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Facebook Will Pay Mods $52M For Trauma From Gore, Sexual Abuse

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Facebook just agreed to pay $52 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that its content moderators suffered psychological trauma on the job.

Pay Up

Facebook just agreed to settle with its content moderators, who filed a class-action lawsuit after being forced to watch extremely graphic media under abject working conditions.

Moderators, who were contractors for the company Cognizant rather than Facebook staffers, were tasked with rapidly flagging and removing the absolute worst content users uploaded. A typical day could mean exposure to child sexual abuse, animal abuse, beheadings, and gun violence. Now, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that Facebook is paying $52 million for psychological damages.

Years Later

The class-action lawsuit was first filed in 2018, and more moderators signed on over time. Facebook leadership has long known how grueling the job was — CEO Mark Zuckerberg once quickly deflected when Congress asked if he would consider moderating the social media site for a day.

But because the moderators were technically hired by Cognizant and didn’t work on Facebook’s property, the company generally avoided claiming any responsibility for their work conditions, which included high quotas and reportedly lacked proper professional or psychological resources.

Pay Day

Now, each of the moderators who were part of the lawsuit gets $1,000, according to ABC News. But whose who were diagnosed with medical conditions due to the stressful, traumatic work can get up to $50,000 in medical treatment and damages.

Facebook’s official statement said that the company is “grateful to the people who do this important work to make Facebook a safe environment for everyone. We’re committed to providing them additional support through this settlement and in the future.”

READ MORE: Facebook to pay moderators $80 million for psychological damages [Australian Broadcasting Corporation]

More on Facebook moderation: Facebook Moderators Are Dying at Their Desks

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This Hyper-Realistic Game Engine Looks Almost Like Real Life

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Software developer Epic Games just released a stunning and near photorealistic tech demo of its latest video game engine called Unreal Engine 5.

Software developer Epic Games, the company behind “Fortnite,” just released the first look at Unreal Engine 5, the next generation of its popular game engine — and it looks genuinely spectacular.

Epic Games’ flashy new demo, “Lumen in the Land of Nanite,” runs in real-time on a PlayStation 5 and looks extraordinarily impressive. The company claims it could “achieve photorealism on par with movie CG and real life.”

The demo offers a tantalizing glimpse of the fidelity that next-gen consoles — the long-awaited PlayStation 5 and Xbox One Series X — could offer.

Epic highlighted two new technologies in an official blog post.

First off, “Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry” gives artists the ability to create art “comprising hundreds of millions or billions of polygons” that can be directly imported into Unreal Engine.

Second, “Lumen” offers developers a “fully dynamic global illumination solution that immediately reacts to scene and light changes.” That means individual rays of light can bounce many times from surfaces, creating “indirect specular reflections in huge, detailed environments, at scales ranging from kilometers to millimeters.”

Of course, it’s easy to be taken in by a showy new demo. Back in 2016, we were wowed by a demo of Unreal Engine 4 that now looks — well, not that impressive.

Still, this latest version, at first bluff, is majestic — a step along the way to games that could be almost indistinguishable from reality.

A preview of the new engine will be available in early 2021 and will support both next-gen and current-gen consoles, as well as PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.

READ MORE: A first look at Unreal Engine 5 [Epic Games]

More on Unreal Engine: The Future of Gaming? Check Out the Remarkable Graphics of Unreal Engine 4

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Microsoft Is Buying COVID-19 Patients’ Blood for Biotech Research

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Microsoft and the biotech company Adaptive are launching a study on coronavirus patients' T cells, and they're buying blood samples to get started.

Microsoft and the biotech company Adaptive are launching a new study on how the immune system fends off the coronavirus — and they’re paying patients for bags of their blood.

The goal is to learn how T cells, which function as the foot soldiers of the immune system, contribute to the body’s overall response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

While other scientists are already investigating the body’s immune response, Business Insider reports that Microsoft and Adaptive believe a specific emphasis on T cell research is a blindspot in other ongoing coronavirus research.

In order to fill in that gap, Microsoft and Adaptive are reportedly preparing to send phlebotomists to the homes of people who were exposed to the coronavirus, those who are currently sick, and those who recovered from it, to draw blood.

Those who might be interested can fill out an online questionnaire to enroll in the study. Microsoft will compensate participants who are selected with at $50 gift card, and those who are selected for blood drawings will get another $50 for each one of up to four blood drawings they agree to.

Once they’ve bought and paid for those blood bags, the two companies hope to compare the T cells of sick and recovered coronavirus patients. The ultimate goal, Business Insider reports, is to ascertain whether T cells that were already exposed to and fought SARS-CoV-2 can contribute to long-term immunization against future infections.

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WHO: The Coronavirus Might Be Here Forever

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Bad news, according to the World Health Organization (WHO): even if scientists invent a vaccine, the coronavirus that causes the sometimes-deadly COVID-19 might be here for good.

“It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan said during a Thursday briefing, as reported by Reuters.

He noted that other illnesses, such as measles, already have a vaccine but have yet to be completely defeated.

“HIV has not gone away — but we have come to terms with the virus,” Ryan said.

And timelines, he cautioned, are not much more than educated guesses.

“I think it is important we are realistic and I don’t think anyone can predict when this disease will disappear,” Ryan added. “I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates. This disease may settle into a long problem, or it may not be.”

Ryan also argued that finding a vaccine would be a “massive moonshot,” according to Reuters.

Luckily, it’s not all doom and gloom. On the plus side, according to a WHO survey, scientists are working on more than 100 vaccine candidates worldwide, ranging from more traditional vaccines that use an inactivated version of the virus to more experimental attempts that hijack your DNA to build up a resistance.

Rather than rushing into reopening economies and borders and restarting air travel, the WHO says that a safe return to normalcy will require patience.

