(KTSDESIGN/Science Photo Library)

Science issues whether connected with climate, childhood vaccines or new techniques in biotechnology are part of the fabric of civic life, raising a range of social, ethical and policy issues for the citizenry. As members of the scientific community gather at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) this week, here is a roundup of key takeaways from our studies of U.S. public opinion about science issues and their effect on society.

The data for this post was drawn from multiple different surveys. The most recent was a survey of 3,627 U.S. adults conducted Oct. 1 to Oct. 13, 2019. This post also draws on data from surveys conducted in January 2019, December 2018, April-May 2018 and March 2016. All surveys were conducted using the American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of being selected. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, education and other categories. Read more about the ATPs methodology.

Following are the questions and responses for surveys used in this post, as well as each surveys methodology:

1Some public divides over science issues are aligned with partisanship, while many others are not. Science issues can be a key battleground for facts and information in society. Climate science has been part of an ongoing discourse around scientific evidence, how to attribute average temperature increases in the Earths climate system, and the kinds of policy actions needed. While public divides over climate and energy issues are often aligned with political party affiliation, public attitudes on other science-related issues are not.

For example, there are differences in public beliefs around the risks and benefits of childhood vaccines. Such differences arise amid civic debates about the spread of false information about vaccines. While such beliefs have important implications for public health, they are not particularly political in nature.

In fact, Republicans and independents who lean to the GOP are just as likely as Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party to say that, overall, the benefits of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine outweigh the risks (89% and 88% respectively).

2Americans have differing views about some emerging scientific and technological developments. Scientific and technological developments are a key source of innovation and, therefore, change in society. Pew Research Center studies have explored public reactions to emergent developments from genetic engineering techniques, automation and more. One field at the forefront of public reaction is the use of gene editing of babies or genetic engineering of animals. Americans have mixed views over whether the use of gene editing to reduce a babys risk of serious disease that could occur over their lifetime is appropriate (60%) or is taking medical technology too far (38%), according to a 2018 survey. Similarly, about six-in-ten Americans (57%) said that genetic engineering of animals to grow organs or tissues for humans needing a transplant would be appropriate, while four-in-ten (41%) said it would be taking technology too far.

When we asked Americans about a future where a brain chip implant would give otherwise healthy individuals much improved cognitive abilities, a 69% majority said they were very or somewhat worried about the possibility. By contrast, about half as many (34%) were enthusiastic. Further, as people think about the effects of automation technologies in the workplace, more say automation has brought more harm than help to American workers.

One theme running through our findings on emerging science and technology is that public hesitancy often is tied to concern about the loss of human control, especially if such developments would be at odds with personal, religious and ethical values. In looking across seven developments related to automation and the potential use of biomedical interventions to enhance human abilities, Center studies found that proposals that would increase peoples control over these technologies were met with greater acceptance.

3Most in the U.S. see net benefits from science for society, and they expect more ahead. About three-quarters of Americans (73%) say science has, on balance, had a mostly positive effect on society. And 82% expect future scientific developments to yield benefits for society in years to come.

The overall portrait is one of strong public support for the benefits of science to society, though the degree to which Americans embrace this idea differs sizably by race and ethnicity as well as by levels of science knowledge.

Such findings are in line with those of the General Social Survey on the effects of scientific research. In 2018, about three-quarters of Americans (74%) said the benefits of scientific research outweigh any harmful results. Support for scientific research by this measure has been roughly stable since the 1980s.

4The share of Americans with confidence in scientists to act in the public interest has increased since 2016.

Public confidence in scientists to act in the public interest tilts positive and has increased over the past few years. As of 2019, 35% of Americans report a great deal of confidence in scientists to act in the public interest, up from 21% in 2016.

About half of the public (51%) reports a fair amount of confidence in scientists, and just 13% have not too much or no confidence in this group to act in the public interest.

Public trust in scientists by this measure stands in contrast to that for other groups and institutions. One of the hallmarks of the current times has been low trust in government and other institutions. One-in-ten or fewer say they have a great deal of confidence in elected officials (4%) or the news media (9%) to act in the public interest.

5Americans differ over the role and value of scientific experts in policy matters. While confidence in scientists overall tilts positive, peoples perspectives about the role and value of scientific experts on policy issues tends to vary. Six-in-ten U.S. adults believe that scientists should take an active role in policy debates about scientific issues, while about four-in-ten (39%) say, instead, that scientists should focus on establishing sound scientific facts and stay out of such debates.

Democrats are more inclined than Republicans to think scientists should have an active role in science policy matters. Indeed, most Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (73%) hold this position, compared with 43% of Republicans and GOP leaners.

More than four-in-ten U.S. adults (45%) say that scientific experts usually make better policy decisions than other people, while a similar share (48%) says such decisions are neither better nor worse than other peoples and 7% say scientific experts decisions are usually worse than other peoples.

Here, too, Democrats tend to hold scientific experts in higher esteem than do Republicans: 54% of Democrats say scientists policy decisions are usually better than those of other people, while two-thirds of Republicans (66%) say that scientists decisions are either no different from or worse than other peoples.

6Factual knowledge alone does not explain public confidence in the scientific method to produce sound conclusions. Overall, a 63% majority of Americans say the scientific method generally produces sound conclusions, while 35% think it can be used to produce any result a researcher wants. Peoples level of knowledge can influence beliefs about these matters, but it does so through the lens of partisanship, a tendency known as motivated reasoning.

Beliefs about this matter illustrate that science knowledge levels sometimes correlate with public attitudes. But partisanship has a stronger role.

Democrats are more likely to express confidence in the scientific method to produce accurate conclusions than do Republicans, on average. Most Democrats with high levels of science knowledge (86%, based on an 11-item index of factual knowledge questions) say the scientific method generally produces accurate conclusions. By comparison, 52% of Democrats with low science knowledge say this. But science knowledge has little bearing on Republicans beliefs about the scientific method.

7Trust in practitioners like medical doctors and dietitians is stronger than that for researchers in these fields, but skepticism about scientific integrity is widespread. Scientists work in a wide array of fields and specialties. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey found public trust in medical doctors and dietitians to be higher than that for researchers working in these areas. For example, 48% of U.S. adults say that medical doctors give fair and accurate information all or most of the time. By comparison, 32% of U.S. adults say the same about medical research scientists. And six-in-ten Americans say dietitians care about their patients best interests all or most of the time, while about half as many (29%) say this about nutrition research scientists with the same frequency.

One factor in public trust of scientists is familiarity with their work. For example, people who were more familiar with what medical science researchers do were more trusting of these researchers to express care or concern for the public interest, to do their job with competence and to provide fair and accurate information. Familiarity with the work of scientists was related to trust for all six specialties we studied.

But when it comes to questions of scientists transparency and accountability, most Americans are skeptical. About two-in-ten or fewer U.S. adults say that scientists are transparent about potential conflicts of interest with industry groups all or most of the time. Similar shares (roughly between one-in-ten and two-in-ten) say that scientists admit their mistakes and take responsibility for them all or most of the time.

This data shows clearly that when it comes to questions of transparency and accountability, most in the general public are attuned to the potential for self-serving interests to skew science findings and recommendations. These findings echo calls for increased transparency and accountability across many sectors and industries today.

8What boosts public trust in scientific research findings? Most say its making data openly available. A 57% majority of Americans say they trust scientific research findings more when the data is openly available to the public. And about half of the U.S. public (52%) say they are more likely to trust research that has been independently reviewed.

The question of who funds the research is also consequential for how people think about scientific research. A 58% majority say they have lower trust when research is funded by an industry group. By comparison, about half of Americans (48%) say government funding for research has no particular effect on how much they trust the findings; 28% say this decreases their trust and 23% say it increases their trust.

Read the rest here:

Key findings about Americans' confidence in science and their views on scientists' role in society - Pew Research Center

This rice could save a million kids a year, read the July 2000 cover of Time Magazine, referring to a genetically modified rice, Golden Rice, that had been biofortified with life-saving nutrition. But in the nearly two decades that have passed since then, the cultivation of genetically biofortified crops, such as Golden Rice, to help solve the global humanitarian crisis of malnutrition remains elusive.

