Meet the futurist with 2020 vision – Sydney Morning Herald

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Will wages finally pick up in 2020? Will politicians across the Liberal-Labor divide come to a bipartisan agreement that climate change is a real and future danger? Will the influence of our ageing Baby Boomers begin to wane in the wake of Generation Zs withering catchphrase of 2019, OK, Boomer? Can the #MeToo movement maintain its momentum? Which will be the top box office film franchise release this year: James Bonds No Time to Die in April or Fast & Furious 9 in May? Has the avocado smash had its day?

Futurology is a fascinating, if inexact, science.Credit:Tanya Cooper/illustrationroom.com.au

Answering these questions is invigorating stuff. But its all in a days work for futurist Ross Dawson, chairman of the Future Exploration Network, who compares the trajectory of major social movements to a tiny crystal spreading out across an entire frozen block. Take climate change. The anger and frustration among those who accept the science of climate change is growing, while the position of the deniers is becoming more deeply entrenched, he says. This will lead to even greater polarisation. I find it impossible to imagine a scenario in which climate activism will reduce.

Wage growth is likely to remain tepid in 2020, with an expansion in low-wage jobs resulting in a widening wealth divide. If anything, Baby Boomers economic and political clout will increase because asset wealth will continue to outstrip income wealth, with Australia boasting one of the worlds most unaffordable housing markets, Dawson says.

The #MeToo movement sparked a wider debate, not just about sexual harassment but the sexual abuse of power. While there is the inevitable pushback against social movements like #MeToo, its larger implications the balance of power between the genders still has a long way to play out, says Dawson. The recent election of a young, female prime minister in Finland showed whats possible.

While Dawson baulks when I ask him about the likely box-office hits of 2020 and shifting tastes in brunches (Thats not what I do), he predicts the era of peak entertainment content will only intensify in 2020. I read that more than $US100 billion is currently being spent in TV and film production across the Western world. With all our current existential worries, were looking for escapism.

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.

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Meet the futurist with 2020 vision - Sydney Morning Herald

2020 Real Estate Newsmakers: The Achievers and the Futurists – RisMedia.com

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Accomplishments in business. Charitable contributions. Daring leadership. Out-of-the-box thinking. Over the course of the past year, RISMedias 2020 Real Estate Newsmakers contributed to the housing industry in numerous ways, bettering their communities, consumers and larger sphere, across eight categories: Achievers, Crusaders, Futurists, Influencers, Inspirations, Luminaries, Trailblazers and Trendsetters. Here, we showcase their stories.

Matthew BeallCEOHawaii Life

In 2019, Beall and Hawaii Life acquired two firms: Country Brokers and East Oahu Realty. We have enjoyed incredible growth, Beall says. I love my Hawaii Life.

David MarineChief Marketing OfficerColdwell Banker Real Estate

In 2019, Marine led Project North Star, Coldwell Banker Real Estates first rebrand in 40 years. When I go to work or give a talk, I constantly think about how Im not just representing myself, but so many others, Marine says. Its never just about you.Vini MoolchandaniREALTORCompass

In 2019, Moolchandani helped a $900,000 listing sell in 21 daysafter it had been listed by two others and on the market for more than 400 days. I am beyond grateful to be part of this amazing industry and to be able to serve so many families, Moolchandani says.Ward MorrisonPresidentMotto Mortgage

In 2019, Motto Mortgage and Morrison celebrated the companys 150th franchise sale, as well as its third anniversary. One-hundred fifty franchises sold in only three years is an extraordinary feat for a startup franchisor, Morrison says. This growth demonstrates the demand and potential of our business model.Fiona PetrieExecutive Vice President & Managing Director of U.S. OperationsRE/MAX INTEGRA

From 2018 to 2019, RE/MAX INTEGRA grew substantially, with Petrie facilitating 20 new office openings, 36 expansions and 13 mergers and acquisitions. I strive to empower others to discover their own talents in the industry, Petrie says.Lindsay SmithChief Strategy OfficerTitle AllianceIn 2019, Title Alliance appointed Smith as chief strategy officer. My motto is every personemployee, partner and clientshould feel like a VIP at all times, says Smith.

Allen AlishahiCo-Founder & PresidentShelterZoom

In 2019, Alishahi and ShelterZoom debuted Mithra Contract, a fully digital, tokenized smart contract platform. I am helping to bring next-generation technology to our industry, which presents an enjoyable challenge, Alishahi says.AJ CanariaCreative Director & Executive Brand AmbassadorInside Real Estate

At the beginning of the year, Canaria was appointed creative director and executive brand ambassador for Inside Real Estate. I am one of real estates storytellers and connectors, Canaria says.Vy LuuGeneral ManagerReal Estate Webmasters

In 2019, Luu was appointed general manager for Real Estate Webmasters, contributing to its core initiatives, including bringing data standards worldwide. This will open up data and facilitate competition, ultimately benefitting both sides of real estate transactions, Luu says.Mike MiedlerPresident & CEOCentury 21 Real Estate LLC

In 2019, Century 21 Real Estate LLC appointed Miedler to president and CEO, formerly from chief growth officer. Success in real estate comes down to two factors: taking care of and valuing the customer, Miedler says.

Kasey StewartDirector of Member DevelopmentNational Association of REALTORS

In 2019, Stewart continued to develop educational programs at the National Association of REALTORS, including the Commitment to Excellence (C2EX) program. Im incredibly proud to work with NAR volunteer leaders and staff on C2EX, says Stewart. It truly takes a village to launch and grow a program of this magnitude.Gayln ZieglerDirector of Operations, Keller OffersKeller Williams

In 2019, Keller Williams launched Keller Offers, an iBuying program, and appointed Ziegler as its director of Operations. We feel very passionately that the consumer needs an advocate in their corner with all the changes going on in the industry right now, says Ziegler.For more from the 2020 Real Estate Newsmakers, go toRISMedia.com/2020-Newsmakersor RISMediasReal Estate magazine. For consideration for the 2021 Real Estate Newsmakers, please email nominations tomaria@rismedia.com.

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2020 Real Estate Newsmakers: The Achievers and the Futurists - RisMedia.com

Scientists Create "Living Concrete" That Can Heal Itself – Futurism

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Its Alive!

Scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder have created whatThe New York Timescalls a living concrete, teeming with photosynthetic bacteria, that can grow itself and regenerate itself much like a living organism.

The concrete is a mixture of gelatin, sand, and cyanobacteria that cools similarly to Jell-O, the Times reports. The resulting structure was able to regenerate itself three times after researchers cut it apart, suggesting apotential breakthrough in the nascent field of self-assembling materials.

The living concrete, which the Colorado scientists made in partnership with DARPA, starts out as a sickly green color that fades as the bacteria dies off, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Matter.

It really does look like a Frankenstein material, UC Boulder engineer and project leader Will Srubar told the NYT.

Even as the color fades, the bacteria survive for several weeks and can be rejuvenated resulting in further growth under the right conditions.

DARPA is particularly interested in a self-growing material that it can use to assemble structures in remote desert areas, or potentially even in space, according to the NYT.

If the living concrete can scale up to that level, it could reduce the amount and weight of materials that space agencies will need to launch.

Theres no way were going to carry building materials to space, Srubar told the NYT. Well bring biology with us.

READ MORE: Bricks Alive! Scientists Create Living Concrete [New York Times]

More on materials: Scientists Create Material With Living Metabolism

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Scientists Create "Living Concrete" That Can Heal Itself - Futurism

Scientists: Ocean Warming at the Rate of Five A-Bombs per Second – Futurism

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After analyzing data from the 1950s through 2019, an international team of scientists determined that the averagetemperature of the worlds oceans in 2019 was 0.075 degrees Celsius (.135 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 19812010 average.

That might not seem like a significant amount of warming, but given the massive volume of the oceans, an increase even that small would require a staggering influx of heat 228 sextillion Joules worth, according to the scientists study, which was published in the journalAdvances in Atmospheric Sciences on Monday.

Thats a hard number to contextualize, so one of the scientists behind the study did the math to put it into an explosive frame of reference by comparing it to the amount of energy released by the atomic bomb the United States military dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.

The Hiroshima atom-bomb exploded with an energy of about 63,000,000,000,000 Joules, author Lijing Cheng from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in a press release. The amount of heat we have put in the worlds oceans in the past 25 years equals to 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom-bomb explosions.

That averages out to four Hiroshima bombs worth of energy entering the oceans every second for the past 25 years. But even more troubling, the rate isnt holding steady at that alarming figure its increasing.

In 2019, ocean warming was equivalent to about five Hiroshima bombs of heat, every second, day and night, 365 days a year, study author John Abraham, from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, told Vice.