“We need to get into the mindset that it is going to take some time to come out of this pandemic,” WHO epidemiologist Maria van Kerkhove said during the briefing.

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Scientists Have a Promising New Idea to Defeat the Coronavirus

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

A team of scientists figured out how the coronavirus takes over cells, and they think they found potential treatments that stop it.

In order to find new treatments for COVID-19, scientists are probing how the coronavirus alters human cells when it infects and hijacks them.

Medical virologists at the Frankfurt University hospital have been culturing cells of SARS-CoV-2 since February, learning as much as they could about how it affects them, according to a Goethe University Frankfurt press release. Now, they’ve identified a number of compounds — available in existing drugs including the metabolism-inhibiting cancer medication WP1122 — that seem to stop the coronavirus from reproducing inside a host.

The team’s findings were published Thursday in the journal Nature. With those in hand, pharmaceutical companies are already launching clinical trials in a bid to develop new pharmaceuticals that could block the deadly virus.

Some viruses force cells to dedicate all their resources to churning out copies of the virus, but the virologists found that SARS-CoV-2 takes a less extreme approach. Instead of taking over all protein production within the cell, it increases the amount of proteins the cell synthesizes and helps itself to the surplus.

As a result, the team found that they could stop viral reproduction by taking away the building blocks of proteins, and found a number of compounds that did the trick.

“The successful use of substances that are components of already approved drugs to combat SARS-CoV-2 is a great opportunity in the fight against the virus,” lead author and Frankfurt virologist Jindrich Cinatl said in the release. “These substances are already well characterized, and we know how they are tolerated by patients. This is why there is currently a global search for these types of substances. In the race against time, our work can now make an important contribution as to which directions promise the fastest success.”

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US Military Releases New Info About Navy UFO Videos

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

The Pentagon has released new information about a series of fascinating encounters between US Navy pilots and unidentified flying objects.

The “hazard reports” include details about the size and shape of the “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

“The unknown aircraft appeared to be small in size, approximately the size of a suitcase, and silver in color,” reads a report describing a 2014 incident. At the time, the Navy aircraft “passed within 1000 [feet] of the object, but was unable to positively determine the identity of the aircraft.”

A different report, in 2013, describes another object that “had an approximately 5 foot wingspan and was colored white with no other distinguishable features. Due to the small size, the aircraft was determined to be a [unidentified aerial system].”

The report noted that the objects could be drones, although no nearby operators could be identified.

The news comes after a series of UFO videos surfaced thanks to a 2017 investigation by The New York Times. The three videos showed strangely shaped objects zipping across the surface of the ocean, while others appeared to shoot up into the sky without any apparent methods of propulsion.

Last month, the pentagon finally formally released the three unclassified videos, noting that “after a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems.”

“[The Department of Defense] is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos,” Sue Gough, a Defense Department spokeswoman, told CBS News last month. “The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified.'”

Just over a year ago, the US Navy also announced it started working on new guidelines for its personnel to report sightings and other encounters with “unidentified aircraft,” as Politico reported at the time.

More on the mysterious videos: PENTAGON OFFICIALLY RELEASES THREE UFO VIDEOS

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This Delightful AI Generates Words That Sound Real But Aren’t

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

A website called thisworddoesnotexist uses AI to generate fake but believable definitions for made-up words like

Algorithmic Nonsense

Have you ever heard of a lachetous vine? Maybe you just finished up some worryless tasks?

Those words sound vaguely familiar — perhaps you think you’ve heard them before but aren’t sure you could explicitly define them. That’s because they’re gibberish — part of an endless stream of words conjured up by an algorithm programmed to make new words that sound as believable as possible.

Technobabble

The made-up words are generated by the website thisworddoesnotexist.com, which is a creation of former Instagram engineer Thomas Dimson, The Verge reports. Each time the site is refreshed, it comes up with a new word — with varying degrees of success.

Thisworddoesnotexist uses the OpenAI-created algorithm GPT-2, which generates plausible text that’s been used to algorithmically create everything from text-based adventure games to grad school essays.

Crowdsourced

Because GPT-2 wasn’t trained on dictionaries — The Verge reports that it instead scraped 8 million websites from popular Reddit links — some of the new definitions are still a little bit off.

But AI-generated dictionary is still a notable accomplishment, given that understanding the meanings of words has long been one of the major limitations of modern-day artificial intelligence.

More on GPT-2: This Grad Student Used a Neural Network to Write His Papers

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Tesla Leak Describes Upcoming “Million Mile” Battery

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Million Mile

Tesla will soon announce a “million mile” battery that it says will bring down the cost of electric vehicles to the price point of gas engine cars and greatly improve the longevity of batteries, according to a Reuters exclusive.

The battery will be used in the company’s Model 3 luxury sedan made and sold in China later this year or early next year. According to Reuters, the battery is a collaboration between Tesla and a team of academic battery experts recruited by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Low Cobalt

The new batteries will rely on low-cobalt and cobalt-free battery technologies that reduce the stresses on the inside of the batteries, making them last much longer, according to Reuters. Cobalt remains the most expensive metal in the production of electric car batteries.

Thanks to a heavily automated manufacturing process, production cost will reportedly drop as well. Tesla is planning on opening even larger “Terafactories” that will dwarf its existing — and already massive — gigafactories to produce the batteries.

Terafactories

Musk has also been teasing that Tesla will be holding a “Battery Day” later this month, which may be when the company officially announces the new battery.

“We’ve got to scale battery production to crazy levels that people cannot even fathom today,” Musk told investors in January.

More on Tesla: Defying Shelter-in-Place, Tesla Is Building New Cars Today

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This Wiggly Mars Rover Is the Silliest Thing We’ve Ever Seen

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Engineers are building experimental rovers that can vibrate intensely to escape from dangerous, wheel-clogging sand traps on Mars.

