Monthly Archives: July 2017

Researchers Brought Back a Pox Virus Using Mail-Order DNA and it Only Cost $100000 – Futurism

Posted: July 8, 2017 at 8:47 pm

In Brief Researchers have revived an extinct horsepox virus using synthetic DNA strands ordered for about $100,000. This opens up new possibilities for researchers looking to make better vaccines, but also the potential for these viruses to become bioweapons. Reviving Extinct Viruses

Canadian researchers revived an extinct horsepox virus last year on a shoestring budget, by usingmail-order DNA. That may not seem like a big deal, until you consider that this relatively inexpensivetechnique could be used by anyone perhaps even to bring back something like smallpox, one of the most feared diseases in humanitys history. The teams research which remains unpublished was intended to create better vaccines and even cancer treatments. ThoughDavid Evans of the University of Alberta, the research lead, admitted that he also undertook the project to prove that it could be done. And, that itwouldnt necessarily require a lot of time, money, and even biomedical skill or knowledge. As he toldScience,The world just needs to accept the fact that you can do this and now we have to figure out what is the best strategy for dealing with that. Thus reigniting a powerful debate in the biomedical science community.Click to View Full Infographic

The researchers bought overlapping DNA fragments from a commercial synthetic DNA company. Each fragment was about 30,000 base pairs long, and because they overlapped, the team was able to stitch them together to complete the genome of the 212,000-base-pair horsepox virus. When they introduced the genome into cells that were already infected with a different kind of poxvirus, the cells began to produce virus particles of the infectious horsepox variety. While horsepox doesnt infect humans, other pox viruses do: and if the technique works to recreate one kind of pox virus, it could likely work for others as well. This technique was first demonstrated by another group of researchers in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper in 2002.

The idea that it would someday be possible to synthesize poxviruses is nothing new. In 2002, virologists assembled the poliovirus from scratch. However, this new work certainly does raise disturbing questions about how modern biotechnology could help terroristsweaponize viruses, which has in turnprompted a discussion about the regulation of science: There is always an experiment or event that triggers closer scrutiny, and this sounds like it should be one of those events where the authorities start thinking about what should be regulated, Northern Arizona University anthrax expert Paul Keim told Science.

This work also changes the longstanding debate about what to do with the worlds few remaining smallpox samples. While scientists have argued about whether to destroy them or study them, if the viruses or viruses very much like them could be manufactured, it wouldnt matter what happened to those samples.You think its all tucked away nicely in freezers, but its not, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases virologist Peter Jahrling told Science. The genie is out of the lamp.

This brings us back to David Evans of the University of Alberta, who led the horsepox research. Pox viruses are common and infect many animals (including humans), but after it was eradicated, whats left of the dreaded smallpox virus isheld at CDC and cannot be studied. Evans had initially requested the use of existing horsepox samples from the CDC, but his request was declined because his purposes were commercial. So, instead, he synthesized a new virus instead, hoping to gain some insight into creating better vaccines. This is the most successful vaccine in human history, Evans said of the smallpox vaccine in Science,the foundation of modern immunology and microbiology, and yet we dont know where it came from.There is a huge, interesting academic question here.

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Researchers Brought Back a Pox Virus Using Mail-Order DNA and it Only Cost $100000 - Futurism

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Camping Is A Part Of My Jewish DNA – Forward

Posted: at 8:47 pm

I was taken aback when I read Peter Beinarts article, Is Judaism a Big Tent? just a few days after returning from a four week kayaking trip with my daughter through our ancestral homeland of Lithuania. Each day, we paddled along Lithuanian rivers, large and small the Neris, Levuo, Nevezis, Nemunas, and Minija and each night, we camped on the bank in our well-used tent.

I have been backpacking, paddling, and tent camping for many years. I have hiked the Appalachian Trail, trekked in Nepal and Patagonia, and kayaked and canoed rivers across the United States. Here in my home state of Idaho, my family and I have spent countless nights happily ensconced in our tents on the slopes of the Northern Rockies. I have met other Jews on nearly all of these trips. Every one of them has known perfectly well how to set up a tent.

Beinarts article perpetuates a stereotype born of too many Woody Allen movies. The notion that camping or farming is not part of our Diaspora DNA is just factually wrong. Its also hurtful to the many American Jews who find spiritual nourishment in the natural world.