And in case atomic bombs are still too abstract of a comparative unit, the 2019 rate is equivalent to every person on Earth constantly pointing 100 hair dryers at the oceans, Abraham told Vice.

The less technical term is: Its a shit-ton of energy, he said and its already having a hugeimpacting the environment.

Ice is melting faster, causing sea levels to rise. Dolphins and other marine life are dying because they cant adapt quickly enough. Even the increase in the amount of water evaporating into the atmosphere due to the heat is negatively impacting on our planet.

It makes hurricanes and typhoons more powerful, and it makes rainfall more intense, Abraham told Vice. It puts our weather on steroids.

And remember, the rate is increasing meaning that every moment we delay taking action to slow or reverse the warming, the situation is only going to get worse.

READ MORE: 5 Hiroshima Bombs of Heat, Every Second: The Worlds Oceans Absorbed Record-Level Heat Last Year [Vice]

More on ocean warming: Scientists: Warming Oceans Will Lead to Catastrophic Future

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Trump Demands That Apple Give Government Access to iPhones – Futurism

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Open Sesame

On Tuesday evening, Trump complained that Apple refuses to help law enforcement investigate violent and drug-related crimes.

The previous day, Attorney General William Barrhad criticized Apple for refusing to unlock the Pensacola Naval Air Station shooters iPhones or provide a backdoor that would allow the government to do so directly, according toCBSNews.

While Trumps tweet blasts Apple over that refusal, the company says its been actively collaborating with law enforcement, according to a statement published in Input Mag.

Its already possible to crack some iPhones encryption, especially since the shooters used older models with outdated security, 9to5Mac reports. And while Apple says it fulfilled the FBIs requests, it wont let the FBI access the shooters communications directly. Apples logic: implementing backdoor access would make investigators jobs easier, but it would also create a major threat to the safety and privacy of all iPhone users.

Apple toldInput that The queries resulted in many gigabytes of information that we turned over to investigators. In every instance, we responded with all of the information that we had.

We have always maintained there is no such thing as a backdoor just for the good guys, reads Apples statement. Backdoors can also be exploited by those who threaten our national security and the data security of our customers.

READ MORE: Apple responds to AG Barr over unlocking Pensacola shooters phone: No. [Input News]

More on privacy: Big Tech Splits Over Privacy Issues, at Least on the Surface.

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Trump Demands That Apple Give Government Access to iPhones - Futurism

MIT Suspends Another Professor for Epstein Ties – Futurism

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Busted

MIT has placed tenured mechanical engineering professor Seth Lloyd on administrative because of a failure to disclose ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased and disgraced financier accused of sex trafficking and other crimes.

Over the years, Epstein donated $225,000 to Lloyds research and also gave him a personal gift of $60,000, according to an extensive report about Epsteins connections to MIT that the university released Friday. Lloyd hid the source of the donations by processing them through various administrators ultimately tainting his research by linking it to Epsteins disgraceful legacy.

The news about Lloyd and his subsequent suspension is just the latest in a string of grim revelations regarding MITs ties to Epstein. While Lloyd admitted to having visited Epstein in prison, Epsteins influence on the university extended far beyond one engineering professor.

Joi Ito, the since-resigned director of the MIT Media Lab also accepted and obscured the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Epstein and millions more that were funneled through Epsteins company. Computer scientist Richard Stallman also resigned in the wake of controversy surrounding off-color comments he made about the scandal.

As news about Epsteins contributions to MIT continued to break, university president Rafael Reif vowed to donate an amount equivalent to Epsteins donations to a charity supporting victims of sexual abuse.

So far, Reif has committed to donating $850,000. But as InsideHigher Ed reports, he hasnt yet determined what organization its going to support.

READ MORE: More Epstein Fallout at MIT [Inside Higher Ed]

More on Epstein and MIT: Bizarre MIT Meeting About Jeffrey Epstein Ends in Tears, Yelling

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MIT Suspends Another Professor for Epstein Ties - Futurism

The Roots Young Futurists 2020: Nominate the Leaders Who Are Ready to Change the World – The Root

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Young FuturistsYoung Futurists is our annual list of the 25 best and brightest young African-Americans who excel in the fields of social justice and activism, arts and culture, enterprise and corporate innovation, science and technology, and green innovation.

The 2020 election is shaping up to be one of the most consequential elections in American history, and frankly, many of us are stressed just thinking about choosing a new leader (and getting rid of the old one).

But what if you had a chance to choose the leaders of tomorrow? Were looking for the young, outspoken social justice activists who are doing the real work on the ground to change their communities for the better; the savvy young entrepreneur who is already providing real jobs and real opportunities; the young environmentalists who are literally fighting to save the planet and their future; the techy kids who would rather code and create new apps than play basketball (not that theres anything wrong with that, were looking for that young superstar athlete in the making, too); the creative geniuses who can tell their stories through art, music and film.

If you know any African Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 who fit those descriptions, now is the time to nominate them for The Roots 2020 Young Futurists.

We will select 25 young leaders who are already making their mark in the fields of social justice and activism; arts and culture; enterprise and corporate innovation; science and technology; and green innovation (environment).

Last year, our list included some incredible kids, like 12-year-old Mari Copeny, who has been advocating for clean drinking water for her hometown of Flint, Mich., earning the title of Little Miss Flint in 2015when she was 8. Or Black-ish star Marsai Martin, who is already crushing the Hollywood game after making history as the youngest executive producer of a major Hollywood film at age 14. Or Elijah Precciely, who entered college as a sophomore after receiving a full-ride scholarship to Southern University in May 2018, when he was 11.

Heres your chance to tell us about the feature leaders who are destined for great things. The nomination period will run through Feb. 7. Please tell us about potential Young Futurists by filling out this nomination form.

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The Roots Young Futurists 2020: Nominate the Leaders Who Are Ready to Change the World - The Root

Webinar on Taiwan’s Election: What Happened and What’s Next? – US-China Institute

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Three out of every four voters in Taiwan went to the polls on Saturday. On January 15 at 5pm PST, (January 16 at 9am in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China), the USC U.S.-China Institute will host a video conference looking at what the key issues were in the election and what the election means for Taiwan domestic policies, for cross-strait relations, and for U.S.-Taiwan relations. Please registerto join this online conference.

Taiwans President Tsai Ing-wen received a record 8.2 million votes, winning reelection with 57% of the ballots. Her Chinese Nationalist (Kuomintang) rival, Han Kuo-yu, received 39% of the vote. Tsais Democratic Progressive Party won 61 of the 113 seats in the legislature. The Kuomintang won 38 seats. Several small parties and independent also won seats. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement congratulating Tsai on her victory and Taiwan for once again demonstrating the strength of its robust democratic system. Xinhua, Chinas state news agency described Tsais election as a temporary counter-current. Xinhua blamed DPP cheating and said anti-China political forces in the West openly intervened and supported Tsai to contain China.

The discussion will be moderated by Clayton Dube, the director of theUSC U.S.-China Institute.Panelists will include:

Tom Hollihan, USCHollihan heads the USC Annenberg School doctoral program and observed the Taiwan election as a member of a Ministry of Foreign Affairs delegation. He is a specialist on political communication and is the author of several books including The Dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands: How Media Narratives Shape Public Opinions and Challenge the Global Order and Uncivil Wars: Political Campaigns in a Media Age.

Daniel Lynch, City University of Hong KongLynch taught international relations at USC for two decades before moving to Hong Kong where he teaches international relations and Chinese politics. His books include Chinas Futures: PRC Elites Debate Economics, Politics, and Foreign Policy, Rising China and Asian Democratization: Socialization to Global Culture in the Political Transformations of Thailand, China, and Taiwan. In addition to observing this election, Lynch spent two months in Taiwan in summer 2019 for his current research.

Shelley Rigger, Davidson CollegeCurrently a Fulbright Scholar based in Taipei and Shanghai, Rigger is especially well-known for her book,Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse,but shes also the author ofPolitics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy, From Opposition to Power: Taiwans Democratic Progressive Party,andTaiwans Rising Rationalism: Generations, Politics and Taiwan Nationalism.

Ray Wang, National Chengchi UniversityWangworks as an Associate Professor at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. Rays major research interests focus on human rights, religious freedom, and transnational advocacy networks. Currently he serves as the executive editor of Mainland China Studies (TSSCI). He is the recipient of an Excellent Young Scholar Research Fund from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (2018-2021) and a part of the research is published in the new book, Resistance under Communist China Religious Protesters, Advocates and Opportunists (Palgrave) in 2019.

Please register now to join the roundtable.