Shake It Off

To a hapless Mars rover, getting stuck in a slippery sand trap can be a death sentence. That’s what happened to NASA’s Spirit rover ten years ago: its wheels got trapped and the robot was immobilized until it eventually ran out of power.

To prevent that from happening future exploration robots, The New York Times reports that engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology are testing rovers that vibrate intensely to avoid becoming ensnared by alien landscapes.

Jitterbug

In order to keep future rovers moving, the engineers are programming prototype robots to shake, gyrate, and army crawl across the top of sandy terrain — which they simulated by filling a glass tank with poppy seeds, according to research published in the Science Robotics on Wednesday.

“This combination of wheels and paddling and lifting, if sequenced properly, is really powerful,” Georgia Tech physicist Daniel Goldman told the NYT. “No longer just wheels at the end of sticks but they are actually active appendages, and I think that’s exciting.”

Want To Break Free

Not only can the bizarre dance prevent a sandy death, but the NYT reports that it could enable next-generation rovers to explore previously-inaccessible regions of Mars, like loose-terrained inclines.

“When you only have wheels,” Goldman told the NYT, “that limits your ability to go anywhere.”

READ MORE: Watch These Rover Models Wiggle Out of Alien Sand Traps [The New York Times]

More on rovers: The White House Is Trying to Shut Down NASA’s Last Mars Rover

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Brain Implant Allows Blind People to “See” Letters

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Scientists have developed a brain implant that allowed the blind and previously sighted participants who lost their sight in adulthood

A team of scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston has developed a brain implant that allows both blind and sighted participants “see” the shape of letters.

As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Cell, the device works by skipping the eye and relaying visual information from a camera straight to electrodes implanted in the brain.

It’s a step toward a “visual prosthetic” that would allow the blind to fully regain vision — though such a device is likely still many years out.

But what the researchers created is nonetheless remarkable: participants were able to “see” the outlines of shapes, thanks to complex sequences of electrical pulses sent to their brains.

“When we used electrical stimulation to dynamically trace letters directly on patients’ brains, they were able to ‘see’ the intended letter shapes and could correctly identify different letters,” senior author Daniel Yoshor from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston said in a statement. “They described seeing glowing spots or lines forming the letters, like skywriting.”

The new device differs from previous visual aids that treated each electrode like a pixel.

“Rather than trying to build shapes from multiple spots of light, we traced outlines,” first author Michael Beauchamp, professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in the statement.

“Our inspiration for this was the idea of tracing a letter in the palm of someone’s hand,” Beauchamp added.

Such a device could have a major impact on the lives of the blind and visually impaired.

“The ability to detect the form of a family member or to allow more independent navigation would be a wonderful advance for many blind patients,” Yoshor told Live Science.

But the development of the device is still in its early stages, as the brain is an extremely complex organ.

“The primary visual cortex, where the electrodes were implanted, contains half a billion neurons,” Beauchamp said in the statement. “In this study we stimulated only a small fraction of these neurons with a handful of electrodes.”

Therefore “an important next step will be to work with neuroengineers to develop electrode arrays with thousands of electrodes, allowing us to stimulate more precisely,” he added. “Together with new hardware, improved stimulation algorithms will help realize the dream of delivering useful visual information to blind people.”

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Astronomers: Some Stars Have Something Akin to a Heartbeat

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

New research reveals that a certain class of star gives off rhythmic pulsations that are similar to a person's heartbeat.

Resting Heartrate

For the first time, astronomers were able to cut through all the background noise of the universe and discover that a particular class of star gives off rhythmic pulsing, not unlike a person’s heartbeat.

The internal fluctuations of a type of star known as a “Delta Scuti” eluded astronomers for decades, but new data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) revealed distinct patterns coming from inside 60 nearby stars relatively close to our solar system, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Fine Tuning

Scientists already knew that Delta Scuti stars pulsated, but they’d never before been able to find any pattern to the beats.

“Previously we were finding too many jumbled up notes to understand these pulsating stars properly,” University of Sydney researcher Tim Bedding said in a press release. “It was a mess, like listening to a cat walking on a piano.”

“The incredibly precise data from NASA’s TESS mission have allowed us to cut through the noise,” Bedding added. “Now we can detect structure, more like listening to nice chords being played on the piano.”

Cosmic Shazam

It turns out that the pulsations are sound waves originating from inside each star. Each internal sound wave causes a region of the star to expand or contract, giving off different frequencies.

This asteroseismological discovery, the researchers said in the release, basically lets them peer inside a star, revealing what it’s made of and what changes are happening inside.

READ MORE: Astronomers find regular rhythms among pulsating stars [University of Sydney]

More on stars: A Star Is Circling a Black Hole and its Orbit is Absolutely Nuts

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Amazing Vid Shows What You’d See If Rockets Were Transparent

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

A new video shows what it would look like if four rocket types were transparent during liftoff and stage separation — even showing how the fuel drains as the rockets keep firing.

The fascinating animation compares the following four rockets from left to right:

Saturn V, a US-made super heavy-lift vehicle used by NASA between 1967 and 1973
The Space Shuttle, NASA’s space plane that retired back in 2011
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, a super heavy-lift vehicle
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the space agency’s upcoming heavy lift rocket that has been under development since the Space Shuttle retired in 2011

The video color-codes a number of different rocket fuel types being used up by the rockets’ various stages.

Red is kerosene RP-1, a highly refined form of kerosene similar to jet fuel.
Orange is liquid hydrogen (LH2), a common rocket fuel used by NASA. Interestingly, it first cools the nozzle of the rocket before being ignited by an oxidizer.
Blue is liquid oxygen (LOX), the liquid form of diatomic oxygen that often is used as oxidizer for the liquid hydrogen in rockets such as NASA’s workhorse RS-25, an engine that was used for the Space Shuttle.