A.D. Gordon was an important Zionist thinker, but his understanding of Diaspora history as completely cut off from nature was, and remains, ill-conceived. The Zionists New Jew was not really all that new. Nearly every far-flung village in Lithuania that we passed through was once home to a thriving Jewish community. The Litvaks did not all live in Vilna and Kovno. They made their homes in the forests and along the rivers, in shtetlach such as Yaneve, Sapizishok, Babtai, Gorzd, and countless others. So, too, in Poland and the Ukraine. These Jews rowed rafts down the rivers, shipping timber to the Baltic Sea. They grew cucumbers, harvested and wove flax, and kept farm animals such as sheep, goats, and cows. Tevye the dairy man did not get his milk wholesale from a warehouse. And they built and prayed and studied in barn-like wooden synagogues, filled with gorgeous folk-art paintings of local flora and fauna.

That is my American Jewish spiritual DNA.

And for what its worth, unless you work for Sierra Designs or North Face or some other outdoor company, you do not construct or build a tent. You pitch it.

Rabbi Dan Fink is the rabbi of Ahavath Beth Israel in Boise, Idaho.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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A whole-genome sequenced rice mutant resource for the study of biofuel feedstocks – Phys.Org

Posted: at 8:47 pm

July 5, 2017 Genome-wide distribution of fast-neutron-induced mutations in the Kitaake rice mutant population (green). The genome-wide distribution of mutations indicates a non-biased saturation of the genome. Colored lines (center) represent translocations of DNA fragments from one chromosome to another. Credit: Guotian Li and Rashmi Jain/Berkeley Lab

Rice is a staple food for over half of the world's population and a model for studies of candidate bioenergy grasses such as sorghum, switchgrass, and Miscanthus. To optimize crops for biofuel production, scientists are seeking to identify genes that control key traits such as yield, resistance to disease, and water use efficiency.

Populations of mutant plants, each one having one or more genes altered, are an important tool for elucidating gene function. With whole-genome sequencing at the single nucleotide level, researchers can infer the functions of the genes by observing the gain or loss of particular traits. But the utility of existing rice mutant collections has been limited by several factors, including the cultivars' relatively long six-month life cycle and the lack of sequence information for most of the mutant lines.

In a paper published in The Plant Cell, a team led by Pamela Ronald, a professor in the Genome Center and the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis and director of Grass Genetics at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), with collaborators from UC Davis and the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI), reported the first whole-genome-sequenced, fast-neutron-induced mutant population of Kitaake, a model rice variety with a short life cycle.

Kitaake (Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica) completes its life cycle in just nine weeks and is not sensitive to photoperiod changes. This novel collection will accelerate functional genetic research in rice and other monocots, a type of flowering plant species that includes grasses.

"Some of the most popular rice varieties people use right now only have two generations per year. Kitaake has up to four, which really speeds up functional genomics work," said Guotian Li, a project scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and deputy director of Grass Genetics at JBEI.

In a previously published pilot study, Li, Mawsheng Chern, and Rashmi Jain, co-first authors on The Plant Cell paper, demonstrated that fast-neutron irradiation produced abundant and diverse mutations in Kitaake, including single base substitutions, deletions, insertions, inversions, translocations, and duplications. Other techniques that have been used to generate rice mutant populations, such as the insertion of gene and chromosome segments and the use of gene editing tools like CRISPR-Cas9, generally produce a single type of mutation, Li noted.

"Fast-neutron irradiation causes different types of mutations and gives different alleles of genes so we really can get something that's not achievable from other collections," he said.

Whole-genome sequencing of this mutant population - 1,504 lines in total with 45-fold coverage - allowed the researchers to pinpoint each mutation at a single-nucleotide resolution. They identified 91,513 mutations affecting 32,307 genes, 58 percent of all genes in the roughly 389-megabase rice genome. A high proportion of these were loss-of-function mutations.

Using this mutant collection, the Grass Genetics group identified an inversion affecting a single gene as the causative mutation for the short-grain phenotype in one mutant line with a population containing just 50 plants. In contrast, researchers needed more than 16,000 plants to identify the same gene using the conventional approach.

"This comparison clearly demonstrates the power of the sequenced mutant population for rapid genetic analysis," said Ronald.