One major reason for the delay has been the systematic opposition to all forms of GMOs and genetic engineering by radical interest groups including Greenpeace and many Green party politicians, particularly in Europe. On December 18th, 2019, the Philippines joined a growing list of countries granting a permit for Golden Rice as food and feed, and for processing a major milestone in making it available to the people who need it most.

So, lets consider the facts.

Over two billion people worldwide continue to suffer from hidden hunger, or the lack of essential micronutrients, which impairs the physical and cognitive development of children, productivity in adults, and quality of life for all. There is a case to be made here for agricultural biotechnology, specifically in the context of biofortification to improve the nutritional value of staple crops through various means, including transgenic biofortification and genome editing. Biofortification allows for the delivery of additional life-improving and life-saving nutrients without the need to change dietary choices or preferences, and at relatively low cost. The potential benefits are especially pronounced in developing countries like the Philippines and Bangladesh, which suffer from high rates of malnutrition[1].

The cost of malnutrition in all its forms is unacceptably high, at 3.5 trillion USD per year worldwide. In the Philippines, the projected annual national economic burden of malnutrition is more than 4.65 billion USD per year, of which 33 million USD is attributable to Vitamin A deficiency. The relative affordability of biofortified crops like Golden Rice may make a world of difference to households who are most in need and yet least able to afford nutritious food. In Bangladesh, which has an average daily per capita rice consumption of 367g, ultra-poor households spend three-quarters of their income, or 75 out of 100 taka, on rice. Oftentimes, fruits, vegetables, eggs are not only unaffordable but also unavailable on a regular basis in marginalized and hard-to-reach communities. When rice is all that a nutrition-deficient household can afford, it is unconscionable to push for the adoption of a nutritional intervention that will financially burden its target communities. Coupled with a relatively longer shelf life, Golden Rice is therefore an affordable complement to a diet when access to other vitamin A-rich foods is difficult or lacking.

Global public goods like Golden Rice are developed with a clear humanitarian purpose and in partnership with national research organizations in the countries where they are intended for adoption[2]. The nomer of Golden Rice does not refer to a single line or variety. Rather, it is the result of technology that has been extensively researched and introduced into local varieties that are most consumed by the communities that need it most in their respective countries. This ensures that the developed product meets the needs and preferences of its target communities, and that appropriate deployment mechanisms are established to sustain adoption. In the case of Golden Rice, consumer benefit is established: its beta-carotene content can provide up to 50% of the estimated average requirement for Vitamin A. Initial estimates are even higher, with beta-carotene content ranging from 357-561 g/day for every 100 g of raw Golden Rice But whether it is adopted or not depends entirely on farmer and consumer preference.

In addition to helping solve immense public health issues through biofortification, agricultural biotechnology also holds enormous potential to contribute more substantially to other Sustainable Development Goals. Already today, more than 14 million farmers grow GM cotton on smallholder farms in Asia (comprising the vast majority of farmers who have adopted GM crops globally) in order to increase yields and improve farm safety and sustainability by lowering the cost of and need for inputs. Many other GM crops have also been developed around the world by public research institutions (see map here). Examples of biotech crops which have made it to market include virus resistant papaya (in Hawaii)[3] and insect resistant aubergines (in Bangladesh), which help to reduce the need for chemical control. A number of GM crops with health benefits also exist, such as soybeans to produce healthier oils, low acrylamide potatoes, and insect resistant maize, which significantly reduces naturally occurring mycotoxins that cause problems also in European maize harvests.

However, the majority of ag biotech innovations have unfortunately not had the immense financial resources needed to get safe GM crops through the regulatory process. In the EU, GM import approvals typically take six years and cost 11 to 16.7 million Euros. The costs and waiting times associated with such approvals are preventing public institutions from investing in ag biotech solutions to solve global challenges. The same EU predicament now also applies to genome edited crops, even if they do not have any added genes[4]. With the EUs stringent stance towards GMOs based largely on anti-corporate sentiment campaigns, and the false impression that GMOs are strictly the territory of profit-driven innovation, we tend to forget that these same technologies are also developing parts of the solution to help the poorest of the poor attain decent lives and livelihoods. Also, the majority of ag biotech solutions listed above are of course not available to European farmers, with the exception of one single type of insect resistant maize, which is available to Spanish and Portuguese farmers.

Those of us working and advocating for Golden Rice look forward to the day that regulatory approvals will allow us to respond to societal challenges. While the evaluation process has taken much longer than intended, this underscores the presence of regulatory protocol to independently assess the Golden Rice biosafety dossier which has already received food safety approvals in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

It is unfortunate then that regulatory delays in some parts of the world are held by critics, especially in Europe, as proof that the product is ineffective and unsafe. Yet any action taken to provide and assess the data needed to demonstrate its safety and benefits is viewed as an attempt to force feed Golden Rice to communities who need it the most. We sincerely hope that European decision makers will have the courage to listen to the science, given also that Europeans today are much less concerned with GMOs than they were a decade ago. After 25 years of millions of farmers growing GM crops, now on about 12% of the worlds fields, it would only be reasonable for Europe to look at the evidence surrounding the proven safety of GM crops, instead of demonising a technology which can and does provide multiple benefits.

About the authors

As the head of the Strategic Innovation Platform, Ajay Kohli leads a team primarily in the application of fundamental sciences such as genomics, genetics, and informatics instruments. His platform identifies genes and provides genetic materials and associated information that enables the institutes rice breeders and physiologists to harness upstream research into translational research, through a highly interdisciplinary approach. Ajay also leads IRRIs Plant Molecular Biology Group for the past 10 years. During this time, the group has gained recognition in gene discovery and characterization in environmental stress tolerance of rice, particularly in improving yield under drought condition. Ajay brings 27 years of experience in upstream research, innovation, and leadership in the agricultural sector.

Joanna Dupont-Inglis is the Secretary General of EuropaBio, where she has worked since 2009 in a variety of leadership positions. Prior to EuropaBio she worked for two leading Brussels-based consultancies on agriculture, healthcare, environment and energy policy together with a broad range of industries, international organisations, NGOs and with the EU Institutions. She has an academic background in environmental science and European studies and is a French-speaking UK/Irish national.

[1] See table 6 of Swamy et al (2019) for potential benefit of GR2E in the Philippines and Bangladesh. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6646955/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6646955/

[3] GM papaya practically saved Hawaiis fifth largest crop from decimation (http://www.vib.be/en/about-vib/Documents/Virus%20resistant%20papaya%20in%20Hawaii.pdf) and results of the genome sequence of the GM papaya were reported as a measure of transparency (Kohli and Christou, 2008, Stable transgenes bear fruit. Nature Biotechnology 26(6):653-4

DOI: 10.1038/nbt0608-653

[4] https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/partner_article/eu-legislation-must-safeguard-precision-plant-breeding-technologies

View original post here:

Fighting malnutrition: Golden Rice and the EU's GMO conundrum - EURACTIV

It may sound like something from a fiction movie, and just over a decade ago it probably was, but in that time, scientists have discovered a ground-breaking genetic engineering tool called CRISPR-Cas9 (often referred to as only CRISPR).

It has the potential to revolutionize the future of human experience from creating drought resistant crops, augmenting mosquitoes to eliminating the transmission of malaria to, most importantly, eradicating specific genetic diseases like cancer by manipulating the blueprint of life. But could it have contradictory effects?

Coroner explores this topic in season two episode three, entitled 'CRISPR SISTR', where Dr. Jenny Cooper and Det. Donovan McAvoy investigate the death of a lab assistant who was helping in the CRISPR research that was to eradicate Lewy body dementia. Or so the scientists involved in the research implied during interrogation.

What really happened is a bit different and we'll get to it, but let's try to answer some complicated questions first.

You know how you can edit anything that needs a bit of fixing, such as a video an episode of Coroner for example or an Instagram picture by using various apps or tools? CRISPR-Cas9 issimilar, but a molecular tool, which is much more complex.