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52 ideas that changed the world – 31. Prison – The Week UK

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In this series, The Week looks at the ideas and innovations that permanently changed the way we see the world. This week, the spotlight is on prison:

Oscar Wilde first saw the inside of a prison 13 years before he wroteDe Profundis, his famous 55,000-word letter to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, from his cell at Reading Gaol.

On seeing the state of the inmates at a jail in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1882, Wilde wrote of being confronted with poor odd types of humanity in striped dresses making bricks in the sun. All of the faces were mean-looking, which consoled me, for I should hate to see a criminal with a noble face.

By the time of his own incarceration for indecency, Wildes views had softened on those residing in prison. Reviewing a book of poetry composed behind bars by the anti-imperialist Wilfred Blunt, Wilde wrote that an unjust imprisonment for a noble cause strengthens as well as deepens the nature.

Wildes changing attitude to the jail population reflected a shift in the general perception of criminality. The prisons of Wildes Britain were a far cry from the rehabilitation-focused penal systems of the 21st century.

Prisons, which are often run by governments, are usually secure facilities (though not always) that constrain the movements and social interactions of prisoners. The notion was born out of the barbaric origins of the medieval torture chamber, but by the eighteenth centry it had shifted towards imprisonment with labour, according to the Howard League for Penal Reform.

This then changed again as prisons became more concerned with the concept of rehabilitation. This time prisons moved towards the modern mechanisms of criminal justice, what French philosopher Michael Foucault described as not a physical imprisonment, but an economy of suspended rights aimed at reshaping individual behaviour.

The earliest descriptions ofimprisonment corresponded closely with the spread of the written word and the formalisation of early legal codes. However, the earliest legal documents for example the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi dating from about 1750 BC focused on retribution from the victim, rather than state-led punishment as we now recognise it.

Plato began to develop ideas about rehabilitation and in Platos Lawsconsidered the laws role in making citizens virtuous. Plato dwelt on the suggestion that injustice is a disease of the soul that can be cured through punishment.

PlatosGreece did have prisons calleddesmoterion, meaning place of chains however they were used more for the holding of prisoners who had been condemned to death. The Ancient Romans also used imprisonment for the same purpose, and in 640 BC, the Mamertine Prison, known as the Tullianum, was erected.

The 400-year-old San Giuseppe dei Falegnami Roman Catholic church now stands on the site of the prison, but at the time it would have been a squalid series of dungeons in the sewers under Rome.

During the Middle Ages, prison conditions did not improve. Across Europe, brutal punishment was still prescribed to rule-breakers, with castles, fortresses and the basements of public buildings given over to housing the incarcerated.

As historian Patricia Turning writes inCrime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, by the 13th century the right to imprison criminals gave a certain legitimacy to political administrations, from the king to regional counts to city councils.

Up until the late 17th and early 18th century, justice mostly involved performative displays of violence against criminals. Public executions and torture were widespread, with the Bloody Code imposing the death penalty for hundreds of often petty offencesin the United Kingdom.

In the 18th century, there was a shift away from public executions as public perceptions of violence began to shift. The Howard League notes that a more complex penal system developed during the period, including the widespread introduction of houses of correction. The first of these in the UK was Bridewell Prison - a complex in London that was originally built as Bridewell Palace, a residence for Henry VIII.

What precisely prisons were for during this time was divided between two philosophical outlooks. In From Newgate to Dannemora: The Rise of the Penitentiary in New York, David Lewis notes that Enlightenment ideas of utilitarianism and rationalism clashed, leading to discussion of whether prisons should be a deterrent or a site of moral reform (an early description of rehabilitation).

This divide was embodied by two prison reformers of the time: John Howard after who the Howard League is named and Jeremy Bentham. Bentham, a utilitarian, believed that the prisoner should suffer a severe regime, while Howard advocated for the rehabilitation of prisoners so that they could be reintroduced into society.

Bentham would go on to design the panopticon (pictured below), in which prisoners were under observation at all times.Over 200 years later, Foucault would use Benthams panopticon design as a metaphor for the modern disciplinary society, in which acts of violence had been replaced with efforts to reshape the behaviour of individuals.

The first state prison in England was the Millbank Prison, established in 1816 on the site of the current Tate Gallery in London, with a capacity for just under 1,000 inmates. In 1842, Pentonville Prison in London opened, kickstarting the trend for ever-increasing incarceration rates and the use of prison as the primary form of crime punishment.

In 1786 the state of Pennsylvania in the US passed a law which forced all convicts who had not been sentenced to death to be placed in penal servitude to do public works projects such as building roads, forts and mines. This inspired the rise of so-called chain gangs.

The notion of moral reformation took on a religious bent in Pennsylvania around this time. According to the 2004 bookVoices from Prisonon the life histories of black male prisoners in the US, 1790 saw the Walnut Street Jail in Pennsylvania begin locking its prisoners in solitary cells to reflect on their sins, accompanied by nothing but religious literature.

By the 1800s, prisons as a means of rehabilitation were becoming more mainstream, though the methods for reforming those behind bars were still harsh. Mary Bosworth writes in The U.S. Federal Prison Systemthat the Auburn system developed in New York confined prisoners in separate cells and prohibited them from speaking.

First introduced at Auburn State Prison, the system was modelled on the strictness of a school classroom, where pupils would be shaped and moulded by their teachers. The method became famous and is mentioned by French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville in his book Democracy in America, based on a visit to the US.

In the early 1900s, major reforms began in the UKs prison system, spearheaded by the Liberal Home Secretary Winston Churchill, who had been imprisoned himself during the Boer War. He said: I certainly hated my captivity more then I have ever hated any other period in my whole life... Looking back on those days Ive always felt the keenest pity for prisoners and captives.

His biographer, Paul Addison, would later add that more than any other Home Secretary of the 20th century, Churchill was the prisoners friend.

Churchills reforms - unpopular though they were at the time - aimed to make prison more bearable and more likely to rehabilitate prisoners.The policy left Britain with one of the most liberal prison systems in the Western world, but by the mid-20th century this had been far outstripped by the Scandinavian penal system.

Sweden was the first country to wholeheartedly embrace the idea of rehabilitation not incarceration.In 1965 it introduced a criminal code that emphasised punishments that reduced prison time. The hugely progressive move included a focus on conditional sentences, probation for first-time offenders and the more extensive use of fines.

This influenced a shift in imprisonment across Europe, with France and the Netherlands following Swedens example and experiencing a rapid fall in prison numbers as a result.

In 2014, Sweden was able to close four of its56 prisons, as only 4,500 people out of a total population of 9.5 million were being held in jail. At the time,Swedish politician Nils Oberg told The Guardian that prison is not for punishment in Sweden. We get people into better shape.

The same year, Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said that the UKs then Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, was introducing measures that amounted to a ramped-up political emphasis on punishment rather than real rehabilitation.

The damming response suggested that despite Britain leading the world in liberalising prisons in the early 1900s, by the turn of the 21st century it had fallen behind.The number of deaths in the ten worst prisons in England and Wales are increasing year on year, withunderstaffing, drug use, crumbling infrastructure and overcrowding all playing a role.

More than 11 million people are currently held in prison around the world - ranging from incarceration in the liberal penal system of Scandinavia, to the hidden detention sites of China and North Korea from which many never return.

The concept of imprisoning people ushered in a type of justice that focused less on the violent retribution endorsed in Britain's Bloody Code and later allowed for rehabilitation to become a vital part of modern criminal justice systems.

Just as Oscar Wildes attitude to criminals tempered, so too has societys, with polling in the US which houses 22% of the worlds prison population showing that 40% of people believe rehabilitation is the most important function of a prison system.

In the same poll, 53% supported the abolition of solitary confinement, a stark comparison to the uncompromising rules of the Auburn system or the authoritarianism of Jeremy Benthams panopticon.

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At the Crossroads of Art and Biotech, a Warning: Be Careful What You Wish For. – INDY Week

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ARTS WORK IN THE AGE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY: SHAPING OUR GENETIC FUTURES

Through Sunday, March 15

The Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh

Where do we draw the lines dividing art from science, natural from unnatural, and boldness from hubris?

An exhibit at N.C. States Gregg Museum of Art & Design doesnt answer these questions. Instead, it offers head-spinning new ways to ask them at the nexus of art and biotechnology, sharpening our insight into the fields future and expanding our understanding of it into the past.

These hard-to-classify collaborations between artists and scientistsseethe with hot-button issues related to ethics, privacy, human nature, and more. But if they have one message in common, its to be careful what you wish for.

Arts Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures is the result of more than two years of planning led by Molly Renda, the exhibit program librarian at N.C. State University Libraries, and the universitys Genetic Engineering and Society Center. Guest-curated by Hannah Star Rogers, who studies the intersection of art and science, the main exhibit at the Gregg has annexes in Hill and Hunt libraries.

