Allow field trials of Bt brinjal to ensure safety of crops, agri-tech body writes to govt – ThePrint

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New Delhi: The Alliance for Agri Innovation (AAI), a leading agri-tech industry body, has written to the central government and various states to allow field trials of Bt brinjal, a genetically-modified (GM) crop that was banned in 2010 following concerns raised about public health and biodiversity.

In a statement released Friday, the AAI said field trial was the only way to ensure safety of crops. blocking such trials amounts to blocking national development, it said.

AAIs letter has been sent to the agriculture ministry and chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and West Bengal.

The AAI statement also mentions how a 2019 peer-reviewed study had found that net returns to farmers from Bt brinjal crop averaged $2151/ha (Rs 1.61 lakh/ha) compared to $357/ha (Rs 26,768/ha) from non-Bt brinjal crop.

In India, Bt brinjal was cleared for commercial cultivation by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) in 2009 but it was placed under an indefinite moratorium the following year by then minister of state for environment, Jairam Ramesh.

Several farmers from various states, including Maharashtra and Haryana, were found to be openly flouting the GM crop ban last year and sow Bt brinjal.

The crop has been commercially grown in Bangladesh since 2014 the first South Asian country to do so.

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Also read: Why farmers are still having to protest for their right to sow GM seeds, even in a pandemic

Brinjal is an extremely pest-prone crop, and highly susceptible to the fruit and shoot borer (FSB) pest.

To reduce loss of yield, farmers often end up spraying this crop multiple times. A report from Bangladesh had earlier noted that protein in Bt brinjaldisrupts the digestive systems of certain pests, causing them to die within three days of ingestion.

It had also stated that advantages of using Bt brinjal over non-Bt brinjal were lower pest infection, higher yields, 56 per cent reduction in environmental toxicity and fewer complaints about symptoms consistent with pesticide exposure.

Ram Kaundinya, director general of AAI, said in the statement, The deadly FSB is a menace for farmers and its caterpillar also finds its way into our homes through infected brinjals. By controlling this with Bt technology, we can save farmers income, reduce pesticide load on the environment and provide pesticide- and insect-free brinjals to consumers.

AAI head Paresh Verma added, Development of indigenous technology is in line with the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Delays due to a paralysis in the decision-making process by the central and state governments have essentially stalled the progress in research to develop new technologies.

The AAI statement also noted how several studies and analyses into GM cultivation over the past 23 years have found no evidence of adverse health effects on humans or animals.

Also read: Now, Bangladesh set to steal march over India with GM rice that fights malnutrition

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Allow field trials of Bt brinjal to ensure safety of crops, agri-tech body writes to govt - ThePrint

What to Watch When Twist Bioscience Reports Fiscal Q3 Results – Motley Fool

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Uncertainty is one of the central themes of investing in 2020, but investors can be certain of one thing: Valuing shares of Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ:TWST) at more than 30 times sales is a little bit ridiculous.

The company's technology platform is intriguing, but it hasn't shown signs of becoming a commercial success from a business standpoint. In fact, Twist Bioscience has reported growing losses as it has scaled its business and relied on equity financing to fund operations. That hasn't stopped the small-cap stock from soaring by more than 200% since the beginning of 2020.

On the one hand, Twist Bioscience is uniquely positioned to help customers respond to the coronavirus pandemic. It has also signed a flurry of drug discovery deals this year. On the other hand, the financial impacts of those catalysts are a bit fuzzy. Here's what metrics investors will be watching when the company reports fiscal third-quarter 2020 operating results.

Image source: Getty Images.

Twist Bioscience is developing a DNA synthesis technology platform that can be used in drug discovery, genetic engineering experiments, and diagnostic panels. It's not necessarily the technological endgame, but it's the best we have right now. Heck, the company supplies many of its competitors with synthetic DNA.

And its technology platform looks to be playing an important role in the global response to the coronavirus pandemic. Twist Bioscience has created synthetic controls of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that can be used in diagnostic tests to detect whether a person is currently infected, launched SARS-CoV-2 antibody panels for research activities, and inked drug discovery deals with biopharmaceutical companies developing therapeutic antibodies to treat COVID-19.

Additionally, the company doesn't appear to have slowed future-oriented investments in its technology platform and businesses. Twist Bioscience has signed non-COVID-19 drug discovery deals with Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Seismic Bio, and Invetx (an animal health start-up) since the end of the fiscal second quarter of 2020.

The biggest question facing investors is pretty simple: Will announcements translate into tangible progress?

Investors are assuming Twist Bioscience will report a noticeable bump in quarterly revenue from coronavirus-oriented research tools, although financial details weren't disclosed for any of the drug discovery deals. The latter appear to be dependent on technology access fees and milestone or royalty payments, which wouldn't necessarily have a significant near-term impact.

Here's the problem: Even an incredible quarter probably isn't enough to make sense of the stock's current valuation. Investors shouldn't be paying 30 times sales for a money-losing business that has grown operating losses faster than gross profit and is entirely reliant on stock offerings to keep the lights on.

In other words, even a relatively strong quarter could cause the stock to drop. There's simply too much success baked into the company's market valuation right now. It's difficult to see how Twist Bioscience's $3 billion valuation is sustainable with publicly available information. Then again, it's 2020. Many stock valuations don't make much sense right now.

A great business is always a great investment in the long run, but a great investment is not always a great business. Thus far in 2020, Twist Bioscience has been a great investment, but the stock's ascension is detached from business fundamentals. That's likely to be true even with an amazing increase in revenue from the coronavirus pandemic, assuming that's what the results show. Investors might want to take that into account, as starting or adding to a position at current prices might sap long-term returns. Unless the company announces a major event that's not currently on investors' radar, it's simply difficult to see shares holding onto recent gains.

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What to Watch When Twist Bioscience Reports Fiscal Q3 Results - Motley Fool

Viewpoint: Battling deadly disease with gene drives is worth the limited risk – Genetic Literacy Project

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The fate of society rests in part on how humans navigate their complicated relationship with insects trying to save good insects and control bad ones. Some insects, like mosquitoes, bite people and make them sick remember Zika? Now the U.S. mosquito season is already in full swing, withover 10 cases of Dengue feverreported in the Florida Keys this year. Some insects, likebees, are pollinatorsthat help produce our food. Others, likelocusts, currently threaten cropsin East AfricaandAsia, preferring to eat our food instead.

Insects have proven themselves extremely capable at evolving strategies to get around control methods, such as chemical insecticides and habitat modification, and current pest control technologies are simply not keeping up.

We arebothinsect scientists. Our research has includedengineering a fungus to control malaria mosquitoes,uncovering the reproductive biology of honey bee workersand understanding thehealth impacts of invasive ticks. Weve come to appreciate the potential of emerging technologies like gene drive. This technology can guarantee that a trait will be inherited by the next generation. Such traits include making mosquitoesimmune to the malaria parasiteso they cannot spread the disease to humans.

Recently we contributed to astatement that advocates for continuing gene drive research. In light ofcalls for a moratorium, this statement recognizes that a ban on gene drive research would hamper a better understanding, and thus mitigation, of risks associated with this technology.

Moratoriums on gene drive technology have been called for and rejectedat the last twoUnited Nations Conventions on Biological Diversity. But there isa new push for a moratorium.

Gene drive is a technology that could allow society to control insects in a more targeted manner.

The general underlying principle of all gene drives is an organism that will produce offspring similar to themselves.

Some characteristics are randomly passed on from parents to the next generation. However, gene drive forces a different type of inheritance that ensures a specific characteristic is always present in the next generation. Scientists engineer gene drive using various molecular tools.

Gene drive is not just a human invention; some occur naturally in insects. For example, instalk-eyed flies, a gene on a sex-related chromosome causes any male fly to die without a certain gene cargo, including a gene that results in longer eyestalks. This type of genetic phenomenon has been well studied by scientists.

To date, gene drive has been discussed in the media primarilyin order to eradicate malaria. This may give you the impression that gene drive can be used onlyto drive mosquitoes to extinction. However, gene drive technologies are highly versatile and can be designed to bring about different outcomes. They can also be applied in most insect species that scientists can study in the laboratory.

Insects reproduce quickly and produce lots of offspring, which makes them obvious candidates for a technology that relies on inheritance like gene drive. This is why insects are at the leading edge of gene drive research. Gene drive is a new technology that could provide a solution to a variety of insect issues society faces today.

For instance, a gene drive has beendeveloped to stop a major crop pest, the spotted-wing Drosophila. Insecticide sensitivity could be spread through populations of this pest species to stoptens of millions of dollars in crop damage every yearin the United States.

Gene drive could also be a more targeted approach to stopping invasive insects, such as the infamousfire ant, from destroying native ecosystems. In the United States, millions of dollars have been spent onremoving fire ants using techniques including chemical insecticides, but if these persistent ants are not completely eradicated, they invade again.

Aside from how good insects are at circumventing our strategies to control them, another major struggle for controlling insects is finding them. Insects have evolved to quickly find the opposite sex to mate, and gene drives, which are passed on by mating, can take advantage of this fact of insect life. This also means this technology targets only the intended species, which is not the case for chemical insecticides currently in use.

Insect scientists, inspired by natural examples of gene drive, have wanted to design gene drive in insects for decades. Only recently have new molecular tools, such as the gene editing toolCRISPR-Cas, made the gene drive dream a reality. For now, gene drive insectslive in laboratories and none has been released into the wild. Still, a lot can be learned about how gene drive works while it is safely contained in a laboratory.

