Feds slow to respond to state GMO task force

Federal authorities have been slow to answer questions about genetic engineering regulations asked by an Oregon task force assembled by Gov. John Kitzhaber.

Kitzhaber launched the task force early this year to write a report framing the controversy on genetically modified organisms and how theyre regulated in Oregon.

Task force members held a teleconference in early June with representatives from the USDA, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which jointly regulate biotechnology.

Task force members followed up with two sets of questions to clarify such issues as how the government increases tolerance levels of pesticides on biotech crops. They requested a response by mid-August. As of the task forces latest meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 3, only the FDA provided responses to the questions, according to state officials at the meeting.

I personally am disappointed they have not been able to come back to us with concrete responses, says Ivan Maluski, director of Friends of Family Farmers, a group thats critical of federal oversight of biotechnology.

Stephanie Page of the Oregon Department of Agriculture says representatives from USDA and EPA have apologized for the delay, citing the absences of key officials.

It appears that some of the FDAs responses left task force members underwhelmed.

Specifically, the task force asked FDA whether the agency is enforcing laws against misleading labeling of genetically modified organisms in food.

Agency officials told the task force that the agency doesnt consider the presence of GMO ingredients a material fact that must be disclosed to consumers, but supports voluntary labeling.

What struck me by their answer is that they didnt really answer the question, says Connie Kirby, vice president of scientific and technical affairs for the Northwest Food Processors Association, an industry group that opposes mandatory labeling.

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Feds slow to respond to state GMO task force

Rare disease biotech Xenon Pharmaceuticals files for a $52 million IPO

Xenon Pharmaceuticals, an early-stage biotech with a gene therapy discovery platform for rare diseases, filed on Wednesday with the SEC to raise up to $52 million in an initial public offering. Xenon has a number of collaboration and licensing agreements with large pharmaceuticals including Teva, Genentech and Merck for its preclinical research.

The company's discovery platform was used to develop uniQure's Glybera treatment for orphan disease lipoprotein lipase deficiency, the first gene therapy approved in the EU. February IPO uniQure ( QURE ) priced above its range but ended the first day down 14% and now trades down 36% below the IPO price. Xenon is eligible to receive mid single-digit royalties on net sales of Glybera. Teva is in Phase 2 trials for a gene therapy discovered by Xenon that is being developed to treat osteoarthritis. Genentech was cleared to begin a Phase 1 trial for Xenon's pain treatment and Merck is in preclinical development for cardiovascular disease. Xenon also has a variety of preclinical therapies for both orphan diseases (such as Dravet Syndrome) and large-market conditions (including acne).

Primary shareholders include Medpace (16%), Lipterx (11%), InterWest Partners (9%), Fidelity (7%), Invesco (5%) and CEO Simon Pimstone (4%).

The Burnaby, Canada-based company, which was founded in 1996 and booked $27 million in collaboration revenue for the 12 months ended June 30, 2014, plans to list on the NASDAQ under the symbol XENE. Xenon Pharmaceuticals initially filed confidentially on August 16, 2013. Jefferies and Wells Fargo Securities are the joint bookrunners on the deal. No pricing terms were disclosed.

Investment Disclosure: The information and opinions expressed herein were prepared by Renaissance Capital's research analysts and do not constitute an offer to buy or sell any security. Renaissance Capital, the Renaissance IPO ETF (symbol: IPO) or the Global IPO Fund (symbol: IPOSX) , may have investments in securities of companies mentioned.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.

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Rare disease biotech Xenon Pharmaceuticals files for a $52 million IPO

Futurist Series: Jack Uldrich, futurist keynote speaker and best-selling author – Video


Futurist Series: Jack Uldrich, futurist keynote speaker and best-selling author
Book this entertaining speaker with Leading Authorities - http://response.leadingauthorities.com/CheckAvailability-YouTube Jack Uldrich is a global futurist ...

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Futurist John Smart Discusses Future of Energy at World Future Society 2014 in Orlando, Florida – Video


Futurist John Smart Discusses Future of Energy at World Future Society 2014 in Orlando, Florida
This is an interview with futurist John Smart in Orlando, Florida, during the World Future Society 2014, on July 12, 2014. Interview is conducted and uploade...

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Futurists heading to Downtown ABQ next year

News and notes from City Hall, Bernalillo County and local politics

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Albuquerques newly renovated Convention Center has landed a futurist conference scheduled next year.

Mayor Richard Berry and the Albuquerque Convention & Visitors Bureau announced this afternoon that something called the Face the Future Conference will be held Downtown for the next five years. Next years event will be the first, so its not clear how many people it will attract.

The conference has already lined up a host of speakers who will address the future of private space travel, robotics, investment and other topics.

From a meetings and tourism perspective, having a conference of this magnitude here opens the door for future high-level bookings, as well, Dale Lockett of ACVB said in a news release. Plus, the fact that the conference has agreed to let Albuquerque host for at least its first five years will provide a tremendously positive economic.

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Insanely big-ass iPhone future is already here

Video will begin in 5 seconds.

The bigger iPhone screen unveiled by Apple could have happened much sooner, according to deputy technology editor Ben Grubb. Illustrated by Rocco Fazzari.

I can only imagine that my personal invite to Apple's Festival of Shiny Things went missing in the post. I stood by the letter box every day waiting for Tim Cook to write. When the day arrived and I found myself abed, asleep, when I should have been in the front row knocking mugachinos with Jony and the boys, I was, to quote the internet, disappointed but only with the post office for losing my invite. Never with Tim.