On a recent tour of the exhibit, Renda and Fred Gould, the co-director of the GESC, said that they wanted to bring artists into the welter of science-and-design innovation taking place at the university because their differing perspectives on fundamental human issues create balance, tension, and discovery.

In the course of this, Ive found that artists tend to be more dystopian and designers are more utopian, Renda says.

There are different ways of knowing things, Gould adds. Thats why Molly came up with the name: not artwork, but arts work. What is an artist supposed to do?

Some pieces take on the dangers of day-after-tomorrow DNA testing and engineering technology. Heather Dewey-Hagborg is best known for Probably Chelsea, a piece in which she collected DNA samples from Chelsea Manning and generated thirty-two possible portraits of the soldier and activist.

When we worry about biotechnology, we usually worry that our food is going to be dangerous. But sometimes you wish for something thats rare: What happens when biotechnology makes it available to you?

The Gregg is showing a similar piece in which Dewey-Hagborg harvested DNA from cigarette butts and gum she found on the street and created probablebut not definitereplicas of the litterers faces, which hang on the walls above the specimens. Dewey-Hagborg demonstrates not only the unnerving extent of whats currently possible with DNA testing, but also the limits, which create misidentification risks.

Other pieces probe how biotechnology might reshape life as we know it. In a film and a sculpture representing an ancient Greek rite for women, Charlotte Jarvis raises the possibility of creating female sperm, based on the idea that, because stem cells are undifferentiated, you could theoretically teach womens stem cells to develop into sperm.

Still other pieces pointedly poke holes in the boundary between science and art. Adam Zaretskys Errorarium (entitled "Bipolar Flowers")looks like a cross between an arcade cabinet and a terrarium. It houses a few genetically modified Arabidopsis specimens, which Gould calls the white mice of research plants. When you turn the knobs, it changes the sonic parameters of a synthesizer, notionally testing the effects of the sound on the mutant plants.

It doesnt really do anythingor does it? Zaretskys experiment with no hypothesis is a playful tweak on science with something a little dangerous in the background.

Joe Davis, a bio-art pioneer, touches on something similar in his piece, which consists of documentation of an experiment where mice roll dice to determine if luck can be bred. Renda says that Davis couldnt get permission to run the test (universities are wary of drawing attention for ridiculous-seeming experiments), so he did it as conceptual art at N.C. State, instead.

Its notable that two artists home in on luck, one of many human concepts that genetic engineering, which will allow us to take control of our bodies and environment in untested ways, will transform. In We Make Our Own Luck Here, Ciara Redmond has bred four-leaf clovers (without genetic modification), which ruins themtheyrelucks evidence, not its cause. This whimsical iteration of unconsidered consequences raises a serious question: What else are we not thinking of?

When we worry about biotechnology, we usually worry that our food is going to be dangerous, Gould says. But sometimes you wish for something thats rare: What happens when biotechnology makes it available to you?

The exhibit takes an expansive view of biotechnology. Maria McKinney uses semen-extraction straws to sculpt proteins from double-muscled breeding bulls, underscoring that weve been tampering with life since long before CRISPR. Biotech feels radically new, but its revealed as part of a centuries-long process.

Another part of the exhibit, which closed at the end of October but can still be experienced through virtual reality at the Gregg, was From Teosinte to Tomorrow, Rendas land-art project at the North Carolina Museum of Art. In what was essentially a walk back through agricultural history, a bed of teosinte, which is thought to be the ancestor of modern maize, waited at the center of a corn maze.

That teosinte was in some sense genetically enhanced by subsistence farmers in Mexico since the time of the Aztecs, Gould says. Now were doing it in the laboratory with the same genesso whats the difference? Arts work is to make us think and question.

Contact arts and culture editor Brian Howe at bhowe@indyweek.com

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At the Crossroads of Art and Biotech, a Warning: Be Careful What You Wish For. - INDY Week

Scientists write to US universities for inviting anti-science activist Vandana Shiva – ThePrint

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Bengaluru: Scientists and biotechnology experts from around the world have written two open letters to the Stanford University and the University of California-Santa Cruz (UC-SC) protesting invitations extended to Indian anti-biotechnology activist Vandana Shiva to speak on equitable and sustainable farming methods.

The letters raise concern about Shivas constant use of anti-scientific rhetoric to support unethical positions. They also lay out some of her earlier positions on farming and comments which the experts believe are factually incorrect.

Shiva is a prominent proponent of land redistribution and farmers rights, besides Ayurveda and organic foods. She has been accused of being funded by organic food companies to speak out against conventional agriculture practices.

Known as one of the staunchest critics of genetically modified organisms (GMO), she claims them to be toxic for human consumption a stance that has attractedstrong criticism from the scientific community.

GMOs are widely considered safe and endorsed by most scientific and medical bodies across the world.

Shiva has also been profiled by The New Yorker in an article titled Seeds of Doubt by Michael Specter. The piece is an attempt too debunk her claims.

She has also spoken out against the company Monsanto, which has been accused of engaging in predatory practices while funding genetic and cancer research as well as protecting its seed patents.

ThePrint tried to get in touch with Shiva and both the universities via emails. This report will be updated if and when replies are received.

Also read: A post-chemical world is building as agribusinesses go green

Calling Shivas philosophy unscientific and anti-social, the letter addressed to Stanford cites some ironies associated with Shiva being invited by the institution.

The first concerns Shivas invitation having come from Students for a Sustainable Stanford, because her views are demonstrably, unequivocally anti-sustainable. Her ideas on farming would relegate it to a primitive, low-yielding, wasteful activity.

It goes on to read: Second, the co-discoverer in 1973 of recombinant DNA technology, the prototypic, iconic molecular technique for genetic engineering, was Stanford biochemist Dr. Stanley N. Cohen, who is still a professor of genetics and medicine at the university. Shivas appearance at Stanford is an affront to Professor Cohen and all of the universitys other scientists.

The letter also accuses Shiva of taking large honoraria for dispensing her mendacious and antisocial opinion.

The one addressed to UC-SC similarly expresses surprise that a science-based and ethically inspired institution has extended an invitation to her.

Read the full text of the letter to UC-SC below:

Dear Organizers and Professors,

We are scholars of life sciences and social sciences who have published many scholarly papers and articles about agriculture, food and related biotechnologies.

Perhaps you are unaware of Dr. Vandana Shivas constant use of anti-scientific rhetoric to support unethical positions. We are very surprised that any science-based and ethically inspired institution would invite her to speak.

Here are some (only some) examples of her prejudicial, anti-science, anti-social stances:

Her astonishing tendency to nonsense. See the absurd statement regarding the supposed functioning of the Genetic Use Restriction technology (GURT), from her book Stolen Harvest (p. 82-83):

Molecular biologists are examining the risk of the Terminator function escaping the genome of the crops into which it has been intentionally incorporated, and moving into surrounding open-pollinated crops or wild, related plants in fields nearby.Given Natures incredible adaptability and the fact that the technology has never been tested on a large scale, the possibility that the Terminator may spread to surrounding food crops or to the natural environment MUST be taken seriously. The gradual spread of sterility in seeding plants would result in a global catastrophe that could eventually wipe out higher life forms, including humans, from the planet.

One may need to read these statements twice, because they are too bewildering to be understood at first sight. In fact, she claims that sterile seeds which of course cannot germinate can spread sterility. A middle school student expressing such views would fail the biology exam.

Her stunning ignorance: Most #GMOs are #Bt toxin or #HT herbicide tolerant crops. Toxins are poisons. GMOs=Poison Producing Plants. Poisons have no place in food.

Somebody should explain to her that Bt proteins are toxic to some clearly identified classes of insects (plant pests), but not to fish, birds, mammals. See also the scientific papers quoted in response to her delusional post, in particular, a classic study which clarifies that plants naturally produce substances to defend themselves from pests and 99.99% of pesticidal substances in food are natural and harmless to humans.

Her proclivity to offend: Saying farmers should be free to grow GMOs which can contaminate organic farms is like saying rapists should have freedom to rape. She is comparing farmers, who grow crops which are scientifically and legally recognized as safe, to rapists! Its a grotesque insult to millions of honest workers who use modern technologies to farm sustainably and efficiently. Understandably, her outrageous abuse raised many angry reactions (see the replies to the same post).

Her rejection of technologies which help farmers (mostly women and children) to alleviate the painful, back-breaking labor of hand-weeding: Indian women selectively do weeding by hand, hereby preserving our biodiversity (Photo and caption at p. 21.) This is a preposterous statement; any act of weeding is exactly aimed at eliminating detrimental plant biodiversity which, in a field, stifles crops.