We can only scratch the surface, but to put it in simple terms: CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene editing tool that can be used to more precisely edit targeted bits of DNA in order to modify (strengthen, weaken, switch on and off) or eliminate specific genes in organisms like bacteria, animals, plants and even human cells. Imagine being able to prevent cancer by editing out the culprit?! Life changing!

"Think of it like editing text," says Dr. Janet Rossant, a researcher who uses CRISPR in her lab at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

"You can cursor in and you delete a few words, paste in a little sentence. And that is what people can now do in the genome."

Breaking it up, CRISPR (short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a cluster of DNA sequences found within the genomes of specific microorganisms such as bacteria. And Cas9 (CRISPR associated protein 9) is an enzyme from bacterial antiviral systems that uses those sequences as a guide to recognize, interrogate and cleave foreign DNA by unwinding it and checking for complementary sites. And then snip snip.

In his interview with The Nature of Things, Dr. Eric Olson, a Molecular Biologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, explains it in everyday terms.

Metaphorically speaking, he says that we can think of CRISPR as a spell checker for DNA with a two component system. One component is the molecular scissors that can cut DNA and the other a GPS device for DNA which you can program to guide and deliver the scissors anywhere in the 6 billion letters of the DNA, and cut it in two.

There are many gene editing techniques which have been around for a while but CRISPR-Cas9 is revolutionary in its precision, timeliness and cost. Researchers are working tirelessly to add more to the CRISPR toolkit, but for now Cas9 is still the most popular.

"All methods are very efficient at making site-specific mutations, but CRISPR takes the least time and has the lowest costs," said Caixia Gao, a plant biologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, to sciencemag.org.

If you need more detailed explanations on CRISPR and how it works, this is where we defer to the experts and we go back to Coroner.

Jenny's CRISPR case gets personal because of its ability to possibly heal her father who has the previously mentioned Lewy body dementia. Her hopes are up and after a conversation with her father, he is interested in being a part of the human trials.

Unfortunately, the scientists in the series end up on the unethical side. They've lied about experimenting with Lewy body dementia but instead were selfishly trying to cure themselves of Huntington's disease.

To make things worse, the methods which they applied turned deadly for the assistant who initially saw them as miracle workers while they used him as a guinea pig for their personal gain and research.

As the case closes, so does the CRISPR research along with Jenny's hopes for her father's recovery. The disappointment in this episode makes for a great story... but is reality any different?

While CRISPR has the potential to save many lives, there are still many safety wrinkles that need to be ironed out before we start to see it applied in Canadian labs. As Coroner points out, CRISPR-Cas9 could unleash consequences we can't predict which could be dire.

The method relies on Cas9 to be precise but sometimes it does veer off, makingoff-target cuts which is where the challenges begin. It also relies on the body's natural repair system to heal the snipped area that could cause DNA mutations and other diseases.

One of the biggest controversies of CRISPR is the possibility of making permanent gene alterations which could be passed down to future generations. Creating designer babies by altering their genes to create faster and more powerful athletes or changing their hair or eye colour may sound like a no big deal to some but along with many cons, it takes away one's choice to choose their life path.

In Canada, under theAssisted Human Reproduction Act of 2004, editing the human genome is prohibited and punishable by up to ten years in prison which is why in Coroner's episode three of season two, the CRISPR lab is shut down and the scientists arrested.

As we are propelled into the future with new bio technologies like CRISPR-Cas9, which are getting easier, cheaper and more widely accessible, the possibilities are endless and the responsibilities higher. There are many questions that still need to be answered around CRISPR like: what are the best ways of using these technologies responsibly and how can research be contained in order to avoid unethical applications?

While the scientists and the law ponder those questions, you can watch 'CRISPR SISTR' and past Coroner episodes on CBC Gem!

Read the original here:

CRISPR: Coroner tackles the ethics of gene editing - CBC.ca

Such is the extent of our dominion on Earththat the answers to questions around whether we are still part of nature and whether we even need some of it rely on an understanding of what we want as Homo sapiens. And to know what we want, we need to grasp what we are.

It is a huge question but they are the best. And as a biologist, here is my humble suggestion to address it, and a personal conclusion. You may have a different one, but what matters is that we reflect on it.

Perhaps the best place to start is to consider what makes us human in the first place, which is not as obvious as it may seem.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Many years ago, a novel written by Vercors called Les Animaux Dnaturs (Denatured Animals) told the story of a group of primitive hominids, the Tropis, found in an unexplored jungle in New Guinea, who seem to constitute a missing link. However, the prospect that this fictional group may be used as slave labour by an entrepreneurial businessman named Vancruysen forces society to decide whether the Tropis are simply sophisticated animals or whether they should be given human rights. And herein lies the difficulty.

Human status had hitherto seemed so obvious that the book describes how it is soon discovered that there is no definition of what a human actually is. Certainly, the string of experts consulted anthropologists, primatologists, psychologists, lawyers and clergymen could not agree. Perhaps prophetically, it is a layperson who suggested a possible way forward.

She asked whether some of the hominids habits could be described as the early signs of a spiritual or religious mind. In short, were there signs that, like us, the Tropis were no longer at one with nature, but had separated from it, and were now looking at it from the outside with some fear.

Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found.The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission."Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study."But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there."

Getty

The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year

PA

Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average.

Getty

The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females.But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal

Ye et al/Current Biology

African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017.

Reuters

Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago

A. Gennari

A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste

Steven G Johnson

Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands

Clay Bolt

Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal

New Mexico Museum of Natural History

Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold

Faye Levine, University of Maryland

A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males

Getty

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase

Getty

The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies

Getty/AFP

The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Grard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers

Reuters/AP

The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn"

Viktor Radermacher / SWNS

Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star.

ESO/A. Mller et al

Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins

Getty

Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs

Jos Iriarte

More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test.Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly.

Getty

The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth.

Pictures by: Tom Momary

Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found.The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission."Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study."But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there."

Getty

The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year

PA

Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average.

Getty

The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females.But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal

Ye et al/Current Biology

African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017.

Reuters

Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago

A. Gennari

A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste

Steven G Johnson

Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands

Clay Bolt

Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal

New Mexico Museum of Natural History

Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold

Faye Levine, University of Maryland

A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males

Getty

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase

Getty

The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies

Getty/AFP

The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Grard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers

Reuters/AP

The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn"

Viktor Radermacher / SWNS

Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star.

ESO/A. Mller et al

Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins

Getty

Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs

Jos Iriarte

More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test.Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly.

Getty

The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth.

Pictures by: Tom Momary

It is a telling perspective. Our status as altered or denatured animals creatures who have arguably separated from the natural world is perhaps both the source of our humanity and the cause of many of our troubles. In the words of the books author:

All mans troubles arise from the fact that we do not know what we are and do not agree on what we want to be

We will probably never know the timing of our gradual separation from nature although cave paintings perhaps contain some clues. But a key recent event in our relationship with the world around us is as well documented as it was abrupt. It happened on a sunny Monday morning, at precisely 8.15am.

A new age

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The atomic bomb that rocked Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 was a wake-up call so loud that it still resonates in our consciousness many decades later.

The day the sun rose twice was not only a forceful demonstration of the new era that we had entered buta reminder of how paradoxically primitive we remained: differential calculus, advanced electronics and almost godlike insights into the laws of the universe helped build, well a very big stick. Modern Homo sapiens seemingly had developed the powers of gods, while keeping the psyche of a stereotypical Stone Age killer.

We were no longer fearful of nature, but of what we would do to it, and ourselves. In short, we still did not know where we came from but began panicking about where we were going. We now know a lot more about our origins but we remain unsure about what we want to be in the future or, increasingly, as the climate crisis accelerates, whether we even have one.

Arguably, the greater choices granted by our technological advances make it even more difficult to decide which of the many paths to take. This is the cost of freedom. I am not arguing against our dominion over nature nor, even as a biologist, do I feel a need to preserve the status quo. Big changes are part of our evolution. After all, oxygen was first a poison which threatened the very existence of early life, yet it is now the fuel vital to our existence.

