Daily Archives: October 16, 2019

Galperin and her team focus on protecting the activists, dissidents, lawyers, journalists, and civilians who find themselves in an increasingly lopsided conflict with entities that hack, surveil, and sabotage themor better yet, equipping them to protect themselves. I think that empowering people to confront power is good, she says. Thats how change happens.

In part, Galperin aims to create tools that level the playing field for surveillance victims. In its first months, for instance, the Threat Labs tiny team of three full-time staffers has been building a device to detect a common form of police surveillance: fake LTE cell towers that trick phones into connecting to them, enabling police to pinpoint the location and track the identities of protesters and other surveillance targets.

The Threat Lab also does detective work to expose perpetrators of state-sponsored surveillance. For years, even before the teams creation, Galperin and fellow EFF researcher Cooper Quintin investigated a hacking operation that planted spyware on the computers of journalists and opposition figures in Kazakhstan. Working with the mobile security firm Lookout, Galperins team found that some of the same toolsperhaps made by the same for-hire hackerswere being used in a massive campaign to spy on civilian targets in Lebanon. At one point during that investigation, the EFF had a researcher walk the streets of Beirut with a smartphone to find the Wi-Fi network theyd linked with the hackers. The researcher discovered it was emanating from inside the headquarters of the Lebanese General Security Directorate.

The EFF had a researcher walk the streets of Beirut with a smartphone to find the hackers Wi-Fi network. It was emanating from inside the headquarters of the Lebanese General Security Directorate.

Galperins own obsession is the scourge known as spouseware, or stalkerware: hidden apps installed on a smartphone by someone with physical access to the deviceoften a domestic abuserthat let them spy on the phones owner. Since early 2018, Galperin has offered her services as a kind of first responder, security consultant, and therapist for stalkerware victims.

But Galperin wasnt satisfied with the scale of that hands-on approach. So she began shaming and pressuring the antivirus industry, which has long neglected stalkerware, to take it far more seriously. Several companies have since pledged to catalog and eradicate the apps just as thoroughly as they do traditional malware. Stalkerware is considered beneath the interest of most security researchers, Galperin says. Changing norms takes time. But it starts with someone standing up and saying This is not OK, this is not acceptablethis is spying.

Galperin, who has silvery-violet hair and a cyberpunk aesthetic, got her start as a systems administrator, attending security conferences and being treated, she says, like some hackers girlfriend who looks after Solaris boxes. In 2007 she joined the EFF, where her first job was to answer the 50-plus calls and emails that came in every day from people seeking help. The organization had recently filed a lawsuit against AT&T for aiding warrantless NSA spying, and Galperin was flooded with messages from people who had been targeted for surveillance. Her desk became a kind of security crisis hotline.

According to Danny OBrien, Galperins former boss at the EFF, the experience gave her a strong sense of the victims perspectivesomething thats often overlooked by the cybersecurity research community, which tends to focus more on sexy new hacking techniques than on the people who suffer from their use. Eva isnt afraid to plot out the consequences of hackers actions, OBrien says, to stare those consequences down until the problem is solved.

Shes also good at plotting out, and maximizing, the consequences of her own actions. Galperin says she has no illusions that she or her small team alone can tip the balance of security for vulnerable people worldwide. But in line with the EFFs longtime tactic of choosing cases that can set legal precedents, she says she chooses projects that promise to have cascading effects, that will force the industry to change its priorities or inspire other researchers. You figure out the place where you need to push, she says, not just to help the people you help every day, the individuals, but to change the game. To change the system. Andy Greenberg

FOUNDER & CEO / Rigetti Computing

In 2013, Chad Rigetti became aware that the field of quantum computing was entering a kind of adolescence. Sketched out in the 1990s, the technology was supposed to leapfrog conventional computing by tapping into the weird physics of subatomic particles. For years, researchers had been held up by the devilish unreliability of qubits, the devices needed to perform quantum manipulations on data. But now, finally, they were finding new ways to tame them. It was black magic, and then a framework emerged, Rigetti says. You could start to see all the pieces coming together. Thats when he quit his job at IBM and struck out on his own. Six years later, in labs stocked with steampunky equipment and liquid helium, Rigetti Computing is manufacturing small quantum processors.

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Dutch scientists are on the verge of a breakthrough. They predict that within a decade, they will be able to create a working prototype of an artificial womb, something that could save the lives of millions of babies who die due to the premature births.

Researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology in Netherlands have been given a 2.6m grant to work on the development of a prototype for artificial wombs that could be used in clinics. Artificial wombs could help reduce complications and even save a prematurely born baby's life by acting as a replacement womb that could allow the fetus to complete full gestation period.