NASA’s upcoming SLS will mix both LH2 and LOX to produce a massive amount of energy — and water.

Due to the extremely low density of LH2, NASA’s SLS would need a gigantic fuel tank. To mitigate that, designers gave the rocket two boosters on either side, a design derivative of NASA’s retired Space Shuttle.

Both SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and the Saturn V use a refined version of kerosene as a first stage, a stage that gets jettisoned at a certain altitude.

Burning kerosene comes with a heavy toll on the environment as burning it creates immense amounts of carbon dioxide — a problem that could be compounded if SpaceX’s plan to launch a rocket every two weeks ever comes to fruition.

The animator behind the video even thought to include a tiny little red Tesla Roadster — a car famously launched into space in 2018 by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Editor’s note 5/14/2020: A previous version of this story wrongly stated that SpaceX’s Heavy Falcon will carry NASA astronauts into space later this month. It will in fact be a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

READ MORE: If Rockets were Transparent [YouTube]

More on rockets: Dock a SpaceX Spacecraft to the ISS in This Amazing Simulator

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Research Spacecraft May Pass Through Tail of Dead Comet

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

In a stroke of incredible luck, a NASA/ESA spacecraft is on the right pass to fly right through the tail of a passing comet.

Happy Accident

Astronomers hoped to study a comet named ATLAS when it passed through our solar system, but in April it started to disintegrate.

But Space.com reports that NASA and the European Space Agency may have an extremely fortuitous opportunity to analyze it all the same. That’s because Solar Orbiter, a spacecraft operated by the two agencies that studies our Sun, happens to be on the exact right course to pass through the comet’s tail in the next few weeks.

Ships In The Night

Solar Orbiter could pass through the outer layers of the tail of ATLAS’s rubble either on May 31 or Jun 1, Space.com reports, and it could hit the remnants of its dust trail by June 6.

Once it makes contact, the instruments on Solar Orbiter that were built to study the ionized particles on the Sun’s atmosphere could instead get an up-close look at how comets — or their debris — ionize their surroundings, according to research published earlier this month in the journal Research Notes of the AAS.

Ships In The Night

Aside from the excitement around the potential discoveries associated with the flyby, the researchers seem blown away by the fantastic luck necessary for Solar Orbiter and ATLAS’ trajectories to line up so well.

“If Solar Orbiter instruments detect material from Comet ATLAS, it will be the first predicted serendipitous comet tail crossing by an active spacecraft carrying appropriate instrumentation for the detection of cometary material,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

More on comets: Watch NASA’s New Footage of a Comet Exploding

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Stressed Out? Get These Delicious, High Quality CBD Gummies Delivered to Your Door.

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

We’re getting close to the halfway point of 2020, and so far this year has been…well, you know. But believe it or not, things could actually be a lot worse. If this were, say, 2005, there would be no Netflix. There would be no Tik Tok. There would be no UberEats. There would be no Amazon Prime. There would be no Animal Crossing. And perhaps worst of all, there would be no CBD gummies to order off the internet and have delivered right to your door.

As you probably know, people take CBD because they believe it provides gentle, side-effect-free relief from a wide variety of conditions, including stress, anxiety, insomnia, pain, and inflammation. According to a Gallup poll conducted last summer, 20 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said they used CBD products on a regular basis, while 16 percent of adults between the ages of 30 use it. Chances are, if they conducted another poll right now, the numbers would be much higher.

Shorthand for cannabidiol, CBD is one of 113 cannabinoid compounds found in cannabis and hemp plants. However, unlike THC, which is the active ingredient in marijuana, CBD does not get you high. Instead, it works by modulating your endocannabinoid system, which is a kind of inter-cellular communications system that helps the brain regulate immune function, stress, anxiety, pain, inflammation, and memory.

Of course, these days there are lots of different ways to take CBD. You can get it in pills, ointments, energy shots, tinctures, bath oils—you name it. However, the most delicious way to get your daily dose of calming, stress-reducing CBD is via gummies. And when it comes to CBD gummies, nothing beats Penguin CBD Gummy Worms.

Penguin CBD Gummies

With so many different CBD products on the market, it can be difficult for consumers to figure out which brands they can trust. That’s why Penguin is completely transparent about how they make their products.

The CBD used in Penguin gummies is produced using the most advanced isolation process in the industry. It all starts with 100-percent organic, 100-percent THC-free industrial hemp, which is grown locally in Oregon without the use of toxic chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Penguin then uses advanced machinery and CO2 to extract CBD from the hemp. The CBD extract then undergoes a cutting-edge nanoemulsification process that breaks it down into microscopic particles that are easily absorbed by human cells.

Once the production process is complete, all Penguin CBD products undergo third-party testing by ProVerde Laboratories. This ensures that their gummies are certified to be clear of any unwanted chemicals and totally safe to consume.

Each Penguin CBD Gummy Worm contains 10mg of their potent CBD extract, and each jar contains 30 worms. If you love sour candy loaded with tropical flavors and coated on sweet and sour sugar crystals, you will love these gummies. But if you don’t, Penguin offers a 100-percent satisfaction guarantee. If you’re not satisfied, simply return them within 30 days and they’ll give you a full refund. Penguin will even pay for the return shipping.

So if you’re looking for a high-quality CBD product that tastes as good as it makes you feel, give Penguin CBD Gummy Worms a try. If you love them, you can subscribe to monthly shipments and save 15-percent off the regular price. So really you’ve got nothing to lose.

Futurism fans: To create this content, a non-editorial team worked with Verma Farms, who sponsored this post. They help us keep the lights on. This post does not reflect the views or the endorsement of the Futurism.com editorial staff.