As a final treat, a ridiculous statement: Fertilizer should never have been allowed in agriculture, she said in a 2011 speech. I think its time to ban it. Its a weapon of mass destruction. Its use is like war, because it came from war. Let us ask her if she is going to ban metallurgy, since it has been used to forge cannons.

We are confident that our reasoned remarks will be seen by the addressees of this letter, by their colleagues and by students at UCSC as constructive criticism. We are afraid that none of us will be able to attend the event to challenge Dr. Shiva in person. We would appreciate if you can make our letter available to the participants.

Also read: Whats the fuss over the new variety of GM cotton that farmers are batting for

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Scientists write to US universities for inviting anti-science activist Vandana Shiva - ThePrint

Cuba’s revolutionary cancer vaccine builds bridges between the island and the United States – AL DIA News

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Despite the fact that Donald Trump's government is determined to continue sanctioning Cuba - the charter flights from the U.S. to nine Cuban airports were suspended last week because of the country's support for Maduro's regime, according to statements by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - the collaboration between the United States and the island continues, at least on scientific matters. And this should not surprise us, taking into account the great medical advances made by Cuban professionals in the treatment of various types of cancer.

This is what we'll be able to witness in "Cuba's Cancer Hope," a documentary by Llew Smith that will be released next April by PBS and that sheds light on CimaVax, a revolutionary treatment against lung cancer that prolongs the life of patients in very advanced stages and that the Center of Molecular Immunology (CIM) in Habana has taken more than twenty years to develop.

In fact, the results are so encouraging that the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in New York soon joined the project and will be the first U.S. institution to conduct a clinical trial of the drug produced on the island.

"The future of our country must necessarily be a future of men of science and thought, because that is precisely what we are sowing most," Fidel Castro, 1960.

Llew Smith himself was one of the volunteers to test this pioneering treatment, according to Prensa Latina, and his results, which were made known two years ago, will be part of the documentary.

"The wonderful thing about working with our Cuban colleagues is that they really believe, in their heart of hearts, that medical care is a human right," said Dr. Kevin Lee, director of the Roswell Park immunology department, in a dialogue with the press, praising the medical advances being made in Cuba and its "great potential to treat and prevent cancer of various kinds."

Cuba a pioneer in science

Biotechnology is one of the most developed branches of Cuban science, which began to be promoted in 1980, when Fidel Castro's government created a group dedicated to the production of interphenon, a possible cancer drug, in addition to promoting scientific parks.

This is a commitment to progress that the current president of Cuba, Miguel Daz-Canel Bermdez, acknowledged to Castro on the occasion of the documentary, and which the late revolutionary leader already advocated in a speech made in 1960when he said:

"The future of our country must necessarily be a future of men of science and thoughtbecause that is precisely what we are sowing most."

But the CimaVax is not the only discovery of Cuban scientists, whose achievements can be traced in the history of the island:

In 1881, the scientist Carlos Juan Finlay was the discoverer of the agent that transmits yellow fever, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which made it possible to clean up the areas invaded by this infectious agent and which, in the end, has prevented millions of deaths.

"The wonderful thing about working with our Cuban colleagues is that they truly believe, deep in their hearts, that medical care is a human right," Dr. Kevin Lee from Roswell Park.

Also at Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), Heberprot-P was developed, a unique drug that prevents the amputation of diabetic feet by healing ulcers.

In addition, Cuba was recognized by WHO as the first country in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

The documentary "Cuba's Cancer Hope" also includes other therapies being experimented with on the island, specifically for the treatment of different types of cancer, which once again confirms thatscientific advances are breaking down the walls that apparently separate us.

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Cuba's revolutionary cancer vaccine builds bridges between the island and the United States - AL DIA News

Red Biotechnology Market Size, Status and Recent Advancements, Forecast 2020 to 2025 – MENAFN.COM

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(MENAFN - Ameliorate Solutions)

The report presents an in-depth assessment of the Global Red Biotechnology including enabling technologies, key trends, market drivers, challenges, standardization, regulatory landscape, deployment models, operator case studies, opportunities, future roadmap, value chain, ecosystem player profiles and strategies. The report also presents forecasts for Global Red Biotechnology investments from 2020 till 2025.

Industry Overview-

The Red Biotechnology Market is expected to register a CAGR of 5.7% during the forecast period. Red biotechnology is a process that utilizes organisms to improve health and helps the body to fight against diseases. Red biotechnology has become a very important part of the field of diagnostics, gene therapy, and clinical research and trials. Genetic engineering and the development and production of various new medicinal products to treat life-threatening diseases are also part of the benefits of red biotechnology. Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID) and Adenosine deaminase (ADA) deficiency are genetic disorders that were successfully treated with gene therapy. Several promising gene therapies are under development for the treatment of cancer and genetic disorders. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 6,000 to 8,000 rare diseases found and out of them, nearly 80% are genetic disorders. Rising incidence and prevalence of chronic and rare diseases and increased funding in the healthcare industry are the key driving factors in the red biotechnology market.

Click the link to get a free Sample Copy of the Report:

https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/01091744865/red-biotechnology-market-growth-trends-and-forecast-2020-2025/inquiry?Mode=21

Top Leading Manufactures-

Pfizer Inc, AstraZeneca PLC, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Celgene Corporation, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Biogen Inc, Amgen Inc, Gilead Sciences Inc, Merck KGaA, CSL Limited

Biopharmaceutical Industry Segment is Expected to Hold a Major Market Share in the Red biotechnology Market

- Biopharmaceuticals are medical drugs that are produced by using biotechnology. Biopharmaceuticals are proteins, antibodies, DNA, RNA or antisense oligonucleotides used for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes, and these products are produced by means other than direct extraction from a native (non-engineered) biological source.- The first biopharmaceutical product approved for therapeutic use was recombinant human insulin (Humulin), which was developed by Genentech and marketed by Eli Lily in the year 1982 and in the year 2019, Novartis received FDA approval for gene therapy product in the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) condition. Using an AAV9 viral vector, called Zolgensma, which delivers SMN protein into the motor neurons of afflicted patients.- According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally Cancer is the second leading cause of death and an estimated 9.6 million deaths in the year 2018.- Increasing incidence and prevalence of chronic and rare diseases and rapid expansion of the biopharmaceutical industries are the key driving factors in the biopharmaceutical industry segment.

North America is Expected to Hold a Significant Share in the Market and Expected to do Same in the Forecast Period

North America expected to hold a major market share in the global red biotechnology market due to the rising prevalence of chronic and rare diseases, increased expenditure in the healthcare industry in this region. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in the year 2019, approximately 1.8 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in the United States and estimated 268,600 women and 2,670 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Moreover, the rise in the adoption of advanced technologies in gene therapy and increasing investments in research and development is fueling the growth of the overall regional market to a large extent.

Inquire for Discount:

https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/01091744865/red-biotechnology-market-growth-trends-and-forecast-2020-2025/discount?Mode=21

Key Strategic Developments : The study also includes the key strategic developments of the market, comprising R & D, new product launch, M & A, agreements, collaborations, partnerships, joint ventures, and regional growth of the leading competitors operating in the market on a Global and regional scale.

Key Market Features: The report evaluated key market features, including revenue, price, capacity, capacity utilization rate, gross, production, production rate, consumption, import/export, supply/demand, cost, market share, CAGR, and gross margin. In addition, the study offers a comprehensive study of the key market dynamics and their latest trends, along with pertinent market segments and sub-segments.

Analytical Tools: Global Red Biotechnology Market report includes the accurately studied and assessed data of the key industry players and their scope in the market by means of a number of analytical tools. The analytical tools such as Porter's five forces analysis, feasibility study, and investment return analysis have been used to analyzed the growth of the key players operating in the market.

The research includes historic data from 2014 to 2020 and forecasts until 2025 which makes the reports an invaluable resource for industry executives, marketing, sales and product managers, consultants, analysts, and other people looking for key industry data in readily accessible documents with clearly presented tables and graphs.

Media Contact Us:

Irfan Tamboli (Head of Sales) Market Insights Reports

Phone: + 1704 266 3234 | +91-750-707-8687

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Red Biotechnology Market Size, Status and Recent Advancements, Forecast 2020 to 2025 - MENAFN.COM

Postdoctoral Fellowship Under A Indo-French Academia-Industry job with VELLORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | 192385 – Times Higher Education (THE)

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Job Description

Applications are invited for a temporary Post ofPostdoctoral Fellowship under a Indo-French Academia-Industry Collaborative Projectfunded by CEFIPRA, in Centre for Bio Separation Technology, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT).