This high-density, high-resolution catalog of mutations provides researchers opportunities to discover novel genes and functional elements controlling diverse biological pathways. To facilitate open access to this resource, the Grass Genetics group has established a web portal called KitBase, which allows users to find information related to the mutant collection, including sequence, mutation and phenotypic data for each rice line.

Explore further: Scientists discover gene that influences grain yield

More information: Guotian Li et al, The Sequences of 1,504 Mutants in the Model Rice Variety Kitaake Facilitate Rapid Functional Genomic Studies, The Plant Cell (2017). DOI: 10.1105/tpc.17.00154

Researchers at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center have discovered a gene that influences grain yield in grasses related to food crops. Four mutations were ...

Scientists across the world are building an extensive repository of genetically modified rice plants in the hope of understanding the function of the approximately 57,000 genes that make up the genome of Oryza sativa. The ...

Garden and potted plants with white spots on their leaves are so popular that they are specially selected for this feature. An international research team has now identified a new mutation in the plant Lotus japonicus which ...

Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists have developed a much-needed genetic resource that will greatly accelerate the study of gene functions in wheat. The resource, a collection of wheat seeds with more than 10 million ...

The first genome-scale model for predicting the functions of genes and gene networks in a grass species has been developed by an international team of researches that includes scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy ...

Winter is no time to flower, which is why so many plants have evolved the ability to wait for the snow to melt before investing precious resources in blooms.

Those who crave brownies or hot cocoa may be happy to hear that heroes too small to be seen may help to protect the world's chocolate supply. Scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama found ...

New research shows a species of diatom, a single-celled algae, thought to be asexual does reproduce sexually, and scientists learned it's a common compound - ammonium - that puts the ubiquitous organism in the mood.

The orangutan population on the island of Borneo has shrunk by a quarter in the last decade, researchers said Friday, urging a rethink of strategies to protect the critically-endangered great ape.

As the old saying goes, teaching someone to fish is far more helpful than just giving them a fish. Now, research from WorldFish and MIT takes that adage a step further: Better yet, the study found, is working with the fishermen ...

After observing the mating habits of chacma baboons living in the wild over a four-year period, researchers have found that males of the species often use long-term sexual intimidation to control their mates. The findings ...

A University of Kentucky plant pathologist is part of an international team of researchers who have uncovered an important link to a disease which left unchecked could prove devastating to wheat. UK College of Agriculture, ...

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A whole-genome sequenced rice mutant resource for the study of biofuel feedstocks - Phys.Org

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UK’s chief medical officer calls for gene testing revolution in cancer treatment – Daily Nation

Posted: at 8:45 pm

Saturday July 8 2017

Kenyans mark World Cancer Day on February 4, 2016 in Eldoret town. Tiny errors in DNA code can lead to cancer and other illnesses. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

A revolution in the search for cancer treatments has been proposed by Englands chief medical officer.

Prof Sally Davies wants gene-testing to be introduced on a routine basis.

I want the National Health Service to be offering genomic medicine, that means diagnosis of our genes, to patients where they can possibly benefit, she said.

GENETIC TESTS Testing, she said, should be standard across cancer care as well as some other areas of medicine, including rare diseases and infections.

Doctors are already using genetic tests to identify and better treat different strains of the infectious disease, tuberculosis.

Humans have about 20,000 genes, bits of DNA code or instructions that control how our bodies work.

Tiny errors in this code can lead to cancer and other illnesses.

Gene-screening can reveal these errors by comparing tumour and normal DNA samples from the patient.

Professor Davies says in about two-thirds of cases, this information can improve their diagnosis and care.

Doctors can tailor treatments to the individual, picking the drugs most likely to be effective.

Currently, genetic testing in England is done at 25 regional laboratories, as well as some other small centres.

Professor Davies wants to centralise the service and set up a national network to ensure equal access to the testing across the country.

She said one hurdle could be doctors themselves, who dont like change.

Patients should persuade them to move from a local to a national service. *** Joe Furness was in Newcastle upon Tyne when he was invited to a party in London.

A three-hour, one-way train trip would cost him 78.50 (Sh10,517) and a plane flight 106, but Joe, aged 21, is a poor student and didnt have much money.

What he did have however was time. So Joe decided to take a detour via Spain.

