to administer aid.

He now faces federal charges for illegally transporting immigrants for commercial or financial gain. The offense is punishable by life imprisonment or death, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release, the Department of Justice said Monday in a statement.

San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said 38 people were found in the truck, although during transport the trailer contained more than 100 people, DOJ said. Eight people were dead when police arrived. Two more people later died in the hospital, the U.S. Attorneys office told HuffPost.

Among the 29 people hospitalized, 20 were in extremely critical or serious condition and others had non-life threatening injuries, Hood said. The injured were taken to several local hospitals, some of them transported by helicopter.

When asked what the vehicle contained, Hood said it was loaded with people, including at least two school-age children.

One passenger told authorities he left his home in Aguascalientes, Mexico, in an attempt to reach San Antonio, the criminal complaint said. He was instructed to pay smugglers $5,500 upon arrival in Texas. He and a group of other individuals crossed the U.S.-Mexico border by raft, he added, and then walked for an entire day before getting picked up and taken to the trailer.

The smugglers closed the door and the interior of the trailer was pitch black and it was already hot inside, according to the complaint. He stated they were not provided with any water or food. People inside were making noise to get someones attention but nobody ever came.

Another passenger said he and 23 others had been in a stash house in Laredo, Texas for 11 days before being loaded into the trailer, DOJ said Monday.

Many of the survivors appeared to be suffering from heatstroke and dehydration, the fire chief said, adding that each one of them had heart rates over about 130 beats per minute and were very hot to the touch.

Temperatures in San Antonio had soared to a high of 100 degrees on Saturday, according to the Weather Channel.

McManus added that federal officials, including those with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, were working with police to figure out the vehicles origin.

Pyle Transportation Inc. sold the tractor-trailer to someone in Mexicoin May, the Schaller, Iowa-based company told The Associated Press. Bradley, an independent contractor, was supposed to deliver the vehicle to Brownsville over the weekend.

Surveillance footage showed that several vehicles had entered Walmarts parking lot before police were alerted to the case and picked up lots of folks that were in that trailer that survived the trip, McManus said.

The police chief also said some survivors had been spotted fleeing into the nearby woods. He said police had already combed the area for them and would continue their search on Sunday. He said that if any resident in the area encounters someone from the truck, they should call 911 right away.

This article has been updated with additional details about the driver and the people inside the trailer.

Read more here:
10 People Dead In 'Human Trafficking' Case In Texas Parking Lot - HuffPost

For the first time ever, American scientists have successfully edited the DNA of a human embryo in the attempt to correct genes that cause inherited diseases, a report says.

Researchers from Oregon Health and Science University in Portland managed to modify numerous one-cell embryos using a controversial technique called CRISPR, according to MIT Technology Review.

Sources told the school magazine that the team, led by US-based biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov, was able to safely inject gene-editing chemicals into human eggs near the moment of fertilization.

While the embryos were not allowed to be developed for more than a few days, the researchers ultimately proved that they could be efficiently edited in the attempt to correct genetic disorders.

Up until now, China was the only known country to carry out the practice. But they only managed to make their desired DNA changes on a small number of cells, creating an effect known as mosaicism.

Experts describe this as a condition in which cells within the same person have a different genetic code or makeup.

Mitalipovs team, however, was able to prevent this from happening.

They significantly reduced mosaicism, explained one researcher, who chose to remain anonymous.

The milestone means scientists in the US are officially one step closer to engineering the first genetically modified human beings on earth.

It is proof of principle that it can work, the researcher said. I dont think its the start of clinical trials yet, but it does take it further than anyone has before.

Go here to see the original:
Scientists genetically modify a human embryo for the first time - New York Post

NEW YORK At Jef Boekes lab, you can whiff an odor that seems out of place, as if they were baking bread here.

But he and his colleagues are cooking up something else altogether: yeast that works with chunks of man-made DNA.

Scientists have long been able to make specific changes in the DNA code. Now, theyre taking the more radical step of starting over and building redesigned life forms from scratch. Boeke, a researcher at New York University, directs an international team of 11 labs on four continents working to rewrite the yeast genome, following a detailed plan they published in March.