Using gene drive is not a universally popular idea. Criticisms tend to fall into three categories: ethical concerns, mistrust of technology and unintended ecological consequences.

Ethical concerns about gene drive are often motivated by larger issues, such as how to stop gene drive from being used in biological weapons by engineering insects that are more dangerous. Then there is the question of who should decide which gene drive projects move forward and what types of insects with gene drive can be released into the environment. These questions cant be answered by scientists alone.

Societal mistrust of technologyis a hurdle that some powerful, innovative technologies must overcome for public acceptance. The issue of technological mistrust often stems from disagreements about who should be developing technology to control insects and for what purposes.

The third common argument against gene drive technologies is that they might cause unintended consequences in the ecosystem because gene drive is designed by humans and unnatural. What will happen to the natural ecosystem if a population, even of mosquitoes that make people sick, is driven to extinction? Will this cause threats to natural biodiversity and the security of food? These questions are ultimately asking the consequences of intervening in the natural order of the world. But who defines what is the natural state of an ecosystem?Ecosystems are already constantly in flux.

When a gene drive is developed, it is tailored to the needs of a particular situation. This means theanticipated risksposed by each gene drive are project-specific and should be considered and regulated on a case-by-case basis. A responsible way to protect society from these risks is to advocate for continued research that enables scientists to describe and find solutions to them. Beyond the science, regulatory and accountability systems are needed so that regulations are adhered to and public safety is protected.

Researchers are also still exploring the science underlying the gene drive. Can gene drive be designed to be reversible or more efficient? Can the effect of a gene drive on an ecosystem be predicted? Such important unanswered questions are why even the most ardent supporters of this technology say more research is needed. Society needs new tools to control insect pests and protect ecosystems, and gene drive promises to augment our toolbox.

Isobel Ronai is an Endeavour Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University. Follow her on Twitter @IsobelRonai

Brian Lovett is a postdoctoral researcher at the Division of Plant and Soil Sciences at West Virginia University working on fungal biology and biotechnology. Follow him on Twitter @lovettbr

This article was originally published at the Conversation and has been republished here with permission. Follow the Conversation on Twitter @ConversationUS

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Viewpoint: Battling deadly disease with gene drives is worth the limited risk - Genetic Literacy Project

22nd Century Group Reports Financial Results and Business Highlights for the Second Quarter 2020 – Stockhouse

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WILLIAMSVILLE, N.Y., Aug. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 22nd Century Group, Inc. (NYSE American: XXII) (22nd Century” or the Company”), a leading plant biotechnology company focused on technologies that alter the level of nicotine in tobacco plants and the level of cannabinoids in hemp/cannabis plants through genetic engineering, gene-editing, and modern plant breeding, today reported results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020.

Despite the unprecedented challenges brought on by COVID-19, I am pleased to report net sales revenue of $6.4 million for the second quarter of 2020, up 11% from the prior year, continued gross profit margin expansion, and improved operating loss. These results demonstrate our ability to execute on our initiatives to improve our margins and cost structure. Our financial position remains strong and we will continue to operate with strict cost controls, allocate our resources efficiently, and deploy capital where we believe it will give us the greatest return on our investments,” said James A. Mish, Chief Executive Officer of 22nd Century Group.

With the comment period now closed on our Modified Risk Tobacco Product Application, the team is laser focused on setting the stage for a successful VLN® launch upon the authorization of our MRTP Application by the FDA. I am exceedingly proud of the dedication and tremendous progress the team has made so far this year and believe we are well positioned to capitalize on the many opportunities ahead,” Mish added.

Business Highlights and Notable Events:

COVID-19 Update

2020 Second Quarter and Year-to-Date Financial Results

Balance Sheet and Liquidity

Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call 22nd Century will host an audio-only webcast today at 8:00 a.m. ET to discuss the Company’s second quarter 2020 financial results.

The live audio webcast will be accessible in the Events section on the Company's Investor Relations website at http://www.xxiicentury.com/investors/events. An archived replay of the webcast will also be available shortly after the live event has concluded.

About 22nd Century Group, Inc. 22nd Century Group, Inc. (NYSE American: XXII) is a leading plant biotechnology company focused on technologies that alter the level of nicotine in tobacco plants and the level of cannabinoids in hemp/cannabis plants through genetic engineering, gene-editing and modern plant breeding. The Company’s primary mission in tobacco is to reduce the harm caused by smoking by bringing its proprietary reduced nicotine content tobacco cigarettes containing 95% less nicotine than conventional cigarettes to adult smokers in the U.S. and international markets. The Company’s primary mission in hemp/cannabis is to develop proprietary hemp/cannabis plants with valuable cannabinoid profiles and agronomic traits and to commercialize those plants through a synergistic portfolio of strategic partnerships in the hemp/cannabis industry.

Learn more at xxiicentury.com, on Twitter @_xxiicentury and on LinkedIn.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning our business, operations and financial performance and condition as well as our plans, objectives and expectations for our business operations and financial performance and condition that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release are forward-looking statements. You can identify these statements by words such as aim,” anticipate,” assume,” believe,” could,” due,” estimate,” expect,” goal,” intend,” may,” objective,” plan,” potential,” positioned,” predict,” should,” target,” will,” would” and other similar expressions that are predictions of or indicate future events and future trends. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about our business and the industry in which we operate and our management's beliefs and assumptions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or development and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are in some cases beyond our control. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and others that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking statements. Please refer to the Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 11, 2020 and in our subsequently filed Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law

Adjusted EBITDA, which the Company defines as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, as adjusted by the Company for certain non-cash and non-operating expenses, as well as certain one-time expenses, is a financial measure not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP”). In order to calculate Adjusted EBITDA, the Company adjusts the net (loss) income for certain non-cash and non-operating income and expense items listed in the table above in order to measure the Company’s operating performance. The Company believes that Adjusted EBITDA is an important measure that supplements discussions and analysis of its operations and enhances an understanding of its operating performance. While management considers Adjusted EBITDA to be important, it should be considered in addition to, but not as a substitute for or superior to, other measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP, such as operating loss, net (loss) income and cash flows from operations. Adjusted EBITDA is susceptible to varying calculations and the Company’s measurement of Adjusted EBITDA may not be comparable to those of other companies.

Below is a table containing information relating to the Company’s Adjusted EBTIDA for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, including a reconciliation of net (loss) income to Adjusted EBTIDA for such periods.

Contacts: Mei Kuo 22nd Century Group (716) 300-1221 mkuo@xxiicentury.com

John Mills ICR (646) 277-1254 john.mills@icrinc.com

Deirdre Thomson ICR (646) 277-1283 deirdre.thomson@icrinc.com

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NASAs Curiosity Rover Reaches an Impressive Milestone During its Mars Mission – Webby Feed

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Home News NASAs Curiosity Rover Reaches an Impressive Milestone During its Mars Mission

The Curiosity rover was sent to Mars by NASA in 2012 in order to study the planets Gale Crater. The bigger goal was to find out if the crater could have supported life as it exists on Earth. Very few people suspected that Curiosity could go so far as it did. Life wasnt found on Mars until now, but Curiosity reached an unprecedented milestone.

Its time to say Happy Birthday! to the Curiosity rover that had been roaming the Martian surface for eight wonderful years.

NASAs Curiosity rover celebrated its 8th anniversary yesterday, on August 5. The rover didnt find any little green men living on the Red Planet, but it still had enormous contributions for making scientists understand the planet a lot better.

Judging by the data gathered by the Curiosity rover, scientists were able to conclude that the Gale crater from Mars hosted a potentially habitable lake-and-stream system. The rover also found some complex organic chemicals on Mars.

Space agencies are continuing to explore the Red Planet in order to find out all the possible dangers that astronauts could be facing there. NASA plans to send humans to the Moon after more than half a century, along with the Artemis program. If everything goes according to the plan, the next destination is Mars. Scientists hope to begin the terraforming of Mars in the future, but we are naive to think that well be able to move our luggage on the Red Planet in less than a hundred years. But for a short visit to Mars, that wouldnt be a problem with the current technology.

If the distance between Earth and the Moon is only 384,000 kilometers, well have to travel much more if we want to arrive to our neighboring planet. The shortest distance between our planet and Mars is 54.6 million kilometers.