CAR HIRE Flying from Newcastle to the Spanish island of Menorca cost him 16.00.

There he hired a car for 7.50 and spent the night in it, while sipping a 4.50 cocktail.

Next morning he flew to London for 11.00, joined the party, then grabbed a lift home with a pal afterwards.

Total cost of 39 was a saving of 39.50 on a train journey from Newcastle and 67 on a flight.

Distance travelled was 2,350 miles, against 290 miles from the North to London. *** Bradley Lowery is a six-year-old boy who won the hearts of the nation by campaigning for his beloved Sunderland Football Club and for its top scorer, Jermaine Defoe.

TV film of Defoe holding a smiling Bradley in his arms before a recent game appeared on nationwide television.

What everyone knows, of course, is that Bradley is dying from the childhood cancer neuroblastoma.

A fund-raising campaign raised money for him and will be used for other sick children when Bradley dies.

Now it seems fraudsters have been setting up pages on the internet claiming to be collecting for the boys cause.

His family have warned against them. Please be vigilant, they said in a message on Facebook.

You have to wonder, how low can some people stoop?

*** Some 400 plastic bottles are sold per second in this country and millions end up, along with other garbage, in the worlds oceans.

In fact, scientists calculate that by 2050, the oceans will contain more plastic by weight than fish.

The opposition Labour party is pressing for the introduction of a money-back return scheme, which has been introduced in many other countries and has proved successful in reducing the scale of littering.

You pay a bit extra for your drink but you get it back if you return the bottle, which the drinks company then recycles.

Coca-Cola, among others, is backing the idea. *** Famous one-liners:

Doctors recommend eight glasses of water per day. Why does this seem impossible when eight glasses of beer is so easy? Anonymous.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people he gave it to. American writer Dorothy Parker.

The two most beautiful words in the English language are Cheque enclosed. Dorothy Parker.

PLAGIARISM I asked God for a bike but I know He doesnt work that way, so I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness. Internet.

I wouldnt say I was the best football manager in the business, but I was in the top one. Brian Clough, British football manager.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. Anonymous

England and America are two countries separated by a common language. Irish writer George Bernard Shaw.

If I agreed with you, then we would both be wrong. Internet.

Interior Cabinet Secretary collapsed in his house and was rushed to hospital by family and

He is becoming the Presidents go-to-guy when things need to be fixed.

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UK's chief medical officer calls for gene testing revolution in cancer treatment - Daily Nation

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Gene Cloning Just Became A Thousand Times Easier – Wall Street Pit

Posted: at 8:45 pm

Presently, the process of DNA sequencing to discover a genes function is a bit time-consuming because it has to be done one gene at a time. But with the invention of a team of researchers from Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Medical School, that process can now be considerably shortened as they have found a way to simultaneously clone thousands of genes.

The new technique is called LASSO cloning LASSO is an acronym for long-adapter single-strand oligonucleotide and through it, isolating thousands of DNA sequences can now be done at the same time. As a result, the new technology can supposedly expedite the creation of proteins the end product of genes which can in turn lead to faster discovery of new medicines and biomarkers for scores of diseases.

The technique is considered as quite an improvement over an existing method known as molecular inversion probes (MIPs), which can only capture about 200 bases of DNA. Raising this number to a thousand is especially significant because the typical size of a genes protein-coding sequence can reach up to thousands of DNA base pairs.

The technology works through a tool the team refers to as a LASSO probe. Using a number of these probes enables grabbing of target DNA sequences, similar with how a lasso (a rope) is used to round up cattle. What makes this special is the fact that with a single effort, the technique can grab thousands of DNA sequences at the same time.

In their proof-of-concept study, the team used their LASSO probes to simultaneously capture over 3,000 E. coli bacteria DNA fragments. They were successful in capturing around 95% of their gene targets. More importantly, the sequences were captured in such a way that allowed the researchers to observe and evaluate what the expressed proteins do.

As an added bonus, the team also helped solved a perennial problem in the genome sequencing field. As it is, genetic sequencing currently involves sequencing small fragments of DNA one at a time, then overlaying them in order to map out the entire genome. This doesnt just take time; its also harder to interpret and kind of prone to errors. With the LASSO probes, sequencing long fragments has now been made possible, which also translates to a faster and more accurate gene sequencing process.

