Astronomers use artificial intelligence to reveal the true shape of universe – WION

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The universe comes off as a vast and immeasurable entity whose depths are imperceptible to Earthlings. But in the pursuit of simplifying all that surrounds us, scientists have made great strides in understanding the space we inhabit.

Now, Japanese astronomers have developed an astounding technique to measure the universe. Using artificial intelligence, scientists were able to remove noise in astronomical data which iscaused by random variations in the shapes of galaxies.

What did the scientists do?

Scientists used supercomputer simulations and tested large mock data before performing the same on real data from space. After extensive testing, scientists used the tool on data derived from Japans Subaru Telescope.

To their surprise, it worked! The results that followed remained largely in sync withthe currently accepted models of the universe. If employed on a bigger scale, the tool could help scientists analyse expansive data from astronomical surveys.

Current methods cannot effectively get rid of the noise which pervades all data from space. To avoid interference from noise data, the team used the worlds most advanced astronomy supercomputer called ATERUI II.

Using real data from the Subaru Telescope, they generated 25,000 mock galaxy catalogues.

Also read:Explosion on Sun equivalent to millions of hydrogen bombs causes biggest solar flare in 4 years

What's causing data distortion?

All data from space can be distorted by the gravity of whats in the foreground eclipsing its background. This is called gravitational lensing. Measurements of such lensing is used to better understand the universe. Essentially, a galaxy directly visible to us could be manipulating data about what lies behind it.

But its difficult to differentiate oddly-looking galaxies from distorting ones that manipulate data. Its called shape noise and regularly gets in the way of understanding the universe.

Based on these understandings, scientists added noise to the artificial data sets and trained AI to recover lensing data from the mock data. The AI was able to highlight previously unobservable details from this data.

Building on this, scientists used the AI model on the real world, covering 21 square degrees of the sky. They found that the details registered about the foreground were actually consistent with existing knowledge about the cosmos.

Also read:'Orphan cloud' bigger than Milky Way found in 'no-galaxy's land' by scientists

The research was published in the April issueof Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Astronomers use artificial intelligence to reveal the true shape of universe - WION

A History of Regular Expressions and Artificial Intelligence – kottke.org – kottke.org

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I have an unusually good memory, especially for symbols, words, and text, but since I dont use regular expressions (ahem) regularly, theyre one of those parts of computer programming and HTML/EPUB editing that I find myself relearning over and over each time I need it. How did something this arcane but powerful even get started? Naturally, its creators were trying to discover (or model) artificial intelligence.

Thats the crux of this short history of regex by Buzz Andersen over at Why is this interesting?

The term itself originated with mathematician Stephen Kleene. In 1943, neuroscientist Warren McCulloch and logician Walter Pitts had just described the first mathematical model of an artificial neuron, and Kleene, who specialized in theories of computation, wanted to investigate what networks of these artificial neurons could, well, theoretically compute.

In a 1951 paper for the RAND Corporation, Kleene reasoned about the types of patterns neural networks were able to detect by applying them to very simple toy languagesso-called regular languages. For example: given a language whose grammar allows only the letters A and B, is there a neural network that can detect whether an arbitrary string of letters is valid within the A/B grammar or not? Kleene developed an algebraic notation for encapsulating these regular grammars (for example, a*b* in the case of our A/B language), and the regular expression was born.

Kleenes work was later expanded upon by such luminaries as linguist Noam Chomsky and AI researcher Marvin Minsky, who formally established the relationship between regular expressions, neural networks, and a class of theoretical computing abstraction called finite state machines.

This whole line of inquiry soon falls apart, for reasons both structural and interpersonal: Pitts, McCullough, and Jerome Lettvin (another early AI researcher) have a big falling out with Norbert Wiener (of cybernetics fame), Minsky writes a book (Perceptrons) that throws cold water on the whole simple neural network as model of the human mind thing, and Pitts drinks himself to death. Minsky later gets mixed up with Jeffrey Epsteins philanthropy/sex trafficking ring. The world of early theoretical AI is just weird.

But! Ken Thompson, one of the creators of UNIX at Bell Labs comes along and starts using regexes for text editor searches in 1968. And renewed takes on neural networks come along in the 21st century that give some of that older research new life for machine learning and other algorithms. So, until Skynet/global warming kills us all, it all kind of works out? At least, intellectually speaking.

(Via Jim Ray)

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Response to UK Government’s gene editing consultation – The Pig Site

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The Roslin Institute has responded to the UK Governments public consultation on the regulation of gene-editing technologies.

Our response is focused on our experience of fundamental and applied research using gene editing, and its potential applications to improve livestock and aquaculture production and sustainability.

Selective breeding practices have significantly improved the productivity of farmed animals, particularly in the past century, reducing the feed required per animal and consequently the carbon footprint of each animal raised.

Modern selective breeding programs are both effective and sustainable, and their applications have been expanded to include a focus on improving animal welfare.

However, some characteristics of farmed animals are not easily improved by genetic selection. Gene-editing technologies offer new opportunities to improve traits of relevance to sustainable farmed animal production, including improving animal health and welfare, and reducing environmental impact.

These new technologies have the advantages of being specific by introducing a single, planned genetic change, with reduced potential for unplanned negative effects compared to other genetic engineering technologies.

A major challenge for conventional breeding is genetic improvement for disease resistance, an important target for improving animal welfare and reducing environmental impact.

Roslin research has a major focus on using our knowledge of the fundamental biological mechanisms in major infectious diseases of farmed animals to make precise, specific genetic changes that block or otherwise mitigate infection.

This can be achieved by using gene-editing technologies, as we have shown by the production of pigs that are genetically fully resistant to infection by porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus.

These pigs have a very small genetic change, are healthy, and cannot be infected by PRRS virus.

Our response outlines our reasons for proposing that gene-editing applications in animal breeding should not fall under genetically modified organism (GMO) regulations.

We recommend that any new regulations are proportionate, assess the outcomes of the genetic change in terms of animal welfare and any potential environmental impacts, but are not driven by the use of gene editing technology itself.

The Roslin Institute is in Scotland, where regulatory changes on gene editing introduced by the UK Government may not be implemented.

There is substantial industry and academic research and development into the application of gene editing, for example, to improve sustainable aquaculture production, a major Scottish industry, and we hope to discuss these opportunities further with the Scottish Government.

"Gene-editing technology offers the potential to efficiently enable beneficial changes in DNA. Within animal agriculture, genetic engineering technologies hold great potential in mitigating disease, improving the welfare and productivity of animals, and addressing a demand for animal products driven by population growth and climate change," said Professor Bruce Whitelaw, the chair of Animal Biotechnology at the Roslin Institute.

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Genetic Engineering to save humans on Earth and beyond: Gene-editing experimented the first time on Intern … – The Indian Wire

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For all the things we have and have not done in space, a few will be making rounds in our mind. Sending the weird stuff off on our satellites or flying the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, we have our complete list of exciting things done in Space.

But here is yet another thrilling experience: Gene-editing in Space using CRISPR gene editing tool.

Researchers aboard ISS have undertaken such strenuous task in space on yeast to understand how radiation affects Astronauts in space and how can it be seemingly mitigated to help the ones away from their home planet.

Genome editing is a technique used to alter the DNA of any being that can offer a set of chromosomes to be tweaked including plants, bacteria, animals and even food.

The main motive of editing in DNA results in changes in even the physical traits such as iris color or disease risk.

First such technology was established in late 1900s and CRISPR got invented in 2009 and since then, has been used extensively because it is simpler, faster, cheaper and more accurate than any other editors.

CRISPRs (clusters of regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) are actually specific stretches of DNA.

Genes in DNA code for a specific protein. The protein Cas9 coding for an enzyme, acts like a pair of molecular scissors that is capable of cutting strands of DNA to perform editing.

This mechanism has been simulated after learning from bacteria and archaea those chop up and destroy the DNA of a foreign invader to survive.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went for the development of a method for genome editing, which is totally being loved by the entire world, for who does not want a world full of things as desired.

For an in-built safety assurance, Cas9 doesnt just cut anywhere in a genome. Short specific DNA sequences known as PAMs (protospacer adjacent motifs) serve as tags and sit adjacent to the target DNA sequence. No PAM, no cut.

Operationally, you design a stretch of 20 [nucleotide] base pairs that match a gene that you want to edit. Then the RNA plus the protein [Cas9] will cut like a pair of scissors the DNA at that site, and ideally nowhere else, explains a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.

Human health: This technology can serve the best in correcting genetic defects.

An assistant professor of biology, neuroscience and physiology at New York University told: I think the public perception of CRISPR is very focused on the idea of using gene editing clinically to cure disease.

Up-building Food Security:

Food and agricultural industries can offer more as a playfield to engineer probiotic cultures and vaccinate industrial cultures/inoculums against viruses.

Genes of a crop are altered or modified to improve yield, drought or pest tolerance and increase nutritional properties such as GM cotton, Bt Brinjal etc.

Selector of Inheritance: Gene drives can be created, to select a set of characteristics only to be transferred from parent to next progeny. E.g., Designer babies.

It can even help in preventing the inheritance of a disease trait or blood-related disorders such as hemophilia, sickle cell anemia, and Beta Thalassemia.

Or perhaps to eradicate human problems. Genetic alteration, once introduced, may over the course of generations, spread through entire populations and increase the chances of a particular trait passing on from parent to offspring.

For example: sterility introduced in Anopheles gambiaemosquitoes, that causes Malaria.

Gene-editing applications seem to have opened new avenues to economic prosperity but it has certain ethical concerns.

Bioethicists fear that this technology may just become another tool for selling commodities or maybe misused by governments and the private sector.

The scope of this tech is still limited in India, confined to the very doors of research labs. Not even, all genetically modified crops can be released in India for cultivation without appropriate approval from GEAC (under the MOEFCC).

CRISPR technology is erasing barriers to genome editing and could revolutionize plant breeding.

Since these crops are created with their DNA tweaked, they can exhibit certain additional changes which can turn unwanted for people and society in general.

Because there are limits to our knowledge of human genetics, gene-environment interactions, and the pathways of disease (including the interplay between one disease and other conditions or diseases in the same patient).

India is yet to release a comprehensive gene editing policy. India can tailor this risky-yet-helpful tool to its own requirements and can look forward to provision of affordable healthcare to its people.

Everything comes with pros and cons. Similarly, Genome editing has its own set of challenges yet to be addressed fully. But if exploited can help save the planet in the long run.

With increasing Climate change and want of greater resilience or sustainability, from droughts, inundation, increased salinity, water scarcity or increased temperatures, such techniques can open big ways.

To feed our Net-zero targets, countries can even look to this sort of editing to produce low-emission varieties of organisms. For instance, livestock is responsible for most of the Methane emissionsworldwide.

To overcome such a loss to the planet, the varieties of grass easier for cows to digest, can be designed, for reducing emissions generated by digestion of such animals and simultaneously boosting milk production.

In the UN decade of Ecosystem Restoration 2021-30, restoring soil health and productivity shall be our top-most concern. For this, the unbated use of nitrogen-based fertilizers (NPK) shall stop.

Genetically enhancing the fixation or intake of required nutrientsby the microbes can be dealt with using editing.

Recently, seaweedhas managed to double its lipid production which is a huge achievement, using the very tool we are talking of.

Such Environmental bioengineering can even be used to heal the ailing bioindicators like Coral that are being lost due to bleaching.

Australian scientists (The great Barrier reef in Australia already under threat)have proposed using CRISPRto play with the genome of local varieties of these symbiotic algae to ramp-up its resistance to higher temperatures.