Their work is part of a bold and controversial pursuit aimed at creating custom-made DNA codes to be inserted into living cells to change how they function or even provide a treatment for diseases. It could also someday help give scientists the profound and unsettling ability to create entirely new organisms.

The genome is the entire genetic code of a living thing. Learning how to make one from scratch, Boeke said, means you really can construct something thats completely new.

The research may reveal basic, hidden rules that govern the structure and functioning of genomes. But it also opens the door to life with new and useful characteristics, like microbes or mammal cells that are better than current ones at pumping out medications in pharmaceutical factories, or new vaccines. The right modifications might make yeast efficiently produce new biofuels, Boeke says.

Some scientists look further into the future and see things like trees that purify water supplies and plants that detect explosives at airports and shopping malls.

Also on the horizon is redesigning human DNA. Thats not to make genetically altered people, scientists stress. Instead, the synthetic DNA would be put into cells, to make them better at pumping out pharmaceutical proteins, for example, or perhaps to engineer stem cells as a safer source of lab-grown tissue and organs for transplanting into patients.

Some have found the idea of remaking human DNA disconcerting and scientists plan to get guidance from ethicists and the public before they try it.

Still, redesigning DNA is alarming to some. Laurie Zoloth of Northwestern University, a bioethicist whos been following the effort, is concerned about making organisms with properties we cannot fully know. And the work would disturb people who believe creating life from scratch would give humans unwarranted power, she said.

It is not only a science project, Zoloth said in an email. It is an ethical and moral and theological proposal of significant proportions.

Rewritten DNA has already been put to work in viruses and bacteria. Australian scientists recently announced that theyd built the genome of the Zika virus in a lab, for example, to better understand it and get clues for new treatments.

At Harvard University, Jeffrey Way and Pamela Silver are working toward developing a harmless strain of salmonella to use as a vaccine against food poisoning from salmonella and E. coli, as well as the diarrhea-causing disease called shigella.

A key goal is to prevent the strain from turning harmful as a result of picking up DNA from other bacteria. That requires changing its genome in 30,000 places.

The only practical way to do that, Way says, is to synthesize it from scratch.

The cutting edge for redesigning a genome, though, is yeast. Its genome is bigger and more complex than the viral and bacterial codes altered so far. But its well-understood and yeast will readily swap man-made DNA for its own.

Still, rewriting the yeast genome is a huge job.

Its like a chain with 12 million chemical links, known by the letters, A, C, G and T. Thats less than one-hundredth the size of the human genome, which has 3.2 billion links. But its still such a big job that Boekes lab and scientists in the United States, Australia, China, Singapore and the United Kingdom are splitting up the work. By the time the new yeast genome is completed, researchers will have added, deleted or altered about a million DNA letters.

Boeke compares a genome to a book with many chapters and researchers are coming out with a new edition, with chapters that allow the book to do something it couldnt do before.

To redesign a particular stretch of yeast DNA, scientists begin with its sequence of code letters natures own recipe. They load that sequence into a computer, then tell the computer to make specific kinds of changes. For example, one change might let them rearrange the order of genes, which might reveal strategies to make yeast grow better, says NYU researcher Leslie Mitchell.

Once the changes are made, the new sequence used as a blueprint. It is sent to a company that builds chunks of DNA containing the new sequence. Then these short chunks are joined together in the lab to build ever longer strands.

The project has so far reported building about one-third of the yeast genome. Boeke hopes the rest of the construction will be done by the end of the year. But he says it will take longer to test the new DNA and fix problems and to finally combine the various chunks into a complete synthetic genome.

Last year, Boeke and others announced a separate effort, what is now called Genome Project-write or GP-write. It is chiefly focused on cutting the cost of building and testing large genomes, including human ones, by more than 1,000-fold within 10 years. The project is still seeking funding.

In the meantime, leaders of GP-write have started discussions of ethical, legal and social issues. And they realize the idea of making a human genome is a sensitive one.

The notion that we could actually write a human genome is simultaneously thrilling to some and not so thrilling to others, Boeke said. So we recognize this is going to take a lot of discussion.