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NASAs Curiosity Rover Reaches an Impressive Milestone During its Mars Mission - Webby Feed

Regulatory Focus, July issue: Cell and gene therapy – Regulatory Focus

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Feature articles during July focused on global regulatory strategy for cell and gene therapy, with articles on US and EU regulations and guidances and the development and manufacture of the therapies. Also included were articles on recasting the corrective and preventive action (CAPA) process as a continuous improvement process, a military-civilian perspective on real-world evidence (RWE) to support regulatory decision making, and regulatory reporting in multinational trials during COVID-19.Advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), including cell therapies, gene therapies, and tissue-engineered products, are highly complex treatments that differ from traditional medicines, both in how they are made and administered and in the benefits they may provide. Regulations for these products were established relatively recently and are still evolving in many jurisdictions globally. The novelty of these products, the inherent complexities of cell and gene therapy products, and the lack of experience with such products pose many challenges for developers.In part one of this two-part series, this months expert authors address these challenges and offer hands-on, practical advice and guidance on regulation and production of ATMPs. If there is one clear, take-home message to developers, it is that early and frequent collaboration with regulatory agencies, during both the approval and development phases, is paramount. It saves time and money, and it reduces the risk of a negative impact on the trajectory of a clinical trial. Part 2 of the series will cover upstream manufacturing and process controls for biologics, the ATMP regulatory landscape in China, EU GMP requirements for autologous cell therapies and parenteral biologics, and regulatory challenges and opportunities in the US.Regulations and guidancesThe regenerative medicine advanced therapy (RMAT) field has the potential to provide profound benefits to patients with serious diseases and disorders, and the RMAT designation is helping drive these transformative technologies to market. In Update on RMAT designations, William K. Sietsema and Janet Lynch Lambert discuss the scope and purpose of the special designation for RMATs created by the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act and provide a tally of products that have received the special designation to date. However, while the promise of regenerative medicines to cure disease is propelling the field at a rapid pace, developing these therapies requires a rigorous, carefully planned approach to ensure a seamless progression to regulatory approval and commercial success.Siegfried Schmitt expands on that point about carefully navigating the complex and nuanced regulatory environment in two articles on US and EU regulations for RMATs and ATMPs, respectively. In US regulations for regenerative medicine advanced therapies, he provides a user-friendly, quick-access list of RMAT-related regulations and guidances. The article includes a useful introduction to the application process and descriptions of the features and criteria for various expedited program options, including breakthrough therapy, fast track, advanced approval, and priority review.In Regulation of advanced therapy medicinal products in the EU, Schmitt explains some of the terminology relating to ATMPs before documenting the key EU regulations and guidances for each therapy type. He concludes with discussions on marketing authorization, accelerated regulatory pathways, and market access. Again, he urges companies and developers to engage with the regulatory agencies early and often throughout the approval process and to seek external regulatory support, especially if the developer has limited in-house regulatory resources.Development pathways and manufacturingTwo articles shift the focus from the regulatory landscape to development and manufacturing pathways. The drug manufacturing facility environment presents one of the major sources of potential contaminants in the final biologic drug product, so it is critical to design facilities with cleanroom environmental controls and monitoring that adhere to the highest standards of current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) quality guidelines, write Mo Heidaran and colleagues. In Designing a biologics manufacturing facility: Early planning for success, the authors lay out the planning steps for compliance with cGMP to readiness for chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC). The authors warn that the pressure to reduce time to market put considerable stress on all aspects of commercial operations and commercial-scale manufacturing development, so yet again, early tactical and strategic planning essential.In Advanced therapies: Trip hazards along the development pathway, Kirsten Messmer and Richard Dennett focus on the challenges and complexities of ferrying advanced therapies along the developmental pathway, which they call the trip. They examine the importance of some of the fundamental building blocks for the development program and highlight some commonly encountered challenges, or trip hazards, for cell and gene therapies. The suggest developers establish sound technical and regulatory strategies to better anticipate and avoid the trip hazards, which could prove costly, both in time and money, and have a negative impact the overall clinical study program.CAPA, RWE, and COVID-19Todays CAPA process has become highly focused on compliance, which has manufacturers struggling to determine which issues require a structured CAPA process and which can be resolved in alternative ways, writes Kathryn Merrill in Recasting CAPA as a continuous improvement process. Merrill summarizes a white paper developed by the Medical Device Innovation Consortium, in which the CAPA process is recast as a continuous improvement process for driving higher product quality and improved patient safety. It is intended to enable organizations make a greater number of improvements more quickly, and over time, which will have a favorable impact on product quality in the field.During the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the US Military Health System used an approach known as focused empiricism to develop new approaches for casualty care. In doing so, it implemented real-world data (RWD) and RWE into a system of performance improvement and product development to achieve historic rates of survival, write Todd E. Rasmussen, a colonel in the US Air force, and Brian J. Young. In A military-civilian perspective on real-world evidence to support regulatory decision making, the authors summarize the framework promoting the collection and analysis of RWD in the healthcare system and describe a new era of collaboration between the US Department of Defense and the FDA, within the context of a new Public Law 115-92, to coordinate on the delivery of military-relevant medical products. The article reviews the FDA evidentiary standards for medical product approval and gives examples of how RWE can help meet those standards.COVID-19 continues to disrupt and redefine the regulatory process and activity. In Managing uncertainty: Regulatory reporting in multinational trials during COVID-19, Ioana Ionita discusses regulatory reporting challenges for multinational clinical trials during the pandemic, as well as the challenge of assessing what is reportable and how to submit COVID-19 risk mitigation measures. She offers real-world experience on how she and her colleagues stopped and restarted recruitment in ongoing multinational clinical trials, and how those actions were reported globally. Ionita concludes that close collaboration between sponsors, CROs, local affiliates, investigational sites, and health authorities is important in choosing strategies under challenging circumstances and when no precedent applies.Whats coming in August?Articles during August will focus on global clinical trials and clinical trial applications. Despite ICH efforts to produce guidelines for the development of drugs and biologics and to standardize the format of marketing applications, there remain considerable differences among countries in the format of clinical trial applications and health authority review processes. This collection of articles will address these divergent formats and processes and provide options for navigating the regulatory aspects of clinical trials. Look for these topics and more throughout August at http://www.raps.org.October call for articlesFor October, Regulatory Focus will look at the regulatory toolboxthe tools regulatory professionals need and where to find them, with an emphasis on websites, guidances, meeting minutes and FDA correspondence, including warning letters, enforcement actions, 483s, and notices. Articles will discuss how to interpret the meaning behind regulatory agency actions and available options for documentation. The submission deadline for articles is 1 September 2020. To contribute to the October issue or suggest a topic, contact Rene Matthews at rmatthews@raps.org.Citation Matthews R. Regulatory Focus, July issue: Cell and gene therapy. Regulatory Focus. July 2020. Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society.

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Regulatory Focus, July issue: Cell and gene therapy - Regulatory Focus

G-CON PODs Selected for Expression Therapeutics’ Gene Therapy Manufacturing Facility – PR Web

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Photo courtesy of Expression Therapeutics

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (PRWEB) August 05, 2020

G-CON Manufacturing, the leader in prefabricated, flexible cleanroom solutions, announced today that it has been selected by Expression Therapeutics to support its cleanroom build-out at its new clinical manufacturing facility in Cincinnati, Ohio. The PODs will provide the cleanroom infrastructure for the production of Expression Therapeutics cell and gene therapies.

For this project, time was a critical factor for Expression Therapeutics. Offsite manufacturing of the cleanroom infrastructure allowed for concurrent preparation of their new host facility, significantly reducing the projects overall timeline. Future expandability was also key, as their POD system is being designed to accommodate Expression Therapeutics cleanroom needs for its next phase. Removable panels incorporated into the POD walls will easily allow integration of additional POD clean space. Since PODs are autonomous and completely assembled offsite, this expansion will result in minimal downtime and disruption to the functioning first phase POD cleanrooms.

Its great to work in an industry where innovation moves so fast and helps people live better lives, said Tim Rasmussen, Sales Engineer at G-CON Manufacturing. Companies like Expression Therapeutics need infrastructure to develop breakthrough therapies, and they need them fast. We are proud to play a part in making patients lives better by delivering state of the art cleanroom solutions more quickly than any other solution on the market.

We decided to utilize advanced pre-built modular cleanrooms from G-CON to accelerate our buildout and commence vector manufacturing this year. With vector GMP manufacturing backlogs today typically exceeding 18 months, we wanted to bring on additional capacity as soon as possible to serve clients said Bill Swaney, Vice President of Manufacturing for Expression Therapeutics.

About G-CON ManufacturingG-CON Manufacturing designs, builds and installs prefabricated G-CON POD cleanrooms. G-CONs POD portfolio provides cleanrooms in a number of dimensions for a variety of uses, from laboratory environments to personalized medicine and production process platforms. G-CON POD cleanroom units surpass traditional cleanroom structures in scalability, mobility and the possibility of repurposing the PODs once the production process reaches its lifecycle end. For more information, please visit G-CONs website at http://www.gconbio.com.

G-CON Manufacturing... BUILDING FOR LIFE

About Expression TherapeuticsExpression Therapeutics is a biotechnology company based in Atlanta and Cincinnati. The current therapeutic pipeline includes advanced gene therapies for hemophilia, neuroblastoma, T-cell leukemia/lymphoma, acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and primary immunodeficiencies such as hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH).

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CRISPR co-discoverer on the gene editor’s pandemic push – Axios

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The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the development of CRISPR-based tests for detecting disease and highlighting how gene-editing tools might one day fight pandemics, one of its discoverers, Jennifer Doudna, tells Axios.

Why it matters: Testing shortages and backlogs underscore a need for improved mass testing for COVID-19. Diagnostic tests based on CRISPR which Doudna and colleagues identified in 2012, ushering in the "CRISPR revolution" in genome editing are being developed for dengue, Zika and other diseases, but a global pandemic is a proving ground for these tools that hold promise for speed and lower costs.

Driving the news: Last week, the NIH awarded $250 million for the development of COVID-19 diagnostic tests to a handful of companies, including Mammoth Biosciences, which is working on a CRISPR-based test that CEO Trevor Martin says will deliver 200 tests per hour per machine.