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Worlds Shortest Population Reveal the Largest Genetic Contributor to Height – Technology Networks

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

At a glance:

A team of researchers from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Socios En Salud, and the Broad Institute at Harvard and MIT report they have identified the single largest genetic contributor to height known to date.The findings, published in Nature,are based on an analysis of samples from ethnically diverse Peruvians, a population known to have the shortest stature in the world.

The team identified a previously unknown, population-specific variant of the FBN1 gene (E1297G). The variant, found exclusively in individuals of Native American ancestry, showed a striking association with lower height.

Each copy of the gene was associated with an average of 2.2 centimeters (around 0.8 of an inch) reduction in height. People who have two copies, or two alleles, of the gene variant were, on average 4.4 centimeters (1.7 inches) shorter in stature. The effect is an order of magnitude greater than the effects that previously identified gene variants have on human heightin the range of 1 millimeter (0.04 inches).

This study dramatically highlights the advantage of studying different populations and having a diverse, worldwide strategy to understanding the human genome, said study senior author Soumya Raychaudhuri, professor of medicine and of biomedical informatics at HMS, director for the Center for Data Sciences at Brigham and Womens Hospital, and an Institute member at the Broad Institute. We learned new things about how complex genetic traits work. Our findings have implications for important diseases linked to FBN1 that we could not have learned without looking at this population.

The multi-institutional international research project brought together computational biologists, epidemiologists, community health workers, dermatologists and experts on a variety of genetic and infectious diseases, using a variety of genomic, computational and imaging techniques. The results of their collaboration shed new light on the genetics of height, a key model system for studying complex, multigene systems that are crucial for understanding wellness and disease.

A wide range of mutations in the FBN1 gene have long been known to cause Marfan syndrome, an inherited connective tissue disorder marked by hypermobility of the joints, greater height compared to ones family members and, in some instances, by cardiovascular problems.

The newly identified variant, however, is not associated with disease.

One critical insight from this study is how genetic variants in the same gene can have very different effects, said lead author Samira Asgari, HMS research fellow in medicine at Brigham and Womens. Before now, if you asked a geneticist what a variant in this gene would do, they would probably say that they cause a disease. But that's not what we found.

On the contrary, based on the researchers analysis of the distribution of E1297G variant in the Peruvian population and throughout the wider Native American population, this variant may actually confer an evolutionary advantage, the researchers said, because it appears to have been selected for by evolution.

The study found that the new variant is notably more frequent in coastal Peruvian populations than in populations from the Andes or the Amazon, which suggests that short stature might be the result of adaptation to factors that are associated with the coastal environment in Peru, the researchers said.

These findings, based on one of the few studies of the genetics of Native American populations, highlight the importance of including diverse populations in biomedical research.

It's really important to include underrepresented populations, particularly in these kinds of studies that are models for the way other multigene, complex traits function, said Megan Murray, the Ronda Stryker and William Johnston Professor of Global Health at HMS and a senior author of the study. Leaving some people out means we might miss an important part of the picture were trying to see. And any people who are left out arent likely to reap the benefits of this kind of research.

Height is a complex genetic trait, and one that is easy to measure and provides an important model system for understanding how complex genetic systems work.

Meta analyses of genetic studies of height conducted on predominately European populations include more than 700,000 individuals, the researchers noted. This research has identified about 4,000 different genetic variations known to have an impact on an individuals height. Most such variants might make a persons stature less than one millimeter taller or shorter for each copy of the variant a person has.

In comparison, this variant that we found has a 2.2 cm effect per allele, Asgari said. Thats huge for a height variant.

The new variant was not present in any of the large genetic studies conducted with European majority populations.

The genomes the team analyzed in Peru are quite distinct from those analyzed in Europe or North America. About 80 percent of the genes of an average Peruvian come from their Native American ancestry, according to previous research.

Until now, Peruvians have not been included in any genomic studies of height. by studying a small, previously overlooked population, the researchers pinpointed an allele that showed a bigger effect on height than all the other variants.

Just amassing and amassing data isnt the answer, Raychaudhuri said. If youre not looking at different populations, you're going to miss really important stuff.

The E1297G variant appears in the genomes of 5 percent in the Peruvian population, but it occurs in the genomes of less than 1 percent of people of Native American descent from Mexico. The variant is completely absent from the genome of people of European descent.

We're doing studies in populations that are not normally on the map, Raychaudhuri said. This relatively small project is the largest genetic study thats been done in Peru at this point.

The new study grew out of a series of projects led by HMS researchers in Peru, including a long-term collaboration between Murray and colleagues with the health care delivery nongovernmental organization Socios En Salud, the Peruvian affiliate of Partners In Health.

Murrays work in Peru has centered around the epidemiology and genetics of tuberculosis. Her collaboration with Raychaudhuris team includes a previous study reported in Nature Communications last year that analyzed how a given individuals genetics impact their chances of becoming infected or ill with tuberculosis and identified a gene associated with TB progression.

After completing that project, Raychaudhuri and Asgari saw an opportunity to explore what the Peruvian genome might reveal about height. When their initial work revealed that there was a relationship to Marfan, other colleagues suggested they look for skin anomalies that are characteristic of variants in FBN1. The team grew, as they brought in Esther Freeman, HMS assistant professor of dermatology, a dermatologist and an epidemiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Working in Lima, the team tracked down homozygous individuals to analyze their skin, and found that it tracked with what would be expected with this genetic abnormality.

These diverse skills were all crucial to the process of discovery that allowed the researchers to produce this paper, the researchers said.

If you want to do really cool science you have to get out of your corner and collaborate, Asgari said.

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Group of Genes Have Altered Expression in Autism – Technology Networks

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Autism has long been associated only with behavioral and environmental factors, but the role of genetics in its development is now increasingly evident. Some 100 genes have been found to play a role in autism spectrum disorder, and another thousand are being studied to the same end.The diagnosis and treatment of the disorder on a genomic basis are hindered by this variability. However, a new study conducted at the University of So Paulo's Institute of Biosciences (IB-USP) in Brazil points to a common gene expression profile regardless of the DNA mutations in any autistic individual.