Similarly, we may have to accept that what we do, even our unprecedented dominion, is a natural consequence of what we have evolved into, and by a process nothing less natural than natural selection itself. If artificial birth control is unnatural, so is reduced infant mortality.

I am also not convinced by the argument against genetic engineering on the basis that it is unnatural. By artificially selecting specific strains of wheat or dogs, we had been tinkering more or less blindly with genomes for centuries before the genetic revolution. Even our choice of romantic partner is a form of genetic engineering. Sex is natures way of producing new genetic combinations quickly.

Even nature, it seems, can be impatient with itself.

Changing our world

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Have humans evolved beyond nature? - The Independent

Although CRISPR gene editing is touted as likely to revolutionize medicine, the actual proof of its effectiveness and safety in treating diseases has been slow in coming. At least until now. Sort of.

Researchers with the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, led by Carl June, published results from the first U.S. Phase I trial of CRISPR-Cas9-edited T-cells in humans with advanced cancer. The data was published in the journal Science.

The trial involved three patients with refractory cancer, two women and one man, all in their 60s. One of the patients had sarcoma and two had multiple myeloma. The approach was similar to that seen in CAR-T therapy, where the patients own T-cells are recovered, engineered to express a specific receptor that can detect and kill cancer cells, then reinfused into the patient.

In the case of this trial, instead of engineering the T-cells with a receptor to a protein like CD19, they used CRISPR to remove three genes from the T-cells. Two edits removed the T-cells natural receptors, which could then be reprogrammed to express a synthetic T-cell receptor called NY-ESO-1. The third edit eliminated PD-1, a checkpoint receptor that allows cancer cells to hide from T-cells.

The researchers are presenting the data as a positive because it appears to be safe. June told Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, CRISPR technology has proven safe in patients with advanced refractory and metastatic cancer. Our results demonstrate the ability to precisely edit the DNA code at three different genes.

In an accompanying article, Jennifer Hamilton and CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna wrote, These findings provide a guide for the safe production and non-immunogenic administration of gene-edited somatic cells. The clinically validated long-term safety of CRISPR-Cas9 gene-edited cells reported [here] paves the way for next-generation cell-based therapies.

Before getting overly excited about this, it was also reported that one of the patients has since died and the disease became worse in the other two. June indicated the goal of the study wasnt to cure cancer, but to show that the CRISPR technique was feasible and safe.

With that goal in mind, its safe to say the trial was a success.

This is a Rubicon that has been decisively crossed, said Fyodor Urnov, a genome editor at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, in a Science article. He noted the trial was the first of its kind in the U.S. and answered questions that have frankly haunted the field.

The research also suggests what the limitations of the approach are, at least currently.

One of the big concerns in using CRISPR is off-target edits. CRISPR is generally pretty precise, but the human genome is quite larger and even a target of 20 or so specific nucleotides in a gene might be duplicated elsewhere, which could have unintended effects. And, studies of the three patients in the study confirmed that CRISPR had resulted in some off-target edits. There werent many and the number of cells affected decreased over time.

There have also been questions on how long gene edits last. In theory, they should last indefinitely, but some research has suggested the body tries to fix the edits and return them to their original state. However, this study showed the CRISPR-edited cells continued at least nine months, which is significant compared to about two months in similar CAR-T therapeutic studies.

So this study, which is significant, is more of a starting point for CRISPR-based therapies, particularly given the modest clinical response.

It wasnt like you turned off those genes and those T-cells started doing things that were amazing, Antoni Ribas, a UC Los Angeles oncologist told Science. But it was a needed start and going forward, Its going to be easierbecause they did it first.

More here:

First Proof CRISPR Can Be Safe in Cancer Therapy - BioSpace

Since its inception following World War II,the Doomsday Clock has measured our time untilapocalypse in minutes. This year, for the first time, the clock measured our time to midnight in just seconds.Rachel Bronson is the CEO and president of the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, the organization that sets the clock. Even though the Clock is a metaphor, she says understanding the meaning behind it is a matter of life and death.

This year, the Bulletin cited two major factors in their decision: the threat of nuclear destruction and the ever worsening problem of climate change. But are we really closer to nuclear destruction than during the Cold War? And is there any hope that we could turn the hands of doom back on climate change?

Paul Rand:How far are wefrom the end of the world?Athousand years?Tenthousand?Or is it much closer to say, fifty years.Some of the smartest scientists in the world say were much closerthan many of us think.

AnnouncementTAPE:Today, the bulletin of the atomic scientists moves the hands of the doomsday clock. It is 100 seconds to midnight. 21:04

Paul Rand:The Doomsday Clock has been awell-known piece of popularculture sinceitsinception in the 1940s.It is a symbolic representation of how close leading scientists believe humanity is to destroying itself. And this year, it was moved closer to midnight than ever been before

AnnouncementTape:What we called the new abnormal last year, adismal state of affairs in the realms of nuclear security and climate change,now has become an apparently enduring, disturbing reality in which things are not getting better.

Paul Rand:Nuclear security and climate change,scientists say these are thebiggestthreats to civilizationcombined with an era of alternative facts and misinformation.

AnnouncementTape:The continued use in 2019 of untruths, exaggerations and misrepresentations by world leaders to what they deem fake news, has made worse an already dangerous situation.

Paul Rand:According toThe Bulletin ofTheAtomic Scientist,the organization that sets the clock,catastrophe is upon us.

Rachel Bronson:So my organization looks at man-made threats to our existence.

Paul Rand:Thats Rachel Bronson, the President and CEO of the Bulletin ofTheAtomic Scientist which is housed at the University of Chicago. She saysthat whilethe clockmay just be a metaphor,understanding the thinking behind that metaphor isa matter of life and deathfor everyone.

Rachel Bronson:Weare fast moving into a period where all the rules certainly on nuclear issues, but in climate as well, and broader disruptive tech are either falling away or in the case of disruptive tech not really even yet created.And it's very reminiscent to 1953 in many ways: a global architecture that doesn't exist in terms of cooperation between countries, lack of trust between countries at a moment where the issues are compounding each other.

Paul Rand:From the University of Chicago, this is Big Brains,a podcast about pioneering research and pivotal breakthroughs reshaping our world.Today,how we got to 100 seconds to midnight. What the doomsday clock means, and what it would take to move it back. Im your host, Paul Rand.

Paul Rand:Since its inception, The Doomsday Clock hassymbolicallymeasured our time till certain destruction in minutes. This year,for the first time,the measurement was made in seconds.

Rachel Bronson:The closest it had been to midnight was 2 minutes to midnight, where we moved it in 2018, and we held it there in 2019. And it was the closest it had been to midnight since 1953 when it was also two minutes to midnight. And it's when the U.S. and the Soviets.

Paul Rand:The Cold War

Rachel Bronson:That's right. And right in the beginnings of the Cold War. So, when the U.S. and the Soviets had exploded hydrogen bombs. And we've been slowly moving the clock closer to midnight.

Paul Rand:This year it moved 20 seconds closer to midnight. With the fear of complete annihilation on the line, you might have the same question I had: why 20 seconds closer exactly? Why not 10, or 30? What does this time really mean?

Rachel Bronson:So why 20 seconds? It's a really great question. So what the Doomsday Clock is set by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. And it's a judgment. There is not some computer somewhere where we feed all of these different facts in and a time pops up. The clock is a metaphor. And we answer the question: are we safer or at greater risk this year compared to last year, and this year compared to all the years we've set it, is humanity safer, or at greater risk? And what time best conveys the message that we're trying to get out there. And that 20 seconds, we really went back and forth. If we moved it 10 seconds, well, it seemed more important. So it's really a judgment. And that's where they got to this sense of being twenty seconds closer.

Paul Rand:You know, it's interesting, as I think through potential analogies on this, we're not all that far off from the Super Bowl this year. And, you know, when you get in-between the one-yard line, you almost assume it's a fait accompli that you're going to get into the in zone, right. Here we are pretty darn close. If I applied the same analogy, you'd just assume you're that close, tt doesn't take much to push it over. Is that how you guys think about this?