The challenge now is "getting it into a format where it can be used easily either in a laboratory or at the point-of-care," like the doctor's office or home, she says.

How it works: Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR, are sequences of genetic code that bacteria naturally use to find and destroy viruses.

That editing ability is viewed as having vast potential for treating disease, a nascent use of CRISPR.

But there's a persistent problem: Getting the sizable CRISPR system through the membranes and to the DNA of the cells that need editing.

And, there are other concerns about off-target editing with currently available enzymes and unknown long-term effects of gene editing directly in the body.

The intrigue: CRISPR could one day be wielded in future pandemics.

Yes, but: That would require sophisticated understanding of how a virus changes and the immune system's complex response to it.

The big picture: Such "genetic vaccination" is a long way off, but it could eliminate having to wait until a virus shows up, make a vaccine to that virus and then vaccinate people, she says.

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CRISPR co-discoverer on the gene editor's pandemic push - Axios

Voyager Therapeutics Provides Update on AbbVie Vectorized Antibody Collaborations – GlobeNewswire

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: VYGR), a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing life-changing treatments for severe neurological diseases, today announced the termination of its tau and alpha-synuclein vectorized antibody collaborations with AbbVie. Voyager retains full rights to the vectorization technology and certain novel vectorized antibodies developed as part of the collaborations.

Our efforts to harness AAV-based gene therapy to produce antibodies directly in the brain and overcome major limitations with delivery of current biologics across the blood-brain barrier have been highly productive, said Omar Khwaja, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer and Head of R&D at Voyager. Through the tau and alpha-synuclein collaborations, we believe we have made considerable progress against targets for neurodegenerative diseases with this novel approach, reinforcing our enthusiasm for its potential to deliver therapeutically efficacious levels of biologics to the brain and central nervous system. We believe our continued work on discovery and design of novel AAV capsids with substantially improved blood-brain barrier penetrance will also considerably broaden the potential of AAV-based gene therapy, including vectorized antibodies or other biologics, for the treatment of severe neurological diseases.

The tau and alpha-synuclein research collaborations were formed in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Under the terms of the collaboration agreements, Voyager received upfront payments to perform research and preclinical development of vectorized antibodies directed against tau and alpha-synuclein. With the conclusion of the collaborations, Voyager has regained full clinical development and commercialization rights to certain product candidates developed within the context of the collaboration for the tau program. Voyager is free to pursue vectorized antibody programs for tau and alpha-synuclein alone or in collaboration with another partner.

Voyager does not anticipate any changes to its cash runway guidance due to the termination of the agreements. As of March 31, 2020, the Company had cash, cash equivalents and marketable debt securities of $250.9 million, which, along with amounts expected to be received for reimbursement of development costs from Neurocrine Biosciences, is expected to be sufficient to meet Voyagers projected operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements into mid-2022.

About Voyager Therapeutics

Voyager Therapeutics is a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing life-changing treatments for severe neurological diseases. Voyager is committed to advancing the field of AAV gene therapy through innovation and investment in vector engineering and optimization, manufacturing, and dosing and delivery techniques. Voyagers wholly owned and partnered pipeline focuses on severe neurological diseases for which effective new therapies are needed, including Parkinsons disease, Huntingtons disease, Friedreichs ataxia, and other severe neurological diseases. For more information, please visit http://www.voyagertherapeutics.com or follow @VoyagerTx on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws. The use of words such as may, might, will, would, should, expect, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, undoubtedly, project, intend, future, potential, or continue, and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. For example, all statements Voyager makes regarding the ability of Voyager to maintain research and development activities currently included within the collaboration agreements with AbbVie; Voyagers ability to advance its AAV-based gene therapies and its ability to continue to develop its gene therapy platform; the scope of the intellectual property rights and other rights that will be available to Voyager following the termination of the AbbVie collaboration agreements; the anticipated effects of the termination of the AbbVie collaboration agreements on Voyagers anticipated financial results, including Voyagers available cash, cash equivalents and marketable debt securities; and Voyagers ability to fund its operating expenses with its current cash, cash equivalents and marketable debt securities through a stated time period are forward looking. All forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions by Voyagers management that, although Voyager believes such forward-looking statements to be reasonable, are inherently uncertain. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that Voyager expected. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the continued cooperation of AbbVie in activities arising from the termination of the AbbVie collaboration agreements, the development of the gene therapy platform; Voyagers scientific approach and general development progress; Voyagers ability to create and protect its intellectual property; and the sufficiency of Voyagers cash resources. These statements are also subject to a number of material risks and uncertainties that are described in Voyagers most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as updated by its subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information in the press release is as of the date of this press release, and any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it was made. Voyager undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise this information or any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Investors:Paul CoxVP, Investor Relations857-201-3463pcox@vygr.com

Media:Sheryl SeapyW2Opure949-903-4750sseapy@purecommunications.com

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And they’re off! Campaign signs popping up – Las Cruces Bulletin

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By Mike Cook

As of Aug. 7, there are 88 days until the Tuesday, Nov. 3, General Election. Yard signs and billboards are allowed 90 days before an election, and they have already begun to appear.

There are 28 federal, statewide and local races on Doa Ana County ballots, including 59 candidates: 28 Democrats, 25 Republicans, four Libertarians, one Constitution Party candidate and one declined-to-state (DTS) candidate. There are eight incumbent local district judges and one state Supreme Court justice up for voter retention.

There also will be five ballot initiatives for voters to consider: two constitutional amendments and three statewide bond issues that would allocate $200 million for senior centers, libraries, colleges and universities across the state.

Because state legislators and county commissioners are elected by districts, not everyone will see the same names on their ballots. Voters will choose from the same group of candidates for president, U.S. Senate and U.S. House New Mexico district two, county clerk and treasurer and Third Judicial District attorney, and will vote up or down for statewide and local judicial retentions.

But depending on where they live, voters will see different candidates in the six state Senate and eight state House of Representatives races that include Doa Ana County. Three of five county commission seats are also on this years ballot. The other two commission seats along with the county sheriff, assessor and probate judge will be up in 2022.

Democrats are unopposed in one statewide and two local races: Court of Appeals position three, district attorney and county commission district two. Gerald Byers, who also had no primary opponent, will succeed Mark DAntonio, who is retiring after two four-year terms, as district attorney.

Anthony Mayor Diane Murillo-Trujillo defeated incumbent Ramon Gonzalez in the June county commission district two Primary and will become a member of the commission next January.

The four Libertarian candidates are running for president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, Court of Appeals position two (a write-in candidate whose status is being evaluated by the New Mexico Secretary of States office) and county commission district four.

The lone Constitution Party candidate is running for president and the only DTS candidate is running for U.S. House district two.

There are 22 incumbents running: 21 Democrats hoping to hold U.S. House district two, two state Supreme Court and three Court of Appeals seats, four state Senate and eight state House seats, one county commission seat, county clerk and county treasurer; and two Republicans, President Donald Trump and state Sen. Ron Griggs of Alamogordo, whose district includes two of Doa Ana Countys 170 precincts.

Two long-time state Senate Democrats John Arthur Smith (32 years) of Deming and Mary Kay Papen (20 years) of Las Cruces, lost in the Primary, along with County Commissioner Gonzalez. Another county commissioner, Isabella Solis, was elected to the commission as a Democrat in 2016, switched to Republican in 2019 and chose to run for state representative this year instead of running for re-election to the commission.

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What’s on the ballot? A rundown of races and issues facing Greene County voters on Tuesday – News-Leader

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The United States has never delayed an election, even during the Civil War and World War II. USA TODAY

On Tuesday, Missouri voters will head to the polls to cast their ballots.

There are several primaries for federal,state and local races on the ballot, as well as a state constitutional amendment, and for Springfield voters, a question about fees for short-term lenders.

Greene County polling sites will have cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer and gloves on hand when residents show up to vote in the primary on Tuesday.(Photo: Nathan Papes/Springfield News-Leader)

Here's a rundown of what's on the ballot.

Primary races for Missouri governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer and attorney general are all up for grabs.

The Republicans running are:

Governor

Lieutenant Governor

Secretary of State

Treasurer

Attorney General

The Democrats running are:

Governor

Lieutenant Governor

Secretary of State

Treasurer

Attorney General

The Libertarian candidates running are:

Governor

Lieutenant Governor

Secretary of State

Treasurer

Attorney General

Green Party candidates running are:

Governor

Lieutenant Governor

Secretary of State

Treasurer

There is one Constitution Party candidate, Paul Venable, who is running for secretary of state.

The only federal nomination up for grabs in this election is oneencompassing Greene, Polk, Christian, Taney, Stone, Barry, McDonald, Newton, Jasper and Lawrence counties, as well as the southwest corner of Webster County.

The Republicans running are:

Democrat Teresa Montseny is running unopposed in her party's primary, as isLibertarian candidate Kevin Craig.

Several Greene County state seats are up for grabs this election. If you don't know your district, you can find out athttps://house.mo.gov/legislatorlookup.aspx.

District 130

There are three Republicans running for this open seat, which covers Republic, Willard and western Greene County.They are:

Democrat Dave Gragg is running unopposed in his party's primary.

District 131

There are two Republican candidates running for this open seat, which covers northern Springfield and north-central Greene County. They are:

Democrat Allison Schoolcraft is unopposed in her party's primary.