As one of the researchers, Biju Parekkadan of the Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said: We think that the rapid, affordable, and high-throughput cloning of proteins and other genetic elements will greatly accelerate biological research to discover functions of molecules encoded by genomes and match the pace at which new genome sequencing data is coming out.

Going forward, the team is now working on improving the cloning process, building libraries and discovering the therapeutic proteins found in our genes.

The research was recently published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

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Paresh Rawal is proud to be politically incorrect – Free Press Journal

Posted: at 8:45 pm

Versatile actor Paresh Rawal is not just vocal about his choice of films, but also his political view. With the advent of Goods and Services Tax (GST), the film industry is also going through a tax change and has affected the livelihoods of many workers, especially in regional cinema. But Rawal thinks that if the movie industry had put up a united front then they could have convinced the government to change the tax bracket. I dont know much about GST, but the film industry is affected by it. First of all, we are dealing with piracy, which is a major setback to us and then with the advent of these web-portals, even my driver can watch a movie on his mobile. We dont have a unified voice. When I asked Siddharth Roy Kapoor (Producer) to take a united voice from Rajnikanth to Aamir (Khan) to Prabhas and even the Federation to go together and talk about the tax rate, no one turned up, says Rawal.

The south film industry seems to have taken then hit, as in addition to 28% GST they are also required to pay 30% municipal tax. The Guest Iin London actor will also essay the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but has not locked on a script yet. Talking about Modis relationships Rawal says, Camaraderie between PM Modi and Amit Shah is not as unique as you guys perceive. Modi has had many other meaningful relationships especially with his gurus in his formative years. Modi sahab hamesh akele rahe hai, vo kabhi bhi chamcho ke saat nahi baithe rahe hai. He doesnt believe in loose talks and will always be a loner.

When asked about controversial aspects of PM Modis life, Rawal said, With this biopic I am not worried about peoples reaction, I am concentrating on the events that happened in his life and what was the reason behind certain decisions that he took. We will even touch upon the 2002 riots and break peoples incorrect notions.

Rawal has never shied away from expressing his views on the political situation in India and recently even faced a lot of flak after he tweetedthat writer Arundhati Roy should be tied to an army jeep, suggesting she be used in a manner similar to theKashmiri man an incident which had occured in April. I firmly believe in whatever I said about Arundhati Roy. I am not afraid of repeating it as well. You cannot run down my country or my army. As simple as that. Let people say whatever they want, Rawal dismissed any relation to the tweet being a hate speech.

If we post something it is polarising, but her speech is not. If she had not said all that, then I would not have posted all this. From which angle do you think that what I have said is inciting violence? If you are a sympathiser of stone pelters and if I have tied you to the jeep then why would anyone throw a stone at you? Even the army will know how helpful Arundhati is to them, and even she will know what all the army goes through every day. It is a win-win situation, says Rawal.

Albeit with the incidents of hate crimes rising in the country, the actor doesnt believe in any religion or religious text to be the reason for violence. It is pathetic when you start believing in society being a temple and people as god, then such hate crimes wont happen. Since we are born we are thought about the teachings of Bible, Quran, and other holy books. Every book promulgates only good things, still, these books havent been able to influence them. Whether you are Hindu or Muslim, when you lynch someone you are killing a human being. We should bring out a strict law and judiciary should also implement it quickly, says the Member of Parliament.

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Profane veteran grapples with son, modern life in ‘The Reason You’re Alive’ – STLtoday.com

Posted: at 8:45 pm

Just about everything David Granger despises about a changing America, his son, Hank, venerates.

David is a profanely politically incorrect Vietnam veteran who rails against multiculturalism and anti-gun liberals and refers to hijabs as Muslim torture devices.

Hank is a young art dealer who must apologize for his fathers Archie Bunker worldview, telling one perturbed stranger that Dad needs help acknowledging his privilege.

Their relationship is a long, awkward Thanksgiving dinner with extended family that keeps veering toward politics.

And yet, David Granger cant cut off the conversation not with a granddaughter in the picture, the 7-year-old Ella with whom hes not too proud to share dainty playtime tea. Plus he cant just write off his son.

If he werent mine, I would probably despise Hank Granger, but he was the closest Id ever get to producing an heir, so my emotions continue to betray me.