Thus, when difficulties surround Humans, we tend to become very demanding and are looking for probable options to survive. Technology can rescue us from our own deeds as we reap what we have sown for our own benefits put ahead.

CRISPR tool was used to inflict the yeast in Space with a particular type of cut called a double-strand break, an injury much similarly given by the cosmic rays, and can be particularly harmful.

The change for healing the damage could be visible because of the red-coloured stain given by the editing sequence within next six days of the experiment.

The editing worked providing thefirst steps for developing a way to repair the injured DNA of astronauts while in space as it becomes difficult to keep them healthy and safe while away from Earth.

Its not just that the team successfully deployed novel technologies like CRISPR genome editing, PCR, and nanopore sequencing in an extreme environment, but also that we were able to integrate them into a functionally complete biotechnology workflow applicable to the study of DNA repair and other fundamental cellular processes in microgravity.

These developments fill this team with hope in humanitys renewed quest to explore and inhabit the vast expanse of space, tells the senior author of the study.

Insights gained from this experiment can help researchers know how one can safely navigate future space-based activity.

Accordingly, the Life support systems or required protective gear can be made to shield the human body from long-term radiation exposure and consequent genetic damage.

Thus, this cutting-edge cross-terrestrial genomics can explore ways to help Humankind in this planet and beyond.

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Genetic Engineering to save humans on Earth and beyond: Gene-editing experimented the first time on Intern ... - The Indian Wire

Expert in genetic engineering key | Rosario at the National Academy of Sciences in the United States – East Africa News Post

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Luciano Marraffini, a Bachelor of Biotechnology graduate from Rosario National University, was incorporated into the US National Academy of Sciences in 2019 for his research on CRISPR-Cas systems, a molecular tool used to edit or correct a cells genome. He is currently Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Bacteriology at Rockefeller University in New York. Marrafini is recognized for being one of the first scientists to explain how CRISPR-Cas systems work at the molecular level. Humans get infected not only with viruses, but also with bacteria. To defend themselves, they make their own immune system and this is one of them. Bacteria contain enzymes called nucleases, which have the ability to penetrate the genetic material of the virus entering the cell. Marraffini commented that its a very straightforward way to defend itself and once the virus has inserted its genetic material into the bacteria, it uses CRISPR-Cas to cut them and thus end the infection.

In 2006 he began investigating how this system works in bacteria and built his PosDoc based on this curiosity. The reason Ive been studying CRISPR-Cas for 15 years is because its not just an immune system, its a collection of different immune systems, so theres always a new device to study. Also, during that time, CRISPR-Cas gained more international fame because these The systems can be transferred and placed in human cells, performing what is called gene editing. It has become a genetic engineering tool like no other, because it is very easy to use and this has given it great interest in the scientific community.

A long way

Marraffini entered my BA in Biotechnology in 1993 and earned it in 1998. My memories of my time at university are all good. What I stay with the most are friends who were one of them at the time and I am still in with. I also met my wife, so it was Something that stands out to me a lot.

The researcher stressed that a bachelors degree in biotechnology was very demanding but at the same time very complete. I remember the early years, the workload was huge. We spent a lot of time in college, we were almost all day. The intensity of the program made us learn a lot, something I appreciated over time. It is simpler and more interesting, because in the beginning the contents were more focused on mathematics and physics , and as the course materials went through, the details of the degree were accessed, he recalls.

After completing his undergraduate studies, he chose to travel to Chicago to further his professional development. At that time, I had the possibility of going to study at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) which has laboratories in Heidelberg, Germany. I went for an interview, but did not speak the language, I thought it would be difficult to live there. In return, I received some offers From different universities in the US, and although I had never been to the country, it seemed to me that it would be the most suitable.It was a decision I made with the logic of a 25-year-old boy, without thinking about what I did, once I chose the country, I headed towards the University of Chicago Because of her academic career and also because of the presence of an Argentine professor with whom I was able to establish a dialogue through Diego de Mendoza, Professor at the United Nations School of Biochemistry.

Once this trip was completed, the biotech scientist in that city went on to do his postdoc. Finally, in 2010, he joined Rockefeller University to further study CRISPR-Cas immunity.

Marrafini joined the American Academy of Microbiology in 2017 and has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2019. Its a great honor, especially since Im relatively young to enter the Academy of Sciences. Its really a recognition of the work that Ive come from. It has had such an impact. It serves to validate what one does in the present and what is expected in the future, I would have never imagined that at this age I would have such a distinction.

dream come true

The professor at Rockefeller University stated that he had always had a great curiosity about science from those first readings in a very interesting journal. I had it every month and read it carefully. I always had an innate science orientation and when I finished high school I decided to get a B.Sc in Biotechnology, because it was really what I wanted to do. So not everyone surprises me the way. I traveled because since I was young I knew that this What I loved.

Changing countries is always a challenge, especially for a young man who is pursuing his dream. Its a big change but eventually youll get used to everything, said Maravini, who has lived in the country under Joe Biden for more than 20 years. However, there are things that cannot be provided. Im a huge fan of Newells Old Boys, and I really miss going to the stadium. Its something you definitely cant do here.

The biotechnologist admitted that although he was not an expert in the use of English, his bachelors degree helped encourage him to take on this challenge abroad. For the past few years, almost all subjects have been in English, so reading papers and books for faculty has helped me a lot. I think science has the advantage that, even if you dont have perfect English proficiency, it can be associated with different words and concepts, facilitating all Thing

The path is not simple, but it is full of questions and setbacks. Being a researcher is hard, but it is like any passion: if there is something you want to do, you have to put your energy into it, not to get prizes or publications in important journals, but to enjoy every moment. 90 percent of experiments dont work for a reason. What, but thats part of enjoying science as well, you always have to keep up front that youre doing what you want.

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Expert in genetic engineering key | Rosario at the National Academy of Sciences in the United States - East Africa News Post

Engineer your career – The Hindu

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are two of the fastest-growing technologies pervading all sectors. From automated cars to chatbots, mobile phones, and other electronic devices, they have numerous applications. Consequently, the demand for AI and ML engineers with specific skills is growing rapidly. Certain technical and non-technical skills are common for both AI and ML engineers:

Technical skills

Programming languages: A strong grasp of programming languages such as Python, Java, R, and C++ is vital. These are easy to learn and tend to have a wider scope. Python, in fact, is considered the lingua franca of ML.

Linear algebra, Calculus, Statistics: One must have a thorough understanding of concepts such as Matrices, Vectors, Derivatives, and Integrals and a firm grasp of statistical concepts such as Mean, Standard Deviations, and Gaussian Distributions, along with probability theory for algorithms such as Naive Bayes, Gaussian Mixture Models, and Hidden Markov Models.

Signal processing techniques: AI and ML engineers must know how to solve problems using Signal Processing. Additional knowledge of Advanced Signal Processing Algorithms such as Wavelets, Shearlets, Curvelets, and Bandlets is a bonus.

Applied Maths and algorithms: Apart form being well-versed in applied Maths, knowledge of algorithm theory can help in understanding crucial subjects such as Gradient Descent, Convex Optimisation, Lagrange, Quadratic Programming, Partial Differential Equations, and Summations.

Neural network architectures: Used for coding tasks that are arduous for human effort, this has been extremely useful in areas such as translation, speech recognition, and image classification, and so on.

Non-technical skills

Communication: Explaining complex topics to people who arent from the industry requires clear communication skills. Additionally, engineers often work in teams that include non-technical personnel from sales and marketing departments. Unless they can communicate the relevance of what they are working on, it will be tough for the product to gain traction in the market.

Domain expertise: Business owners expect industry-specific solutions from these emerging technologies. Therefore, AI/ML engineers must thoroughly understand the domain they will be working in. For example, creating AI or ML solutions for a genetic engineering firm requires a basic understanding of fundamental genetic engineering concepts.

Rapid prototyping: Launching products quickly in the market is every businesss goal today. Rapid prototyping helps form different techniques to develop a scale model and allows engineers to quickly develop a prototype and test it out.

Besides these, there are a few skills that are specific to Machine Learning engineers only. They are:

Natural Language Processing (NLP): It is a fundamental part of ML, and studies how machines understand and interpret human language. There are several libraries such as Gensim and NLTK that provide the NLPS foundation and contain different functions to help computers understand our language. This is accomplished by breaking down the text according to its syntax, extracting important phrases, removing unnecessary words, and so on.

Reinforcement learning: It is the primary reason behind the sudden improvements in deep learning, and has the potential to revolutionise Robotics in the foreseeable future.

The growing demand for these technologies means that individuals who spend time learning these skills will be able to carve out a successful career.

The writer is the President Judge India (Global Delivery) at The Judge Group.

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Which Is the More Prescient Dystopia? ‘Gattaca’ or ‘Parable of the Sower’ – The Nation

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Ethan Hawke in Gattaca, left, and the cover of Octavia Butlers Parable of the Sower, right. (Getty Images)

A little less than halfway through the 1997 film Gattaca, Irene (Uma Thurman) steals a strand of hair from the desk of a coworker she knows as Jerome (Ethan Hawke), and takes it to an all-night DNA testing booth, passing a woman who is having her lips swabbed just five minutes after kissing her date. A few seconds later, the technician gives Irene her answer: Nine-point-threequite a catch. But 9.3 of what? How does her printout of amino acids translate to a scale of 1 to 10, a genetic quotient that leads the technician to think her boyfriend is a catch?1

After nearly a quarter century, Gattaca has aged disturbingly well. The New Zealand writer and director Andrew Niccol crafted a noir dystopian thriller of a society trapped by eugenic ideology and ubiquitous biometric surveillance. Those with poor GQ are deemed in-valid and condemned to a life of poverty, drudgery, and crime. But those with good GQ also measure themselves against impossible standards, believing that their DNA determines what they should be able to do, and they plunge into depression, suicidality, and self-sabotage when theyre unable to meet expectations. Today, as we charge into an age of biotechnology, the film feels especially prescient, providing a benchmark against which to compare our trajectory. Our capacity for both genetic manipulation and biometric assessment is advancing, but we have not improved our ability to hold conversations about genetics, disability, or even abstractions like the relationship between probability and outcomes. I worry that our Gattaca future is nigh.2

The hair fiber may have scored a 9.3 GQ, but it doesnt come from Hawkes character, whose real name is Vincent. Vincent is an invalid, a child conceived in the back seat of a Buick and allowed to develop as nature sees fit. Hes got a 99 percent chance of developing a heart condition, and his life expectancy is 30 years. Hes also brilliant and wants to be an astronaut, but he has no chance of passing the genetic screening for a space gig at the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. So he engages in a criminal conspiracy with the real Jerome (Jude Law). Jerome was genetically engineered to near perfection, becoming a champion swimmer and a silver medalist in the Olympics before suffering a spinal injury in a car crash. (Later we find out that Jerome, unable to tolerate being second best, had stepped in front of the car. Its the rare disability-suicide plot point that places the blame on society rather than on disability.) Jerome makes a deal to provide Vincent with hair, blood, urine, and skin samples in exchange for a portion of Vincents salary. The fraud works. Vincent becomes a navigator, but before he can launch into space, the mission director at Gattaca is murdered. A manhunt ensues, the cops find an eyelash from Vincent himself, and the movie rolls forward.3

Its a pretty good plot. Vincent has a genetically engineered younger brother, Anton, against whom the naturally conceived in-valid measures himself, a tension that plays out in adulthood. Vincent helps Irene realize that even if shes not perfect according to the charts (shes valid, but no 9.3), she can do more than she realizes. But its not the plot thats made the story endure; rather, its the films vision of the world.4