District 132

Both incumbent Democrat Crystal Quade and Republican Sarah Semple are running unopposed in their primaries for this seat, which covers parts of north and northwest Springfield.

District 133

Both incumbent Republican Curtis Trent and Democratic candidate Cindy Slimp are running unopposed in their primaries for this seat, which includes west and southwest Springfield and extends down to the cityof Battlefield.

District 134

There are two Republican candidates running for this open seat, which covers south-central Springfield, running from Bass Pro Shops to the James River. They are:

Democrat Derrick Nowlin is running unopposed in his party's primary.

District 135

Incumbent Republican Steve Helms,Democratic candidate Betsy Fogle and Green Party candidate Vicke Keplingare each running unopposed in their primaries for this seat, which covers east Springfield.

District 136

Incumbent Republican Craig Fishel and Democratic candidate Jeff Munzinger are each running unopposed in their primaries for this seat, which covers southeast Springfield and Greene County.

District 137

Incumbent Republican John F. Black and Democratic candidate Raymond Lampert are each running unopposed in their primaries for this district, which covers parts of northeast Greene County and western Webster County.

There are several county races up for grabs on the ballot.

Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott, Treasurer Justin Hill and Public Administrator Sherri Eagon Martin,allRepublicans, are running unopposed.

District 1 Commissioner

Two people are running on the Republican ballot for the first commission district, which covers Western Greene County. They are:

Democratic candidate Wes Zongker is running unopposed in his party's primary.

District 2 Commissioner

Incumbent Republican John Russell and Libertarian candidate Cecil A. Ince are each running unopposed in their party's primaries.

Assessor

There are three Republican candidates running for Greene County Assessor. They are:

Constitutional amendment No. 2

This issue will go to all voters across the state, asking whether they want to amend the state's constitution to allow people from 19 to 64 who have an income level at or less than 133 percent of the federal poverty line to qualify for health care coverage.

The debate about expansion has been lengthy, but a News-Leader series examining the impact found:

When voters go to the ballot box, they should mark"Yes" if they support expansion, or "No" if they don't. That ballot language is as follows:

"Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:

State government entities are estimated to have one-time costs of approximately $6.4 million and an unknown annual net fiscal impact by 2026 ranging from increased costs of at least $200 million to savings of $1 billion. Local governments expect costs to decrease by an unknown amount."

City of Springfield Question 1

Voters in the city of Springfield will also consider their own ballot initiative, which would require short-term lending establishments, such as payday or car title lenders, to pay an annual registration fee of $5,000.

The proposal,which city voters will see on the Aug. 4 ballot,was approved in May by City Council along with a bill requiring lenders toadvertise interest rates, disclose how long it will take people to pay off a loan and provide clear explanations about the agreement the borrower is signing.

The fee is intended to make sure lenders comply with city requirements, and the money will be used to provide alternatives to short-term lenders, help people get out of debt and educate the community about the reality of taking out a payday or car title loan.

Voters who support imposing the fee should vote "Yes," and those who don't should vote "No."The ballot language is as follows:

"Shall the City of Springfield, Missouri, be authorized to impose a fee for a Short-Term Loan Establishment permit in the amount of $5,000 annually, new or renewal, or $2,500 for a permit issued with less than 6 months remaining in the calendar year?"

Polling places citywide are open from 6 a.m. to 7p.m. Tuesday.

To find your polling place, visithttps://greenecountymo.gov/county_clerk/election/precinct_information.phpor call 417-868-4060.

Voters should remember to bring a valid state or federal ID with them to the polling place, such as a driver's license, military ID or passport.

If you don't have a government-issued ID, youcan bring a voter registration card, a Missouri university, college, vocational or technical school ID or a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or other government document containing yourname and address.

People voting in the city should also remember to wear a mask, which is required by ordinance. Hand sanitizer and other cleaning supplies will also be available at polling places.

Katie Kull covers local government for the News-Leader. Got a story to tell? Give her a call at 417-408-1025 or email herat kkull@news-leader.com. You can also support local journalism atNews-Leader.com/subscribe.

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What's on the ballot? A rundown of races and issues facing Greene County voters on Tuesday - News-Leader

Messenger: From COVID to Medicaid expansion, Missouri governor’s race revolves around health care – STLtoday.com

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Its that process that creates the dichotomy Silvey lamented. The reason that lawmakers are out of touch with statewide voters isnt just because of the states longstanding rural-urban divide, its also because they long ago gerrymandered legislative districts to protect incumbent Republicans. Doing so made the districts look less like their actual communities and created primaries where, in most cases, only the most extreme Republican could win.

There are very few legislative districts left in Missouri that could elect a thoughtful Republican voice like Silvey or Barnes, and that puts the state at a loss.

So in November, as Parson is running from his COVID-19 record and his opposition to providing health care to the working poor, the bipartisan coalition that passed Medicaid, passed the minimum wage, fought right-to-work and supported medical marijuana, will be back to defend Clean Missouri.

I think you will see similar voices of support, for the Vote No on Amendment 3 campaign that Missouri saw with Medicaid expansion, says political strategist Sean Nicholson, who is getting the Clean Missouri band back together. There will be business and labor groups and community groups. There is a disconnect between what the Legislature has been working on and where the people are at.

The people, says Silvey, want health care. They want the government to solve problems. Yes, even Republicans. Medicaid expansion passed overwhelmingly in Kansas City, St. Louis and Columbia, but it also passed in the two Republican hotbeds of St. Charles County and Green County.

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Messenger: From COVID to Medicaid expansion, Missouri governor's race revolves around health care - STLtoday.com

COVID-19 and Maine’s budget crisis require action on health care costs – Bangor Daily News

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Gov. Janet Mills has led Maines response to the health crisis with compassion and clarity. Yet Maine is not immune from the seismic impacts of COVID-19. A $1.4 billion budget shortfall is estimated over the next three years, including a loss of more than $520 million this fiscal year. Maine holds the unsavory distinction of the greatest racial disparity in COVID-19 infection rates, with Black Mainers more than 20 times more likely to contract the virus than their white neighbors. A recent report shows 14,000 Mainers will be newly uninsured after tens of thousands have lost employer-provided insurance since February.

Health insurance companies are proposing raising rates for small businesses, with initial filings showing the highest requested increase for 2021 topping out at over 10 percent, following rate hikes in the double-digits last year for many plans. The Maine Health Data Organization reports that overall, the 25 most costly drugs in Maine increased in cost by nearly 11 percent last year and the cost per person increased by 27 percent. In 2018, Maines per-capita health expenditures were 10 percent higher than the U.S. average.

Our most recent polling shows over two-thirds of Mainers are concerned about not being able to afford health coverage, copays and deductibles. Nearly three quarters are concerned about prescription drug prices, with two out of three worried they wont be able to afford the medicine they need. These concerns are growing with more Mainers losing coverage.

State policymakers have taken significant steps to improve health care affordability, and this moment calls for continued action to control rising costs and expand accessibility without cutting vital access to programs. We need solutions that not only stop the spread of the virus but make sure Maine can reopen its doors and stay open. This is especially important as vulnerable Mainers return to work, caring for older Mainers and providing other essential services.

Expanded MaineCare is helping thousands access the coverage and care they need, and laws enacted last year improve affordability and access to health care in Maines individual and small business markets. Bipartisan support of measures to address skyrocketing prescription drug prices, including the creation of a Prescription Drug Affordability Board to help contain drug costs in public health programs, shows Maine policymakers can work together to address the problems we face. And that work must continue with urgency.

It starts with our federal lawmakers. Initial increases in federal match rates for state Medicaid programs have been helpful but are nowhere close to what is needed to help fill the gaps in state revenue. The HEROES Act passed by the House includes increased Medicaid funding to help avoid devastating health care cuts at the state level, but the Senates HEALS Act does not.

State policymakers have an opportunity to address rising costs with Senate President Troy Jacksons bill, LD 2110, An Act to Lower Health Care Costs. It passed in the Maine House and Senate, but sits awaiting final action as the Legislature contemplates a special session. The bill creates an independent entity to examine and identify ways to lower health care costs. It would also provide staffing to Maines Prescription Drug Affordability Board, which has only met once since its creation due in part to the lack of dedicated staff.

With an ongoing pandemic and revenue losses, reining in health care costs while also ensuring access to care has never been more important. A similar effort in Massachusetts has already produced very promising results.

There are real opportunities to protect the health care gains we have made in Maine and to help those who are going without. I am more than hopeful and confident policy makers at both the federal and state level will put politics aside and work together to protect the health and well-being of the people they represent.

Ann Woloson is the executive director of Consumers for Affordable Health Care.

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COVID-19 and Maine's budget crisis require action on health care costs - Bangor Daily News

Hospital’s food delivery service is a blessing | Health Care – Grand Haven Tribune

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Editors note: This is the fourth in a series celebrating our local health care workers.

I never thought spending a week in the North Ottawa Community Hospital intensive care unit with my almost 98-year-old mom would feel like such a blessing.

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Donna Bullock, the service representative for North Ottawa Community Hospitals food service department, said she loves the family environment in her workplace.

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Hospital's food delivery service is a blessing | Health Care - Grand Haven Tribune

Big Tech’s assault on free speech | TheHill – The Hill

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For years, there have been whispers about Big Techs tendency to muffle those who dare to challenge mainstream liberal orthodoxy. In 2018, thePew Research Centerfound, 72% of the public thinks it likely that social media platforms actively censor political views that those companies find objectionable. By a four-to-one margin, respondents were more likely to say Big Tech supports the views of liberals over conservatives than vice versa.