Unlike every tech journalist ever, I wasn't disappointed with the new phones or the Apple Watch. They were cool, if a little bemusing.

The iPhone has always been a compact device, but these latest versions are what Americans call big-ass and insanely big-ass. The Plus-sized model will fit nicely into a man bag. (Don't you judge me it's not like I'm wearing pocket squares). But it will look bizarre, like a silicon boogie board, strapped to your arm when you're out running or at the gym, which is how millions of people currently use their phones every day.

Illustration: Glen Le Lievre.

The Apple Watch, meanwhile, is beautiful and amazing, but in the way that visions of retro-futurism from 1975 are beautiful and amazing. It would look totally right, for instance, if worn by Barbara Bain, to match her spankyest bell-bottomed jumpsuit while Moonbase Alpha is blown out of Earth's gravity in the pilot episode ofSpace 1999.

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While I'd have happily accepted Tim's invite to hang out at the Flint Centre, it was a lucky thing that having been spurned, I didn't get up at quarter to three in the morning like some other addicts. (One hopeless iJunkie of my acquaintance is a gentleman farmer, who probably curdled the milk of his moo cows cursing at the stuttering video and unexpected Chinese voice-over Apple pushed out to his iPhone at omigod-thirty in the morning). Apparently a couple of lines of wonky code on the website trashed the live stream of the event for millions of viewers around the world. Yes, a phone launch rates like Wimbledon now but then so do web casts of video game tournaments you've never heard of, or YouTube updates from some guy walking across the jaggy, 8-bit world of Minecraft. It's like William Gibson quipped, the future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed.

The future seems to have finally caught up with ageing Sith Lord Rupert Murdoch, despite his best efforts at creeping just out of reach. Rupe took to the Twitterz this week, genuinely baffled about whether his life long crusade for the truth was helped or hindered by running a bit of scruff on page three of his tabloids.

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Insanely big-ass iPhone future is already here

Liquid Light Raises $15 Million To Convert Carbon Emissions To Chemicals

In the year 2013, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere particularly carbon dioxide increased at its fastest rate in 30 years. According to the World Meterological Association, concentrations of CO2 have reached new highs higher, in fact, than theyve ever been since humans first evolved. That continued increase of CO2 emissions is, in turn, a major contributor to climate change and ocean acidification.

The problems of carbon dioxide emissions and the resulting climate change are too big to have one solution. Theyll require multiple solutions from business, government, and other institutions.

Liquid Light, a New Jersey-based startup, believes it has one of those solutions. The company announced today that it has raised $15 million in series B financing to take their chemical process to an industrial scale. That process? Theyre turning carbon dioxide emissions from industry into commercially useful chemicals like the precursors used to create the plastic in your soda bottle.

A very basic overview of Liquid Lights process. (Credit: Liquid Light)

Most industrial organic chemicals, like those used in plastics, are composed of just three atoms in different combinations: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Liquid Lights process uses CO2 as the base of its chemical synthesis, along with different co-feedstocks of other chemicals which can include the waste products of other industrial processes.

Of course, that chemistry isnt new plenty of scientists are working on ways to reuse carbon dioxide. What differentiates Liquid Lights product involves both reducing the amount of energy needed for the process by the use of its catalysts and utilizing cheap waste CO2 from industrial processes rather than more expensive sources of chemicals used for industrial organic chemistry such as corn or oil. Those combine to make the process extremely cost-efficient. So far, their methods have been validated in the lab, and a research team at Princeton University confirmed it in a paper published in July.

With the new investment money coming from investors such as Sustainable Conversion Ventures, VantagePoint Capital Partners, BP Ventures, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, and Osage University Partners, the company hopes to scale up their process to validate results on a larger level, both in terms of the process itself and the plastics that result. If theyre successful, that information can be used to produce tons of organic chemicals per day at the plant level.

Although the process can be used to create different organic chemicals, Liquid Light is setting its sights on just one for right now the production of ethylene glycol. Ethylene glycol is used as the base material for the production of polyester, plastic bottles, and other products. The company estimates that the size of that market is about $87 billion.

If theyre successful at scaling up, Liquid Light could become a serious contender in its industry. The company claims that its carbon feedstock cost to make a ton of ethylene glycol could be around 20% of the cost of more traditional methods. If that holds, they could be profitable pretty quickly while at the same time providing a potential solution to help prevent the worst predicted effects of climate change.

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Liquid Light Raises $15 Million To Convert Carbon Emissions To Chemicals

Bridges To Freedom: WWII Veterans Panel Discussion, Part 2 of 3 – Video


Bridges To Freedom: WWII Veterans Panel Discussion, Part 2 of 3
Part 2 of 3: Of the 16 million Americans who served during WWII, it is estimated that only a million are still alive today. With the current death rate of approximately 555 a day, soon there...

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We will not allow anyone to play havoc with media freedom – Prakash Javadekar ( 11 – 09 -2014 ) – Video


We will not allow anyone to play havoc with media freedom - Prakash Javadekar ( 11 - 09 -2014 )
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Total Freedom Randomness Season 2 Episode 13 – Out of things to say – Video


Total Freedom Randomness Season 2 Episode 13 - Out of things to say
In this episode, I believe I was out of topics to say, mainly because I was doing stuff so yeah. I did attempt it, but I don #39;t think it is as great of a video as I could do. Intro Music: "Ouroboro...

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Total Freedom Randomness Season 2 Episode 13 - Out of things to say - Video