The premises of Gattaca feel real not just because its characters espouse long-held eugenic principles in the development of prenatal testing and genetic engineering technologies but because the movie pairs those ideologies with surveillance. Its one thing to have an ableist viewpoint about the value of people, another to have the technology for genetic engineering, and yet a third to build a society around the routine penetration of the body to extract blood, urine, and saliva and measure it against a universal database.5Current Issue

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The film isnt perfect. Aside from the presence of a Black geneticist and a few extras, its world is extremely white, and I dont think thats an accident. As we watch Vincent embark on his early career as a janitor, he provides narration about the times, saying, I belong to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science. Thats nonsense. Ableism and eugenics intersect with racism, classism, and other forms of discrimination. Inventing new forms of discrimination does not erase the old ones.6

Still, a single film, like a single essay, doesnt have to do everything. Make no mistake, our Gattaca future is coming; the technology cant be held back. What we must do now is work to undermine the eugenicist ideologies that will lead those technologies to cause increasingly greater harm. And thats where this movie comes in. When I talk to people about designing babies, I often get assurances that discrimination against kids like minemy son has Down syndrome and is autisticis bad, but wheres the problem in trying to create advantages, to alleviate burdens? Gattaca, however, makes the case that you cannot design your way to happiness and that trying to do so will build a world ever less freeeven for those who achieve high marks in GQ, IQ, or whatever other rubric we use to mismeasure potential.7

David M. Perry8

The events in Octavia E. Butlers 1993 novel Parable of the Sower presage this moment of mass shootings, global warming, en masse migration from California, a pandemic that throws into relief rampant structural inequities, widespread drug abuse, and a presidential candidate who campaigned on returning the country to a sense of so-called normalcy. (In the books sequel, 1998s Parable of the Talents, one politician promises to Make America Great Again.) When the novel was published, it was set 31 years in the future. The gap between the version of life Butler imagined and the one were living in is closing.9

Parable of the Sower tells the story of activist Lauren Oya Olamina, who is 15 when the book begins and lives in an increasingly destabilized Southern California with her minister father, her stepmother, and her four brothers. Like other micro-communities in their Los Angeles County town, the Olaminas and a handful of other families live behind a wall to escape looting, murder, sexual assault, drug abuse, arson, and corporate slavery. Responding to her environment, Lauren has already started to develop Earthseed, the spiritual philosophy she creates based on the notion that God is change. She lives with a condition called hyperempathy, which causes her to become ill when she vicariously experiences the suffering of others. It is perhaps this hyperempathy that makes Lauren so attuned to the impending doom around the corner (literally, for her and her compound). She seems to be the most worried person in her community and suggests that people refine their emergency preparedness for a series of catastrophic events. She reads history books to fortify herself; in a conversation with a friend, Lauren underscores the significance of the Black Death in the 14th century, saying, It took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change. Eventually her suspicions come true, and Lauren leads a band of travelers to Northern California in search of freedom, paying jobs, and affordable water.10

In a present-day America thats reeling from the toll of the pandemic, the War on Drugs, the prison-industrial complex, reproductive oppression, and weakened labor unions and that is constantly threatened by white supremacy, the cowardice of career politicians, and the avarice of the wealthy, the lessons of Parable of the Sower have practical application. The principles of Martine and Bina Aspen Rothblatts Terasem Movement (founded in 2002), which focuses on nanotechnology and cyber-consciousness, were inspired by the books Earthseed philosophy. adrienne maree browns 2017 manual Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds was also influenced by Earthseed. Since last spring, Tananarive Due and Monica Coleman have hosted a series of webinars called Octavia Tried to Tell Us: Parable for Todays Pandemic, in which Butler scholars explore the context and imaginative implications of the books predictions. In an October 2020 interview in The Believer, writer and housing attorney Rasheedah Phillips advised people interested in envisioning survival to start with Butler. She is the person who prepared me, to the extent that I am prepared for this, Phillips said.11

Yet it is not only because of its pragmatism that Parable of the Sower should be considered the more prescient dystopia; it also ingeniously foresaw movements in todays culture to recenter marginalized groups, including young Black girls and women; Indigenous communities, whose botanical and nutritional insights are crucial to the survival of Lauren and her band; and youth, of which the Earthseed collective is mainly composed. Lauren is a fictional forerunner to courageous young people like Darnella Frazier, X Gonzlez, Greta Thunberg, and the late Erica Garner.12

Perhaps the biggest indication of Parable of the Sowers foresight is its understanding that as powerful as empathy is, its not enough (Namwali Serpells New York Review of Books essay The Banality of Empathy is also useful in articulating this idea). When Laurens lover suggests that it might benefit society if most people had her hyperempathy, Lauren calls the notion a bad idea. You must know how disabling real pain can be, she insists. Just as hyperempathy is not enough to save Lauren, it wont be enough to save us. Empathy takes courage, compassion, and an interest in alterity, and many people in her world and ours lack those qualities. But art, at least, can prompt us to think critically. Like empathy, critical thinking requires compassion and a desire to move past pretense toward truth.13

Here again, Parable of the Sower is telling. Use your imagination, Lauren tells a friend. Any kind of survival information from encyclopedias, biographies, anything that helps you learn to live off the land and defend ourselves. Even some fiction might be useful. And the novel has been. But as Lauren learns, reading is only the first step. Explaining her impetus to move beyond studying, Lauren tells someone from her old neighborhood, I thought something would happen someday. I didnt know how bad it would be or when it would come. But everything was getting worse: the climate, the economy, crime, drugs, you know. Yeah, I do knowand all of that requires thoughtful action now.14

Niela Orr15

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Which Is the More Prescient Dystopia? 'Gattaca' or 'Parable of the Sower' - The Nation

OPINION EXCHANGE | We must be better than the politics of bullying – Minneapolis Star Tribune

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We have seen government buildings invaded, public officials held hostage, local leaders harassed in their homes, and speakers and professors hounded off campuses, and now more of this has been promised.

Americans are better than this! We are blessed with a political tradition stretching back 800 years, enshrining unprecedented power and rights for the people and showing us how they should be exercised the Magna Carta, the indictment of Charles I, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

When an established political system proves rigid and unresponsive, we have shining models of how to challenge it Mahatma Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela. It is turning up the volume of demands for justice without intimidation that produces seemingly impossible results.

But no license to bully people is found in this treasure trove of wisdom. In fact, the bullies always turn out to be wrong Hitler's Brown Shirts, Mao's Red Guards, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the Ku Klux Klan. Their fatal flaw is that the very nature of bullying forecloses the opportunity to see one's own errors.

We are now struggling to accomplish things no community has ever done before to establish a truly pluralistic society with genuine justice for all, distribute abundant resources to meet everyone's basic needs, and empower all people. Even if these lofty goals are not in dispute, we have little idea of what the details of these aspirations should look like, much less how to attain them.

The challenges we need to work out together are only going to grow more intense. How do we preserve individual autonomy in the face of artificial intelligence that can often make better decisions for us than we can ourselves? How do we manage the biotech and genetic engineering techniques that will soon make possible the creation of superhumans?

Our only hope is to trust in the slow, deliberative, pluralistic processes that stumble along toward results that satisfy no one, but eventually surpass the accomplishments of true believers. That is democracy.

The simple fact is that we are just not smart enough to be bullies. No one person or group has the capacity to see the whole picture. No one knows the whole truth.

Consider just two of our shortcomings. Our minds are engineered to believe what people say you could not live in a community if you had to fact check everything someone said to you. But today our minds are the targets of innumerable information peddlers who exploit our innate naivet to accumulate power or profit.

Moreover, evolution has equipped our minds with strong filters. If you are crossing a field, you won't even see the beautiful flowers if a bear comes out of the woods. And faced with an unmanageable barrage of factual claims, we tend to ignore what doesn't fit into what we already believe to be true. Of course, the internet always will serve up compelling confirmation for whatever gets into our heads.

Isn't this an age for healthy humility rather than self-righteousness?

I have spent my career in the legal system, which of course is a prime example of a system carefully constructed to minimize the distortions caused by individual cognitive limitations. All parties get a chance to present their points of view, using only reliable evidence. Judges take time to work out complex decisions in writing. Appellate judges sitting in groups review the work of trial courts.

The wisdom of such a system is clear to those of us in it. Most of us have been burned at some point by issuing a wrong order in one of those rare situations where all sides of a question do not get fully considered. Despite all the safeguards, all the good judges I know constantly wonder whether they have done the right thing.

Do bullies ever take time to wonder? Do they make sure they have carefully considered all sides of an issue? Do they consider why, in most societies throughout history, two political orientations have persisted?

I keep seeing an analogy from quantum physics. In the world of very small objects, light changes from waves to particles when it is measured, electrons jump from one orbit to another without traveling through the space in between and subatomic particles called fermions have to rotate twice before they come back to the same place. Scientists cannot form a mental picture of such strange objects because our mental machinery was evolved in the macro world where nothing behaves like that.

Naturally, physicists developed opposing views about the true nature of this alien world. Yet the brilliant spokespersons for the two camps, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, engaged in respectful dialogue with each other for decades trying to understand and persuade each other.

Do we owe each other any less in the strange new world we are trying to manage? We are climbing a steep mountain path on a stormy night with a weak flashlight. It would be good to link hands.

Abraham Lincoln, who presumably had somewhat greater claim to moral certainty than we do, nonetheless advised a humble search for truth: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right "

Bruce Peterson is a senior district judge and teaches a class on lawyers as peacemakers at the University of Minnesota Law School.

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OPINION EXCHANGE | We must be better than the politics of bullying - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Genetically-Modified Stem Cell in Regenerative Medicine and Cancer Therapy; A New Era – DocWire News

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This article was originally published here

Curr Gene Ther. 2021 Jul 7. doi: 10.2174/1566523221666210707125342. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Recently, genetic engineering by various strategies to stimulate gene expression in a specific and controllable mode is a speedily growing therapeutic approach. Genetic modification of human stem or progenitor cells, such as embryonic stem cells (ESCs), neural progenitor cells (NPCs), mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs), and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) for direct delivery of specific therapeutic molecules or genes has been evidenced as an opportune plan in the context of regenerative medicine due to their supported viability, proliferative features, and metabolic qualities. On the other hand, a large number of studies have investigated the efficacy of modified stem cells in cancer therapy using cells from various sources, disparate transfection means for gene delivery, different transfected yields, and wide variability of tumor models. Accordingly, cell-based gene therapy holds substantial aptitude for the treatment of human malignancy as it could relieve signs or even cure cancer succeeding expression of therapeutic or suicide transgene products; however, there exist inconsistent results in this regard. Herein, we deliver a brief overview of stem cell potential to use in cancer therapy and regenerative medicine and importantly discuss stem cells based gene delivery competencies to stimulate tissue repair and replacement in concomitant with their potential to use as an anti-cancer therapeutic strategy, focusing on the last two decades in vivo studies.

PMID:34238158 | DOI:10.2174/1566523221666210707125342

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Genetically-Modified Stem Cell in Regenerative Medicine and Cancer Therapy; A New Era - DocWire News

What is gain of function research in genetics? – Cosmos Magazine

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Its the rumour that wont go away that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally leaked from a high biosecurity lab in Wuhan, China. The allegation is that the laboratory was conducting gain of function (GOF) research, and that this produced a potent version of coronavirus that led to the pandemic.

This has led to some scepticism and distrust of the field of research and whether it is necessary to conduct experiments using GOF techniques.

Essentially, GOF research is used to learn how viruses gain new functions through mutation and evolution.

A function is simply a property of an organism, such as plants that are more tolerant to drought or disease, or enzymes that evolved to make our bodies work.