Rachel Bronson:Yeah, and the analogy is a really good one for that reason and another one.Itsboth on where we are on the one-yard line. But the other analogy that's appropriate, I think, is were within the two-minute warning. Any football fan knows there's one game that's played up until the two-minute warning, especially when you're in the fourth quarter. Everything changes, the intensity changes, the play calling changes, and a lot happens in that two minutes.We're kind of in that two-minute warning, which is this is just a different game where we are now. And it really requires our attention. And there is a moment where we can change the course of history, and that's not often true with these kinds of issues.

Paul Rand:So, if this isthe end game, what does it look like? How will we know when weve crossed the line into midnight?

Rachel Bronson:So, midnight was really easy to define when it was limited to nuclear issues. In truth, midnight was an exchange of nuclear weapons.And that's what drove the creation of the clock. It was really going to be the end of humanity as we knew it. That's very easy when you're talking about a nuclear exchange, minutes, it's all over.Wevebeen really lucky that there hasn't been a strategic exchange. There have been so many near misses.

JFK Tape:This government has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.

Rachel Bronson:So many accidents.

CBS News Tape:A newly disclosed document reviles a US hydrogen bomb almost dedicated near Goldsborough North Caroline back in 1961.

Democracy Now Tape:The so-called Damascus accident involved a titan two intercontinental ballistic missile mishap at a launch complex outside Damascus Arkansas.

Rachel Bronson:But we have been really lucky and we're now moving in the wrong direction.

Paul Rand:To people who grew up after the constant warnings and dread of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war may seem benign. An ever-present issue, but not pressing or escalating. Are we really closer to nuclear war today, even closer than during the Cold War?

Rachel Bronson:A few days ago, but within the week, the U.S. deployed its first low yield nuclear weapon in a long time on to a nuclear powered submarine that also has other strategic weapons.

Democracy Now Tape:On Capitol Hill House Armed Services Committee Chairman, Adam Smith, said this destabilizing deployment further increases the potential for miscalculation during a crisis.

Rachel Bronson:And when I say low yield, and this is important because youll see this from time to time in the paper, it can mean as big as a Hiroshima, Nagasaki like bomb or a half as much. It is still multiple times the explosive force of the biggest bomb we have in our arsenal. And we've tended to try to walk away from these kinds of weapons because they have the risk of being felt to be usable.

Democracy Now Tape:Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov responded by saying, This reflects the fact that the United States is actually lowering the nuclear threshold and that theyre conceding the possibility of them waging a limited nuclear war and winning this war. This is extremely alarming he said.

Rachel Bronson:So we've just deployed this weapon within the week. A year from yesterday, so just slightly less than a year, the last remaining arms control agreement, New START, that exists between the US and the Russians will expire. The Russians want to extend it. The United States has shown no interest in extending it. Many of us are calling for an extension. And so, the last remaining arms control agreement that helps us verify what the Russians have, helps with the transparency and understanding what their forces are, all that that goes out the window. It has caps on what we can produce, that goes out the window. So, we're losing our arms control architecture. We're losing the transparency. We're deploying new weapons in the United States. Our Nuclear Posture Review, actually, widens the issues to which we would respond could respond with a nuclear response. So, there is so much changing

Paul Rand:Basically, the infrastructure we put in place to protect us from a nuclear war is crumbling. Just in the past year, the trump administration has ended several major arms control deals, it pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, is threatening to withdraw from The Open Skies Treaty, negotiations with North Korea have stalled and the New START Treaty with Russia is set to expire.

Rachel Bronson:And we've just authorized basically one point three trillion dollars over 30 years to refurbish and refresh and renew in some ways our nuclear arsenal. Every major nuclear power is operating and making decisions as if the use of nuclear weapons is easier or more likely. And so this is a moment where we can actually change that course, because, in 10 years, these are all going to be set in stone. And that's why, going back to our Doomsday Clock on the nuclear side, there's a belief that it's like we're in 1953 again.

Paul Rand:As if nuclear apocalypse wasnt enough, when Bulletin scientist made their announcement in January, they cited another major global threat in their reasoning. Thats after the break.

(Break)

Paul Rand:The mandate of the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists is to track global threats that could lead to humanitys ultimate destruction. In the recent decade, that mandate has pushed them to move beyond just nuclear war to focus on another growing threat.

Announcement Tape:To test the limits of earths habitable temperature is madness. Its a madness akin to the nuclear madness that is again threatening the world.

Paul Rand:That threat isclimate change.

Announcement Tape:Despite these devastating warnings, and although some governments are echoing many scientists use of the term climate emergency, their policies are hardly commensurate to an emergency. A UN report was released underscoring what was already known, the pledges to curb greenhouse gases that governments committed to pursue by 2030 under the Paris climate agreementthey would need to be scaled up eight-fold to be consistent with the agreed aiming of keeping warming well below two degrees.

Rachel Bronson:We added climate to the clock in 2007. But what does midnight for climate look like? It's much harder to have a kind of before and after midnight clear sense of what that means. That being said, this metaphor is important because for the climate, folks, there are tipping points that you can't come back from. And you won't feel those effects until years out, but it'll be very difficult if even possible to recover from. And that sense of before and after for the climate experts, they still talk in those terms. It's just that we won't feel that for some decades.

Paul Rand:Its particularly interesting that theres actually a point where nuclear power and climate change meet, with important implications for both issues.

Rachel Bronson:Nuclear power right now is so desperately needed in terms of energy in this carbon constrained environment that we're in, right. We desperately need nuclear power because it doesn't emit carbon. But at the same time, we've been unable to fully manage its risks. The public doesn't trust it. We're worried about terrorism, we're worried about accidents, we're worried about meltdowns. Well, if we could manage those risks, we'd have this really unhindered energy source. But we are worried about those risks. And so we're not using nuclear power to its fullest advantage, which is exactly the kinds of issues that we are really interested in, because good policy should be able to help us get there. We just haven't been able to develop the political architecture or apparatus to make us feel safe. What's fascinating is that Sweden has found ways to kind of bury their nuclear waste, whereas here in the United States, we still can't figure out what to do with our nuclear power plants and what to do with their waste.Andwe're shutting down nuclear power plants that could be operating because they're not cost effective right now, but they're also not emitting carbon. So right now, we are in a fight to keep open nuclear power plants that have been decently regulated, safe in the United States just for the sake of because we don't like them. And it's so disruptive to our energy transformation, we need a bridge to all these renewables, and we need to find ways to power our economy at a moment where battery storage doesn't allow us to fully harness the power of other renewables. I do worry about that. I do worry about when there's not kind of a strategic view on how are we going to get to this energy transformation that we need. Because nobody thinks, at the moment, that solar and wind alone is going to do it.

Paul Rand:Are there other potential categories are a bit beyond nuclear war and climate change that you could see creeping into this?

Rachel Bronson:Yeah, absolutely.Around 2007 when climate gets introduced into the Clock,we were also really focused on bio-threats and the Board was really grappling with

Paul Rand:And what do you mean bio-threats

Rachel Bronson:Pandemics. So, you know, we're talking about coronavirus right now. But for my organization, The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, they're really interested in can these be created in labs? And what if they're used as weapons to wipe out humanity? Should we be thinking of bio-threats in that way? The experts are saying, oh, I don't know that we have this under control anymore. The technology changed so quickly. We're actually concerned about where this is going, how this might be used. Like, things like genetic engineering. Right. If we think about threats to our existence, like what does it mean to be human, and what are the threats to humanity, the advancements in CRISPR and genetic engineering, the future of artificial intelligence? All of these are really kind of fascinating to us. And this goes back to our founders, this is actually about political action. Science is moving really quickly and that's going to bring huge benefits, but only if we can manage its risks.

Paul Rand:The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists was established after World War II as a way to not only warn the public about these risks, but also to offer solutions and push politicians to enact them. That history and those solutions, after the break.

(Break)

Rachel Bronson:Thescientists who started the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, many of them were involved in the Manhattan Project. They literally created the atomic weapons that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

VINTAGE TAPE:Thats the atomic bomb exploding at Nagasaki. The film was taken in a B29 many miles away. All who see this picture can judge for yourselves the extent to of the menace to civilization of this new weapon.