The external womb does so by simulating conditions naturally present withing a womb using a faux placenta that is connected to the fetus's umbilical chord.

Why is this important?

According to accepted norms, any birth that occurs before the 37th week of pregnancy is considered premature. At present, about a million babies across the world die because of premature of birth, The Guardian reported. Even the ones who survive incur a range of medical difficulties and disabilities.

As per data collected by Tommy's, a UK-based not-for profit organisation that funds prenatal and neonatal research, babies born at 22 weeks of gestation have just a 10 percent chance of surviving. However, in just two weeks of added gestation, chances of survival shoot up to 6- percent.

External, artificial wombs could be extremely useful in such cases as they could provide almost perfect natural, womb-like conditions and allow a fetus to get adequate oxygen and nutrients through the umbilical chord. Unlike current incubation methods that deliver oxygen and nutrients directly to the organs like the lungs which may not have the full capacity to handle the treatment, the newer system would allow fetuses to grow its organs under natural conditions.

Research into the idea has been ongoing. In 2017, a team of researchers from Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in US successfully tested an artificial womb meant to carry premature births on a lamb feotus.

Why is it controversial?

While the implication of artificial wombs in terms of prenatal care could be miraculous, critics have already raised alarm bells over what this could mean for women's rights. Some feminist thinkers, as Professor Julien S. Murphy of the University of Southern Maine wrote in her book 'Feminist Perspectives in Medical Ethics' wrote, have raised concerns about how birthing outside of the human body, or ectogenesis, will affect the perception of women. Some even fear that deleting the need for women's bodies from the reproductive process could lead to women becoming obsolete. It would also impact abortion rights and the global women's movement to reclaim control over their bodies.

Strides in ectogenesis could also open up a minefield of political and ethical complications. While medical science is still a long way from completely growing babies from petri dishes, the possibility raises concerns about reproductive rights and genetic engineering.

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Artificial Wombs Could Help Save Millions of Premature Babies Within the Next Decade - News18

Gene Expression Market Size - USD 6.05 Billion in 2018, Market Growth - CAGR of 8.1%. Gene Expression industry Trends - Product launches and application of new techniques like NGS and DNA micro-arrays

NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the current analysis of Reports and Data, the Global Gene Expression market is expected to reach USD 11.37 billion by the year 2026, in terms of value at a CAGR of 8.1% from 2019-2026. Gene expression promises to tap into a previously unexplored segment in the vast and burgeoning genetic engineering industry. Gene expression is the process by which the genetic code - the nucleotide sequence - of a gene is used to direct protein synthesis and produce the structures of a cell. It is the process by which instructions in the DNA are converted into a functional product like protein. The commercial applications of gene expression have been studied and researched upon extensively in recent years. Many diverse and wide ranging applications have been found for this novel technique. With the increased availability and lowering costs of DNA technologies, gene expression has become a more readily used tool indispensable in drug discovery and development.

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Increase in investments in the market, which are supporting the technological advancements, and rise in healthcare expenditure are estimated to shape the growth of the gene expression market. Drug discovery & development and increase in demand for personalized medicine in chronic diseases such as cancer will be observed as the most lucrative applications for gene expression analysis in the forecast period. Application of gene expression in clinical diagnostics, on the other hand, will reflect a moderate growth throughout the analysis period. Moreover, the falling costs of sequencing have facilitated the integration of genomic sequencing into medicine. With the increased availability and lowering costs of DNA technologies, gene expression has become a more readily used tool indispensable in drug discovery and development. Many companies and educational institutions are collaborating to make gene expression publicly accessible through databases such as the Connectivity Map (CMap), Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) and the Tox 21 project.

New product development has been the consistent strategy undertaken by majority of the players to expand their product portfolio for serving a larger consumer base. For example, in September 2019, Qiagen N.V., launched the newly enhanced GeneGlobe Design & Analysis Hub, which integrates the company's manually curated knowledge base on over 10,000 biological entities with the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of tools for next-generation sequencing (NGS), polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and functional analysis. Other companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific and Illumina Inc. have launched new products in the last few months which are being used in the gene expression market.

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For the purpose of the study, this Reports and Data has segmented the Gene Expression Market on the basis of product type, platform type, prescription mode, end user and the regional outlook

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Gene Expression Market to Reach USD 11.37 Billion by 2026 | Reports and Data - Yahoo Finance

When someone has a severe burn, a protective covering needs to be temporarily grafted onto the wound site and as soon as possible. Although that covering typically consists of skin from a human cadaver, genetically-engineered live-cell pig skin has now been used on a patient for the first time.