The language about GOF has become loaded with negative connotations that associate this work with dangerous or risky research. But like rhetoric about genetic modification, these connections dont represent the diversity of the field or the security precautions that regulate the research. At its core, though, the research does exactly what the name suggests.

GOF research observes these mutations and sees how certain stimuli might affect evolutionary changes and properties of a virus or organism.

However, in our current climate its often spoken about in a much narrower context, as though its specifically about how a virus changes to move more easily between humans, or how viruses become more lethal. This just doesnt represent the full picture of GOF research.

Viruses evolve rapidly thats why there are so many new SARS-CoV-2 variants. GOF seeks to understand why and how these changes occur, and what environmental factors might influence the process.

In a sense, this is a know-your-enemy approach.

Beyond the benefit to fundamental biology research about the nature of viruses and evolution, GOF contributes to three clear areas: pandemic preparedness, vaccine development, and identification of new or potential pathogens.

GOF research can help us understand the rate at which mutations occur, and how many generations may be needed for a virus to change in a way that will require extra precautions in the community, which is information that is fed into epidemiological modelling.

This GOF information helps predict things such as how likely a virus is to become a nasty variant in a certain population size or density, during a certain season, or within a particular period or time. This informs how we react to a pandemic. Beyond this, it also informs how quickly a virus might mutate to overcome vaccines, and provides genetic information that may be useful in vaccine development. Specifically, GOF research can accumulate potential vaccine candidates in a database that can be accessed if an outbreak occurs because of natural evolution.

In turn, this means vaccine development can be sped up exponentially because candidates are already available.

For instance, a report from a 2015 GOF risk-assessment workshop for expert organisations revealed the genomics information from GOF research. This showed that bat-borne, SARS-like coronaviruses had many strains and mutations that had pandemic potential against which countermeasures need to be developed.

This information led to current pandemic responses and vaccine development the pandemic was already predicted because of a thorough understanding of the evolution of coronaviruses.

In another example, GOF experiments about influenza showed that the virus had the potential to be transmitted between different mammals with only a few changes to the genetic code, and has contributed to seasonal flu vaccines.

GOF research is based on observed evolution and changes to DNA or RNA.

The genome is the sum of all the genetic information in an organism. Some of this DNA or RNA is made up of genes, which often hold information on how to make a protein. These proteins perform functions in our body to make everything work.

These genes can naturally change a bit every generation. This happens because, to reproduce, the DNA of the parent must be replicated. The mechanisms that do this arent perfect, so little mistakes can be made when the DNA is copied.

Most of the time, the changes are tiny just a single unit of DNA (called a nucleotide) could be changed, and it may have no effect on the proteins made. At other times, the tiny change of a single nucleotide can make a gene gain a whole new function, which could be beneficial to an organism.

Natural mutations that occur during reproduction are one example of evolution in action.

These changes happen every generation, so organisms that can breed quickly, such as flies, can also evolve quickly as a species.

This process happens in essentially the same way with viruses, except that viruses have RNA instead of DNA and reproduce asexually. They still make proteins, and they still accumulate mutations, but the major difference is that they can reproduce very, very fast they can start reproducing within hours of being born and evolve at an exceptionally rapid rate.

This is why we have identified so many new variants of SARS-CoV-2 since the beginning of 2020. Every time the virus enters a new host, it reproduces rapidly, and mutations occur. Over time these mutations change the properties of the virus itself.

For example, new mutations may end up making the virus more virulent or cause worse symptoms because the proteins have changed their properties.

In these cases, we would say that the mutant strain has gained a function, and this is what GOF research aims to understand.

The viruses in a lab dont have a human host in which to grow, so researchers grow them in Petri dishes or animals instead.

There are two ways of using GOF in a lab: you can observe the virus mutate on its own (without intervention), or you can control small changes through genetic modification.

The first type of use involves putting the virus in different situations to see how it will evolve without intervention or aid.

This video is an example of GOF research with bacteria (not a virus, but the method is similar). The researchers put bacteria onto a giant petri dish with different concentrations of antibiotics. They leave the bacteria and watch how it naturally evolves to overcome the antibiotic.

The new strains of bacteria were able to be genetically sequenced to see what genetic changes had caused them to become antibiotic-resistant. This experiment can show how quickly the bacteria evolve, which can inform when or how often antibiotics are given, and whether there is a high-enough concentration of antibiotic that can halt the speed at which the antibiotic is overcome by resistance.

Similar experiments can be conducted with viruses to see how they might change to overcome human antibodies and other immune system protections.

Read more: What happens in a virology lab?

The second type of use is through small changes using genetic modification. This type of experiment occurs after a lot of other genetic information has already been gathered to identify which nucleotides in virus RNA might particularly contribute to a new function.

After these have been identified, a single or small nucleotide change will be made to the virus to confirm the predictions gained from genomic research. The modified virus will then be placed on a petri dish or inserted into an animal, such as a rabbit or a mouse, to see how the change affects the properties of the virus.

This type of research is done in specialised laboratories that are tightly controlled and heavily regulated under biosecurity laws that involve containment and decontamination processes.

Read more: How are dangerous viruses contained in Australia?

While the benefits of virus GOF research centre around pandemic preparedness, concerns have been raised about whether the research is ethical or safe.

In 2005, researchers used this technique for viruses when they reconstructed influenza (H1N1) from samples taken in 1918. The aim was to learn more about the properties of influenza and future pandemics, as influenza still circulates, but the controversial study sparked heavy debate about whether it should be acceptable.

The two major concerns are about whether this poses any threat to public health if a virus escapes the lab, or whether the techniques could be used for nefarious purposes.

In the past year, 16 years after the H1N1 study, there has been debate about whether SARS-CoV-2 had spontaneous zoonotic origins, or whether it was created in a lab in GOF experiments, and then escaped.

So now, 16 years after the first controversial H1N1 study, this speculation has pushed GOF research back into the public eye and led to many criticisms of the research field, and regulation of laboratories that use this technique.

In 2017, the US government lifted bans on GOF pathogen research after the National Institute of Health concluded that the risks of research into influenza and MERS were outweighed by the benefits, and that few posed significant threats to public health.

Following concerns about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, however, the rules surrounding GOF research, risk assessments and disclosure of experiments are now under review again, in order to clarify policy.

Read more: The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and dont know

Beyond this, the speculation has sparked further inquiries into the origin of SARS-CoV-2, although the World Health Organization concluded that viral escape from a laboratory was very unlikely.

Regardless, its never a bad thing to review biosafety, biosecurity and transparency policy as new evidence becomes available, and they have been frequently reviewed throughout history.

As for the concern that a government or private entity might abuse scientific techniques for malevolent purposes, scientists can, and do, support bans on research they deem ethically irresponsible, such as the controversial CRISPR babies.

Ultimately, the parameters around how scientific techniques like GOF are used and by whom is not a scientific question, but one that must be answered by ethicists.

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What is gain of function research in genetics? - Cosmos Magazine

‘If we can control the light, we can control the DNA’ Provectus Algae unlocks algae’s potential as an industrial platform for high-value ingredients -…

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We've got potentially about 200,000 algae species that we know of on planet Earth - we don't even think we've scratched the surface yet - and out of those, only about 20,000 have been characterized, and from these, only about 15 have been grown commercially at any scale, Provectus Algae founder and CEO Nusqe Spanton told FoodNavigator-USA.

And the reason is because algae is extremely particular about the light which it absorbs to grow [most algae species are photosynthetic, in that they require light along with carbon dioxide and water - to produce organic compounds].

When it grows really fast, it tends to block out its own light, and the specificity of the light that's required to grow all of these algae species is vastly different. Think about the environments in which algae grows on the surface of the ocean, at 500 meters deep. And if you think about the way light is utilized in these environments, it's very different, so the vast majority of algae species we know of cannot handle natural sunlight to grow.

But more importantly, 99% of all algae species are extremely fragile, and because of that, you cant put many species in traditional production systems because you can destroy the algae cells, which has limited our ability to use algae [as a microbial host]for synthetic biology purposes, because its so hard to grow on an industrial scale without killing it.

But these are two key problems we solved early on, claimed Spanton, who is based in Queensland, Australia, but is targeting the US, Europe, and Asia. Weve got a fundamentally different industrial process for growing algae and this enables us to look at vastly different product lines and species to push through into industrial scale.

So, we don't see ourselves as a competitor to anyone [growing things like spirulina or astaxanthin in outdoor ponds, or chlorella for protein, or Schizochytriumsp forDHA omega-3s].We're a complementary platform, to deliver novel products in algae that's never been utilized commercially before.

He added: Were seeing huge interest from corporates; there's a significant move within the industry to move towards more sustainable and environmentally friendly production systems and alleviate some of the pain points associated with specialty food and beverage ingredients.

Provectus Algae has developed closed system automated bioreactors using photosynthetic algae as a platform for growing high-value compounds at extreme densities with a series of LED lights, said Spanton, a marine biotechlogist who founded the business in April 2018 after years working with large-scale aquaculture systems.

Seeing the rapid technological developments in synthetic biology; what became clear to me was that existing microbial platforms using bacteria and yeast really limit our ability to produce more complex molecules found in plants and animals.

Yeast and bacteria, he said, are simple organisms good at converting sugar into carbon dioxide and energy. So with yeast, say, youre basically starting with an empty chassis of a cell, so you have to genetically engineer the entire metabolic process inside that cell.

The beauty of using algae is that the majority of that process may already be done it already has the metabolic components to deliver those products already. Algae is what all plants and animals evolved from originally, and so its vastly different from other microbial platforms that are existing today.

He added:The advantage of using algae compared to those other [microbial expression]systems is that sometimes 90% of the genetic work is already done for us naturally by the algae, so utilizing these existing biological components to our advantage, we're able to speed up product development time, which offers a huge advantage for our customers.

He added: I realized that photosynthetic algae could be the third pillar in synthetic biology, used alongside existing platforms [yeast, bacteria]to produce more complex molecules. So were building an entire bio manufacturing platform that is turnkey for customers, providing product development all the way through to contract manufacturing.

So how does it work?

Provectus deploys a couple of approaches: the first uses algae species that naturally produce a given compound such as a pigment or fatty acid.

Here, deploying what it calls precision photosynthesis, Provectus can optimize and improve the algaes productivity by exposing it to light, which effectively alters its DNA and improves its productivity without using techniques that would be classified as genetic engineering from a regulatory perspective, said Spanton.

If we can control the light, we can control the DNA, and were able to deliver any type of light in the visible spectrum but also in the infrared and UV spectrum, manipulate the algae and push it down a metabolic pathway to vastly increase the production of a target substance naturally inside the algae."

The second approach involves using the entire synthetic biology toolkit, such as CRISPR [gene editing],insertion of genes, design and synthesis of DNA, and inserting those genes into the algae, and we can then use that to upregulate [the production of a given substance]or to produce products that aren't naturally occurring at all in the algae, he added.

We have the capability to do both naturally occurring products in novel algae species that have never been commercially grown before, and also biosynthetic products using our synthetic biology toolkit to design and engineer new algae strains for novel high performance products that don't exist today.

According to an international patent application published in April 2020,Provectus Algae has developed bioreactors for growing algae with a controller connected to sensors that monitor everything from dissolved gases (oxygen, carbon dioxide) to cell density, temperature, pH, salinity, nitrates, and cell health.

This data is then sent to a remote device such as a laptop or cellphone from which users can set the spectrum, intensity, and flickering frequency of the LED lights, and make adjustments to the inputs and growing conditions, which can be optimized via artificial intelligence.