Rachel Bronson:And they were very, very quick to realize where the technology was going. Right. And they were also very engaged politically.

Vintage Tape:Civilized people can only demand that such power be used not toward their obliteration, but to the benefit of mankind.

Rachel Bronson:So the bulletin was founded in 1945 and it was literally a six page black and white bulletin that we distributed. In 1947, it's the time of Time magazine and Life magazine and we've got this great subscriber base, we decide we want to turn our bulletin into a magazine. We need a cover. So the first cover of the first magazine is the Doomsday Clock. Thats where it was created, and it was created to be a great cover. It was created by the wife of a Manhattan Project scientist.She understood the urgency he felt, and his colleagues felt about this technology they had created. And she was trying to figure out what would convey that urgency, so she creates a clock and she sets it at seven minutes to midnight. So that's our starting point. Seven minutes to midnight. There's an interview where she says because it looked good to her eye, her design eye, which it does. But also because that design conveys both the urgency that they feel but hope that we can turn it back right. And it was also I mean, it was also it was a cheap design to recreate. We were like a bunch of scientists at the University Chicago. We didnt have a lot of money or anything. So this clock gets it gets copied on each edition just because all she did was change the color and her daughters would pick what color they like.But the in nineteen forty-nine, the editor moved the clock forward and that's when the Soviets had tested their first atomic bomb.

Vintage Tape:President Truman dramatic announcement that Russia has created an atomic explosion sends reports racing for Flushing Meadow where Russias Vishinsky arrives to address the United Nations.

Rachel Bronson:So suddenly this static image becomes dynamic.Andsomeone had asked the original founder of the bulletin like what's the purpose of the bulletin? And he gives three reasons. One, it was to engage the public on nuclear energy. The second, which is so interesting to me, was to get scientists to engage in the politics of the day and talk to each other about these issues. Even today, there's this issue, do the experts belong in the ivory tower or should they come out and engage? And so, the bulletin was on record very early as saying we want the scientists to engage in these kind of policy discussions. And then the third issue, which is the one that animates me the most, is to manage Pandora's box of modern science. So that's the charge of the bulletin.

Paul Rand:So how has that charge been going? Are there any trends the Bulletin has seen in the last year to suggest that maybe, in the future, we could turn the hands of the clock backward, away from midnight?

Rachel Bronson:We do point out a bright spot and that's in the climate space.Andour experts really talked about this, about, you know, is this something we would move the clock away from midnight? On the climate space, what the what our experts recognized was there is a growing global awareness that that we are changing our climate and there's things that we can and need to do. Especially among the youth, the kind of youth movements that are embracing climate

CBS News:Groups of students across America say they will skip class tomorrow for the first national school strike over climate change.

Rachel Bronson:Is leading to, not enough political action, but you're seeing it be introduced into the public sphere.

Greta Thunberg Tape:The young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you and if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you.

Rachel Bronson:We believe that that kind of on the street marching, sitting outside parliaments and missing school to do so, the kinds of large numbers that we're seeing who are owning this issue and putting pressure on their leaders to try to engage, is very promising. So all that's to say is public engagement still really matters. And so, in the climate space, that kind of awareness of the role and power that they have, even though it seems very out of reach, is actually very powerful.Wedlove to see the United States reengage in the Paris agreements around climate. We'd love to see the U.S. sitting down with the Russians and if not extending New START, which we'd love to see them extend just to buy us some breathing room but then what substitutes for these arms control agreements that have fallen away. The only thing that's going to move the politicians is if we all tell them that we care about these issues.

Paul Rand:You know its interesting that you mentioned the politicians because here we are moving into election season. And if you were going to sit down and say to the presidential candidates, I need answers on these topics, and we really think that for the American public to make a determination on who should be president, you need to answer these questions. What questions would you put on that list?

Rachel Bronson:Ask them who their science adviser would be. So, we don't have a science visor anymore in the United States.

Paul Rand:Who was our last science advisor?

Rachel Bronson:So our last science advisor was John Holdren. He's at Harvard now. But if you look at the arms control agreements and issues on climate, we've always relied on our key advisers with deep scientific knowledge not to dictate the direction we go, these are political problems, but to inform them.And so I think it's absolutely fair to ask the candidates, well, who are you considering to be your science adviser, your cabinet in general, but I'd be very interested ot know who theyre thinking of.

Paul Rand:What else would you want to know? So thats a key question, if you were to say I need to know positions on x, y and z.

Rachel Bronson:So this is going to be a really hard one for them to answer. And you could see this in the Democratic debates, but we've walked away for from the Iran deal. It's unlikely that we can get it back at this point. So how do you start again with Iran? Iran is clearly moving now towards rethinking starting up their nuclear program. So what does that look like?

Paul Rand:What about on climate change?

Rachel Bronson:On climate change how would you direct the American government and the private sector to be investing in terms of new technologies needed around climate change?Notjust do you believe in climate change, but what are what are you going to do? What's your first few days? What's your plan? How are we going to invest? The United States, this is true globally, but the United States is facing a massive energy transformation that's going to be huge winners and losers. How do we do this so we can move forward as a country without just, we're not going to do it by ripping up all of our infrastructure. So how are we going to get there? My favorite question because I find it a fascinating question, is how do you think about nuclear power? For Democrats, this is really hard. The Democratic base is not pro nuclear power for the most part. Certainly, on the left, it's just viewed as really evil. Well it's hard for me to see how you get a true energy transformation without nuclear power. So asking the candidates how they're going to get there is something that I find really fascinating. I'd love to hear more of. And then for Republicans, we're not having this discussion, but they are a lot more comfortable with nuclear power. But they're also comfortable with drill, baby, drill. So, we're not moving forward with a kind of coal future with the way it's currently configured. And we do need to find ways to keep some of the carbon in the ground. So how are they going to do it on their side? That's a conversation they're not having. But if they could have that conversation, it's a really important conversation to have about what's our carbon future.

Paul Rand:Isthere ever a time that you could see that you could retire the clock? Or is it we that it will never be retired because the genie is out of the bottle?

Rachel Bronson:Well, after the Cold War in 1991, we had moved it back to 17 minutes to midnight, and we would have loved to have kept moving it back up further. And so I think these issues are like crime or poverty. It never goes away. But it can be less horrific, or more horrific. And so to that, there's probably always going to be a clock. But it wouldn't be that interesting if we were moving it from 17 minutes to 19 minutes, to 20 minutes, to 25. And maybe there's a way we can, you know, that would be really exciting. That is just getting better and better. So, I shouldn't say it wouldn't be as exciting. Maybe it would be. We just have we haven't been there. So, 20 20 is a fascinating year as the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day. It's the fiftieth anniversary of the nonproliferation treaty, which underpins all treaties, is the seventy fifth anniversary of the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The seventy fifth anniversary of the U.N. is the seventy fifth anniversary of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, because we're responding to those global issues. And so, we've been through this before and we have this opportunity to chart a different kind of history for the next 75 years. And we're in a pretty precarious place.

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Big Brains podcast: Why the Doomsday Clock is Closer to Apocalypse Than Ever, with Rachel Bronson - UChicago News

Our society has evolved so much, can we still say that we are part of Nature? If not, should we worry and what should we do about it? Poppy, 21, Warwick.

Such is the extent of our dominion on Earth, that the answer to questions around whether we are still part of nature and whether we even need some of it rely on an understanding of what we want as Homo sapiens. And to know what we want, we need to grasp what we are.

It is a huge question but they are the best. And as a biologist, here is my humble suggestion to address it, and a personal conclusion. You may have a different one, but what matters is that we reflect on it.

Perhaps the best place to start is to consider what makes us human in the first place, which is not as obvious as it may seem.

This article is part of Lifes Big QuestionsThe Conversations new series, co-published with BBC Future, seeks to answer our readers nagging questions about life, love, death and the universe. We work with professional researchers who have dedicated their lives to uncovering new perspectives on the questions that shape our lives.

Many years ago, a novel written by Vercors called Les Animaux dnaturs (Denatured Animals) told the story of a group of primitive hominids, the Tropis, found in an unexplored jungle in New Guinea, who seem to constitute a missing link.