In The Reason Youre Alive, David Granger must confront what divides him and his son. A car crash forces the matter, with subsequent medical tests revealing brain tumors.

Hank comes to his widowed fathers unwelcome aid just as his own life is careening off track. His wife, in his fathers words, has just taken off with another man forsaking her maternal duties for a sex romp through Europe.

Its funny, a miserable Hank tells his father. I tried to do the opposite of everything you did, Dad, and yet here we are, both alone.

Author Matthew Quick traffics heavily in such life-worn souls, oddballs trying but failing to reach one another, until circumstances leave them no choice. His characters dont connect so much as collide, more times than not with sharp comedic effect.

One of Quicks prior novels, Silver Linings Playbook, which became an Oscar-nominated film, pulls this all off brilliantly as a romantic comedy.

Its a formula that Hollywood continues to buy. Several of Quicks novels have already been optioned for film, including this one, months before its release.

That could be a turnoff in some literary circles, but in this case it shouldnt be. The role of David Granger may someday be played by an Oscar-hungry actor. But that shouldnt distract from the vivid, high-definition protagonist that already glows from the page.

Here, Quick sets David on a mission to come to terms with the demons of the Vietnam War as he seeks to return something of value to a fellow soldier, mysteriously known as Clayton Fire Bear.

Recollections of Vietnam and on Vietnam factor heavily in this slim novel.

David remembers how he and his own father, a World War II vet, are brought closer by that conflict. On the beaches of Normandy, David presents his father with a Rolex to replace the watch he lost in combat there.

Davids war, in contrast, has estranged him from a son he thinks knows nothing about the war or his life.

That candor and honesty gives this first-person narrative its potency.

It also supplies the humor, with David emphatically reminding us he is not a bigot or a racist, even as he tramples on societal discretion.

He marvels when his black friends bedroom has no leopard-skin blankets or black fists on the walls or red-green-and-black Africa cutouts or anything like that. Later, he asserts that you never see gays move into a neighborhood and make it worse.

Amid these cringe-inducing moments, Quick asks us to take a deeper look at David and his decency, most often expressed through his yearning as a grandparent. Hank also is forced to reassess his father, encountering unexpected revelations in the process.

At a hilarious dinner party, for example, Hank learns that his father has for years had a deep relationship with a gay couple, who sends him a card each Veterans Day.

But ultimately, this voyage of discovery has darker places to go. David must face truths about not only the war, but his deceased wife. More challenging still, the cantankerous father must share many of those truths with his seemingly distant son.

Still, this is not a story about crossing political bridges or of meet-me-halfway accommodations.

Theres no changing David, who will continue to call his Vietnamese friend a little yellow woman, as surely as his son will continue eating kale salads.

What this novel offers instead is a hope that we have the capacity to get beyond what offends us about one another.

Perhaps, at this particular political moment, thats plenty.

The Reason Youre Alive

A novel by Matthew Quick

Published by Harper, 226 pages, $25.99

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Profane veteran grapples with son, modern life in 'The Reason You're Alive' - STLtoday.com

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Weekly Recap July 8th: CNN Blackmail, More VidCon Drama, SJW Comic Censorship – One Angry Gamer (blog)

Posted: at 8:44 pm

(Last Updated On: July 8, 2017)

This was an action-packed week of nonstop drama. There was the resurfacing of a 2016 VidCon video featuring Anita Sarkeesian revealing that criticism does not equal harassment. There was a comic book aimed toward the progressive crowd that ended up getting censored because SJWs complained that it was too graphic, and CNN decided to blackmail a Reddit user for posting a meme featuring Donald Trump beating the crap out of CNN WWE style. These stories and more in this drama-filled, July 8th, 2017 edition of the Weekly Recap.

VidCon Reveals Anita Lied

So Anita Sarkeesian claimed in her blog post that Sargon and the other YouTubers harassed her just by making videos. This was in response to the VidCon 2017 incident where Sarkeesian called Sargon a Garbage Human. Well, it turns out that in a VidCon 2016 panel, Sarkeesian claimed that simply making videos criticizing someone isnt actually harassment. Busted. An awesome new game called Fight Knight is in the works featuring medieval combat in a first-person environment that works as a dungeon crawler. Explaining the game is tough but you have to check out Fight Knight because its awesome. And Mass Effect: Andromedas single-player DLC is still on hiatus, and it doesnt look like the DLC will be releasing anytime soon, if ever.