As the 2020 elections approach, Big Tech has upped the ante in its limiting of free speech. This is a dangerous development that undermines the fundamental principles upon which the United States was founded. If left unchecked, it could lead to an Orwellian nightmare and, ultimately, to the end of the republic as we know it.

In the past few years, there have been countless cases of social media giants Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube muzzling conservatives and libertarians, for apparent political motives. For example, it is well documented thatTwitter uses shadow bansto prevent users from sharing their posts to the hundreds of millions of Twitter users.

Somehow,shadow bans overwhelmingly have been applied to those on the rightend of the political spectrum. Coincidence? I think not.

Although those on the left claim this is exaggerated, it happens all the time. And it seems that Twitter and others are clamping down more and more on prominent users who have the audacity to question the so-called consensus on a variety of issues.

Recently, Twitter has come under increased scrutiny because it has targeted conservatives such asDonald Trump Jr.who have posted material that question mainstream narrative about protests, coronavirus treatments, the wisdom of lockdowns and several other pressing issues.

The Trump Jr. case is particularly spine-chilling because all the presidents son did was post a video from a group of doctors who presented a case for using hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. According to Twitter, Tweets with the video are in violation of our Covid-19 misinformation policy. We are taking action in line with our policy here.

Shortly after, Facebook and YouTube also scrubbed the video. Although this may seem like no big deal, it certainly is.

In 2020,most Americans receive their news via social media. The sheer power held by these companies concerning the flow of information is mind-boggling. And they can use their power to shift public opinion, as demonstrated in the 2010 election whenFacebook launched a get-out-the-vote campaignthat it claims resulted in 343,000 more voters going to the polls.

If Facebook and other social media giants can nudge Americans to vote, how long before they also shift public opinion in the direction they desire? It seems as if this Rubicon may have already been crossed.

In some ways, Google has more power over information than the social media companies because Google completely dominates internet searches. Over the past year,Googles market share of worldwide internet searches has hovered around 92 percent.

According to a recentstudytitled An analysis of political bias in search engine results, Googles top search results were almost 40% more likely to contain pages with a Left or Far Left slant than they were pages from the right. Moreover, 16% of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results.

In other words, according to that study, Googles algorithm is politically biased to favor the left over the right. Maybe that explains why Google and other Big Tech companies contribute so much money to the Democratic Party compared to the Republican Party.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics,70 percentof donations by Facebook and its employees in the 2020 campaign cycle have gone to Democrats. Eighty-one percent of Googles political contributions have gone to Democrats. The same trend applies to Amazon (74 percent) and Apple (91 percent).

Fortunately, Big Techs bias is becoming more and more apparent. Most Americans are well aware that in general, Big Tech favors leftwing causes, politicians and opinions.

Since it seems that Congress is unwilling to do anything about this in the near future, the question is, what can and should we the people do about it?

Chris Talgo(ctalgo@heartland.org)is an editor at The Heartland Institute.

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Influential think tank urges Govt to protect free speech in universities – The Christian Institute

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The Government must legislate to ensure freedom of speech is protected in university students unions, a leading think tank has said.

A report by the influential Policy Exchange said Parliament needed to make current legislation clearer and more robust, and impress upon universities and colleges their duty to ensure academic freedom and freedom of speech.

In recent years, students unions in England have denied pro-life and Christian student groups access to funding, and facilities such as stalls at freshers fairs.

The report called for a new Director for Academic Freedom at the Office for Students to promote tolerance for viewpoint diversity in universities and students unions.

The role would encourage compliance and investigate possible breaches.

It added that guidance should be updated to ensure students unions fulfil their freedom of speech duties and universities and colleges had to be being willing to support events in the face of intimidation and threats.

Policy Exchange has called for the Government to provide examples of sanctions that universities and colleges can apply to non-complying students unions.

It stated that universities and colleges would be expected to impose such fines against individual members of the University and those groups that fail to uphold freedom of speech, including fines for Student Unions who discriminate on grounds of viewpoint.

Where a Student Union denies a student group access to services, the report says there should be a process to appeal.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson indicated in February that the Government is ready to defend students rights to freedom of speech.

Writing in The Times, he said: If universities dont take action, the government will. If necessary, Ill look at changing the underpinning legal framework, perhaps to clarify the duties of students unions or strengthen free speech rights.

I dont take such changes lightly, but I believe we have a responsibility to do whatever necessary to defend this right.

In 2017, Balliol College of Oxford University banned the Christian Union from its Freshers Fair, because Christianity was labelled as an excuse for homophobia and certain forms of neo-colonialism.

Organiser Freddy Potts claimed that the presence of CU members would be alienating for students and constituted a microaggression, but a backlash from Balliol students forced the organising committee to back down.

Office for Students defends free speech in no-platforming row

Security guards for Oxford prof after trans activists threats

Universities launch free speech societies

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Influential think tank urges Govt to protect free speech in universities - The Christian Institute

Assessing Indias obsession with data localisation – Deccan Herald

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Covid-19 has spawned contact-tracing worldwide, triggering collection and processing of personal data. Privacy protections surrounding this are nascent, raising significant concerns about their permanence in our society. The Supreme Courts landmark Puttaswamy judgement recognised privacy as intrinsic to personal liberty under Article 21.

Concurrently, it recognised that a legitimate interest, say, an epidemic, might restrain the right provided the doctrines of necessity and proportionality are satisfied. In this context, a recent order from the Kerala High Court in Balu Gopalakrishnan assumes significance.

The Kerala government contracted US-based Sprinklr Inc for Covid-related medical data analysis. Petitioners assailed this contract for lacking adequate privacy safeguards, arguing that the jurisdictional choice of New York virtually renders Indian citizens defenceless against a breach.

The courts order pervasively focuses on data localisation, that data concerning Indian residents must reside within India to secure jurisdiction of her courts. This sentiment has been echoed by Union ministers as well. We submit that data localisation is an anachronism, and severely inhibits privacy protections envisaged under the Constitution.

A comprehensive safeguard instead necessitates attaching jurisdiction through the residence of the data subject. In fact, Delhis obsession with data localisation stalls the resolution of another obsolescence ailing Indias privacy regime the absence of a data-protection legislation.

Currently, statutory protections are entirely contained within the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act). Data localisation advocates, and respondents in Gopalakrishnan argue that localisation attaches jurisdiction using Section 75(2) of the IT Act, which applies the Act extra-territorially (outside India) if a breach involves a computer located in India.

Any reassurance from Section 75(2) is a facade. Consider this, Sprinklr decides to use a supercomputer in Ohio and copies data from Indian servers. The supercomputer at Ohio containing data of Indian nationals is breached. In such a case, Section 75(2) will not operate since the computer located in India was not breached, and absurdly, an Indian will be without remedy.

The IT Act was designed to facilitate e-commerce, not for data protection. Thus, virtually, the entirity of its penal provisions are predicated on tangible loss (see Sections 43A, 66, 66C, 66D, and 66E). Disclosure that someone is diabetic may not cause a loss but is still a privacy violation yet, the IT Act provides no remedy here.

Resolving these absurdities requires a fundamental re-imagination of our privacy jurisprudence. Jurisdiction should attach to any entity collecting, processing, and/or storing personal data based on the residence of the data subject, not its location. This approach allows greater flexibility for processing while also comprehensively protecting privacy.

The spatial approach of data-localisation is incongruent to the very concept of privacy. This was first enunciated by the US Supreme Court (Scotus) in Katz v United States, where wiretapping without entering a persons home was challenged as a violation of Fourth Amendment rights.

The Fourth Amendment is textually spatial; it protects against unreasonable search and seizure of someones persons, houses, papers, and effects. Drafted around 1791, its text could not possibly predict the intrusion that remote technologies can accomplish today.

Therefore, like data-localisation, it was written with spatial limitations and a literal interpretation renders it redundant today. Cognizant of this vulnerability, Scotus held that privacy attaches to people, not places, and therefore, wiretapping even absent a literal intrusion was unconstitutional.

The Indian Supreme Court, in Dist Registrar & Collector v Canara Bank, adopted Katz with approval, placing individuals at the locus of privacy. In Puttaswamy, Justice Chandrachud wrote, Privacy is a concomitant of the right of the individual to exercise control over his or her personality. Justice Nariman distilled an informational aspect of privacy, distinct from an individuals physical body. As a principle seeking to preserve privacy, therefore, data localisation ignores its evolution and attempts to restrict it to an obsolete conception of tangibility and spatiality.

Restrictive view

To argue that Indian courts cannot pursue offenders abroad without data localisation is a restrictive view of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court in GVK Industries acknowledged Parliaments power to legislate extra-territorially for the interests or welfare of inhabitants of India. Article 73 of the Constitution makes the Union executive power contemporaneous with Parliaments legislative authority.

Therefore, where the welfare of Indians is concerned, legislative and executive powers of extend outside India too.The Constitutions Fundamental Rights Charter is meant to check state authority. Consequently, it too, must operate abroad if the state pursues extra-territorial acts.

Concluding otherwise would confer absolute impunity to state action abroad, even when it infringes the rights, interests or welfare of the people of India. The Constitution provides for writs under Articles 32 and 226 for enforcing rights of Indians, indicating that the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and high courts would extend extra-territorially in such cases.