Right now, the company has a 20,000 liter pilot facility for product development, but is building a 200,000 liter facility, said Spanton, who has raised around $3.5m to date and is currently raising additional funds. We expect to scale up very rapidly over the next two years.

The business model is designed for speed and agility, said Spanton, who is working with large ingredients suppliers and CPG companies.

Unlike companies focused on driving an individual product to market, he said, Our product is our platform; customers pay for product development through to contract manufacturing. Once we've produced a commercially viable product, we then take a small share of the revenue in a royalty agreement once thats taken to market.

Lets say you're producing plant-based burgers, and maybe you cant source enough beets from conventional farming to produce your [pink color].So companies will come to us, well identify an algae that can [produce the target color/ingredient]for their application.

If you need something vegan friendly and non GMO, we can deliver a product to those specifications. Well look for a naturally occurring algae species that can deliver the particular coloring you want, perhaps within a novel algae species, and then we can control and upregulate the process to vastly increase the production of that pigment in the algae.

Asked about IP, he said:Weve got patents on using a cloud-enabled platform to produce algae, and there's a lot of trade secrets, IP that go around that in not only the production systems, in the hardware and software that go behind it, but also in the detailed components of how to grow algae, so there's a lifetime of knowledge behind Provectus Algae as well.

Right now the company is exploring scores of ingredients from peptides to antibiotics for markets from nutraceuticals to pharma with partners in the US, Europe and Asia, but on the food side, he said, there is strong potential in high-value ingredients such as pigments, antioxidants, sweet proteins, specialty additives, and binding agents.

As for bulk protein, he said, At the moment the production metrics just aren't there, although we fully expect that over the next decade as our as our technology comes to market, products like bulk proteins for alternative proteins markets will become commercially viable.

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'If we can control the light, we can control the DNA' Provectus Algae unlocks algae's potential as an industrial platform for high-value ingredients -...

Manmade viruses being blamed on animals – The Sunday Guardian Live – The Sunday Guardian

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New Delhi: Coronavirus was first identified in 1967 in the United Kingdom and then in the United States. That same year the first pseudo-virus was created in a laboratory in the US. Until the SARS pandemic of 2002, no new human coronavirus was discovered. Bats, coronaviruses and wet markets have existed for centuries without even an epidemic. Then suddenly in the past 20 years for the first time in history we have had SARS, MERS and Covid-19 coronavirus pandemics, all blamed on bats without convincing evidence. It is well known that clandestine bio-warfare research has been going on since World War 1. Initially, these efforts focused on historically important pathogens and the influenza virus of the first flu pandemic of 1918. Historically, all pandemics and large epidemics were due to plague, cholera, typhus or smallpox. Bacteria cause the first three of these diseases and all these have been suppressed by better hygiene. Smallpox virus has become extinct thanks to worldwide vaccination. Then suddenly pandemics due to newly discovered HIV virus in 1981, Ebola virus in 2004 and coronaviruses appeared from the wild or at least that is what we were told.

In the past few years, military researchers have been busy collecting viruses from wild animals, especially bats. They have focused their energies on deadly viruses that have existed in wild animals since centuries. From prehistoric times humans have hunted, consumed, poached and used parts of exotic wild animals as in Chinese medicine. Still the first zoonotic virus pandemics were in the past few years. These recent episodes are too many to be just a coincidence. The simultaneous development of genetic engineering technology and search for deadly wild viruses by military researchers cannot be a coincidence either.

Detailed report: Zoonoses blamed for man-made pandemics

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Manmade viruses being blamed on animals - The Sunday Guardian Live - The Sunday Guardian

The World’s Tech Giants, Compared to the Size of Economies – Visual Capitalist

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Creative destruction plays a key role in entrepreneurship and economic development.

Coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942, the theory of creative destruction suggests that business cycles operate under long waves of innovation. Specifically, as markets are disrupted, key clusters of industries have outsized effects on the economy.

Take the railway industry, for example. At the turn of the 19th century, railways completely reshaped urban demographics and trade. Similarly, the internet disrupted entire industriesfrom media to retail.

The above infographic shows how innovation cycles have impacted economies since 1785, and whats next for the future.

From the first wave of textiles and water power in the industrial revolution, to the internet in the 1990s, here are the six waves of innovation and their key breakthroughs.

Source: Edelsen Institute, Detlef Reis

During the first wave of the Industrial Revolution, water power was instrumental in manufacturing paper, textiles, and iron goods. Unlike the mills of the past, full-sized dams fed turbines through complex belt systems. Advances in textiles brought the first factory, and cities expanded around them.

With the second wave, between about 1845 and 1900, came significant rail, steam, and steel advancements. The rail industry alone affected countless industries, from iron and oil to steel and copper. In turn, great railway monopolies were formed.

The emergence of electricity powering light and telephone communication through the third wave dominated the first half of the 1900s. Henry Ford introduced the Model T, and the assembly line transformed the auto industry. Automobiles became closely linked with the expansion of the American metropolis. Later, in the fourth wave, aviation revolutionized travel.

After the internet emerged by the early 1990s, barriers to information were upended. New media changed political discourse, news cycles, and communication in the fifth wave. The internet ushered in a new frontier of globalization, a borderless landscape of digital information flows.

To the economist Schumpeter, technological innovations boosted economic growth and improved living standards.

However, these disruptors can also have a tendency to lead to monopolies. Especially during a cycles upswing, the strongest players realize wide margins, establish moats, and fend off rivals. Typically, these cycles begin when the innovations become of general use.

Of course, this can be seen todaynever has the world been so closely connected. Information is more centralized than it has ever been, with Big Tech dominating global search traffic, social networks, and advertising.

Like the Big Tech behemoths of today, the rail industry had the power to control prices and push out competitors during the 19th century. At the peak, listed shares of rail companies on the New York Stock Exchange made up 60% of total stock market capitalization.

As cycle longevity continues to shorten, the fifth wave may have a few years left under its belt.

The sixth wave, marked by artificial intelligence and digitization across information of things (IoT), robotics, and drones, will likely paint an entirely new picture. Namely, the automation of systems, predictive analytics, and data processing could make an impact. In turn, physical goods and services will likely be digitized. The time to complete tasks could shift from hours to even seconds.

At the same time, clean tech could come to the forefront. At the heart of each technological innovation is solving complex problems, and climate concerns are becoming increasingly pressing. Lower costs in solar PV and wind are also predicating efficiency advantages.

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The World's Tech Giants, Compared to the Size of Economies - Visual Capitalist

Plastic and algae helping each other to make sustainable and biodegradable stuff – The Indian Wire

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Only if a human employs his imagination and technology, there is almost nothing that can trouble this race for long.

Plastic has become a nuisance for this planet since eternity: clutching marine souls, smothering lives in deep cold waters, clogging waterways and streams in hills etc.

According to a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report, nearly 3.3 million metric tonnes ofplastic wasteget generated yearly in India alone, forming approximately 9,200 tonnes aday(TPD).

Worst is when it gets broken down into microplastics due to extensive wind movement and integrates with human immediate surroundings finally polluting the Mother Nature.

Annually, 8 million tons of this plastic trash gets dumped into no-more-serene oceans, reducing its dissolved oxygen available for the flora-fauna in the marine ecosystem.

But its not just plastic thats competing for the available resource in vast waters.

When the excessive nutrients drain in the water bodies, this may lead to uncontrolled growth of algal blooms through a process called Eutrophication.

This can eventually ruin the drinking water supplies and create hypoxic dead zones in waters where nothing can survive literally, destabilizing the ecological balance in water systems and adversely affecting aquaculture.

Just like any other mishap on this human-damned planet, Climate change has a role to play in this too, accelerating the overall growth.

This can further trigger other problems, like according to anew study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, algal blooms have increased the global methane emissions by 30 to 90 percent.

Methane is more dangerous greenhouse gas it remains for long in the atmosphere and is34 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term.

Unless we put our minds and hands at work, this problem will persist and is bound to increase too.

Another study claims that with extra sewage, fertilizers, and other nutrients entering waterways entering waters by 2050, they will register an increase of 200 percent or maybe quadruple by 2100.

There are several companies those have started manufacturing articles using Bloom, a material that is a blend of polymers and algae.

According to a collaborator at Bloom: Humans are responsible for excessive amounts of nutrients like CO2, nitrogen and phosphorus leaking into our waterways, lakes and oceans leading to environmental and societal problems.

Our idea for founding BLOOM was to transform algae blooms from an environmental problem into a sustainable material that incentivizes capturing CO2 and cleaning water while reducing our use of oil and plastics.

The idea involves extracting the water saturated with algal blooms and preparing algal pellets after significant drying and reinforcing into such shapes.

These pellets are then mixed in 10-30% proportion along with the plastic pellets supplied to the manufacturers, using plastics in their end products.

Varied blending materials can be obtained from usage of algal biomass, for instance, PLA, PHA, cellulose, starch and protein.

It is to note that the mechanical properties of such microalgae-embedded plastic films were found comparable to the ones manufactured with significant environmental impact.

The principle of genetic engineering can prove to be a promising way in modifying the algae strains to synthesize compounds for bioplastics production like thermoplastics.

Through genetic engineering, alterations can be made to reduce the production cost as the bacterial fermentation system for producing PHB is costly for bioplastics manufacturing

Brands like Adidas, Dr. Scholl etc. those adopt BLOOM materials into their products are supporting lake restoration and environmental protection projects that have verifiable positive impact that end consumers can understand and embrace.

Even a single sole of a shoe produced has successfully restored and cleaned 17ltrs of water and helped clean 8gms of CO2.

Subsequently, there has been a petition filed with UNESCO for greater punishment for the pollution of water bodies worldwide.

We urge UNESCO to develop and implement a global education program work with governments to end destructive agricultural and industrial practices, especially the use of phosphates and nitrates, and start implementing proven, regenerative, nature-based solutions.

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Plastic and algae helping each other to make sustainable and biodegradable stuff - The Indian Wire

In search of perfection: a new kind of Frankensteins Monster – The Fifth Estate

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Is there anything more natural than birth? The birth of our planet. The birth of a human being. The cycle of birth, life, death forms the foundation of our being.

You might even say that God gave us a soul because the gift of immortality would be seen as overindulgence. Now science and technology are changing all that.

Throughout history, there has been a fascination to make a better human. To eliminate the fundamental flaw in the human lifecycleto overcome ageing, the cruel deterioration of ones faculties and, ultimately, death.

The ideal of replicating ourselves as something smarter, stronger, and impervious to the ravages of time is perhaps humanitys greatest unfinished ambition. To elevate ourselves from mere mortals to God status.

From a science and technology perspective, this kind of pseudo-immortality is called transhumanism: the biotechnological enhancement of humans that virtually eliminates the terminal frailties of human biology.

Transhumanists envision that we will soon haveimplants to augment our senses and enhance our cognitive processes by bonding ourselves to brain interface memory chips and other human-enhancement technologies.

In short: the merging of man and machine is becoming a reality, perhaps within the next one or two decades.

The endgame is that science and technology will create humans with hugely enhanced intelligence, superhuman strength, speed and stamina, and significantly extended lifespans.

An odd endeavour when globally, the principal driver of environmental degradation, greenhouse gas emissions and thus climate change is exponential population growth.

A far cry from Paul and Anne Ehrlichs inciteful warning in their bookThe Population Bomb(1968). In which they predicted a deteriorating natural environment, social upheaval, and mass starvation as a consequence of overpopulation hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.

Of course, this hasnt happened yet, although our planet shows signs of severe wear and tear, and starvation and malnutrition regularly occur on varying scales.