Link:
Scientists are building DNA from scratch to redesign life - New York Post

SAN ANTONIO Investigators believe a truck driver accused in the deaths of 10 people found inside a packed, sweltering tractor-trailer is part of a larger organization involved in human smuggling that authorities are trying to identify and dismantle, a U.S. immigration official said.

Some of the 29 identified survivors told authorities they hired smugglers who brought them across the U.S. border, loaded them onto trucks that took them to the tractor-trailer, and marked them with different colored tape to identify them to various smugglers who would be picking them up after the tractor-trailer reached its destination.

Were certainly not stopping at looking at the driver. Were trying to investigate and identify the different cogs, the stash houses, the other members, where the money came from, Shane Folden, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations office in San Antonio, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, is facing charges of illegally transporting immigrants for financial gain, resulting in death. Bradley could face the death penalty if convicted. Authorities allege he drove a trailer full of immigrants from South Texas that was discovered in the parking lot of a Walmart in San Antonio early Sunday morning.

Folden said charging Bradley is just the first step in the case as investigators work to find others involved in the scheme, including those responsible for facilitating money transfers and bringing the immigrants across the border.

The ultimate goal is to dismantle the complete organization. You dont get there by only focusing on one aspect. You have to look at potential targets and potential related locations, both north and south, he said.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar from Texas said he was informed by law enforcement that the tractor-trailer cleared a Border Patrol checkpoint Saturday night, about two hours before it was discovered, roughly 29 miles (47 kilometers) north of the border on Interstate 35 near Laredo. Cuellar said he didnt know whether the immigrants were loaded into the truck before or after it crossed the checkpoint.

U.S. authorities are still trying to determine how many people were inside the tractor-trailer because some fled before police arrived, Folden said.

Thirteen people who rode in the trailer remained hospitalized Tuesday in San Antonio, said ICE spokesman Greg Palmore. He declined to say how many were critical or in life-threatening condition. Officials said at least 29 people survived the smuggling attempt.

Delmin Daro Lpez Colomo, 23, a Guatemalan survivor who remained hospitalized, said the migrants in the tractor-trailer were delivered by various different smugglers, according to Cristy Andrino, the consul of Guatemala in McAllen, Texas.

Adan Lara Vega, 27, a migrant from Mexico who survived the smuggling attempt, told the AP on Monday that they boarded the truck on a Laredo street Saturday night for the two-hour trip to San Antonio. He said the trailer was already full of people, but it was so dark he couldnt tell how many.

At least some of the survivors are likely to become witnesses and receive consideration to remain in the United States to testify, Folden said.

Its likely that most if not all of the survivors will be allowed to stay in the country to help authorities in their investigation, said Jeff Vaden, a former federal prosecutor who helped oversee the prosecution of a 2003 smuggling attempt in Victoria, Texas, in which 19 people died.

Vaden said many of the more than 50 immigrants who survived that attempt were able to identify the people who harbored them or transported them or to whom they paid or spoke. Thats what enabled the government to put together the larger smuggling case above just the driver. Just like in any crime, the victims are critical witnesses. Vaden is now a partner at the Houston law firm of Bracewell LLP.

Jacob Monty, an immigration lawyer in Houston, said the help survivors give to authorities could lead to permanent residency.

Bradley, the driver of the truck found in San Antonio, remained jailed Tuesday. He had his commercial driving privileges for a truck driver suspended by Florida three months before Sundays deadly smuggling attempt, officials said Tuesday.

Court records show Bradley had been repeatedly cited for violating federal motor carrier safety regulations in Iowa dating back to 1995. At least two of the tickets were for logging more hours than allowed.

Federal regulators said they are also conducting an investigation into an Iowa trucking company whose name was on the trailer. Brian Pyle, owner of Pyle Transportation, said the trailer had been sold on May 10 to an individual in Mexico, and Bradley was working as an independent contractor to drive it to Brownsville, Texas, to carry out the sale.

Its unclear what will happen to one of the migrants who died, identified as 19-year-old Frank Guisseppe Fuentes. His parents, who live in Maryland and are in the U.S. illegally, havent yet told Guatemalan officials what they want done with his body. Andrino, the Guatemalan consul, said they may fear agents could come after them if they claim their son.

Originally posted here:
Investigator: Driver part of larger human-smuggling scheme - The Denver Post