"We found a group of genes that's dysregulated in neural progenitor cells, which give rise to neurons, and in neurons themselves," said Maria Rita dos Santos e Passos-Bueno, a professor at IB-USP. In other words, while the DNA of different individuals with autism displays different alterations, the behavior of these genes is similar in all such people and differ from that observed in the brains of people without the disorder.

Passos-Bueno is affiliated with the Human Genome and Stem Cell Research Center (HUG-CELL), a Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center (RIDC) supported by So Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP and hosted by the University of So Paulo (USP).

The study was supported by FAPESP via two research grants awarded under the programs So Paulo Researchers in International Collaboration (SPRINT) and Multiuser Equipment (EMU). The results are reported in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, a Nature publication.ExperimentsSamples of brain tissue cannot be taken from living people, so the researchers conducted in vitro experiments using a technique called cell reprogramming.

"We took dental pulp cells from people with and without autism, and from these, we created pluripotent stem cells, which can be transformed into any type of cell. In this way, we were able to create in the laboratory neural cells with the same genomes as those of the patients," said Karina Griesi Oliveira, the first author of the article. Oliveira has a PhD in genetics from IB-USP and is a researcher in the Albert Einstein Israeli Education and Research Institute (IIEP).

Five individuals with high-functioning autism and one with low-functioning autism were selected for the study; all six had heterogeneous genetic profiles. A control group comprised six healthy subjects.

"The study bore out the hypothesis that, while the origin of autism is multifactorial and different in each person, these different alterations can lead to the same problems in the functioning of their neurons," Oliveira said.

The induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were reprogrammed to simulate two stages in the development of the human brain: neural progenitor cells, which give rise to neurons, and neurons at a stage equivalent to those of a fetus between the 16th and 20th weeks of gestation.

The researchers then analyzed these cell transcriptomes, consisting of all their RNA molecules. RNA acts as an intermediary that converts the information in a gene into proteins, which in turn govern cell behavior.

"By counting the RNA molecules, we were able to determine gene expression with a considerable degree of precision," Oliveira said.

The researchers next used mathematical models to determine which genes were differentially expressed in both groups (with and without autism), arriving at those responsible for synapses and neurotransmitter release, i.e., genes that modulate communication among neurons. This process influences the functioning of the entire organism, but above all, the brain.

This set of genes, some of which have been associated with autism in previous research, displayed increased activity in neurons. "Some of them were dysregulated in iPSC-derived neural cells from autists studied in other research, and in neurons from postmortem brain tissue belonging to individuals with autism, validating the method," Passos-Bueno said.

On the other hand, this second analysis using postmortem tissue data showed decreased gene expression at the time of death. "We don't know the reason for the difference, but it's consistent evidence that expression of this group of genes is involved in autism spectrum disorder," Oliveira said.Clinical relevanceThe study also provides more evidence that autism begins to develop during gestation. "The study points to a disturbance in fetal neurodevelopment that alters neuronal functioning, so that the child is born with altered gene expression," Passos-Bueno said.

This knowledge may contribute to the diagnosis of autism, currently based on the clinical analysis of symptoms.

Imaging, blood tests and genetic sequencing cannot help diagnose the disorder in the vast majority of suspected cases. "A major genetic error causes autism in some 30% of patients, but the origin of the disorder is multifactorial in 70%, with several alterations to DNA causing clinical symptoms, so that interpretation of the genetic data is still complex," Passos-Bueno explained.

The research line may also favor the development of more effective treatment strategies. "To treat a genetic disease, you have to understand what the genes are doing wrong. The alterations to neurotransmitter control have never been demonstrated so clearly," said Mayana Zatz, a professor at IB-USP and HUG-CELL's principal investigator.ReferenceGriesi-Oliveira et al. (2020). Transcriptome of iPSC-derived neuronal cells reveals a module of co-expressed genes consistently associated with autism spectrum disorder. Molecular Psychiatry. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-020-0669-9

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Why can two young and healthy individuals be affected so differently by coronavirus? – Health24

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Compiled by Zakiyah Ebrahim | Health24

New information about the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is constantly emerging, which is critical in the race to develop a vaccine and treatment for Covid-19. In a recent discovery, scientists found that a patients genes may provide clarity on why one young, healthy individual can be almost unaffected by the virus, while another can become seriously ill and end up in the intensive care unit (ICU).

In looking for rare, silent (hidden) gene mutations that are triggered by the virus, researchers are hoping it will take them one step closer to potential treatments.

At risk: Not just older people with underlying illnesses

Its agreed that the Covid-19 virus causes severe disease and kills older people with chronic illness; those with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes and lung disease; and men, at a greater rate than young people.

However, in an unexpected twist, were seeing a minority of patients who are under 50 take up space in ICUs around the world as well without any underlying medical conditions.

Speaking to AFP, and quoted in aScienceAlert article, geneticist Jean-Laurent Casanova director of the human genetics of infectious diseases laboratory jointly based at the Imagine Institute in Paris and Rockefeller University in New York revealed thatthis amounts to roughly five percent of patients:"Someone who could have run the marathon in October 2019, and yet in April 2020 is in intensive care, intubated and ventilated."

Casanovas goal is to find out if these patients may possibly have rare genetic mutations. "The assumption is that these patients have genetic variations that are silent until the virus is encountered," he explained.

The geneticist also co-founded the Covid Human Genetics Effort, which will analyse the genome of younger Covid-19 patients with severe illness in China and Europe, and also hopes to find out why certain people do not become infected, in spite of repeated exposure.