There is precedent for this understanding of jurisdiction. Section 4 of the IPC provides that an Indian citizen may be charged with an IPC offence committed while she is abroad, even if it is not an offence in that country. Parliament has therefore attempted to regulate the conduct of Indian citizens abroad to accord with Indias standards of criminality. In such cases, Indian courts gain congruent jurisdiction already. For data protection, Europes General Data Protection Regulation statutorily attaches jurisdiction based on residence of data-subject, rejecting data-localisation. Under the Protective Principle, international law also permits extra-territorial jurisdiction of states for its own preservation or protecting its interests. Clearly, critical personal data of its residents is at the core of a states interests.

In Maneka Gandhi, the SC noted that courts should expand the reach and ambit of Fundamental Rights, rather than to attenuate their meaning and content by a process of judicial construction. By relying on constricted and overly simplistic anachronisms like data-localisation, policy makers are turning away from this guiding principle.

(Maniktala is an LLB student, Campus Law Center, University of Delhi; Khurana, is an LLM graduate from the UCLA School of Law, USA)

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Assessing Indias obsession with data localisation - Deccan Herald

Alexa is starting to ask questions. How should we respond? – CNET

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In the future, software in products like the Amazon Echo Studio will feature give-and-take conversations.

Two years ago, Amazon announced a new feature for Alexa: the ability to ask questions.Hunches, as they're called, have slowly rolled out since the announcement, and now it's fairly common to hear Alexa move outside her old "answer questions, obey commands" routine. The voice assistant usually asks these questions as follow-ups to your commands or questions, and they're a result of Alexa trying to anticipate your requests -- for instance, reminding you to lock the door at night.

Hunches are only the start.

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During July'sAlexa Live developers conference, Amazon announced another new upgrade: give-and-take conversations with the voice assistant. The tools for such conversation are already being implemented by third-party developers and it wouldn't be a surprise to hear Alexa, in the next few months, begin to ask follow-up questions after you give the usual commands.

These might seem like incremental improvements, but they could dramatically change how we understand and use voice assistants. After all, we've seen movies in which AI creations banter with their creators, but few of us have actually spent time wondering if we'd actuallywantto spend much time chatting with Alexa over coffee each morning. And more importantly, we haven't grappled enough with the costs of such advances.

It's almost passe to talk about the immense troves of data companies like Amazon and Google can tap nowadays, but that data is the fuel powering the smart home's proverbial engine -- and Alexa is the fracking apparatus gathering it.

Amazon's release of the Echo Dot with Clock last year gave a small window into the usefulness of such data: Alexa fields questions about the time of day over a billion times per year, so Amazon built a device to answer that question more effectively. It's simple supply and demand, but where Amazon can quantify the demand with unprecedented precision.

2019's Echo Dot with Clock represents Amazon's data-gathering tools in action.

Now, Amazon is testing out more proactive behaviors for Alexa, having the assistant prompt users on occasion -- and the company can track in real time the rate of success in those predictions. People are responding positively (that is, affirming Alexa's suggested actions) "the vast majority of the time," according to Vice President of Smart Home at Amazon Daniel Rausch.

Rausch and I spoke on the phone before July's conference and he was as excited as ever about the innovations in the voice-driven smart home space. He said more developers than ever are designing Alexa skills and devices to work with the voice assistant -- over 750,000 were registered for the conference -- and it's cheaper than ever to incorporate Alexa-compatibility into any given device, at a jaw-dropping $4.

The growth in third-party development means the instant feedback loop, in which Amazon can roll out features, test them and receive immediate customer response data, is only growing in value for Amazon -- especially as they push deeper into uncharted consumer territory.

Amazon's voice assistant is making itself at home in more than the house, thanks to the Alexa app, Echo Auto and other out-of-home devices.

Perhaps, like the hours of time we spend on our phones each day, we'll arrive at a new norm without ever having time to seriously consider the route we're taking, the destination ahead. Or perhaps, the time to consider such things is now.

The EU is currently looking into Google, Amazon and other tech giants for precisely this kind of data-driven market dominance in the smart home space in Europe -- though the stated goal is to maintain healthy competition.

Another type of inquiry -- formal or informal -- is in order: What exactly could the unforeseen outcomes of expanded voice technology be? Is there a way to progress technologically without risking such outcomes?

Daniel Rausch and others at Amazon are typically hesitant to talk about specific goals in the far future, but the investment the tech giant is making into its voice technology tells us more than you might think about the vision Amazon is pursuing. It's a vision that's simultaneously exciting and concerning.

We're not likely to reach the sci-fi levels Iron Man,Moonor Her too soon, but as we become more accustomed to a give-and-take mode of interacting with Alexa, we're moving toward voice technology taking a much more central spot in our daily lives. As Rausch told me over the phone, Alexa use has quadrupled in the past two years and the increase in Alexa-use is non-linear: Growth over the next year will likely outpace growth over the past year.

As Alexa and other voice assistants find homes in new devices -- controlling our TVs, phones and even microwaves -- and as they also become more predictive and proactive in their interactions with us, we could see the voice landscape dramatically change in increasingly short periods of time.

The Amazon Basics microwave is likely only an early example of what will become normal over the next decade: voice-driven appliances.

More concretely: Within a year, we could conceivably see Alexa (and other voice assistants) hear you walk into the kitchen using abilities akin to Alexa Guard (which can distinguish between human and pet footsteps), ask if you'd like it to preheat the oven for your usual lunch and so on -- all unprompted. Many customers might be happy for such convenience, even given the cost to privacy it represents.

It's not just privacy at stake: People are turning to voice assistants for information on the COVID-19, on mental health, on exercise and more -- and Alexa dutifully provides skills, sometimes hundreds of skills, to address such needs. As one Atlantic writer mused about the future of voice assistants, "With their perfect cloud-based memories, they will be omniscient; with their occupation of our most intimate spaces, they'll be omnipresent. And with their eerie ability to elicit confessions, they could acquire a remarkable power over our emotional lives."

As Alexa changes, so do we. Many of us who use voice assistants regularly have found tricks to interacting with them. Alexa never understands when I ask for the album KTSE by Teyana Taylor, for instance, so I have to play an individual song from it, then tell the assistant to "play this whole album." My wife, who is convinced Alexa is sexist for never understanding her commands as well as the assistant understands mine ("I have more practice," I always assure her, only mostly certain of myself), is much more willing to insult Alexa -- and, strangely enough, to apologize.

I worry about how our three- and four-year-old will interact with voice assistants and I honestly don't know what type of interaction is "right" anyway.

In short, Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri and any number of other assistants are changing privacy norms, changing culture and changing us.

Cameras connected to Alexa and other voice assistants only add another layer of complexity to the conversation.

Can we preserve our privacy -- and ourselves -- and also experience the convenience afforded by such advances? If we try, it will certainly slow things down -- something companies like Amazon are likely keen to avoid.

Privacy policy, messy as it may be, is important here. Bills like California's CCPA (which has only just started being enforced as of July) help cite businesses for violating user privacy or failing to properly inform users about the data being collected on them. Such bills, with the rapid expansion of voice and smart home technology, need to be living documents, developing alongside Alexa and other voice assistants, challenging them where appropriate.

On an individual level, it's still worth practicing privacy hygiene -- deleting apps from your phone if you don't use them regularly, opting for the strictest privacy options from social media and voice assistants and so on. More fundamentally, now is the best time to start asking ourselves what we want our futures to look like, and how much access voice assistants should have to our lives, our homes and our selves.

If a time traveler from the future had told us in 2007 the sleep problems and behavioral changes touch screens would usher into our lives, would it or should it have changed the trajectory of our phone innovations over the next thirteen years to 2020?

If the answer is yes, then another question is worth asking: As we see Amazon actively build toward a future that centrally positions its voice assistant in the home, should we do more to protect what privacy we have left?

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Alexa is starting to ask questions. How should we respond? - CNET

From the Manhattan Project, a legacy of discovery and a national burden – Stars and Stripes

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The bomb-bay doors on the B-29 Superfortress Bockscar swung open over Nagasaki, Japan, a little before noon on Aug. 9, 1945, and at 11:58 a.m. one 10,800-pound bomb fell away.

Minutes later, a 5,300-pound sphere of high explosives imploded inside the bomb casing. The blast squeezed a softball-sized, 13.6-pound plutonium core to the size of a tennis ball, a super-critical mass that started a chain reaction.

The resulting nuclear explosion killed approximately 39,000 people and injured another 25,000, according to the online Atomic Archive. It was the second use of a nuclear weapon in war and the first to employ a plutonium implosion device, still a mainstay of nuclear weapons technology.

Scientists and engineers of the Manhattan Project, the top-secret World War II nuclear weapons program, fused raw science and practical engineering to create the implosion bomb at Project Y, the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. The Hanford Engineer Works along the banks of the Columbia River in central Washington produced the plutonium. The bomb was tested at an isolated desert flat near Alamogordo, N.M., known as Trinity Site.

Trinity Site today is a once-a-year tourist attraction. But 75 years later, national laboratories at Los Alamos and Hanford, part of an extensive network that is the Manhattan Project legacy, are still in business.