Conversely, the global fertility rate has halved since 1950 and continues to fall. Predictions suggest that the global population willpeak at 10.9 billion by 2100and go into reverse. By that time, however, things could have gone seriously awry.

Nonetheless, the quest for immortality is unwavering as it is timeless. Author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) set the cat among the pigeons with one of literatures classic allegories,Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus(1831).

Not only did Victor Frankenstein create artificial life that was void of a soula sacrilege of sorts in a time dominated by the Church but one that would not experience death.

A dramatic leap from the wooden legs, false teeth, and average life expectancy of around 35 years in seventeenth-century England.

ShelleysFrankensteinwas originally published anonymously in 1818 following the French Revolution in 1789 and the end of the Enlightenment (1685-1815).

The famed German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in his essayWhat Is Enlightenment?(1784), captured the zeitgeist of the period with the maxim Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason.

In accord with this maxim, both Mary Shelleys parents were Enlightenment philosophers, and both influenced her writing.

The tenets of the Enlightenment centred on egalitarianism a social doctrine that emphasises equality among all societys members which inspired Mary Shelleys mother, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1787), to writeVindication of the Rights of Women(1792), in which she argued that women were not naturally inferior to men.

Mary Wollstonecraft passed away soon after Mary Shelleys birth. However, the spirit of her fight for equality is reflected inFrankenstein, which is, in essence, a metaphorical retort to the philosophical and political values that beset societys progress and equality at the time.

Mary Shelleys father, William Godwin (17561836), was a political philosopher and writer. He is celebrated for his workEnquiry Concerning Political Justice(1793).

Godwin argued that government was a corrupting force in society that propagated dependency and ignorance but would gradually be rendered powerless once people became educated and human understanding expanded.

The substance of her fathers thesis parallels Mary Shellys own novel. Victor Frankensteins Monster was rejected by society and solely dependent on its creator, who likewise rejects him.

Governments foster dependency similarly by providing sustenance with one hand while oppressing with the other.

Shelley uses the themes of isolation and loneliness, rejection and oppression to mirror her societys fears and bigotry. But which also reflect modern society: the hegemonic constructs of the privileged class define the constitution of humanity and reject self-determination by individuals. Indigenous communities and other minority groups can attest to this.

Shelley moreover instils her mothers innate influence, gender inequality one of societys enduring prejudices when Frankenstein reneges on his promise to create a female companion for the Monster, denying her the right to life. Even though he had mastered the science to do so.

Far from being the smartest possible biological species, we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilization (sic) a niche we filled because we got there first, not because we are in any sense optimally adapted to it.

Nick Bostromis a theoretical physicist and philosopher at Oxford University. He believes sentient beings, the sort created via genetic engineering, molecular nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, posea greater threat to humanity than climate change.

But like everything else, Bostroms endeavour to mitigate anthropocentric stupidity is drowned out by our overwhelming obsession with technology. I mean, we cannot seem to divert our attention from it, literally!

And we all have an opinion about Artificial Intelligence (AI): succinctly defined as the systematic separation of information and knowledge from the human body-brain to some other non-human form of embodiment.

And if knowledge is power, and we can assume that it is, it need only be instantiated in some other medium to exist, thereby excluding the need for a human presence.

And a human presence is destined for redundancy. As the final phase in AIs evolution is to replicate, or displace, the consciousness of modern humans. An enterprise that will contribute nothing to the enlightenment of humanity.

One must therefore ask the question: what price are we willing to pay for perfection? Is this question significantly more complex than we can imagine? Bearing in mind that increased efficiencies in this sense is an infinite proposition, not unlike pi.

And in the context of capitalism, all humans are imperfect because of the cost of their labour and the maintenance of their physical and mental health.

ShelleysFrankensteinremains an indictment on modern society and its inability, or undesirability, to escape the ugliness of privilege and prejudice and survives as a counter to the Enlightenment philosophers who believed that scientific endeavour and economic progress would continually improve the human condition.

Enlightenment philosophers held that once the barriers to knowledge were eliminated, the conditions for perpetual peace and prosperity will have been established.

In short: they embraced the ideal that advancements in science and technology comprised the principal elements for the evolution of a better society.

Much the same as transhumanists. AsBostrom writes: Transhumanists view human nature as a work-in-progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold (sic) in desirable ways. Current humanity need not be the endpoint of evolution.

However, like the Enlightenment philosophers, transhumanists fail to acknowledge the double-edged sword of knowledge as both a promise of prosperity and an insidious threat.

That is, 400 years of history tells us that traditional religious beliefs and medieval philosophy might have failed, but the promise of science to solve the problem of human morality has also failed.

Shelley embodies this with Victors bloody-minded pursuit to create a monster that eventually transforms into the destroyer of his own life.

We can place this in todays context by referencing a 2017 journal article in Bioscience titledFrankenstein and the Horrors of Competitive Exclusionby evolutionary biologistsNathaniel J. Dominy and Justin D. Yeakel.

Dominy and Yeakel conclude that Frankensteins reasoning for denying a female mate for his male monster can be justified empirically. They show that if such a union was successful, it would have led to the extinction of our own species through competitive exclusion two species cannot coexist indefinitely if they compete for the exact same resources.

Even a slight advantage of one over the other will lead to the extinction of the inferior. Today, wealth might constitute that advantage. A human with enhanced intelligence, strength, stamina and an extended lifespan would constitute another.

More pointedly, with only the single-minded quest of science in mind, and disregard for its possible ruinous consequences, prioritising societal advancement engenders a less moral and equal world.

An imbalance occurs that favours the privileged who are insulated from the threats posed by technological and scientific progress but can use them to their utmost advantage.

To paraphraseJoshua Gans and Andrew Leigh, from their 2019 bookInnovation + Equality: the world today is more unequal than ever and more technologically advanced than ever. While the top one per cent increases its share of wealth, those with few skills and few assets languish at the bottom. For them, it can seem like the worst of times.

We can affirm the unavoidable use of technical devices, and also deny them the right to dominate us, and so to warp, confuse, and lay waste our nature.

The influential German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was not blindly anti-tech. His concern was societys failure to recognise its danger as a means to an end, like creating an enhanced human with no expiry date.

The essence of which poses a moral question: what is perfection? And if the quest for longevity, or perhaps immortality, is achieved, who decides how long the human lifespan will be? And what will that do to an already overpopulated planet?

We might thus deem perfection as immoral. For instance, we can view Frankensteins Monster as a human chimera of sorts, although fashioned from a compilation of human body parts. Sure its perceived as a monster, but only from a human perspective.

Shelley uses the word chimera in her book, defining it as the elixir of life as opposed to chemistry which promised much but delivered little.

And its this hodgepodge creation of a simulated human being a chimera that constitutes the elixir of life. Thus, if its immortality that we desire, the Monster embodies that kind of perfection, however immoral.

With this in mind, in April of this year,scientists injected embryos from a macaque with human stem cellsto study how the two cells developed together. Macaques are Old World monkeys that share a common ancestor with humans from about 25 million years ago.

For reasons of immorality, the cells were allowed to grow for 20 days before being terminated. But there is this unwavering desire to see what we can create by modifying the current human condition in the name of scientific progress.

Arguably, however, the human machine in the context of science and technology, whether artificial, robotic, or transhuman, was not meant to be perfect.

The backaches and absentmindedness are part of the bargain of reaching old age, relatively unscathed and with some semblance of our faculties in place, and finally exiting the field of life.

Whats more, our finite planet could not cope with humans of a limitless capacity. Its under immense pressure as it is.

Despite knowing this, we are still unable to separate the ecological from the technological. We seem oblivious to their inseparability, which has led to the relentless degradation of the former.

Recognising this inseparability would enable us to reconcile our existence with the natural world and put aside our techno-centric fixations, even momentarily, and see humankinds future possibilities, with all its imperfections, in a whole new light.

Dr Stephen Dark has a PhD in Climate Change Policy and Science. He has lectured at Bond University in the Faculty of Society & Design, teaching Sustainable Development and Sustainability Economics. He is a member of the Urban Development Institute of Australia and the author of the bookContemplating Climate Change: Mental Models and Human Reasoning.

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In search of perfection: a new kind of Frankensteins Monster - The Fifth Estate

The Hemp Blockchain, Inc. Chooses Algorand as Its Blockchain Platform – Business Wire

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SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Hemp Blockchain, Inc., the company building advanced cloud-based solutions to accelerate the growth of the industrial hemp industry, today announced the selection of Algorand as its blockchain platform to support a range of supply chain management and marketplace solutions purpose-built for the industrial hemp industry. The Hemp Blockchain seeks to leapfrog existing solutions in an agriculture sector with significant growth prospects that is strategically important for multiple reasons, including agricultural sustainability, carbon sequestration and the rapidly increasing need for carbon offset credits.

Algorand Inc. built the worlds first open source, permissionless, pure proof-of-stake blockchain protocol for the next generation of financial products. This blockchain, the Algorand protocol, is the brainchild of Turing Award-winning cryptographer Silvio Micali. Algorand is a leader in proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms used to validate transactions on blockchain networks. Among the advantages of proof-of-stake over proof-of-work, the other major blockchain consensus mechanism, are its scalability and energy efficiency, as it does not utilize competing high resource consuming miners to validate transactions. As a result, Algorand is a natural choice for companies such as The Hemp Blockchain dedicated to helping to achieve a net-zero carbon future.

Industrial hemp is a rapidly growing industry driven by a separate crop from its biological relatives that produce THC-based cannabis products as it contains less than 0.3% THC by dry weight. Industrial hemp can be processed into over 50,000 uses, including fuels, plastics, graphene, solvents, building materials, foods, and medicines, and is also a powerful tool in the global effort to combat climate change because an acre of hemp can potentially sequester as much or more carbon as an acre of rainforest.

Currently, the industrial hemp supply chain is in a state of disarray. It is characterized by opacity, fragmentation, lack of reliable payment systems, the inability to verify real buyers and sellers, and the inability to reliably and consistently verify seed genetics for product provenance and quality according to federal and state regulatory requirements. Owing to its relative immaturity, the industrial hemp industry is underserved by a supply-chain solution targeting its needs, creating favorable conditions for market entry and long-term success of a modern, industry-focused solution that is blockchain-native. Furthermore, by introducing a streamlined carbon offset credit marketplace that includes a reliable token to mediate commerce, The Hemp Blockchain will offer value well beyond that of traditional approaches.

We are partnering with world-class technology firms and domain experts to help build and support our platform while giving us the ability to scale and operate globally, said Dan Higbee, President and CEO of The Hemp Blockchain, Inc. Technology serves its highest purpose when it materially improves the lives of people. The Hemp Blockchain will provide a trusted digital infrastructure that benefits not only those that grow and process hemp, but also consumers of its vast array of end products, and perhaps most importantly, the planet as a whole by accelerating carbon sequestration. Industrial Hemp farmers can literally grow Carbon credits from the earth, for the earth with The Hemp Blockchain and The Carbon Protocol.

We are excited about the continued expansion of the community building on Algorand and welcome The Hemp Blockchain to the Algorand ecosystem. We have been focused since the beginning on creating the most advanced technology that will allow organizations at the forefront of technology adoption, like The Hemp Blockchain, to build and deploy new blockchain-based applications that will remove friction from legacy business models, said David Markley, Director Business Solutions at Algorand.