Earlier this month, HealthDay reported on this international study, led by Casanova. It will enrol 500 patients under the age of 50 with no underlying health conditions, and who have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and admitted to ICU.

Gene mutations can also offer protection

Gene mutations may be given a bad rap for making certain people more susceptible to a number of viral infectious diseases, such as influenza, but there is also a positive side.

According to ScienceAlert, researchers found a particularly rare mutation of a single gene, named CCR5, in the 1990s. This mutation actually offered protection against disease in that it stopped people from contracting HIV, laying the foundation for the development of treatments.

How may this help in Covid-19 treatment?

Mark Daly, director of the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, told AFP that with a very large sample and collaboration, and the ability to repeat the observation to be confident about the results, as well as recruitment of at least 10 000 patients, their project will hopefully help to develop a treatment.

"There are a huge number of medicines available that target specific genes. If we find a genetic clue that points us to a gene that already has a medication developed, then we could simply repurpose the drug," he said. However, in the event that mutations in genes are found and there arent currently medications available for them, it might make the process more complex.

On 12 May, the virus has infected more than 4.1 million people and killed over 286 000 worldwide, according to a report by theJohns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre.

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Amgen To Present At The Bank Of America Merrill Lynch Virtual Global Healthcare Conference – BioSpace

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif., May 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Amgen(NASDAQ:AMGN) will present at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Virtual Global Healthcare Conference at 1:40 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 14. Peter H. Griffith, executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Murdo Gordon, executive vice president of Global Commercial Operations at Amgen will present.

Live audio of the presentation can be accessed from the Events Calendar on Amgen's website,www.amgen.com, under Investors.A replay of the webcast will also be available on Amgen's website forat least90 days following the event.

About AmgenAmgen is committed to unlocking the potential of biology for patients suffering from serious illnesses by discovering, developing, manufacturing and delivering innovative human therapeutics. This approach begins by using tools like advanced human genetics to unravel the complexities of disease and understand the fundamentals of human biology.

Amgen focuses on areas of high unmet medical need and leverages its expertise to strive for solutions that improve health outcomes and dramatically improve people's lives. A biotechnology pioneer since 1980, Amgen has grown to be one of the world's leading independent biotechnology companies, has reached millions of patients around the world and is developing a pipeline of medicines with breakaway potential.

For more information, visit http://www.amgen.comand follow us on http://www.twitter.com/amgen.

CONTACT: Amgen, Thousand OaksMegan Fox, 805-447-1423 (media)Trish Rowland, 805-447-5631 (media)Arvind Sood, 805-447-1060 (investors)

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Viewpoint: Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man’ is both deeply disturbing and more relevant than ever – Genetic Literacy Project

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

Charles Darwins Descent of Man is full of unexpected delights such as the trio of hard drinking, chain-smoking koalas that appear within its first few pages to illustrate our affinity to animals.

Yet Darwins great treatise on human origins is also, in parts, deeply disturbing.

Published a century and a half ago as of February, 2021 many of the opinions expressed in this seminal text (koalas aside) are still pertinent today. Indeed, despite (or rather, because of) the recent revolution in our understanding of genetics, the Descent is more relevant than ever.

Darwins wider musings on mankind have had an immense and lasting influence on our beliefs about human nature and behavior, not just scientifically, but socially and politically as well. And while the more reprehensible later applications of evolutionary theory to human society were not truly Darwinian at all, many troubling arguments about race, class, eugenics and the like can nonetheless be discerned within his Descent of Man.

Darwins intellectual legacy is part of the DNA of modern genetics, within which still lurk like malignant metaphorical retroviruses liable to revival and resurgence many of the odious beliefs that plagued its past.

What follows, therefore, are a few brief illustrative examples of problematic passages in the Descent of Man. The point is not as is common with many of Darwins detractors to simply cherry-pick quotes to make Darwin look bad (although, unfortunately, this is easy to do); rather it is to highlight how Darwin himself struggled with the social implications of his theory and this despite the many decades he had to dwell on these questions. Indeed, the rapid, recent explosion in our knowledge of genetics has not made the situation clearer, but rather more confused.

But lets begin with the contrast of some of the more captivating aspects of the Descent those which provide a glimpse of Darwin as an actual human being. (The on-going fascination with Darwin and the impetus for the seemingly inexhaustible Darwin Industry is not just due to his ideas and his genius, but also because he was a fascinating individual.)

Within the first few pages of Chapter 1, for example, Darwin notes that [m]any kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors: they will also, as I have seen, smoke tobacco with pleasure. Not content with this as a single amusing anecdote of animals addictive affinities to mankind, he proceeds to discuss the three koalas mentioned above ones that acquired a strong taste for rum, and for smoking tobacco and an American Ateles monkey that, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus was wiser than many men. He also delights in describing the consequences for a group of African baboons of over-indulgence in strong beer:

On the following morning they were very cross and dismal; they held their aching heads with both hands, and wore a most pitiful expression: when beer or wine was offered them, they turned away with disgust

Similar endearing animal anecdotes pepper the rest of the text, culminating after chapter upon chapter of detailed argument and speculation on the evolutionary origins of mankind (plus an extended interlude of the theory of sexual selection) with the rousing conclusion that we should not feel much shame, if forced to acknowledge that the blood of some more humble creature flows in [our] veins.

For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogsas from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

Darwin clearly liked animals better than people. Less facetiously, it is lurid passages such as these that make modern readers uncomfortable. Admittedly, this particular quotation does come straight after another glimpse of Darwin as an actual person; already in his sixties when he wrote these words, he evokes the memories of his 20-something self, aboard the Beagle, on first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and broken shore:

The astonishment which I felt will never be forgotten by me for the reflection at once rushed into my mindsuch were our ancestors. These men were absolutely naked and bedaubed with paint, their long hair was tangled, their mouths frothed with excitement, and their expression was wild, startled, and distrustful.