Title of the Project:

Cost effective strategy for the induction of immune tolerance to therapeutic Factor VIII in haemophilia A

Qualification:

PhD in Biochemistry /Molecular Biology/Genetic Engineering/Biotechnology/ Microbiology/Life Sciences

Desirable (if any):

Experience in molecular cloning, expression and purification of proteins

Stipend:Rs.47,000/ per month + 10% HRASponsoring Agency:CEFIPRADuration:Upto April 2020 (3 months)

Principal Investigator:

Principal Investigator: Dr.Krishnan V (Professor & Director, Centre for BioSeparation Technology)

Coinvestigator: Prof.M.A.Vijyalakshmi (Professor, Centre for BioSeparation Technology)

Send your resume along with relevant documents pertaining to the details of qualifications, scientific accomplishments, experience (if any) and latest passport size photo etc. on or before(20/01/2020)through onlinehttp://careers.vit.ac.in

Salary:Not Disclosed by RecruiterIndustry:Education / Teaching / TrainingFunctional Area:Teaching, Education, Training, CounsellingRole:Trainee

Keyskills

immune toleranceBiochemistry/

Desired Candidate Profile

Please refer to the Job description above

Education-

Doctorate:Ph.D - Microbiology, Bio-Chemistry/Bio-Technology

Company Profile

Vellore Institute of Technology

VIT was established with the aim of providing quality higher education on par with international standards. It persistently seeks and adopts innovative methods to improve the quality of higher education on a consistent basis.The campus has a cosmopolitan atmosphere with students from all corners of the globe. Experienced and learned teachers are strongly encouraged to nurture the students. The global standards set at VIT in the field of teaching and research spur us on in our relentless pursuit of excellence. In fact, it has become a way of life for us. The highly motivated youngsters on the campus are a constant source of pride. Our Memoranda of Understanding with various international universities are our major strength. They provide for an exchange of students and faculty and encourage joint research projects for the mutual benefit of these universities. Many of our students, who pursue their research projects in foreign universities, bring high quality to their work and esteem to India and have done us proud. With steady steps, we continue our march forward. We look forward to meeting you here at VIT.

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Postdoctoral Fellowship Under A Indo-French Academia-Industry job with VELLORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | 192385 - Times Higher Education (THE)

How food and beverage marketing claims can affect the production process – Food Engineering Magazine

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How food and beverage marketing claims can affect the production process | 2020-01-17 | Food Engineering This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

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How food and beverage marketing claims can affect the production process - Food Engineering Magazine

Economists explore the consequences of steering technological progress – The Economist

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Jan 16th 2020

SINCE THE ancient Greeks, at least, people have recognised that civilisational progress tends to create havoc as well as opportunity. Economists have had little time for such concerns. To them, technological progress is the wellspring of long-run growth, and the only interesting question is how best to coax more innovation out of the system. But in the face of looming social challenges, from climate change to inequality, some are now asking whether, when it comes to innovation, what sort is as relevant as how much.

Early models of growth did not explain technological progress at all, treating it rather like manna from heaven. In the 1980s some economists worked to build endogenous-growth models that said where innovation came from. They explained it as the consequence of investment in research and development, increases in the stock of human capital, or the (temporary) extra profits that can be reaped by firms with new technologies. Other economists have focused more on data than on theory. Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation, a paper published in 2018 in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, identifies factors that seem to encourage young people to become innovators. Children who grow up where innovation rates are high, for instance, are more likely to become inventors themselves.

Research has also made clear, however, that technological discovery is not linear, but veers about depending on economic conditions. Some economic historians reckon that early industrialisation was motivated by a desire to replace scarce resources, such as skilled labour, with abundant ones, such as unskilled labour and coal. Early inventors were not simply discovering natures truths one by one, in other words, but trying to solve specific problems. Work on such technological bias blossomed in the 1990s as economists sought to explain why the wage premium earned by college graduates kept rising even as the supply of graduates increased. The answer, some reckoned, was that technological change in the 20th century was skill-biased, boosting the productivity of workers with degrees, but not of others.

In a paper published in 2001, Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology collected these strands in a model of directed technical change. Technological progress, he suggested, is influenced by the relative scarcity of factors such as labour and capital; by how easily one factor can be substituted for another; and by the path of past innovation. Research on a particular technology may reduce the cost of developing complementary innovations in future. Directed technical change is fascinating to contemplate because it allows for alternative technological futures: worlds in which firms wring every efficiency from Zeppelins and pneumatic tubes, rather than from internal-combustion engines and Twitter. If the direction of progress is not set in stone, policy choices could lead an economy down one technological path rather than another. That raises an immediate question: if innovation can be steered, should it be, and if so, how?

Since 2000, published work on directed technical change has focused largely on environmental challenges. Path dependence means that research on fossil-fuel technologies can often be more fertile than research on cleaner alternatives. There are more experts in the relevant disciplines, better-funded research labs and an established complementary economic infrastructure. Efficient decarbonisation might thus require subsidies for clean-energy research, as well as a carbon price. Indeed, efforts to slow global warming represent a massive attempt to realise one technological futurea zero-carbon versionrather than another.

Why stop there? Some futurists, and a few economists, worry that rapid progress in artificial intelligence could lead to mass displacement of labour and social crisis. But in a recent paper Anton Korinek of the University of Virginia notes that not all uses of AI are alike. Clever machines could indeed replace human workersor might instead be engineered to assist human labour: to help people navigate complicated processes or take difficult decisions. Private firms, focused on their bottom lines rather than the potential knock-on effects of their investment decisions, might be indifferent between the two approaches in the absence of a government nudge, just as polluting firms tend not to worry about the social costs of environmental harm unless made to do so by governments. In a working paper co-written with Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, Mr Korinek concludes that directing technical change to favour labour-assisting rather than labour-displacing forms of AI could be a second-best way to manage progress, if governments cannot sufficiently redistribute the gains from automation from winners to losers. This may sound far-fetched, but policy proposals such as Bill Gatess suggestion that robots should be taxed to slow the pace of automation represent steps toward a more micromanaged technological future.

Environmental policies aside, such steps seem premature. A more sophisticated view of technological progress is to be welcomed. But economics lacks the tools, at least for now, to judge which technological path is preferable. The world is too complex to allow economists to compare hypothetical technological futures: to know whether a Zeppelin-based society would operate more efficiently overall than a car-based one. Economists cannot know what surprises lie down one innovation path rather than another.

And questions of technology are not solely, or even mostly, about efficiency. Many are ethical. Innovations with overwhelming productivity advantages could prove devastating to social trust or equity. In the face of radical technological changein AI, robotics and genetic engineeringsocieties will inevitably argue over which technological paths should be explored. Economists views belong in these conversationsprovided they are crafted with humility and care.

This article appeared in the Finance and economics section of the print edition under the headline "Economists explore the consequences of steering technological progress"

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Economists explore the consequences of steering technological progress - The Economist

Gone Fishing? No Fish but Plenty of Pesticides and a Public Health Crisis – CounterPunch

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There ismounting evidencethat a healthy soil microbiome protects plants from pests and diseases.One of the greatest natural assets that humankind has is soil. But when you drench it with proprietary synthetic chemicals or continuously monocrop as part of a corporate-controlled industrial farming system, you can kill essential microbes, upset soil balance and end up feeding soil a limiteddoughnut dietof unhealthy inputs.

Armed with their synthetic biocides, this is what the transnational agritech conglommerates do. These companies attempt to get various regulatory and policy-making bodies to bow before the altar of corporate science. But, in reality, they have limited insight into the long-term impacts their actions have on soil and itscomplex networksof microbes and microbiological processes. Soil microbiologists are themselves still trying to comprehend it all.

That much is clearwhen Linda Kinkelof the University of Minnesotas Department of Plant Pathology said back in 2014: We understand only a fraction of what microbes do to aid in plant growth.

And its the same where human soil is concerned.

People have a deep microbiological connection to soils and traditional processing and fermentation processes, which all affect the gut microbiome the up to six pounds of bacteria, viruses and microbes akin to human soil. And as with actual soil, the microbiome can become degraded according to what we ingest (or fail to ingest). Many nerve endings from major organs are located in the gut and the microbiome effectively nourishes them. There is ongoing research taking place into how the microbiome is disrupted by the modern globalised food production/processing system and the chemical bombardment it is subjected to.

The human microbiome is of vital importance to human health yet it is under chemical attack from agri-food giants and theiragrochemicals and food additives. As soon as we stopped eating locally-grown, traditionally-processed food, cultivated in healthy soils and began eating food subjected to chemical-laden cultivation and processing activities, we began to change ourselves. Along with cultural traditions surrounding food production and the seasons, we also lost our deep-rooted microbiological connection with our localities. It was traded in for corporate chemicals and seeds and global food chains dominated by the likes of Monsanto (now Bayer), Nestle and Cargill.

Environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason says that glyphosate disrupts the shikimate pathway within these gut bacteria and is a strong chelator of essential minerals, such as cobalt, zinc, manganese, calcium, molybdenum and sulphate. In addition, it kills off beneficial gut bacteria and allows toxic bacteria to flourish. She adds that we are therefore facing a global metabolic health crisis linked to glyphosate.

Many key neurotransmitters are located in the gut. Aside from affecting the functioning of major organs, these transmitters affect our moods and thinking. There is strong evidence that gut bacteria can have a direct physical impact on the brain. Alterations in the composition of the gut microbiome have been implicated in a wide range of neurological and psychiatric conditions, including autism, chronic pain, depression and Parkinsons Disease.

Recently published research indicates that glyphosate and Roundup are proven to disrupt gut microbiome by inhibiting the shikimate pathway.Dr Michael Antoniou of Kings College Londonhas found thatRoundup herbicide and its active ingredient glyphosate cause a dramatic increase in the levels of two substances, shikimic acid and 3-dehydroshikimic acid, in the gut, which are a direct indication that the EPSPS enzyme of the shikimic acid pathway has been severely inhibited. The researchers found that Roundup and glyphosate affected the microbiome at all dose levels tested, causing shifts in bacterial populations.

This confirms what Mason has been highlighting for some time. However, she has also been pointing out the environmental degradation resulting from the spiralling use of glyphosate-based herbicides and has just written an open letter tothe Principal Fisheries Officer of Natural Resources Wales (NRW), Peter Gough (NRW is the environment agency for Wales).

The letter runs to 20 pages and focuses on glyphosate and neonicotinoid insecticides. She asks who would re-authorise a pesticide that istoxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects and is causing serious eye damage along with various forms of cancers and a wide range of other health conditions?

She answers her question by saying the European Glyphosate Task Force and Jean-Claude Juncker President of the EC along with various regulators in Europe who have basically capitulated to an industry agenda. Mason argues that the European Glyphosate Task Force (who actually did the re-assessment of glyphosate) omitted all the studies from South America where they had been growing GM Roundup Ready crops since 1996. She discusses the suppression of key research which indicated the harmful effects of glyphosate.

The Principal Fisheries Scientist Wales sent Mason two NRW Reports two years ago. In it, Mason discovered that giant hogweed on the River Usk bank had been treated with a glyphosate-based herbicide. NRW had also admitted to not studying the effects of neonicotinoids, which had been introduced in 1994. Mason pointed out to NRW that run-off from farms of clothianidin in seeds would be enough to kill off aquatic invertebrates.

In early January, NRW attempted to explain the absence of salmon and trout in the River Usk on climate change (warming of the river), rather than poisoning of the river, which is what Mason had warned the agency about two years ago.

In Britain, information on emerging water contaminants has been suppressed, according to Mason, and there is no monitoring of either neonics or glyphosate in surface or ground water. In the US, though, measurements of these chemicals have been carried out on farmland and their correlation with massive declines in invertebrates byseparate agenciesand universities in the US and Canada.

Mason notes there has been 70 years of poisoning the land with pesticides. Although the National Farmers Union and the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs in the UK say fewer pesticides are now being applied, the Soil Association indicates massive increases of increasing numbers of pesticides at decreasing intervals (official statistics obtained via a Freedom of Information request).

Readers should consult the full text of Masons open letter on theacamedia.edusite to gain wider insight into the issues outlined above and many more, such as government collusion with major agrochemical corporations, the shaping of official narratives on illness and disease to obscure the role of pesticides and Monsantos poisoning of Wales.

What Mason outlines is not specific to Wales or the UK; the increasing use of damaging agrochemicals and government collusion with the industry transcends national borders. Nation states are becoming increasingly obsolete and powerless in the face of globalised capitalist interests that seek to capture and exploit markets, especially in the Global South.

What follows is the e-mail that Mason sent to Peter Gough by way of introducing her letter to him.

Dear Peter,

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) classified glyphosate as a substance that is toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects

Your colleague Dave Charlesworth declared on BBC 1 Breakfast last week that the declines in salmon and trout were due to climate change and warming of the rivers. I told you just over 2 years ago that it was due to pesticides and showed you the proof from assorted NRW documents you sent me.

Why are NRW, the government, top UK doctors, farmers, the corporations, the media and global pesticides regulators protecting the agrochemical industry? All of you could suffer from the effects of pesticides in food, in water, in the air and in rain. Why dont you inform the people?

Monsanto claims that Roundup doesnt affect humans, but their sealed secret studies that scientist Anthony Samsel obtained from the US EPA, shows evidence of cancers and that bioaccumulation of14C labelled glyphosate occurred in every organ of the body (page 9).

The NFU and Defra deny they are responsible for 70 years of poisoning the land and the subsequent insect apocalypse; they should read their own document Healthy Harvest.The National Farmers Union (NFU), the Crop Protection Association (CPA) and the Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) combined to lobby the EU not to restrict the 320+ pesticides available to them. The publication is called:HEALTHY HARVEST.[1](Pages 6-9)

The Department of Health and the Chief Medical Officer for England claim that parents are responsible for obesity in primary school children. However, Pesticides Action Network (PAN) analysed the Department of Healths Schools Fruit and Vegetable Scheme and found that there were residues of 123 pesticides in it,some of which are linked to serious health problems such as cancer and disruption of the hormone system.

When PAN informed them, they said that pesticides were not the concern of the DOH. (Page 14, 13-16).

Dr Don Huber, Emeritus Professor of Plant Pathology, Purdue University, US, speaking about GMO crops and glyphosate, said: Future historians may well look back upon our time and write, not about how many pounds of pesticide we did or didnt apply, but by how willing we are to sacrifice our children and future generations for this massive genetic engineering experiment that is based on flawed science and failed promises just to benefit the bottom line of a commercial enterprise. (Page 18)

Kind regards,

Rosemary

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Gone Fishing? No Fish but Plenty of Pesticides and a Public Health Crisis - CounterPunch

Bahamas Storm Toll: $3.4 Billion Loss and Years of Rebuilding – Yahoo Finance

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(Bloomberg) -- The Bahamas may need to tap international debt markets as it confronts the steep cost of recovering from the most destructive hurricane ever to hit the islands.

The government will probably borrow about $500 million in coming months as it deals with the roughly $3.4 billion in losses and damages from Hurricane Dorian, said K. Peter Turnquest, the Caribbean nations finance and deputy prime minister. The government is weighing options for how it will raise the debt, with some combination of an international bond sale and local borrowing likely, he said.

Dorian sat over the Bahamas in early September, killing dozens, causing widespread flooding and ripping apart thousands of homes and businesses. The storms aftermath has wrecked the governments fiscal plans, as it faces a slowing economy and the costs of reconstructing the islands so they can withstand the types of massive storms that have wrought devastation across the Caribbean in recent years.

In pure dollar terms this is absolutely the worst possible outcome and worst loss that weve ever seen, Turnquest said in a telephone interview. It is presenting a monumental challenge not only in terms of meeting reconstruction needs and costs but also for rebuilding in a way that is resilient and that will meet the anticipated frequency and severity that is being predicted as a result of this climate crisis.

The storm destroyed parts of Grand Bahama and Abaco islands, which sit about 100 miles east of Florida in the Atlantic Ocean and make up slightly less than a fifth of the tourism-dependent $12 billion economy. A revenue shortfall of about $230 million for the fiscal year ending June 30 and roughly $300 million in new spending is derailing its plans to cut debt levels.

Read more: As Climate Change Fuels Storms, Time to Leave Coasts?: QuickTake

The country was on a path to reduce debt to 50% of gross domestic product by 2024 from around 59% in 2018 by a steady tightening of budget deficits. Now, deficits are widening, and debt is expected to hover above 60% of GDP until 2024, according to government projections.

Despite the disastrous storm, Bahamas debt returned 16.4% last year, ahead of the Bloomberg Barclays Emerging Markets USD Sovereign indexs 13% return, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The government expects significant progress in rebuilding damaged areas this year, but it will take about three years before theyre full restored, Turnquest said. Reconstruction spending and inflows from insurance claims should help boost economic growth.

A handful of major foreign investment projects remain on track, including a Disney Island Development Ltd. facility worth between $250 million and $400 million, and one of Carnival Corporations largest cruise ports, planned for Grand Bahama, according to a government economic plan.