About AlgorandAlgorand is building the technology to power the Future of Finance (FutureFi), the convergence of traditional and decentralized models into a unified system that is inclusive, frictionless, and secure. Founded by Turing Award-winning cryptographer Silvio Micali, Algorand developed a blockchain infrastructure that offers the interoperability and capacity to handle the volume of transactions needed for defi, financial institutions and governments to smoothly transition into FutureFi. The technology of choice for more than 500 global organizations, Algorand is enabling the simple creation of next generation financial products, protocols and exchange of value. For more information, visit http://www.algorand.com.

About The Hemp Blockchain, Inc.Hemp Blockchain, Inc. is building advanced cloud-based solutions to accelerate the growth of the industrial hemp industry. With planned availability in late 2021, The Hemp Blockchain platform and applications will leapfrog existing solutions in an agriculture sector with significant growth prospects that is strategically important for multiple reasons, including agricultural sustainability and carbon sequestration and the rapidly increasing need for carbon offsets/credits. For more information, please visit http://www.thehempblockchain.com.

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The Hemp Blockchain, Inc. Chooses Algorand as Its Blockchain Platform - Business Wire

The future of bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and NFTs, according to 30+ experts – Fast Company

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In the past year, weve seen multi-million-dollar NFT sales, Dogecoin drama, cryptocurrency price uncertainty, ransomware hackers being paid off in Bitcoin, and growing concern over the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining. Behind those headlines, a larger movement was happening. Cryptocurrency, and the blockchain that underpins it, is evolving as a powerful, decentralized alternative to the dominant fiat system of money and banking.

As with many aspects of tech and society, cryptos emergence accelerated during the pandemic. But how exactly, and whats next? We asked numerous people who are involved in crypto in various capacities. Heres what they said.

Alex Salnikov, co-founder and head of product, Rarible:The pandemic has accelerated everything into digital. Crypto was no exception. DeFi (decentralized finance) and NFT (non-fungible token) markets boomed as people were sitting at home and playing with digital assets.

Aaron Slotkin, CEO consultant, NFT maxi:The fact that everybody was stuck at home and fully digital further magnified peoples focus on digital developments and specifically crypto and NFTs. As a result, this technology and these currencies, which have existed for years, have gotten further magnified. Crypto was already here to stay, but COVID has accelerated this pathway.

Kosala Hemachandra, founder and CEO, MyEtherWallet:Id like to think crypto is made for situations like the pandemic, and thats why crypto was thriving all [through] 2020. It is borderless. It doesnt care whether the airports are open or closed, or whether people can go out or not. Many financial institutions had to close down, which brought down the value associated with them.

Sole Cnepa, technical operations manager, BitGive Foundation:I dont think the pandemic affected where bitcoin is going or where it is now. Bitcoin may be affected by corporative and state adoption, the search for greener options for the mining industry, the current Taproot improvement and leverage behavior (using broker money to place bets). Bitcoin is just going through natural progress as weve seen since the start. No surprises here for long-term bitcoiners.

Brent Johnson, chief information security officer (CISO), Bluefin:Large-cap cryptocurrency reached all-time highs within the last few months; including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin, and Cardano to name a few. Were now seeing athletes being paid in crypto, card brands allowing settlement via crypto, large investment firms adding crypto to their portfolios, and even governments adopting crypto as legal tender.

Brianna Martyn, blockchain consultant:Ethereum and NFTs have gone from being buzzwords used by traders and technologists to digital assets known the world over. Discussions around money supply, inflation, digital rights, proof of ownership and smart contracts are now part of the financial world and likely to grow over the coming years. Bitcoin has gone from a white paper concept to an official reserve currency in just 12 years. These feel like once in a lifetime changes that are happening in front of us today. I cant wait to see what sort of innovation and growth the next decade brings to the digital world.

Kathleen Breitman, co-founder, Tezos:What is interesting about the burgeoning popularity of NFTs in the cryptocurrency space is that they managed to attract newcomers to the technology. In March, press coverage about the ecological impact of the Ethereum platform managed to temper enthusiasm from many famous people who looked to NFTs as a way to monetize some aspect of their creativity. This was the first time that I saw people who had been skeptical of cryptocurrencies look to them as a potential solution for their business, and actually care about the technology underneath them in a substantial way. For me, this was the most transformative change that Ive seen in the industry to date.

Brian Mosoff, CEO, Ether Capital:Crypto, prior to 2020, was largely driven by technically proficient retail investors. Institutions and traditional investors had largely written off software-based or algorithmic monetary policy. As concerns surrounding inflation emerge due to the pandemic, this group began seeking an alternative asset class as a hedge.

Tegan Kline, co-founder of Edge & Node:The pandemic accelerated crypto. The monetary policy response fueled investment appetite for alternate stores of value. Stay at home orders freed up recreational appetite to engage in yield farming which initiated defi summer.

Hossein Azari, former Google senior research scientist and founder of cmorq:The pandemic magnified some of the value propositions of crypto and decentralized finance. We learned that our legacy financial system could have done better sending the stimulus funds to American businesses and individuals. With decentralized finance we remove/reduce dependency on centralized and legacy financial systems, modernizing ourselves to continue economic leadership.

Natalie Smolenski, Head of Business Development at Hyland:The pandemic has clarified more than ever that central banks are committed to printing their way out of economic crises, which raises twin dangers of inflation and devaluation of the currency, a process that erodes both real wages and peoples life savings. As a result, people around the world are turning to bitcoin as a long-term store of value. While its price is certainly volatile, over time it shows an unmistakable upward parabolic appreciation, whereas fiat currencies, including the dollar, have steadily lost much of their value since the mid-20th century.

Daniel Sax, founder and CEO, Sensi Properties:The pandemic has cemented the future of cryptocurrency as a direct result of the fiscal and monetary response [to the pandemic], including but not limited to the Federal Reserve printing 30% of the money supply out of thin air.

Cleve Mesidor, founder, National Policy Network of Women of Color in Blockchain:What has been promising is seeing a greater number of women explore investing in bitcoin and Black and Latinx creatives tapping the benefits of non fungible tokens (NFT). Cryptocurrency is a new financial asset class that was not created by or for the wealthy. So it has been interesting to see CEOs like Elon Musk and Wall Street executives try to inject themselves into bitcoins narrative. Despite all the noise, the truth is cryptocurrencies are accessible and available to everyone, unlike the traditional financial system, and thats a game changer.

Jonas Rey, co-founder and managing director, Liti Capital:El Salvador just announced that its businesses are now required to accept bitcoin as a currency. Instead of world powers, it will be the small countries that make the change first, causing a massive revolution around the world. As more and more people make the switch, the large countries and entities will be forced to accommodate cryptocurrency. Like all revolutions, the worlds financial revolution will start from the ground up, and it will be caused by financial inequality and lack of access to the tools that have historically been used to hold those same people down.

Colin Pape, founder, Presearch:Part of this societal shift is driven by people who see the far-reaching control of Big Tech over their digital and financial lives. In the same way [crypto has] challenged the financial status quo, decentralization using blockchain technology will disrupt the dominance of Big Tech, giving people access to unbiased information online, as well as more ownership of their personal data and real digital privacy.

Betsy Cooper, Aspen Institute:The pandemic didnt change the trajectory of cryptocurrency as much as it changed the trajectory of criminals. As a result of the pandemic, more people desperately needed quick capital, and more criminals had the time to figure out how to deploy ransomware. As criminal activity grew, so did the use of cryptocurrencies for payment.

Kevin Mandia, CEO, FireEye:It used to be that if you were an attacker and you wanted to monetize your hacking capabilities, youd hack into computers and steal credit card data. Now you can deploy ransomware or you can steal documents and extort the fact that youre going to publicly release that information. Digital currencies are basically anonymous currencies so now you can commit a crime from 10,000 miles away from the victim, and remain anonymous collecting the payment. There is no question that digital currency, as it is today, enables cybercrime.

Meg King, Science and Technology Innovation Program director, The Wilson Center:Cryptocurrencies have a ransomware problem. Banning cryptocurrencies isnt an option, especially as nations are now adopting them, but we can implement more reporting and regulatory requirements and encourage other nations to do the same.

Richard Ells, CEO and founder,ETN-Network:The popular media is quick to report bitcoin crashes or bitcoin used by criminals. While a small number of criminals undoubtedly use bitcoin, it is inherently more traceable due to the nature of blockchain than U.S. dollar bills. So if we have to ban one or the other, we should also ban the U.S. Dollar because criminals use it!

Jeff Gluck, founder, CXIP Labs:NFTs represent unprecedented creative and financial potential for artists, but the potential for fraud, theft, and data loss has never been greater.

Matthew Rogers, CISO of Americas, Syntax:Companies making it easier to pay in crypto over the past year will . . . allow for individual people to become targets for ransomware attacks versus just businesses like were often seeing. This is likely bad news for the industry and could lead to even more ransomware attacks on a wider range of people and businesses.

Liesl Bernard, CEO, CannabizTeam:Innovative companies looking to distinguish themselves from the competition are bringing cryptocurrency to the table in order to attract top talent in a job market where more than 70% of U.S. employers are struggling to find qualified candidates. As we shift toward a more remote workforce, employers and employees can both benefit from the expedited and secure ease of payments in cryptocurrency. The number of businesses including cryptocurrency in employee benefit and compensation packages will only continue to increasewhether thats offering payment in cryptocurrency, investment opportunities, crypto bonuses, etc.

Jessica Huseman, Editorial Director, VoteBeat:There has been some talk recently of potentially running elections on the blockchain. This would not work, and would be a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars. I have yet to find a security expert not working for a blockchain company who believes this to be a secure platform for voting.

Kurt John, chief cybersecurity officer, Siemens USA:The success or failure of cryptocurrency will be based on two critical topicsmeasured demand thats based on strong fundamentals such as continually improving encryption technologies, along with a planned and predictable regulatory environment.

Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, Consumer Technology Association (CTA):National guardrails should be established to protect consumers, save energy, and deter crime and cybercrime. But . . . if the U.S. overly hinders new technology, other nations may step up to provide incentives for the innovators behind these cryptocurrencies to flourishas wearealreadyseeingin Latin America. Policymakers should work with and engage innovatorstosecurethe U.S.as a leader in cryptocurrency.

Robert E. Siegel, lecturer, Stanford Graduate School of Business:We need to separate the recent overhyped speculative activity of the crypto market from the fundamentals of what crypto and blockchain will bring to society over time. On the latter the ideas and technology have the potential to be transformational. But the recent craziness is not based on fundamentals; rather, it is being driven by a world flooded with liquidity and zero percent interest rates from governments. Money is sometimes made in times of speculation.Usually, money is lost.

Maxwell Gross, COO, SuperBid:Exorbitant NFT sales, dogecoin drama, speculation, and criminal activity are frequencies which resonate with humans but distract from the signal. Simply, blockchain is the birthplace of an efficient means of globally scalable transactions, and its first application is crypto. Its just the beginning.

Philip Gradwell, chief economist, Chainalysis:Dogecoin has gained the attention of meme lords and investors alike, bridging the gap between finance and pop culture. Dogecoins trading volume is currently within the top 10 cryptocurrencies, ahead of XRP, USDC, DOT and UNI. For a token that started as a joke, this tremendous growth shows how the power of the internet has thrown all rules about investing out the window. Dogecoin may just be a meme, but it is likely driving more awareness than the $19.6 billion that U.S. financial services spent on digital advertising in 2020.

Ian Khan, futurist:The future of bitcoin and crypto, in general, will continue to fluctuate and make waves. One of the reasons [is that] this is a highly hype-based crypto era where influencers like Elon Musk and others will continue to play with the emotions of an already stressed investor community that is desperately trying to come out of a global pandemic.

Diogo Monica, co-founder and president, Anchorage Digital:Its a foregone conclusion that crypto is here to stay, and sophisticated investors know the noise will always be a part of it.