SJWs Get Comic Book Cover Censored

Social Justice Warriors caught wind of a comic book cover depicting a Pakistani mad mutilated and lynched over a sign. They attacked the artist, the comic book and the comic book company, claiming that the art was disgusting and despicable. The company, Image Comics, capitulated to the outcry whims and whines of the Social Justice Warrior community, and censored their comic book after apologizing. The Jak and Daxter collection is set to arrive on the PlayStation 4 sometime soon, likely in August or September. Red Dead Redemption is currently playable on the RPCS3 emulator, which is making great headway in making PS3 games playable on PC. Criminal Girls was banned in New Zealand for justifying and normalizing rape. Weve got a review up of Micro Machines World Series. And it doesnt look like Call of Duty: WW2 is coming to the Nintendo Switch.

CNN Blackmails Kid To Keep Silent

CNN has reached an all new low by blackmailing a 15-year-old into apologizing and staying silent. The situation has escalated to national levels, with CNN coming under fire from everyone, including a U.S., Congressman who has argued that they have crossed a line in blackmailing a U.S., citizen to stay silent. On a lighter note, theres an updated sex mod for Rimworld that adds monster girls to the game. Real tasty treat for weaboos. YouTube, Facebook and other social media sites will be fined nearly $60 million if they dont censor hate speech within 24 hours. Nearly half of all Steam users are rocking 1080p monitors, and less than 1% of Steam users have a VR headset. And speaking of VR not all VR-ready GPUs are actually VR ready.

Engadget Defends CNNs Blackmailing Attempt

Engadget has taken to defending unethical journalism by claiming that CNN did nothing wrong by blackmailing a Reddit user and threatening to dox him if he didnt stop trolling and posting memes of President Donald Trump beating the ever-living-crap out of CNN. Microsoft will be implementing the option to gift games to friends soon through the Xbox Store, but they dont say when just that the feature is not far off. Laytons Mystery Journey was recently announced for mobile devices and the Nintendo 3DS, and it features Professor Laytons daughter Katrielle. The PlayStation Experience is set to take place this year in Southeast Asia in August, and Firefall has officially shut down this week.

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Weekly Recap July 8th: CNN Blackmail, More VidCon Drama, SJW Comic Censorship - One Angry Gamer (blog)

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Norfolkan finds inspiration from Ron Paul, Founding Fathers – Norfolk Daily News

Posted: at 8:44 pm

Bruce Finley wasnt always interested in politics in fact, he once thought of politics and government as terrible, boring, uninteresting and unengaging.

That is no longer the case, as Finley has made his name as arguably Norfolks biggest outspoken critic of tax-increment financing.

Finley often attends Norfolk City Council meetings, particularly those that feature proposals relating to tax-increment financing (TIF) on the agenda. He regards TIF as a tax break for the wealthy and a handout for the purpose of getting them to improve their property.

TIF is used by the city council to take advantage of the downside of using property taxes in order to selectively pick winners and losers in the local economy, raise property taxes and look really good in the public's eye, Finley said. This fulfills most of the things the city council wants as long as the public never looks under the surface, or checks under the hood, or tries to understand how things really work.

Of course, there are other perspectives of TIF, too including that it is about the only tool a city or county can offer to help spur development and economic growth, which leads to increased property valuation and increased property tax revenue.

Finley doesnt reserve his criticism for TIF alone.

Direct confiscatory taxes like property taxes and income taxes were illegal until we passed the 16th Amendment, Finley said. We literally implemented one of Karl Marx's 10 planks of Communism right out of his Communist Manifesto as an amendment to our Constitution, and no one even talks about it.

Finleys views on TIF and other forms of taxation are heavily influenced by Ron Paul, a former presidential candidate and Republican congressman from Texas who is now a member of the Libertarian Party.

Finley, however, considers himself a political independent.

George Washington included in his farewell address a great discussion about political parties that is still very relevant today, Finley said. He points out that the spirit of party is the worst enemy of the many monarchies of his time, but an elective government with parties is not immune to becoming a frightful despotism.

While Finley has libertarian leanings, he is not a supporter of the party itself.