Given a modern appreciation of the manifold horrors of colonialism, it is a thorny question how we should deal with descriptions that clearly reflect the prejudices of their author. Does such obvious subjective opinion, for example, undermine the purportedly objective arguments that accompany it?

In this instance at least we can perhaps make allowances; after all, the first encounter between Darwin a wealthy young man from what was then the most technologically-advanced nation in the world and the Stone Age inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego must indeed have been astonishing. Moreover, unlike his cousin Francis Galton (who both coined and promoted the concept of eugenics), Darwin was not an explicit racist. (His loathing of slavery, for instance, comes across particularly strongly in the Journal of the Voyage of the Beagle.) Yet Darwin was also a product of a time when it seemed patently obvious that the English (and possibly the Scots) were the first among the civilized races. Further, the Descent also reflects the prevailing concept of a human hierarchy, descending from Europeans through the various barbarous, savage or lower races to mankinds closest living relatives amongst the anthropomorphous apes.

In a now-notorious passage, Darwin ranks the native inhabitants of Africa and Australia as just above the gorilla in the natural scale. At the same time, he callously concludes that the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.

Nor was Darwins chauvinism confined simply to other races the lower classes of his own society were equally a target for his blatant prejudice. Indeed, as he remarks, at least [w]ith savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health.

We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man.

And it is perhaps here that Darwins legacy even if distorted and exaggerated by the likes of Galton is most worrying in the modern age of embryonic screening, genetic manipulation and, potentially, genetically-enhanced designer babies. Today we are increasingly able to use genetic techniques to eliminate deleterious genes such as those for Huntingtons disease from future generations. But where is the line between an obviously harmful trait and an undesirable one? Is termination of fetuses with Down syndrome actually eugenics? Or what about those screened as having autism?

In Darwins pre-genetic age, these were questions that could not yet be asked, let alone answered. Of more relevance, however, was Darwins personal concern, having married his first cousin, Emma Wedgewood, with the possible inherited ill-effects of inbreeding on his own children. But even here, as he confidently asserts in the Descent, science would eventually come up with an answer:

When the principles of breeding and inheritance are better understood, we shall not hear ignorant members of our legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining whether or not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man.

Yet while science can certainly inform our moral (or, in this case, legal) decisions, it cannot decide them facts do not determine values. Darwin half-heartedly acknowledges this when he concedes we ought not check our sympathy [for the weak], even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.

In the concluding paragraph to the Descent of Man, he goes on to claim, we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. And while many of Darwins own hopes and fears appear inextricably tangled with his subjective version of the truth, it is his final closing description of humankinds noble qualities and exalted powers that perhaps shows the way beyond these ethical dilemmas: the sympathy which feels for the most debased, the benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, and our godlike intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system.

Modern genetics now allows us to penetrate into the very constitution of life itself. Informed by the history of what Darwin and his followers got right and what they got wrong, surely we can extend our sympathy, our benevolence and our godlike intellect to confront the moral demons that this new exalted power has conjured in our path.

Patrick Whittle has a PhD in philosophy and is a freelance writer with a particular interest in the social and political implications of modern biological science. Follow him on his website patrickmichaelwhittle.com or on Twitter @WhittlePM

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Viewpoint: Darwin's 'Descent of Man' is both deeply disturbing and more relevant than ever - Genetic Literacy Project

Cats can catch Covid-19 from other cats. The question is: Can we? – STAT

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Danzig

With sporadic reports in recent weeks of cats infected with the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, a group of researchers set out to determine whether cats can transmit the pathogen to one another.

The answer, the scientists said: They can. The question now is whether felines can transmit SARS-CoV-2 back to people.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Tokyo noted that none of the cats in their study was visibly ailing, but they shed the virus from their nasal passages for about six days.

Considering the amount of virus we found coming out of the noses of the cats there is the possibility that these cats are shedding, fomites are being released in a persons household or at cat shelters or human societies and that somehow people could possibly pick up the virus. I think its something people should be aware of, said Peter Halfmann, a research professor at the University of Wisconsin and first author of the study, published as a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It depends on the household and the cat, but there could be a lot of close contact with your pet cat on occasion, Halfmann said.

The researchers, led by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, experimentally infected three cats, and then placed an uninfected cat into each of the cages housing the infected animals a day later. The three uninfected cats were all infected within five days.

Halfmann said uninfected cats were also put into cages a foot away from the cages containing the infected cats. None of those felines became infected with the virus.

In early April, Chinese researchers reported that cats and ferrets were susceptible to infection. A few weeks later the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that two pet cats in New York state had tested positive for the virus. At least eight big cats at the Bronx Zoo tigers and lions were also infected with the virus.

Many research groups have reported on virus shedding with Covid-19 by simply conducting testing by polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. A positive PCR hit tells you that the human or animal is shedding something, but it doesnt reveal if they are emitting viral debris which poses no risk of infection or actual infectious viruses.

The researchers responsible for this work did attempt to grow viruses from swabs taken from the noses and rectums of the cats; they found that all the animals were emitting infectious viruses from their noses. None of the rectal swabs produced infectious virus.

Halfmann said there was quite a lot of virus between 30,000 and 50,000 virus particles per swab. But what that means isnt clear, he said. Its not known how big a dose of virus is needed to infect a person. And theres no ethically acceptable way to construct a trial to see if cats can infect people.

Still the researchers suggested people should be aware of the possibility of transmission from cats to people, and keep cats away from anyone in a household who is suspected of being sick with Covid-19. I think its good practice to have this in peoples minds, Halfmann said. He and his co-authors also urged people not to abandon cats or give them up for adoption because of such concerns.

They also advised cat owners to keep their cats indoors.

Cats are still much more likely to get Covid-19 from you, rather than you get it from a cat, Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, said in a statement.

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