Applied to second- and third-degree burns, sheets of human cadaveric skin also known as allografts initially help to protect wounds against infection and fluid loss, along with the potentially-lethal complications that could follow. Once the recipient has stabilized, the allograft is removed and a piece of the patient's own skin is permanently transplanted onto the wound, from another part of their body.

Unfortunately, though, allografts are often in short supply, plus they can be expensive. With that in mind, scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) developed a genetically-modified line of pigs, back in the 1990s. Those animals lack a gene that is ordinarily present in pigs but not in humans, allowing skin grafts from the pigs to appear less "foreign" to a human patient's immune system.

The technology has since been commercialized by spinoff company XenoTherapeutics, in the form of live-cell tissue grafts known as Xeno-Skin. In a recent clinical trial, MGH surgeon Jeremy Goverman used one of those "xenografts" on a human recipient for the first time.

Measuring 5 by 5 cm (2 by 2 inches), the Xeno-Skin was applied to a burn alongside a larger conventional allograft. Both were secured in place using surgical staples and gauze bandages, and then removed five days later. At that point, the two coverings were found to be "indistinguishable from each other" in appearance, having performed equally well at protecting the underlying wound by temporarily adhering to it as the patient stabilized.

A skin graft from the recipient's own thigh was then permanently applied to the wound, with healing now progressing as anticipated. Importantly, the scientists detected no transmission of porcine endogenous retroviruses, the risk of which has previously limited the viability of transplanting live tissue or organs from pigs to humans.

"This small step we took today, represents a massive number of hours spanning decades of research in a multitude of fields including transplantation biology, immunology and genetic engineering," says Goverman. "Additionally, rapid advancements in gene-editing technology open a vast new avenue for genetically modifying pig skin that isnt rejected, representing the next chapter in standards of care for burn and transplant patients alike."

Sources: Massachusetts General Hospital, XenoTherapeutics

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Live-cell pig skin successfully used to treat human burn wound - New Atlas

In both the corporate and supervillain worlds, Lex Luthor and Norman Osborn are at the top of their games in their respective universes. Not content to bedeviling just Superman and Spider-Man, both antagonists have threatened and nearly completed world domination, requiring either the Justice League or the Avengers to put an end to their nefarious schemes.

Their successes are due in no small part to the nature of their characters: ambitious, calculating and ruthless. However, the one trait that sets them apart from other supervillains is their genius-level intelligence, which begs the question: Who is smarter, Lex Luthor or Norman Osborn?

RELATED:10 Marvel/DC Characters With The Exact Same Powers

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A man of guts and vision, Norman Osborn founded Oscorp with Mendel Stromm, having financed the lions share of the investment himself. Aside from that, Osborn ran the business end of the company while also contributing to the research in genetics that would eventually give him his augmented strength, reflexes, and healing factor.

Osborns raw intellect also helped develop his vast array of Goblin-themed weapons, including his infamous glider. However, his actions as the Green Goblin led to the combination of Stromms death, his loss of public image, and insanity. This was enough to lead to Oscorps downfall, but Norman was smart enough toset up a dummy corporation under an assumed name to ensure his grandsons legacy.

RELATED:The Top 10 Fictional Marvel Companies

Lex Luthors business acumen is unparalleled in the DC Universe, as LexCorps net worth and diversification portfolio dwarf any other companys, including Wayne Enterprises. Originally founded as a scientific research firm with a specialty in aeronautics, LexCorp has grown in scope and reach, with subsidiaries in all areas of the world and domains as varied as private security, weapons manufacturing, and computer software.

This success is due in no small part to its CEO, Lex Luthor himself. Aside from his formidable business knowledge and instinct, Luthor is not above breaking the law to ensure his companys growth and a robust bottom line.

Although Norman Osborn holds degrees in mechanical engineering and chemistry, its genetic engineering that he excels at, as that is what gave him the formula for his Green Goblin serum. Although heavily aided in this endeavor by his mentor Dr. Mendel Stromm, Normans scientific contributions and willingness to serve as a test subject were the key factors in granting him his enhanced strength, agility and resilience.

As if this feat were not impressive enough, Norman also designed his own weaponssome deceptively simple as the razor bats, and some requiring intricate knowledge of engineering and physics, like his sparkle-blasts and glider.

In his early appearances, most of Supermans adversaries were mad scientists, and Lex Luthor was chief amongst them. Modern incarnations of the character have often depicted Lex as a wealthy captain of industry, but his aptitude for scientific research, particularly in the technological field, has not diminished.