The two-year crash effort to build the bomb that encompassed a handful of locations nationwide has grown into 17 national laboratories and dozens of affiliated sites overseen by the Department of Energy on a budget this year of more than $34 billion.

They continue to design new weapons and maintain the nations nuclear arsenal, but most of their work is geared toward basic science that yields amazing discoveries.

Theres a lot of impressive work going on at the lab outside of the nuclear weapons programs, whether its on energy or on computing or on any number of scientific areas. They still maintain a high caliber of research in the national interest, said Steven Aftergood, a freedom-of-information advocate for the Federation of American Scientists. I wouldnt want to overlook that.

On top of its work as a weapons designer, Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the critical work of the Manhattan Project took place, today engages in basic research in myriad topics, from black holes to cloud computing and climate change. The lab is also using genomics to diagnose cases of the coronavirus.

When the Cold War ended, lab experts also turned their expertise to helping the former Soviet Union dismantle its nuclear weapons.

Los Alamos laboratory may be the most famous Manhattan Project site, but it wasnt the only one and it wasnt even the first. That distinction belongs to Argonne National Laboratory, on the outskirts of Chicago, that grew out of physicist Enrico Fermis search at the University of Chicago for the first sustained nuclear reaction.

They were trying to figure out what the critical mass is, how much uranium 235 fissile core do you actually need to start a chain reaction, said Robert Rosner, former Argonne lab director.

Argonne is one of 10 national laboratories under the Department of Energys Office of Science. While some, like Argonne, Hanford (today the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) and Oak Ridge, have roots in the Manhattan Project, they no longer work primarily on weapons development. The Pacific Northwest lab, for example, played a part in the detection of gravity waves in 2015.

Argonne, originally known by its code name, the Metallurgical Lab, became the home of the civilian nuclear power program, Rosner said. It created the worlds very first power reactor, the Experimental Breeder Reactor, at Argonne West, now the Idaho National Laboratory.

Three national laboratories are still primarily devoted to the work of nuclear weapons, including their non-nuclear components. Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., and Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., fall under the authority of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The Manhattan Project employed as many as 130,000 people and cost nearly $2 billion, about $28.6 billion today. Work at Los Alamos alone cost taxpayers about $74 million, or $1.06 billion today, according to the Brookings Institution.

The Energy Department in fiscal year 2019 budgeted $2.9 billion for Los Alamos National Laboratory, of which 66%, or $1.9 billion, was intended for weapons programs.

At its height during World War II, Los Alamos employed about 5,000 people. Today there are over 12,000 people in the lab, just the lab, Rosner said during a phone interview July 15.

In addition to the raw and applied sciences the labs produce, they preserve a model for integrating scientists, engineers and other experts across a variety of fields that is not widely practiced in the commercial world, Rosner said.

Integrated teams are the secret behind national laboratories, he said. Universities traditionally cannot do this, and the reason is that were a silo. We have a physics department, a chemistry department theres a math department.

Academics find rewards in their own disciplines, said Rosner, who is now a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Most physicists working at Los Alamos are astrophysicists, he said.

Astrophysicists are a good example of that. Astronomers, Rosner said. Theyre not thinking about money; theyre thinking about the universe, right? The Big Bang.

Few commercial enterprises can afford research and development the way the labs do it, he said. The old Bell Laboratories, before its break-up in 1982, produced significant advances, such as the silicon chip.

Ask yourself, does AT&T or Verizon or all of the other what used to be called Baby Bells, do they have big, basic research labs? he said.

The uglier legacy left by the Manhattan Project and the weapons labs is written in starker terms, including cleanup decrees, damage awards and the burden of nuclear weapons themselves.

As the Cold War ended, public attention came to bear on health risks to workers at Los Alamos and other sites; the accumulation of toxic waste, documented or not; poor management; and a culture of secrecy.

The worst example, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, is what remains of the dirty work of bombmaking: 586 square miles that include nine decommissioned reactors that produced weapons-grade plutonium and a staggering amount of radioactive waste, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

About 53 million gallons of chemicals used to separate plutonium from uranium remains stored in 177 underground tanks, of which 70 are leaking and sending a radioactive plume toward the nearby Columbia River, according to the council. The site, one of the most dangerous and polluted in the U.S., includes 1,700 individual waste sites and about 500 contaminated buildings.

At Los Alamos, self-appointed watchdog Greg Mello, founder of the Los Alamos Study Group, has documented decades of worker health problems, industrial accidents and toxic waste. He also campaigns against a program underway to expand the lab to make plutonium pits for a new generation of nuclear warheads.

Theres been a pretty high cost across the warhead complex for pursuing the nuclear arms race, Mello said by phone July 28.

Drawing on reports from the Department of Labor and by investigative journalists, he estimates the federal government has paid out billions for 1,599 death claims at Los Alamos alone from its beginnings through June 2016.

This is a technology that has had horrible effects, Mello said. Direct health effects, as well as, I would say, effects on world politics and on the shape of American democracy have been even worse.

Although a government program enacted in 2000 has paid thousands of claims by workers across the nuclear weapons complex for work-related illnesses, the link to some of those illnesses with weapons work is disputed by some as tenuous, at best.

However, some problems with the labs are indisputable. An era of mismanagement at Los Alamos gave rise in 2000 to the National Nuclear Security Administration, the new overseer within the Energy Department. The state of New Mexico has issued Los Alamos lab several cleanup decrees and federal audits have found mishandled or missing materials.

A 2018 report by the Energy Department inspector general, for example, found discrepancies in the way the Los Alamos lab handled beryllium, a toxic metallic element used in nuclear reactors.

Los Alamos sometimes has problems accounting for nuclear materials, Aftergood said. He directs the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy. Every now and then theres either an espionage case or an episode of misplaced classified records.

The worldwide nuclear stockpile peaked at more than 70,000 warheads around 1987, most of them held by the former Soviet Union, according to the federation. Today that arsenal is less than 20,000 warheads, including those held by China, Pakistan, India, North Korea, the U.K., France and Israel.

Part of the mission at weapons labs is stockpile stewardship, ensuring in an age of nuclear and thermonuclear test bans that aging weapons will work if deployed.

Tests above ground, underwater and in space were outlawed in 1963. The last U.S. nuclear test took place underground on Sept. 23, 1992. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has been awaiting Senate ratification since 1997.

The U.S. instead tests its weapons using supercomputer simulations fed by data collected from the real things.

I understand fully why we have atomic weapons, nuclear weapons. This is not a mystery to me, said Rosner, who is also a member of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, another group that sprang from the original Manhattan Project scientists, and chairs its Science and Security Board. And if youd asked me was it a good idea that we had the Manhattan Project my answer is: Hell, yes.

Discoveries in nuclear physics made the bomb inevitable, he said. Its one of those things; the genies out of the bottle and here we are.

Unlike anti-weapons advocates, Rosner said he believes the U.S. will always have atomic weapons if potential adversaries have them, too. However, hes against actual atomic testing, a move that would permit China, Russia and other nuclear powers to catch up with the U.S. hedge in testing data.

He also believes in adhering to and renewing existing nuclear nonproliferation treaties.

What has happened over the last five years? Were at the point of almost undoing everything that was done, something that took decades, you know, to put in place is basically now almost completely gone, he said.

Mello, an advocate for nuclear disarmament, agrees the U.S. seeking advantage by abrogating longstanding treaties is a terrible idea, is stupid.

He said nuclear weapons are a national burden, and not just in terms of the health effects, toxic waste and expense surrounding them, he said.

We never became the kind of country that we might have become, given since we devoted and still devote a majority of our discretionary income to military affairs, Mello said, and the acme of violence of this is nuclear weapons.

ditzler.joseph@stripes.comTwitter: @JosephDitzler

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From the Manhattan Project, a legacy of discovery and a national burden - Stars and Stripes

Shared Grid Offshore New York Cuts Over USD 500 Million in Costs (Report) – Offshore WIND

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A multi-user, planned transmission system for offshore wind in New York could result in electric grid cost savings of over USD 500 million and significantly reduce environmental impacts and project risks, according to a new report prepared by The Brattle Group for Anbaric.

The Offshore Wind Transmission: An Analysis of Options forNew York report evaluates the challenges of connecting each wind farm to shore individually compared to a high-capacity transmission system serving multiple wind farms.

Relying on individual generator lead lines would require extensive onshore grid upgrades costing four times as much as a planned approach, the report writes, emphasizing that by using fewer cable routes and more robust grid connections, a planned transmission system reduces grid congestion and the need for expensive, disruptive onshore transmission upgrades, thus reducing the impacts on the marine environment and coastal communities.

According to the study, a planned transmission approach would reduce cabling by almost 60%, preventing 660 miles of seabed disturbance and reducing the impact on fisheries and marine ecosystems.

Additionally, the report finds that planned transmission would more fully utilize lease areas and more easily reduce offshore wind curtailment. This approach using more efficient direct current technology would deliver more power to shore than alternating current technology.

Developing a shared ocean grid is critical to achievingNew Yorksambitious offshore wind goals, saidKevin Knobloch, President of Anbarics New York OceanGrid.

The next phase in achievingNew Yorksgoals depends on building transmission infrastructure in a way that reduces overall costs and feasibility risks, protects fisheries, coastal communities and the environment, and enables developing the offshore wind industry to scale.

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Shared Grid Offshore New York Cuts Over USD 500 Million in Costs (Report) - Offshore WIND