Libertarian Party politics are in direct violation of much of their libertarian views and principles as they covet such funding so strongly instead of opposing it when it clearly selectively supports the growth of two parties over all others, Finley said. This is a perfect example of money dictating the party's position instead of the party expressing the views of those it is meant to represent.

Besides Ron Paul, Finley cites George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin as inspirations for his political views.

They have done the most to teach me about what goes into the science of government design, Finley said. The Founding Fathers sought to teach us all everything there is to know about what makes a good government that serves the people well and what makes a bad government that seeks to rule the people and control every aspect of their lives.

Finleys interest in politics and government was spurred by a pair of events. One was his discovery of many online sources of information about the subject.

Once I started searching on the internet and getting my news from there, I was able to find ultra-informative articles every day that I could really sink my teeth into that had more cited sources than you can shake a stick at. Being able to click a linked cited source and instantly read it really is amazing when it comes to informative news and discussion, he said.

Another was the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, which contained provisions authorizing the indefinite military detention of civilians, including American citizens, without habeas corpus or due process.

(That was) what convinced me that I needed to commit to getting 100 percent active and involved, Finley said. It is my duty to my country, and all the people of the world, to help get people more informed to defend what should be universal rights and liberty everywhere.

Finley sees excessive taxation and the 2012 authorization act as examples of erosions on rights and civil liberties driven by big government and big business. He also refers to the corporate-government-banking collusion as a cancer.

Without our rights, we cannot protect ourselves from the corruption of big government, Finley said. This leads to big business and corporations lobbying for and buying up government power so that they can use it to destroy their competition in the marketplace and set up trusts between themselves and other collaborative monopolies to increase their profits as much as possible.

Finley also is opposed to recent trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which led to the creation of the World Trade Organization.

One-sided trade deals ... cripple our economy by making the markets extremely unfair for us, Finley said. How can we compete with the Chinese de-industrializing sweat shop slave goods when our businesses are forced to pay our workers a minimum wage?

At the end of the day, Finley would like to see other citizens getting more involved with local government.

People don't really bother to do their duty to hold their government accountable for its actions when they have an OK house, a nice family and a job that pays the bills with a football-game distraction on their TV, Finley said. How do we get them informed and involved?

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Norfolkan finds inspiration from Ron Paul, Founding Fathers - Norfolk Daily News

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Early humans and Neanderthals interbred much earlier than once thought – Washington Post

Posted: at 8:42 pm

By New Scientist By New Scientist July 8 at 7:38 AM

Its a sex-laced mystery. If modern humans didnt reach Europe until about 60,000 years ago, how has DNA from them turned up in a Neanderthal fossil in Germany from 124,000 years ago?

The answer seems to be that there was a previous migration of early humans more than 219,000 years ago.

The thinking had been that the ancestors of modern humans diverged from Neanderthals and Denisovans between 550,000 and 765,000 years ago. While Neanderthals and Denisovans inhabited Eurasia, modern humans stayed in Africa until about 60,000 years ago. Then they entered Europe, too.

There is ample evidence of breeding between Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans about 50,000 years ago. Everyone knows Neanderthals gave us genes, says Cosimo Posth at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Leipzig, Germany.

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA from a Neanderthal femur found in southwestern Germany now adds to evidence that there was earlier interbreeding. The DNA in the energy-producing mitochondria in our cells is different from that in our cell nuclei, and is passed down only in the female line.

Puzzlingly, the mtDNA in Neanderthal bones is more similar to that of modern humans than it is to that of the Denisovans.

Posth and his colleagues looked at differences between the mtDNA in this femur and in other Neanderthals, and they used mutational rates to calculate that the bone is 124,000 years old. The approach also indicates that this Neanderthal split from all other known Neanderthals sometime between 316,000 and 219,000 years ago. Yet it still contains key elements of early-human mtDNA.

This means that modern human ancestors must have interbred with Neanderthals before 219,000 years ago and hence could have migrated out of Africa and into Europe much earlier than we thought.

We are realizing more and more that the evolutionary history of modern and archaic humans was a lot more reticulated than we would have thought 10 years ago, says team member Fernando Racimo of the New York Genome Center. This and previous findings are lending support to models with frequent interbreeding events.

The team says an earlier migration event is also compatible with evidence of archaeological similarities between Africa and western Eurasia.

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Early humans and Neanderthals interbred much earlier than once thought - Washington Post

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