Aside from funding cutting-edge research, Luthor personally engages in advanced weapons development, reverse engineering of alien tech, and the search for alternative (usually kryptonite-powered) energy sources. In some continuities, Luthor is even responsible for creating some of the Man of Steels most deadly enemies, like the kryptonite-powered Metallo. His most recognizable accomplishment is the creation of his battlesuit, allowing him to go toe-to-toe with the Man of Steel andcementing him as an evil scientific genius extraordinaire.

RELATED:Lex & Violence: Lex Luthor's Most Powerful Anti-Superman Suits, Ranked

Aside from his intellectual prowess in science and business, Norman Osborn is also no slouch in the strategy department. With considerable resources at his disposal and the patience of a slow-burning wick, Osborn is capable of crafting intricate long and short term plans designed to bring an unsuspecting opponent to their knees.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the immediate events following his 'death' at the end of the Gwen Stacy affair. Allowing Spider-Man to believe he was gone for good, Osborn went about orchestrating the systematic destruction of his foe by faking Aunt May's death, absconding Peter and MJ's baby, and perhaps most unforgivably (to both Spidey and his readers), perpetrating the Clone Saga.

RELATED: Spider-Man 10 Things You Didn't Know About Aunt May

A formidable intellect like Lex Luthor's also breeds a formidable ego. A master strategist, whether he's planning a corporate takeover or his latest attack on Superman, Luthor walks with a grandiose swagger and self-assuredness that matches his considerable IQ. Ever the opportunist, Luthor is even smart enough to use his reputation for being smart to his advantage; his expertise on something is rarely questioned, and if so, his clout and considerable connections will usually silence his adversary for him. For Luthor, intelligence and intimidation go hand-in-hand, and he's not above using the former to ensure the latter to fulfill his aims.

Norman Osborn's ambition has often gone far beyond making Peter Parker's life miserable. Following the events of Secret Invasion and the dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D., Osborn used his considerable influence to lobby for the creation of a new American defense program, with himself at its head. Now director of H.A.M.M.E.R., Osborn used his considerable resources and intelligence to further his own political agenda.

No fool, his first act was to try to neutralize his predecessor, Tony Stark. Next, he tried to gain access to all metahuman civilian identities gathered duringCivil War. When that didn't pan out, he resorted to restructuring the Avengers with members of the former-villains-turned hero superteam, the Thunderbolts, all in an ingeniously evil plan to give him almost unlimited power.

RELATED:Spider-Man: 5 of Norman Osborns Smartest Plans (& 5 That Were Destined To Fail)

Of all Lex Luthor's accomplishments, perhaps the greatest was becoming Presidentof the United States. His massive ego bruised by the sheer adulation Metropolis and the world gave Superman, Luthor decided to put his formidable intellect and resources to use and procure himself the presidency. Aside from winning the most powerful seat in world governance, Luthor had the foresight to leave LexCorp in the hands of Talia Al Ghul, a similarly intelligent and devious individual.

Once in office, Luthor coordinated the defense of the Earth during the Our Worlds at War storyline, including the risky but brilliant idea of siccing a mind-controlled Doomsday on Imperiex.

Having achieved a position of extensive power and influence by being appointed the new director of H.A.M.M.E.R., Osborn did not rest on his laurels. Instead, he called together several of the most powerful supervillains in the Marvel Universe together to form the Cabal, a dark mirror of the Illuminati and a secret group of heroes who got together to covertly discuss and enact unofficial policies in the superhero world. In this act, Osborn exhibited intelligent foresight, as now there would be nothing to stop him and his cadre of nefarious contemporaries from doing whatever they wished.

RELATED:The 10 Worst Things That Marvel's Illuminati Have Done

If Lex Luthor is Supermans greatest enemy, then a strong argument can be made for Brainiac being the second. A superior intellect that roams the universe amassing data on countless worlds and miniaturizing whole cities for cataloging and storage, Brainiacs digitized intelligence contains galactic repositories of knowledge, which he has used in schemes against Superman for decades.

In many continuities, Luthor has sought out Brainiac and merged with him, creating a completely new entity. This fusion of an already genius-level intellect with an inter-galactic database created an extremely deadly and ruthless adversary whose intelligence and cunning were second to none.

NEXT:5 Reasons Joker Would Beat Green Goblin In A Fight (& 5 Why Norman Osborn Would Win)

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5 Reasons Why Lex Luthor Is Smarter Than The Green Goblin (And 5 Ways Norman Osborn Is Smarter) - CBR - Comic Book Resources