Still, the government needs more investment and technical assistance to help it rebuild in a way that makes the islands less vulnerable to future storms, Turnquest said. Among other things, it wants to construct resilient infrastructure, renewable energy generation, disaster-resistant shelters, and to implement a payment system that will leave residents less reliant on cash, he said.

We are looking to the international community not to turn away from this issue but to commit and invest and help us figure this out, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ezra Fieser in Bogota at efieser@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nikolaj Gammeltoft at ngammeltoft@bloomberg.net, Brendan Walsh

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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Bahamas Storm Toll: $3.4 Billion Loss and Years of Rebuilding - Yahoo Finance

10 All-Inclusive Resorts In The Bahamas That Treat Their Guests Like Royalty (5 With Bad Reviews) – TheTravel

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The cold winter months have definitely done a number on us, so there is no better time to book that special vacation to none other than the sunny Bahamas! Whether you are looking for some peace and quiet, fun in the sun, or an all-around adventure, the Bahamas is where it's at.

The stunning Carribean destination offers travellers some of the most luxe resorts and hotels just waiting for you to enjoy. Whether you are travelling alone, with a partner, the family or a whole group of you, there is something for just about everybody.

While the Bahamas is home to some of the most luxe all-inclusive resorts, it is also home to some resorts that are not worth visiting. Luckily, we've got you covered on the 10 best all-inclusive resorts that treat guests like royalty, and 5 that you ought to avoid at all costs.

Fowl Cay Resort is located in none other than Fowl Cay, Bahamas! The upscale and luxurious resort offers travellers an experience on their very own private island, with private cabanas surrounded by crystal clear blue waters. If that doesn't sound enticing enough, you can also swim with the island native pigs, yes, pigs!

The Club Med Columbus Isle Resort is located in the beautiful region of Bonefish Bay, Bahamas, and should be on just about everybody's travel bucket list. The resort offers luxury like you've never seen before, all while being surrounded by some of the most stunning beach waters you will ever feast your eyes on.

Sandals Royal Bahamian Resort without a doubt stays true to their name! The resort offers not only beautiful beach views, but some of the most relaxing spa services in all of the Bahamas. Whether you want a massage, facial, or a simple yoga and meditation session, you can get it all here!

When you have the chance to travel anywhere with the name Paradise Island, take it! The Hotel Riu Palace is definitely a palace alright. The colourful resort offers you some of the best vacation vibes you will ever get out of the Bahamas and will not only brighten up your Instagram feed but your life, too!

The Grand Lucayan Resort is located in the city of Freeport, directly in the center of Grand Bahama and might even offer the best vacation you will find yourself on. The rest offers a mix of just about everything including relaxation, stunning beaches, great food, excitement, and entertainment, all to ensure you get your money's worth!

The Melia Nassau Beach is located in, you guessed it, Nassau! The resort is perfect for that family vacation you've been yearning to go on. The resort offers endless activities and services to keep you and the family entertained! If Mariah Carey opts for Melia Nassau Beach, then you should as well.

Viva Wyndham Resort is located in Freeport beach right on Churchill Beach and offers guests some of the most exciting and entertaining resort-wide activities. Whether you're feeling some beach volleyball, kayaking, a catamaran trip, jet skis, pool aerobics or activities for the little ones too, then you'll find it all at the Viva Wyndham in the Bahamas.

Small Hope Bay Lodge is the ultimate experience if you and that special someone just want to slip away somewhere and escape the chaos of your everyday lives. The resort offers a more quiet approach for its guests, allowing them to relax in a peaceful environment while enjoying the stunning beach views.

While the party scene is always a plus while on vacation, sometimes you just want to kick back and relax. Luckily for you, the Stella Maris Resort offers a great casual and relaxing vibe that ought to wash all your worries away. With crystal clear beaches, spa services, and delicious food, there really isn't any more you could ask for.

The Sandals Resort, located in Emerald Bay, Bahamas is the perfect combination of beauty and luxe all-in-one. Not only will you feel like royalty, but you will enjoy all the perks with beautiful views of white sand beaches, sunsets and gorgeous palm trees that won't make you ever want to leave.

When it comes to booking a trip to the Bahamas, Atlantis is easily one of the most popular places one decides to go to! While it is quite a magical destination, we feel as if it is our duty to let you know that it is sometimes not worth the hype. With crying kids, busy pools, crowded areas, and long waits, Atlantis might not be the place for you.

In addition to Atlantis being crowded at times, travellers might not like how the Island Seas Resort in Freeport can also be just as overcrowded. The beach is full of guests, and sometimes locals, making it quite the busy and chaotic space to be in when all you want to do is relax and soak up the sun.

Breezes Resort & Spa is yet another Bahamian destination that you might want to avoid for quite a while. While the resort was once a great one, recent reviews claim that it is a huge fixer upper. When you are paying loads of money to travel somewhere, you don't want to land in a place that doesn't match the photos!

The Royal Islander Resort is also located in Freeport, Bahamas, and while most resorts will offer you an array of food selections, it appears guests were very disappointed with the food at the Royal Islander. Perhaps this won't bother you, but when it comes to vacation, yummy food is always on the top of our lists.

If you're ready to get your party on, then this is the place for you. However, if a relaxing vacation is what you are looking for, then look away! The Castaways Resort & Suites is known for being quite the party central destination, making it less than favourable for travellers who want to stay away from loud music and intoxicated people.

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10 All-Inclusive Resorts In The Bahamas That Treat Their Guests Like Royalty (5 With Bad Reviews) - TheTravel

Gainey takes third-round lead at The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic – pgatour.com

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GREAT EXUMA, The Bahamas A day after a 3-over 75 seemingly dropped Tommy Gainey out of contention, the 44-year-old responded with a bogey-free 67 to ascend the leaderboard and take a one-stroke lead into the final round at The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay. At 8-under, Gainey edged four players by a stroke to take the 54-hole lead.

Gainey began the day eight strokes back of Dylan Wu, but a 3-over front nine by Wu opened the door. Gainey birdied his first two holes and turned at 4-under 32 before tacking on one more birdie at the par-4 13thto reach 8-under.

I think Dylan shot 67-66 the first two days and he was 11-under going in, but I knew I could get this golf course when the wind lets up just a bit, said Gainey, a PGA TOUR winner at the 2012 RSM Classic. Obviously it subsided some today, which I was glad to see, and I played a great round.

Four different players held a share of the lead during the third round as less windy conditions led to better scoring conditions, including Wu, Gainey, George Cunningham and Jose de Jesus Rodriguez. Though the conditions were calmer than the first two days, the sea breeze was still consistently 15-20 miles per hour with gusts up to 25 miles per hour.

Playing in (windy) tournaments throughout my career have me prepared for when it is gusting hard, said Gainey. Everyone has to play in it I try to deal with it like everybody else and so far its going pretty well.

After a par at the par-5 first, Gainey credited his shot on the par-3 second hole with kick-starting his round.

On No. 2, I hit the ball to about 10 or 12 feet, said Gainey. The pin was on the front and it was playing about 210 yards. When you hit it that close with the wind in your face off of the left, Im pretty happy with that. Birdies on the first two holes really started my momentum.

While the second hole was kind to Gainey, the same cant be said for Wu, who began the day with a seven-stroke lead on the field. After a birdie at the first, Wu hit his tee shot on the second in the water and settled for a triple bogey. He added three more bogeys and a double at the par-4 12th(countered by three more birdies) to card a 4-over 76.

Of course its hard when you lose a lead like that, but its my first time playing in this type of situation on this Tour so all you can do is learn from it, said Wu, whose seven-stroke lead after the second round tied a Korn Ferry Tour record. Im still happy that I still have a chance to win the tournament tomorrow.

Zalatoris, a former standout at Wake Forest University, carded the round of the day with a 7-under 65. Entering the day 11 strokes off the lead, Zalatoris enjoyed a torrid stretch from Nos. 13-15 in which he went ace-birdie-eagle. The ace was the third of Zalatoris life and helped him overcome an early double bogey at the par-3 sixth.

On No. 13 I had a pitching wedge and the pin is so far up that I could barely see the bottom of the hole; it ended up going in, which was a shocker, said Zalatoris. After that I was just trying to validate that shotOn 15 was when I knew it was my day. I had a good tee shot but had 295 yards to the hole and its blowing 30 miles per hour downwind. I hit 5-iron and pulled it, it was carrying the edge of the water the whole time and rolled up to about 25 feet from the hole. Erik (Compton) told me I need to go buy a lottery ticket after this round. I agree.

The final round on Wednesday will run from 7:25 a.m. to 11:40 a.m. off of the first tee.

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Gainey takes third-round lead at The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic - pgatour.com