However, the prospect that this fictional group may be used as slave labour by an entrepreneurial businessman named Vancruysen forces society to decide whether the Tropis are simply sophisticated animals or whether they should be given human rights. And herein lies the difficulty.

Human status had hitherto seemed so obvious that the book describes how it is soon discovered that there is no definition of what a human actually is. Certainly, the string of experts consulted anthropologists, primatologists, psychologists, lawyers and clergymen could not agree. Perhaps prophetically, it is a layperson who suggested a possible way forward.

She asked whether some of the hominids habits could be described as the early signs of a spiritual or religious mind. In short, were there signs that, like us, the Tropis were no longer at one with nature, but had separated from it, and were now looking at it from the outside with some fear.

It is a telling perspective. Our status as altered or denatured animals creatures who have arguably separated from the natural world is perhaps both the source of our humanity and the cause of many of our troubles. In the words of the books author:

All mans troubles arise from the fact that we do not know what we are and do not agree on what we want to be.

We will probably never know the timing of our gradual separation from nature although cave paintings perhaps contain some clues. But a key recent event in our relationship with the world around us is as well documented as it was abrupt. It happened on a sunny Monday morning, at 8.15am precisely.

The atomic bomb that rocked Hiroshima on August 6 1945, was a wake-up call so loud that it still resonates in our consciousness many decades later.

The day the sun rose twice was not only a forceful demonstration of the new era that we had entered, it was a reminder of how paradoxically primitive we remained: differential calculus, advanced electronics and almost godlike insights into the laws of the universe helped build, well a very big stick. Modern Homo sapiens seemingly had developed the powers of gods, while keeping the psyche of a stereotypical Stone Age killer.

We were no longer fearful of nature, but of what we would do to it, and ourselves. In short, we still did not know where we came from, but began panicking about where we were going.

We now know a lot more about our origins but we remain unsure about what we want to be in the future or, increasingly, as the climate crisis accelerates, whether we even have one.

Arguably, the greater choices granted by our technological advances make it even more difficult to decide which of the many paths to take. This is the cost of freedom.

I am not arguing against our dominion over nature nor, even as a biologist, do I feel a need to preserve the status quo. Big changes are part of our evolution. After all, oxygen was first a poison which threatened the very existence of early life, yet it is now the fuel vital to our existence.

Similarly, we may have to accept that what we do, even our unprecedented dominion, is a natural consequence of what we have evolved into, and by a process nothing less natural than natural selection itself. If artificial birth control is unnatural, so is reduced infant mortality.

I am also not convinced by the argument against genetic engineering on the basis that it is unnatural. By artificially selecting specific strains of wheat or dogs, we had been tinkering more or less blindly with genomes for centuries before the genetic revolution. Even our choice of romantic partner is a form of genetic engineering. Sex is natures way of producing new genetic combinations quickly.

Even nature, it seems, can be impatient with itself.

Advances in genomics, however, have opened the door to another key turning point. Perhaps we can avoid blowing up the world, and instead change it and ourselves slowly, perhaps beyond recognition.

The development of genetically modified crops in the 1980s quickly moved from early aspirations to improve the taste of food to a more efficient way of destroying undesirable weeds or pests.

In what some saw as the genetic equivalent of the atomic bomb, our early forays into a new technology became once again largely about killing, coupled with worries about contamination. Not that everything was rosy before that. Artificial selection, intensive farming and our exploding population growth were long destroying species quicker than we could record them.

The increasing silent springs of the 1950s and 60s caused by the destruction of farmland birds and, consequently, their song was only the tip of a deeper and more sinister iceberg. There is, in principle, nothing unnatural about extinction, which has been a recurring pattern (of sometimes massive proportions) in the evolution of our planet long before we came on the scene. But is it really what we want?

The arguments for maintaining biodiversity are usually based on survival, economics or ethics. In addition to preserving obvious key environments essential to our ecosystem and global survival, the economic argument highlights the possibility that a hitherto insignificant lichen, bacteria or reptile might hold the key to the cure of a future disease. We simply cannot afford to destroy what we do not know.

But attaching an economic value to life makes it subject to the fluctuation of markets. It is reasonable to expect that, in time, most biological solutions will be able to be synthesised, and as the market worth of many lifeforms falls, we need to scrutinise the significance of the ethical argument. Do we need nature because of its inherent value?

Perhaps the answer may come from peering over the horizon. It is somewhat of an irony that as the third millennium coincided with decrypting the human genome, perhaps the start of the fourth may be about whether it has become redundant.

Just as genetic modification may one day lead to the end of Homo sapiens naturalis (that is, humans untouched by genetic engineering), we may one day wave goodbye to the last specimen of Homo sapiens genetica. That is the last fully genetically based human living in a world increasingly less burdened by our biological form minds in a machine.

If the essence of a human, including our memories, desires and values, is somehow reflected in the pattern of the delicate neuronal connections of our brain (and why should it not?) our minds may also one day be changeable like never before.

And this brings us to the essential question that surely we must ask ourselves now: if, or rather when, we have the power to change anything, what would we not change?

After all, we may be able to transform ourselves into more rational, more efficient and stronger individuals. We may venture out further, have greater dominion over greater areas of space, and inject enough insight to bridge the gap between the issues brought about by our cultural evolution and the abilities of a brain evolved to deal with much simpler problems. We might even decide to move into a bodiless intelligence: in the end, even the pleasures of the body are located in the brain.

And then what? When the secrets of the universe are no longer hidden, what makes it worth being part of it? Where is the fun?

Gossip and sex, of course! some might say. And in effect, I would agree (although I might put it differently), as it conveys to me the fundamental need that we have to reach out and connect with others. I believe that the attributes that define our worth in this vast and changing universe are simple: empathy and love. Not power or technology, which occupy so many of our thoughts but which are merely (almost boringly) related to the age of a civilisation.

Like many a traveller, Homo sapiens may need a goal. But from the strengths that come with attaining it, one realises that ones worth (whether as an individual or a species) ultimately lies elsewhere. So I believe that the extent of our ability for empathy and love will be the yardstick by which our civilisation is judged. It may well be an important benchmark by which we will judge other civilisations that we may encounter, or indeed be judged by them.

There is something of true wonder at the basis of it all. The fact that chemicals can arise from the austere confines of an ancient molecular soup, and through the cold laws of evolution, combine into organisms that care for other lifeforms (that is, other bags of chemicals) is the true miracle.

Some ancients believed that God made us in his image. Perhaps they were right in a sense, as empathy and love are truly godlike features, at least among the benevolent gods.

Cherish those traits and use them now, Poppy, as they hold the solution to our ethical dilemma. It is those very attributes that should compel us to improve the wellbeing of our fellow humans without lowering the condition of what surrounds us.

Anything less will pervert (our) nature.

To get all of lifes big answers, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value evidence-based news by subscribing to our newsletter. You can send us your big questions by email at bigquestions@theconversation.com and well try to get a researcher or expert on the case.

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Have humans evolved beyond nature and do we even need it? - The Conversation UK

A new type of cancer cell therapy could avoid some of the serious side effects commonly associated with CAR-T treatments, and possibly offer an easier path to developing "off-the-shelf" treatments, suggest findings from a small study led by researchers at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

The results, which were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, are from just 11 patients. Other factors, such as the use of postremission therapy, limit what conclusions can be drawn about the researchers' approach, which relies on "natural killer" cells rather than the T cells used in cellular drugs like Novartis' Kymriah.

Still, the data offer a glimpse into why Japanese drugmaker Takedaagreed last November to license the CAR NK cell therapy from MD Anderson, part of the company's broader push into cell and gene treatments. Some of the data published Wednesday was previously disclosed by the pharma.

The success of cancer immunotherapy, of which CAR-T treatments are a major part, has put T cells at the center of a now decade-long research revival in oncology.

But T cells are only one component of the body's immune system, and scientists in academia and in biotech are exploring whether other cellular defenders could be similarly recruited.