Harsch Khandelwal, CEO, UREEQA:Incumbents first ignore the new entrant, then they make fun of the new entrant, they eventually fight the new entrant, and finally, theyre unseated by the new entrant. Were transitioning from a period in which established players mocked the space to one in which theyre fighting it. Considerable energy is consumed in mining gold, for example, and cash has always been king for criminals globally.

Rob Chang, co-founder and CEO, Gryphon Mining:I believe we will look back at this period in time as the point where the general public was given the opportunity to give cryptocurrencies a real hard look and learn that coins such as bitcoin are not magic internet funny money but instead legitimate, decentralized ways to transact value without the fetters of banking institutions and government control/devaluation.

Nigel Green, CEO and founder, deVere Group:The blistering pace of the digitalization of economies and our lives means that from now on there will be a growing demand for digital, global, borderless money. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, the genie cant be put back in the bottle.

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The future of bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and NFTs, according to 30+ experts - Fast Company

Its kick-off time: Enjoy Euro 2020 finals the crypto and blockchain way – Cointelegraph

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The date is set. July 11 is when soccer fans all over the world can, for a period of at least 90 minutes, forget all about whats wrong with the outside world and finally get to witness who will be the winner of one of the most widely viewed sports in the world. England and Italy will compete for the honor to win the coveted UEFA European Football Championship 2020, or Euro 2020, trophy, which only comes around once every two years.

Here is a little thought experiment for all the casual soccer fans out there: Try to think of every active soccer player you can think of. If the athletes in question are all relatively established and play for the top leagues in the world, then there is a high probability that they are representing their country in this years Euro 2020 championship.

To really put things into perspective as to how big this event is, a recent study showed that a staggering 23.8 million viewers watched England's historic Euro 2020 victory against Denmark, with the last five minutes of the nail-biting semi-finals drawing a peak audience of over 25.7 million. In fact, the events viewership was only eclipsed in recent memory by the United Kingdom Prime Ministers coronavirus announcement back in May, which was seen by nearly 27 million people across six different local news channels.

A month of tense and exhilarating soccer has passed by and now its time for the two remaining top dogs, Italy and England, to fight it out at the historical Wembley Stadium.

In the past, the tournament has seen many of Europes heavyweights slug it out. However, it bears mentioning that this time around, the Italian team, The Azzurri, has yet to lose a match in a whopping 33 international games, leaving them just a step away from carving their names in the records of soccer history.

Their opponent, England, also known as the Three Lions, has also had strong gameplay through this years Euro 2020. They only allowed one goal during their entire campaign, which is quite an impressive feat, considering the level of competition they had to face countries like Germany, the Czech Republic and Ukraine to get to the finals. In all, the rosters for both teams look stacked and on paper, this clash should and probably will be a thriller.

As one can expect, there is going to be a lot of betting happening for this game, with the oddsmakers giving the slight edge to England, which is arguably a surprise considering Italys unbeaten run. However, the importance of home-turf advantage can never be underestimated in soccer, no matter how many Italians may have crossed over to watch the finals in person.

Lastly, with the rise of blockchain casinos and increased crypto adoption globally, a growing number of digital currency investors seem to have started making use of their crypto assets for gambling purposes. Therefore, it stands to reason that a lot of these folks may be betting on this game as well, either through crypto gambling platforms or even prediction markets.

In recent years, a growing list of mainstream soccer clubs has continued to launch their very own digital currencies/fan tokens. And while the jury is still divided on the actual utility of these offerings, the fact of the matter remains that the soccer world has been quite sharp in recognizing the technological and monetary proposition put forth by crypto.

In terms of betting, there are dozens of established gambling websites that accept a wide range of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Tether (USDT), Ethereum (ETH) and more. There are many options out there and its just a matter of which platform a person decides to use in the end.

It also goes without saying that several betting sites are currently offering their users numerous side-bets another facet of online gambling that crypto enthusiasts can engage with. For example, the odds of Italy coming out of the tournament as the top-scoring team are currently at 10/11. Whereas for England, the figure stands substantially lower at 10/1.

From a streaming standpoint, unfortunately, there arent a number of mainstream streaming services that accept cryptocurrency payments at the moment. That being said, betting portals have really upped their game over the last couple of years, with most platforms nowadays offering top-notch live streams that gamers can access at any time, given that they have sufficient tokens (which is usually not a lot) in their wallets.

One way or the other, crypto seems to have made its way onto the soccer field, as was made evident recently when a fan literally ran onto the field wearing a t-shirt that read WTF Coin during Belgiums clash with Finland. In fact, the event was able to garner so much traction that within hours of the invasion, almost every major sporting news outlet had covered the story, resulting in people discovering that WTF Walnut Finance is actually a yield farming project.

Furthermore, the governing body overseeing Euro 2020, i.e. the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) recently entered into a five-year global partnership deal regarding blockchain technology with AntChain, a subsidiary of Ant Group which owns Alipay, one of the worlds largest digital payment platforms.

As part of the deal, UEFA and AntChain will work closely to help utilize blockchain tech to not only promote the game but also to digitize the global soccer landscape. In this regard, it stands to reason that the two parties may potentially choose to explore the NFT sector because of the unique marketing/ownership opportunity presented by this exploding asset class.

In the immediate future, however, the winner of this years Euro 2020 Golden Boot (i.e., the player that scores the most goals) will be awarded the Alipay Trophy. Not only that, but the top scorers records will also be stored on a blockchain system immutably.

Regarding NFTs, it bears mentioning that over the past week, decentralized fantasy sports platform Rage Fan has been airdropping limited edition NFT mints to commemorate the Euro 2020 tournament. The last giveaway is set to commence on July 11 when England and Italy meet each other at Wembley.

It is no secret that athletes from sporting professions across the board have continued to adopt crypto at a rapid rate. In terms of soccer alone, no one has done more to promote digital currencies than Andrs Iniesta, Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqu, three players who have all represented Spain and Barcelona during their careers.

In fact, the triumvirate has been quite hands-on in its crypto outlook, with Iniesta and Puyol serving as the co-founders of Olyseum, a blockchain-powered social platform built to reward engagement, bringing fans and stars closer together. Meanwhile, Piqu has been vocal about his investments in the crypto-enabled fantasy soccer game Sorare. Even French superstar Antoine Griezmann is reported to have an investment in the platform.

Netherlands once-highly regarded wing/striking prospect Ryan Babel is also a Bitcoin proponent, highlighted by the fact that over the past year or so, he has repeatedly shared his optimism surrounding the crypto market via a number of tweets encouraging people, particularly his teammates, to buy BTC.

This is definitely a question that begs to be answered.

Heres a quick add up of the transfer values for the (likely) starting eleven players of both teams that are participating in the final, just to see how much Bitcoin can be bought with the money.

So as per data available, the valuation for Englands starting eleven comes to 570 million euros ($718.5 million), with the squads captain and star striker Harry Kane pitching it with a 120 million euro valuation. On the Italian side, the amount comes to 411 million euros ($488.7 million), with the outgoing A.C. Milans 22-year-old goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma accounting for 60 million euros of the total.

This brings the total valuation of the two teams up to a staggering 981 million euros (almost $1.2 billion). At the time of writing, this comes to around 35,800 BTC that can be acquired with the aforementioned sum.

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Its kick-off time: Enjoy Euro 2020 finals the crypto and blockchain way - Cointelegraph

Global Blockchain Markets 2021-2026: Analysis & Forecasts with Focus on Over 80 industries – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Business Wire

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Blockchain Market 2021-2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global blockchain market should reach $56.7 billion by 2026 from $6.0 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56.9% for the forecast period of 2021 to 2026.

In this report, the market has been segmented based on organization size, component, provider, type, industry and geography. The report provides an overview of the global blockchain market and analyzes market trends. Using 2020 as the base year, the report provides estimated market data for the forecast period 2021-2026. Market values have been estimated based on the total revenue of blockchain solution providers.

The report covers the market for blockchain with regard to the user base across different regions. It also highlights major trends and challenges that affect the market and the vendor landscape. The report estimates the global market for blockchain in 2021 and provides projections for the expected market size through 2026.

The scope of the study includes blockchain development platform and associated services as well as services associated with the platform. However, cryptocurrency wallets and mobile applications developed in the blockchain platform, predeveloped blockchain applications and physical services have been excluded from the study.

Key Topics Covered:

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Summary and Highlights

Chapter 3 Blockchain: Market Overview

Chapter 4 Market Breakdown by Organization Size

Chapter 5 Market Breakdown by Component

Chapter 6 Market Breakdown by Provider

Chapter 7 Market Breakdown by Type

Chapter 8 Market Breakdown by Industry

Chapter 9 Market Breakdown by Region

Chapter 10 Competitive Landscape

Chapter 11 Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/uvgt5d

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Global Blockchain Markets 2021-2026: Analysis & Forecasts with Focus on Over 80 industries - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire

Users of The Graph can now earn money curating blockchain data – The Block Crypto

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Blockchain data curation is now an open, competitive market. Thats according to The Graph, which today released new features aimed at decentralizing the process of creating and organizing its blockchain indexing tools.

The Graph has become a popular tool among Ethereum developers, who use its Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which the company calls subgraphs, to fetch and consolidate information that is scattered across many different transactions across the Ethereum blockchain and the Interplanetary File System (IPFS).

Among other things, the new tools the San Francisco-based startup is launching today will make it easier for users and even profitable for users to curate subgraphs. The idea is that this will in turn make it easier for developers to discover useful ones, without the need for a centralized aggregator or publisher.

Users of The Graph have already been curating subgraphs, which are built to retrieve specific kinds of data required for a DApp for instance, the decentralized video streaming service LivePeer to run smoothly.

But curation will begin in earnest on Thursday with the launch of the curation market, Yaniv Tal, co-founder of Edge & Node, which created The Graph protocol, said in a recent interview with The Block.

The initiative is part of The Graphs ongoing efforts to decentralize. The platform has been transitioning from a centrally hosted service to one that is run by a decentralized network.

So far, 20,000 developers have built 16,000 subgraphs hosted on The Graphs centralized hosting service. Eight DApps LivePeer, Audius, UMA, mStable, Reflexer, Opyn, PoolTogether, DODO have migrated to The Graphs decentralized protocol.

The new curation market is in line with what Tal promised last year after an outage knocked many applications offline. He said that eventually, developers would no longer have to publish their subgraphs directly to The Graphs hosted service, and that independent indexers would run nodes and process queries in an open marketplace. He added that curators would organize data and signal which subgraphs are useful and accurate.

How does it work in practice? Once a curator finds a good subgraph, they signal on it using Subgraph Studios The Graphs new hub for subgraph creation, which also launched Thursday.

An individual signals that a subgraph contains useful information,said Baptiste Greve, product manager at Edge & Node. If others agree on the utility of the subgraph, they too will signal on it. The more signals the subgraph has, the more likely it is to generate query fees that can then be turned into a reward.

You're incentivized to select good subgraphs that are actually being used, said Greve.

While The Graphs release mentions that anyone with a smartphone can now become a curator, Greve notes that an individual will need a Metamask wallet usually obtained as a computer web browser extension to receive payment.

While curators on The Graph protocol may earn revenue, Tal stresses that revenue is based on a bonding curve the relationship between a token supply and price, in which the less token supply, the lower the price and vice versa.

Curators can make or lose money through curation based on the economics of the bonding curve, Tal said. So it's important that curators understand the sub graphs that they're signaling on, as well as the dynamics on those bonding curves.

2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Users of The Graph can now earn money curating blockchain data - The Block Crypto