Researchers at MD Anderson have turned to natural killer cells, which by design recognize and attack cancers or other invaders. Such cells have been tested as an anti-cancer treatment before,but using genetic engineering to improve their tumor-killing properties, which the MD Anderson team has done, is a newer innovation.

"To my knowledge, this is the largest body of evidence on the use of CAR NK cells in patients with cancer," said Katayoun Rezvani, the study's corresponding author and a professor of stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy at MD Anderson, in an interview.

Using NK cells derived from cord blood, Rezvani and her colleagues engineered the cells to express a receptor for a protein called CD19, commonly found on the surface of B-cell malignancies like leukemia and lymphoma. They also added a gene for interleukin-15 to boost the expansion and persistence of the infused NK cells, which without engineering would typically disappear after about two weeks.

While the CAR-T treatments Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) and Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) also target CD19, they are made from a patient's own T cells, which are extracted and then engineered outside the body. The personalized process is time-consuming and laborious, hampering the commercial uptake of both Kymriahand Yescarta.

By using cord blood, Rezvani and her team are pursuing an allogeneic, or "off-the-shelf," approach to cell treatment something many consider to be the next step for the field.

Initial data look promising. Seven of the 11 treated patients, who had either chronic lymphocytic leukemia or non-Hodgkin lymphoma, responded to treatment, with the cancers of three going into remission.Most notably, none experienced cytokine release syndrome or neurotoxicity, two severe side effects that commonly occur in patients treated with CAR-T therapy.

"The lack of toxicity is very exciting here," wrote Stephan Grupp, an oncologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a leader in the CAR-T field, in comments emailed to BioPharma Dive. He was not involved with the MD Anderson study.

"We really think that this is something inherent to the biology of the natural killer cells, which means their profile of toxicity is different than that of T cells,"Rezvanisaid.

Study participants did have blood toxicities that researchers associated with the chemotherapy given prior to infusion of the CAR NK cells.

While positive, the results are limited by several factors which make drawing broader conclusions about the ultimate potential of the treatment difficult.

Five of the seven responding patients received postremission treatment, including stem cell transplants, Rituxan (rituximab) and Revlimid (lenalidomide), so researchers did not assess the duration of response to CAR NK therapy.

Additionally, a fresh CAR NK cell product was manufactured for each patient in this study, rather than using the cord blood to produce multiple therapies as would be envisioned for a true off-the-shelf product.

"I think the potential for this approach to be 'off-the-shelf' is also a little speculative at this time," wrote Grupp.

"We would need to see multiple patients treated from the same expanded product with no HLAmatching to know if 'off-the-shelf' is going to be part of the story here," he added, referring to the process by which patients are matched to donor cells.

If cord blood-derived CAR NK cells were able to be given without matching to a patient's HLA genotype, any resulting treatment could be used more widely. Nine patients were partially matched in the MD Anderson study, while the last two were treated without consideration of HLA type.

The MD Anderson researchers plan to continue enrolling patients in the study and are working with Takeda to design a larger, multi-center trial.

The drugmaker is planning to advance the treatment, which it licensed and now calls TAK-007, into pivotal studies in two types of lymphoma and CLL by 2021, with a potential filing for approval in 2023.

"Targeting CD19 was a proof of concept and now that we've demonstrated that this CAR NK approach can work and is safe we want to use this platform to target other types of cancers," said Rezvani, indicating interest in multiple myeloma and acute myeloid leukemia.

Excerpt from:

In small study, hints of promise for 'natural killer' cell therapy - BioPharma Dive

The power of speculative fiction often lies in its ability to make us look at the world around us with fresh eyes. Mundane acts have a way of becoming extraordinarily beautiful when we are faced with the prospect of their vanishing. Here, baseball becomes a site of resistance, an emblem of humanity, an antidote to the automation and artificial intelligence that controls every other aspect of life in AutoAmerica. After all, what would be the point of automating such a thing as nine human players throwing and catching balls to the best of their physical abilities? What significance could there possibly be in a robot pitching a perfect game? We are here, one coach says late in the novel, because we believe anything can happen in a ballgame. You can get a guy and all his stats but give him a stick to swing, and you still dont know what will happen. Its a marvelously refreshing concept in a world that is otherwise dominated by algorithms.

The Resisters is a book that grows directly out of the soil of our current political moment, and much of the books unsettling pleasure lies in Jens ingenious extrapolation (or, in some cases, redescription) of contemporary problems. The book brims with EnforceBots (police robots), ThoughtCommand (next-level voice command), PermaDerms (permanent skin whitening) and SmartGuns. AutoAmerica is a nation shaped by policies like ShipEmBack, a mass deportation of immigrants, and the One Chance Policy, wherein Surplus families are permitted only one pregnancy, no matter the outcome.

Jen has such a gifted ear for the manipulative languages of tech, marketing and government that at times the sheer abundance of clever details threatens to overwhelm the stories of her characters. But perhaps this overabundance is part of the novels method, a way of swallowing the characters and the reader into AutoAmericas reality. The Resisters is aimed at many catastrophes at once: surveillance technology, government overreach, authoritarianism, automation, economic inequality, racism, sexual assault and the institutional mishandling of it, geopolitical conflict and climate change.

The central thread of the book, though, or perhaps the most lingering, is its obsession with the threats of artificial intelligence. The Resisters is full of characters who voluntarily hand over their humanity by agreeing to GenetImprovement or by mindlessly following the orders of Aunt Nettie. In one unnerving section, the narrator recounts the incremental steps that led to this all-encompassing control first, he let Aunt Nettie keep his calendar, then respond to emails on his behalf. (The Resisters might make you stop and actually read your user agreements.)

In the most devastating moment of this ultimately quite tender novel, one characters mind is surgically merged against her will with Aunt Nettie, so that the line between human and internet is no longer clear, even to herself. Crucially, it is other human beings who carry out this dreadful procedure, which suggests that even in a dystopian world dominated by artificial intelligence, people are still the ones who carry out the most atrocious acts.

We live in a moment when The Handmaids Tale is a hit television show, and Kellyanne Conways use of the term alternative facts reminded so many readers of the double talk in George Orwells classic 1984 that the novel hit the best-seller list seven decades after its original publication. The public seems to feel that the worst speculative fictions are coming true. Of course, Margaret Atwood would contend that The Handmaids Tale was true even as it was written. Perhaps Gish Jen could make a similar argument about much of The Resisters. The hope she offers, though, lies in the books title, and in the heroism of its family of Bartlebys, who resist both the lure of conveniences and the threats of the powerful, with one phrase: I would prefer not to.

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The Future Is Here, and Uncomfortably Close to Home - The New York Times

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Competing in the Global Infectious Disease Testing Market: Supplier Shares, Segment Forecasts for 100 Tests, Growth Opportunities" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The report contains 1,954 pages, 824 tables and provides market segmentation analysis of over 100 diseases and viruses in seven countries, assessment of emerging technologies, review of current instrumentation, as well as strategic profiles of leading suppliers and recent market entrants with innovative technologies and products.

Rationale

This comprehensive seven-country report is designed to assist diagnostics industry executives, as well as companies planning to diversify into the dynamic and rapidly expanding microbiology testing market, in evaluating emerging opportunities and developing effective business strategies.

The microbiology testing market is one of the most rapidly growing segments of the in vitro diagnostics industry, and the greatest challenge facing suppliers. Among the main driving forces is continuing spread of AIDS, which remains the world's major health threat and a key factor contributing to the rise of opportunistic infections; threat of bioterrorism; advances in molecular diagnostic technologies; and wider availability of immunosuppressive drugs.

Although for some infections the etiology is still a mystery, while for others the causative microorganisms are present in minute concentrations long before the occurrence of first clinical symptoms, recent advances in genetic engineering and detection technologies are creating exciting opportunities for highly sensitive, specific and cost-effective products.

Geographic Coverage

Market Segmentation Analysis

Current and Emerging Products

Technology Review

Competitive Assessments

Worldwide Market Overview

Opportunities and Strategic Recommendations

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/cajv4i

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Competing in the Global Infectious Disease Testing Market 2019 - Forecasts for 100 Tests - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire