Kruse Kronicle

Anti-GMO: The Lethal Implications

Anthropogenic driven climate change is a fact. As the climate changes, the poorest of humanity will suffer the greatest. The most ardent climate activists tell us this is settled science. So settled that to question these conclusions puts you in a league with people who deny the Jewish Holocaust ever happened. It is science!

Well, there is another issue around which there is even more scientific consensus. Megan Molteni, writing for UnDark:

According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 88 percent of scientists believe these foods are safe to eat. Only 37 percent of the general public agrees. Republicans and Democrats are just as likely to be opposed to transgenic foods, as are people across different age groups. So why is it that we trust the National Academy of Sciences and the WHO when they say climate change is likely caused by humans, but not when they say these foods are safe?

Molteni highlights the recent development of goats modified to include an antimicrobial enzyme that helps human’s fight off bacterial cells that cause diarrhea and other infections. The milk from these goats aid children in fighting off these diseases.

According to the World Health Organization, 525,000 children under five died last year from diarrheal diseases, mostly in poor communities in developing nations where waterborne diseases are rampant and vaccines and antibiotic treatments are difficult to acquire and distribute.

The modified goats could reduce the suffering, even death, of millions of children. They were developed by a public university and have had nearly two nearly decades of testing and review. The goats could be distributed via whatever strategy seems most effective, even free. There is no sinister corporate entity lurking in the shadows. So why are the goats not in use?

First, regulation. Clearly GMOs must be evaluated and regulated but the present regulatory system is such a mishmash of regulation and entities that it is very costly and time-consuming to get approval. Consequently, the process is skewed toward large corporate entities who can work the system, provoking many anti-GMOers to make the regulatory process even more of a barrier.

Second, anti-GMOers have organized to oppose all GMO usage in developing nations, at times pitting well-funded European and American activists against poor agricultural workers who could benefit greatly from the technology.

But as scientists will tell you, “GMO” tells you zero about the merits of any particular product. What tells you about the merits is looking at the actual merits of the product!

Last month, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report assessing all the science available on genetically engineered crops. It concluded that we shouldn’t be making generalizations about GMOs, but rather asking if a particular crop or GE product makes the world a better place or a more dangerous one, on a case-by-case basis. This was not exactly what people wanted to hear, the authors wrote: “We received impassioned requests to give the public a simple, general, authoritative answer about GE crops. Given the complexity of GE issues, we did not see that as appropriate.”

The goats are not the only product caught up in this controversy. The linked article suggests others. In addition to nutrition and health, GMOs also have a role to play in adapting to warmer temperatures, with crops that grow more food with less water and fewer nutrients, for example.

… improving food security and public health without harming the environment will require the concerted use of many methods, from traditional breeding to organic farming. Genetic modification can’t hold back rising sea levels or fill aquifers drained by years of drought. But there are important contributions to be made with problems that have been unsolvable by other means, the researchers say — if only regulations would allow it.

Climate activists routinely moralize about people who will not get on board with their initiatives, saying deniers are accountable for countless lives that will one day be diminished, even lost, due to our inaction on climate change. The poorest folks will suffer most. This is their scientific conclusion. Yet when the same scientific community says GMO technology is safe, with the potential to save millions of lives in the here and now, while enhancing the welfare of countless others, the activists rise up in opposition to the technology. What this tells me is that while there are some people who are genuinely knowledgeable about the science of climate change and are alarmed about the consequences, the concern by multitudes is less about science and far more to do with subjective narratives with which science (happily for them) agrees. When the “naturalist” narrative is not supported, they disregard science instead of modifying their narrative.

I’d invite to read all of Molteni’s article, Spilled Milk. In the meantime, my climate activist friends, unless you are willing to give full-throated support of GMOs here and now, do not let me ever again here you decry the “anti-science” climate deniers. You are no different. Subjective considerations drive you every bit as much as climate deniers. Right here and right now, people are suffering and dying because of your “anti-science” behavior.

Why People Oppose GMOs Even Though Science Says They Are Safe

Scientific American: Why People Oppose GMOs Even Though Science Says They Are Safe

... In the paper, we identify several intuitions that may affect people’s perception of GMOs.Psychological essentialism, for instance, makes us think of DNA as an organism’s “essence” - an unobservable and immutable core that causes the organism’s behaviour and development and determines its identity. As such, when a gene is transferred between two distantly related species, people are likely to believe that this process will cause characteristics typical of the source organism to emerge in the recipient. For example, in an opinion survey in the United States, more than half of respondents said that a tomato modified with fish DNA would taste like fish (of course, it would not).

Essentialism clearly plays a role in public attitudes towards GMOs. People are typically more opposed to GM applications that involve the transfer of DNA between two different species (“transgenic”) than within the same species (“cisgenic”). Anti-GMO organizations, such as NGOs, exploit these intuitions by publishing images of tomatoes with fish tails or by telling the public that companies modify corn with scorpion DNA to make crispier cereals.      

Intuitions about purposes and intentions also have an impact on people’s thinking about GMOs. They render us vulnerable to the idea that purely natural phenomena exist or happen for a purpose that is intended by some agent. These assumptions are part and parcel of religious beliefs, but in secular environments they lead people to regard nature as a beneficial process or entity that secures our wellbeing and that humans shouldn’t meddle with. In the context of opposition to GMOs, genetic modification is deemed “unnatural” and biotechnologists are accused of “playing God”. The popular term “Frankenfood” captures what is at stake: by going against the will of nature in an act of hubris, we are bound to bring enormous disaster upon ourselves.

Disgust also affects people’s attitudes towards GMOs. The emotion probably evolved, at least in part, as a pathogen avoidance mechanism, preventing the body from consuming or touching harmful substances. We feel repelled by things that possibly contain or indicate the presence of pathogens such as bodily fluids, rotten meat, and maggots. This would explain why disgust operates on a hair trigger: it is better to forego an edible meal under the misguided assumption that it is contaminated, than to consume sickening, or even lethal, food that is erroneously thought to be safe. Hence, disgust can be elicited by completely innocuous food. ...

... The impact of intuitions and emotions on people’s understanding of, and attitudes towards, GMOs has important implications for science education and communication. Because the mind is prone to distorting or rejecting scientific information in favour of more intuitive beliefs, simply transmitting the facts will not necessarily persuade people of the safety, or benefits, of GMOs, especially if people have been subjected to emotive, anti-GMO propaganda.

In the long run, education starting from a young age and specifically targeted at tackling common misconceptions might immunize the population against unsubstantiated anti-GMO messages. Other concerns can be addressed and discussed in the wider context of agricultural practices and the place of science and technology in society. However, for now, the best way to turn the tide and generate a more positive public response to GMOs is to play into people’s intuitions as well. For instance, emphasizing the benefits of current and future GM applications — improved soil structures because herbicide resistant crops require less or no tilling, higher income for farmers in developing countries, reduced vitamin A deficiency, virus and drought resistance, to name a few — might constitute the most effective approach to changing people’s minds. Given the benefits and promises of GM technology, such a change is much needed.

This is one of the most insightful articles I've read on the topic. I think his advice in the last paragraph is particularly important and needs to be heeded when dealing with any number of unjustified oppositions to factual realities - from climate change, to vaccinations, to nuclear power. Yet our propensity is to just shout the facts louder and to use opposition to the facts as a rallying cry for our tribe versus the "anti-science" dolts from the other tribe.

The (Mostly) Improving State of the World

Washington Post: 40 charts that explain the world

Our friend and colleague Max Fisher over at Worldviews has posted another 40 maps that explain the world, building on his original classic of the genre. But this is Wonkblog. We're about charts. And one of the great things about charts is that they show not just how things are -- but how they're changing.

So we searched for charts that would tell not just the story of how the world is -- but where it's going. Some of these charts are optimistic, like the ones showing huge gains in life expectancy in poorer nations. Some are more worryisome -- wait till you see the one on endangered species. But together they tell a story of a world that's changing faster than at arguably any other time in human history. ...

As the author notes, we have challenges but we hardly descending into some global dystopia. I think these charts give a pretty holistic view. Here are a three examples.
It was commonly believed that primitive societies were more peaceful and that modern civilization gave rise to unprecedented violence. This chart compares death rates by war in primitive societies as calculated by anthropologists to the death rates for Europe/USA in the 20th century.
And then there is this:

The graphs point to environmental protection and adaptation as the biggest problems in the days ahead. Those challenges are not insurmountable. Energy sources like natural gas and nuclear power can be used in the interim on the way to practical renewable technologies. Genetically modified crops can help to reduce water consumption, increase yield, and improve hardiness. Innovations in fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology, and 3-D printing hold the promise of revolutionizing the world economy into a less wasteful and more affordable human existence for everyone. There is work to do but there is also much reason for hope of a better world.

 

A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops

New York Times: A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops

... Like some others on the nine-member Council, Greggor Ilagan was not even sure at the outset of the debate exactly what genetically modified organisms were: living things whose DNA has been altered, often with the addition of a gene from a distant species, to produce a desired trait. But he could see why almost all of his colleagues had been persuaded of the virtue of turning the island into what the bill’s proponents called a “G.M.O.-free oasis.”

“You just type ‘G.M.O.’ and everything you see is negative,” he told his staff. Opposing the ban also seemed likely to ruin anyone’s re-election prospects. ...

...At stake is how to grow healthful food most efficiently, at a time when a warming world and a growing population make that goal all the more urgent.

Scientists, who have come to rely on liberals in political battles over stem-cell research, climate change and the teaching of evolution, have been dismayed to find themselves at odds with their traditional allies on this issue. Some compare the hostility to G.M.O.s to the rejection of climate-change science, except with liberal opponents instead of conservative ones.

“These are my people, they’re lefties, I’m with them on almost everything,” said Michael Shintaku, a plant pathologist at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, who testified several times against the bill. “It hurts.” ...

This is a very interesting article with implications for how we wrestle with a host of complex issues. The scientific perspective on stem-cell research, climate change, and evolution dovetails well with the meta-narrative liberals have of the world. G.M.O.'s (and I'll add nuclear power) do not. What this tells us is that despite progressive pretentions of having a superior commitment to science, they don’t. Emotion enters into decision-making (“You a discrediting my narrative!”). They operate not irrationally but within bounded rationality, reason based in a limited understanding that is consistent with the way they generally understand the world to operate. They rely on heuristics to make sense of complex issues. They are not driven by science to their positions, but rather the science conveniently corresponds with a previously held narrative on some issues (and they are quite happy to appropriate that science in furtherance of their narrative.) But when the science runs counter to the narrative, it is the narrative, not science, which is determinative. It short liberals are just like the rest of us: human.

I’ve become increasingly aware over the years of hard it is to move past my initial emotional reactions when my metanarratives are challenges and press deeper to get at the truth. The personal disorientation is often stressful. But I also came to a realization early in life that the search for truth is often socially disruptive. The truth of these complex issues is frequently unfriendly to all metanarratives in one way or another, and as soon as you step on someone’s metanarrative you risk relationships. While I’m not intimidated by dealing with conflict, I certainly get no joy from perpetual battles. And that is precisely where pursuit of truth often leads.

I have a lot of admiration for Greggor Ilagan in this story. I’m sure I’m more right of center than he is and we would likely disagree on any number of policy matters. Still, I have a strong identification with Ilagan and the personal costs he experienced for being authentic in his discernment. He is an inspiration to me. May God grant that each of us would learn better to discern with warm hearts and cool heads.

Science and Technology Links

1. Why We Should Look Forward To Living To 120 And Beyond

... Consider these facts:

• More than $1 trillion has been spent on biomedical research over the past 20 years. These investments should soon start yielding longevity dividends.
• The number of scientists working on extending the life span worldwide has increased exponentially as computer and communications technologies have entered the mainstream and China and India have joined the race.
• The life spans of some laboratory animals have already been extended more than tenfold.
• Innovations have already started: vital organs have been grown from patients’ own cells and several stem-cell therapies are being proven.
• Cancer survival rates have increased steadily over the past few years. A diagnosis is no longer a certain death sentence.
• Advances in laboratory diagnostics and biometrics are already providing valuable insight into disease prevention.
• Fast-food outlets have started offering healthier dishes and displaying caloric content and smoking rates in developed countries have declined.

Many people would not interpret these seven facts as a single trend leading to dramatic increases in life expectancy because the long-term effects are so unpredictable. But just two decades ago, nobody could imagine the possibility of the technology we use daily now. ...

2. Turning plastic bags into high-tech materials

University of Adelaide researchers have developed a process for turning waste plastic bags into a high-tech nanomaterial.

The innovative nanotechnology uses non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags to make 'carbon nanotube membranes' – highly sophisticated and expensive materials with a variety of potential advanced applications including filtration, sensing, energy storage and a range of biomedical innovations.

"Non-biodegradable plastic bags are a serious menace to natural ecosystems and present a problem in terms of disposal," says Professor Dusan Losic, ARC Future Fellow and Research Professor of Nanotechnology in the University's School of Chemical Engineering.

"Transforming these waste materials through 'nanotechnological recycling' provides a potential solution for minimising environmental pollution at the same time as producing high-added value products." ...

3. Nanotechnology researchers find new energy storage capabilities between layers of 2-D materials

(Nanowerk News) Drexel University nanotechnology researchers are continuing to expand the capabilities and functionalities of a family of two-dimensional materials they discovered that are as thin as a single atom, but have the potential to store massive amounts of energy. Their latest achievement has pushed the materials storage capacities to new levels while also allowing for their use in flexible devices. ...

4. Atomic Goal: 800 Years of Power From Waste

BELLEVUE, Wash. — In a drab one-story building here, set between an indoor tennis club and a home appliance showroom, dozens of engineers, physicists and nuclear experts are chasing a radical dream of Bill Gates.

The quest is for a new kind of nuclear reactor that would be fueled by today’s nuclear waste, supply all the electricity in the United States for the next 800 years and, possibly, cut the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation around the world. ...

5. Could power plants of the future produce zero emissions?

... But now Net Power, based in the US state of North Carolina, believes it can redesign the power plant so it can still run on coal or natural gas, but without releasing harmful fumes.

Rodney Allam, chief technologist at 8 Rivers Capital, which owns Net Power, says: "The perception has been that to avoid emissions of [carbon dioxide] CO2, we have to get rid of fossil fuels.

"But unfortunately, fossil fuels represent over 70% of the fuel that's consumed in the world and the idea that you can get rid of that in any meaningful sense is a pipe dream."

The Net Power system is different from currently operating power plants because carbon dioxide, normally produced as waste when making electricity, would become a key ingredient when burning the fuel. ...

6. Meet The Americans Who Don't Use The Internet

6. NASA preparing to launch 3-D printer into space

MOFFETT FIELD, California (AP) — NASA is preparing to launch a 3-D printer into space next year, a toaster-sized game changer that greatly reduces the need for astronauts to load up with every tool, spare part or supply they might ever need.

The printers would serve as a flying factory of infinite designs, creating objects by extruding layer upon layer of plastic from long strands coiled around large spools. Doctors use them to make replacement joints and artists use them to build exquisite jewelry.

In NASA labs, engineers are 3-D printing small satellites that could shoot out of the Space Station and transmit data to earth, as well as replacement parts and rocket pieces that can survive extreme temperatures. ...

7. What Is the 'Internet of Things'?

... In the '90s computers invaded our homes. In the 2000s computers invaded our pockets. This decade, all our clothing, accessories, vehicles, and everything (?!) appear on the verge of computerization.

Welcome to the Internet of Things (IoT).

Currently the idea of the IoT has many definitions. Most include a world in the not-too-distant future where most objects are computerized and seamlessly integrated into our information network, creating "smart" grids, homes, and environments. ...

8. The Bill Gates-backed company that's reinventing meat

... This presents a big opportunity for someone who can devise a tasty and affordable plant-based substitute for meat. That is exactly what Ethan Brown, the founder and chief executive of a California-based startup called Beyond Meat, aims to do, and he has persuaded some smart people to put their money behind him. Beyond Meat makes vegan "chicken-free" strips that it says are better for people's health (low-fat, no cholesterol), better for the environment (requiring less land and water), and better for animals (obviously) than real chicken; most important, if all goes according to plan, they will cost less to produce than chicken. Fortune has learned that Bill Gates is an investor; he sampled the product and said he couldn't tell the difference between Beyond Meat and real chicken. "The meat market is ripe for invention," Gates wrote in a blog post about the future of food. Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, made Beyond Meat its first investment in a food startup. "KP is looking for big ideas, and this qualifies as a big idea," says Amol Deshpande, a former Cargill executive and a partner at the venture firm. "The single biggest inefficiency in agriculture is how we get our protein." Other investors include Evan Williams and Biz Stone, the founders of Twitter; Morgan Creek Capital Management; and the Humane Society of the United States, an animal-welfare group. ...

 

Science and Technology Links

1. The ten most important innovations of all time

1. Paper (105AD – Europe 10th century – Germany 1400)
2. Printing Press (1450)
3. Telegraph (1837) ...

What would you remove/add to the list?

2. Natural Gas May Be Easier On Climate Than Coal, Despite Methane Leaks

3. Internet Archaeologists Reconstruct Lost Web Pages

The Internet is disappearing. And with it goes an important part of our recorded history. That was the conclusion of a study Technology Review looked at last year, which measured the rate at which links shared over social media platforms, such as Twitter, were disappearing.

The conclusion was that this data is being lost at the rate of 11% within a year and 27% within two years.

Today, the researchers behind this work reveal that all is not lost. Hany SalahEldeen and Michael Nelson at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., have found a way to reconstruct deleted material, and they say it works reasonably well. ...

4. 5 Huge Industries That Are Already Feeling The Effects Of 3-D Printing

Earlier this week we presented the thesis from Credit Suisse that not only is 3-D printing not a flash in the pan, existing market research reports have actually understated its potential market. 3-D printing is exactly what it sounds like: making 3-D objects from a device that's conceptually more like a printer than from a typical manufacturing process.

But we wanted to get a little bit more specific about where exactly this is going to happen.

So with the help of an excellent report from consulting firm CSC, we now present five industries that are already feeling the effects of 3-D printing's imminent dominance — for better or worse. ...

5. Innovation of the Week: A Low-Cost Composting Toilet

... The WAND Foundation has developed several dry composting toilet models, some of which were recognized at the 2011 Tech Awards at Santa Clara University. At the conference, Cora Zayas-Sayre, executive director of the WAND Foundation, explained that by using local materials, the organization has been able to build 275 toilets at a cost of US$30 per toilet. She added that this innovation has already impacted the lives of 3,000 people.

This innovation simultaneously addresses two challenges that prevail in developing countries: the unsustainable and costly use of water-sealed toilets, and the hygienic management of human waste. Water-sealed toilets require pumping mechanisms to transport water and sewage between 300 and 500 meters away from the home, a method that is economically and environmentally unsustainable. Inadequate management of human waste can lead to a host of health problems in developing areas, and dramatically impact quality of life. ...

6. World continues 'enormous progress' against AIDS

New infections each year are down 33% since 2001.

7. Rooftop Farming Is Getting Off The Ground

... The green-roof movement has slowly been gaining momentum in recent years, and some cities have made them central to their sustainability plans. The city of Chicago, for instance, that 359 roofs are now partially or fully covered with vegetation, which provides all kinds of environmental benefits — from reducing the buildings' energy costs to cleaning the air to mitigating the

Late this summer, Chicago turned a green roof into its first major rooftop farm. At 20,000 square feet, it's the largest soil-based rooftop farm in the Midwest, according to the Chicago Botanic Garden, which maintains the farm through its program. ...

8. Interesting piece using driverless cars as an example and the inability of some people to see the potential innovations: The third industrial revolution

... In fact, these possibilities are only the tip of the iceberg. Autonomous vehicles' most transformative contribution might be what they get up to when people aren't in the vehicles. One suddenly has access to cheap, fast, ultra-reliable, on-demand courier service. Imagine never having to run out for milk or a missing ingredient again. Imagine dropping a malfunctioning computer into a freight AV to be ferried off to a repair shop and returned, all without you having to do anything. Imagine inventories at offices, shops and so on refilling constantly and as needed: assuming "shops" is still a meaningful concept in a world where things all come to you.

The really remarkable thing about such possibilities is that the technology is basically available today. It isn't cheap today, but that may change very quickly. If the public lets it, of course. When it comes to AVs stagnation, if it occurs, will be the fault of regulatory rather than technological obstacles.

Cities Turn Sewage Into 'Black Gold' For Local Farms

NHPR: Cities Turn Sewage Into 'Black Gold' For Local Farms

On a normal day, Kansas City, Mo., processes more than 70 million gallons of raw sewage. This sewage used to be a nuisance, but Kansas City, and a lot of municipalities around the country, are now turning it into a resource for city farmers hard up for fertilizer.

After the sewage has been processed at a treatment plant, it's piped out to Birmingham Farm on the north side of the Missouri River.

Tim Walters is the chief agronomist for Kansas City who runs Birmingham. He's got the 1,350-acre farm plumbed with pipes to disperse the smelly stuff.

The city runs much of the heavier goop through a process called anaerobic digestion, which heats the sewage to kill pathogens. When the processed sludge, or "biosolids," arrives at the farm, thick jets of it arc out 30 to 40 feet from giant moving spreaders.

"It's black, black gold," says Walters. "Looks like grease. Doesn't smell like grease ... and when you get it on you it's hard to get off."

The sludge is packed with nutrients good for the corn and soybeans grown here that generate almost half a million dollars in profits for the city each year. Walters figures the free fertilizer is worth about $175,000 a year, in last year's prices. But it's in short supply.

"Every year we typically run out, they can't digest enough, they can't get enough down to us," says Walters. ...

Saturday Links

1. The United States had its financial bubble. Europe is having one too. Is China next? If it is, it could reshape the global economy and radically reshape Chinese government. Here is an interesting piece about China's real estate bubble.

2. Robert Tracinski thinks we are in midst of a Third Industrial Revolution.

... I like the idea of a breaking the Industrial Revolution into stages, but I would define them in more fundamental terms. The first Industrial Revolution was the harnessing of large-scale man-made power, which began with the steam engine. The internal combustion engine, electric power, and other sources of energy are just further refinements of this basic idea. The second Industrial Revolution would be the development of interchangeable parts and the assembly line, which made possible inexpensive mass production with relatively unskilled labor. The Third Industrial Revolution would not be computers, the Internet, or mobile phones, because up to now these have not been industrial tools; they have been used for moving information, not for making things. Instead, the rise of computers and the Internet is just a warm-up for the real Third Industrial Revolution, which is the full integration of information technology with industrial production.

The effect of the Third Industrial Revolution will be to collapse the distance between the design of a product and its physical manufacture, in much the same way that the Internet has eliminated the distance between the origination of a new idea and its communication to an audience. ...

3. Tyler Cowen has some thoughts about the impact our technological revolution as well Are we living in the early 19th century?

... Eventually all of the creative ferment of the industrial revolution pays off in a big “whoosh,” but it takes many decades, depending on where you draw the starting line of course.  A look at the early 19th century is sobering, or should be, for anyone doing fiscal budgeting today.  But it is also optimistic in terms of the larger picture facing humanity over the longer run.

4. You may have seen a deeply flawed viral video about wealth inequality this past week. I working on my own response but here is economist Mark Perry's response.  In response to the viral ‘Wealth Inequality in America’ video

5. What are the contours of income inequality in the United States? This 40 minute video by Emmanuel Saez offers some important insights.

6. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is a little too sensationalist for my taste but this vid offers interesting food for thought about nanotechnology and the future sports. We will even be able to have meaningful sports competition?

7. Atlantic takes up at a frequently perpetuated myth. 'Women Own 1% of World Property': A Feminist Myth That Won't Die

8. First there was I, Pencil. Then I Smartphone. Now "I Coke." What Coke Contains

9. U.S. household wealth regains pre-recession peak but ...

The recovered wealth - most of it from higher stock prices - has been flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.

10. When looking at decisions in your own context, Seth Godin explains why Macro trends don't matter so much

11. It's a big, fat myth that all scientists are religion-hating atheists.

Whether or not you think science is wonderful, the stereotype of all scientists being atheists is unrealistic. There is, however, a special dance.

12. I consider this good news. Old Earth, Young Minds: Evangelical Homeschoolers Embrace Evolution

More Christian parents are asking for mainstream science in their children's curricula.

13. Remember to keep Syria and Egypt in your prayers. Nearly 1 in 20 Syrians are now refugees

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/03/07/4106038/us-household-wealth-regains-pre.html#storylink=cpy

Printing Human Organs

Huff Post has an interesting article about using 3-D printing to print a human ear made of live tissue. Included in this post is a TED video about printing any number of organs. Late in the presentation is a presentation of a 3-D printed kidney. This is all still experimental and have no trials have been run on the printed organs, but the progress in this form of bio-tech is truly remarkable.

Saturday Links

1. I love maps and charts. Naturally I was drawn to this: 36 Maps That Explain The Entire World. Here is just one example:

2. Roger Pielke, Jr., says It's Time to Bury the Easterlin Paradox.

"The Easterlin paradox suggest that in terms of human happiness -- a squishy concept to be sure -- there is a limit to economic growth beyond which there really is just no point in attaining more wealth. Further, a decoupling between income and happiness at some threshold would imply that GDP would not be a good measure of welfare, we would need some other metric.

A recent paper (PDF) by Daniel Sacks, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers argues that the Easterlin paradox is also wrong. ..."

3. John Danforth thinks We Need Less Religion in our Politics and Less Politics in our Religion.

4. I opined about this in yesterday's post but I'm linking it again. One of the better Salon piece's I've read. When liberals ignore injustice

"Why isn't there more outrage about the president's unilateral targeted assassination program on the left?"

5. Arnold Kling with an interesting piece on the role of Jews in the rise of the modern urbanized economic order. The Unintended Consequences of God

"In those days, most people were farmers, for whom literacy’s costs generally outweighed its benefits. However, in an urbanized society with skilled occupations, literacy pays off. As urbanization gradually increased in the late Middle Ages, Jews came to fill high-skilled occupations. Botticini and Eckstein argue that literacy, rather than persecution, is what led Jews into these occupations."

6. New Geography wants to know Is Urbanism The New Trickle-Down Economics?

"But while progressives would clearly mock this policy [trickle-down economics], modern day urbanism often resembles nothing so much as trickle-down economics, though this time mostly advocated by those who would self-identify as being from the left. The idea is that through investments catering to the fickle and mobile educated elite and the high end businesses that employ and entertain them, cities can be rejuvenated in a way that somehow magically benefits everybody and is socially fair."

7. NPR has nice piece on mini-reacters. Are Mini-Reactors The Future Of Nuclear Power?

8. Mark Perry excerpts a quote from green libertarian John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market.

“Capitalism is the greatest creation humanity has done for social cooperation. It has lifted humanity out of the dirt. In statistics we discovered when we were researching the book, about 200 years ago when capitalism was created, 85% of the people alive lived on $1 a day. Today, that number is 16%. Still too high, but capitalism is wiping out poverty across the world. 200 years ago illiteracy rates were 90%. Today, they are down to about 14%. 200 years ago the average lifespan was 30. Today it is 68 across the world, 78 in the States, and almost 82 in Japan. This is due to business. This is due to capitalism. And it doesn’t get credit for it. Most of the time, business is portrayed by its enemies as selfish and greedy and exploitative, yet it’s the greatest value creator in the world.”

9. Economist Gavin Kennedy with some interesting thoughts on the relationship between the state and the economy in developing nations:

The problem is to achieve the right balance between a competitive market economy and an effective state:  markets where possible; the state where necessary.

10. Climate Change: Key Data Points from Pew Research. Highlights some interesting shifts in the public's priorities.

11. Great piece about yet another way family life is changing. Yes, I’m a Homemaker

I’m a guy. My wife works. We’ve got no kids. I’m a stay-at-home dude.

"... What a sweet picture this conjures: the stay-at-home dad nurturing his children, looking after the house and helping support his wife in her budding career and shelving his own big ambitions for later. Now it gets a little awkward. There is no adorable kid, nor plans to have one. No starter home that needs knocking into shape. I'm not just doing this temporarily until I find something meaningful to do. I’m actually a full-time homemaker ... not stay-at-home dad but stay-at-home dude. A conversational pause. Where do you mentally file this guy? Usually I just change the subject. ..."

12. The Atlantic reports that Women Are Often Remarkably Reluctant to Ask for Help Around the House

A new study shows that high-earning women are more likely to let their houses be messy than to hire a housekeeper or get their husbands and kids to pitch in. ...

... "You can purchase substitutes for your own time, you can get your husband to do more, or you can all just do less," Killewald says. "Whether women outsource housework in particular has less to do with resources, but whether or not paid labor is viewed as an appropriate strategy for undertaking domestic work.

Doing less housework seems to be a popular option. ...

13. Business insider reports on a finding that comes as no shock to me: Men Really Do Have A Harder Time Reading Other People's Emotions.

Psychiatrists have concluded that males take longer to assess facial expressions as their brains have to work twice as hard to work out whether another person looks friendly or intelligent.

14. Daniel Kirk with a thoughtful piece Homosexuality under the Reign of Christ

15. Facebook Unfriending Has Real-Life Consequences

In particular, researchers found that 40% of people say they would avoid someone who unfriended them on Facebook, while 50% say they would not avoid a person who unfriended them. Women were more likely than men to avoid someone who unfriended them, the researchers found.

16. The Future of Librarians in an EBook World

... Libraries are responding to the decline of print in a variety of creative ways, trying to remain relevant – especially to younger people – by embracing the new technology. Many, such as New York’s Queens Public Library, are reinventing themselves as centers for classes, job training, and simply hanging out. In one radical example, a new $1.5 million library scheduled to open in San Antonio, Texas, this fall will be completely book-free, with its collection housed exclusively on tablets, laptops, and e-readers. “Think of an Apple store,” the Bexar County judge who is leading the effort told NPR. It’s a flashy and seductive package.

But libraries are about more than just e-readers or any other media, as important as those things are. They are about more than just buildings such as the grand edifices erected by Carnegie money, or the sleek and controversial new design for the New York Public Library’s central branch. They are also about human beings and their relationships, specifically, the relationship between librarians and patrons. And that is the relationship that the foundation created by Microsoft co-founder’s Paul G. Allen is seeking to build in a recent round of grants to libraries in the Pacific Northwest. ...

17. 3-D Printing just gets more amazing. A 3D Printer That Generates Human Embryonic Stem Cells

3-D printers can produce gun parts, aircraft wings, food and a lot more, but this new 3-D printed product may be the craziest thing yet: human embryonic stem cells. Using stem cells as the "ink" in a 3-D printer, researchers in Scotland hope to eventually build 3-D printed organs and tissues. A team at Heriot-Watt University used a specially designed valve-based technique to deposit whole, live cells onto a surface in a specific pattern.

Practically human: Can smart machines do your job?

Associated Press: Practically human: Can smart machines do your job?

... To better understand the impact of technology on jobs, The Associated Press analyzed employment data from 20 countries; and interviewed economists, technology experts, robot manufacturers, software developers, CEOs and workers who are competing with smarter machines.

The AP found that almost all the jobs disappearing are in industries that pay middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. Jobs that form the backbone of the middle class in developed countries in Europe, North America and Asia.

In the United States, half of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession paid middle-class wages, and the numbers are even more grim in the 17 European countries that use the euro as their currency. A total of 7.6 million midpay jobs disappeared in those countries from January 2008 through last June.

Those jobs are being replaced in many cases by machines and software that can do the same work better and cheaper.

"Everything that humans can do a machine can do," says Moshe Vardi, a computer scientist at Rice University in Houston. "Things are happening that look like science fiction." ...

... So machines are getting smarter and people are more comfortable using them. Those factors, combined with the financial pressures of the Great Recession, have led companies and government agencies to cut jobs the past five years, yet continue to operate just as well.

How is that happening?

-Reduced aid from Indiana's state government and other budget problems forced the Gary, Ind., public school system last year to cut its annual transportation budget in half, to $5 million. The school district responded by using sophisticated software to draw up new, more efficient bus routes. And it cut 80 of 160 drivers. ...

... -In South Korea, Standard Chartered is expanding "smart banking" branches that employ a staff of three, compared with an average of about eight in traditional branches. ...

... -The British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto announced plans last year to invest $518 million in the world's first long-haul, heavy-duty driverless train system at its Pilbara iron ore mines in Western Australia. The automated trains are expected to start running next year. The trains are part of what Rio Tinto calls its "Mine of the Future" program, which includes 150 driverless trucks and automated drills.

Like many technologically savvy startups, Dirk Vander Kooij's furniture-making company in the Netherlands needs only a skeleton crew - four people ...

... -Google's driverless car and the Pentagon's drone aircraft are raising the specter of highways and skies filled with cars and planes that can get around by themselves. ...

... "Trying to keep it from happening would have been like the Teamsters in the early 1900s trying to stop the combustion engine," Lavin says. "You can't stand in the way of technology."

The upside of emerging technology is that most will make goods and services less expensive. That improves our living standard. The downside is that much of the work we used to do in order to earn the wages to buy goods and services is rapidly changing. As the last sentence of the article notes, this is not the first time we have been in these circumstances. Years ago I read that in 1885, approximately 80% of everything we consumed in the U.S. was produced at home. By 1915, 80% was produced outside the home. It created massive economic dislocations. Each time these disruptions occur it has been hard for the people living at that time to foresee what the new economic order would look like.

It is critical that Christian thinkers wrestle with the challenges of technological innovation. Creative destruction (the market dynamic where jobs and industries are destroyed in the wake of creating new ones) has always been a difficult one for ethics. It is painful but the social cost of other alternatives is also quite high. Anti-technological calls to abandon consumerism or, conversely, just saying that “the market will sort it all out,” are not legitimate responses. I think topics like this should be at the center of our theological reflection about human labor and the economy.

Saturday Links

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1. Several articles I saw this week are reflecting on data presented in The Pew Forum's The Global Religious Landscape: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups as of 2010. Here is one interesting chart from the survey, showing what percentage of each religions's adherents live in minority religious status in their own country.

2. This is really fascinating. Smithsonian: Why Japan is Obsessed with Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. “Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!” (Kentucky for Christmas!)

3. Four Harvard and MIT grads are experimenting with direct aid to the poor. "GiveDirectly, the brainchild of four Harvard and MIT graduate students, is so simple, it's genius. Give poor Kenyan families $1,000 -- and let them do whatever they want with it." Can 4 Economists Build the Most Economically Efficient Charity Ever?

4.From the Guardian, Private healthcare: the lessons from Sweden

"... Despite its reputation as a leftwing utopia, Sweden is now a laboratory for rightwing radicalism. Over the past 15 years a coalition of liberals and conservatives has brought in for-profit free schools in education, has sliced welfare to pay off the deficit and has privatised large parts of the health service.

Their success is envied by the centre right in Britain. Despite predictions of doom, Sweden's economy continues to grow and its pro-business coalition has remained in power since 2006. The last election was the first time since the war that a centre-right government had been re-elected after serving a full term.

As the state has been shrunk, the private sector has moved in. Göran Dahlgren, a former head civil servant at the Swedish department of health and a visiting professor at the University of Liverpool, says that "almost all welfare services are now owned by private equity firms". ..."

5. Scott Annan writes in The Future Of Business Is Morality, And The Future Is Now

"... We have reached a point in our economy where it is becoming increasingly clear that businesses are being measured not just for their profit, but also for their impact. And I’m not just talking about writing a check or funding a charity; I’m referring to business models for which community involvement and inspirational brand building are the profit centers. (Think Warby Parker, TOMS, and startups such as SOMA.) I recently went to a conference where the founders of a startup posited a powerful idea: the future of marketing is philanthropy. But I think the even bigger idea is the future of business is morality. My grandfather saw this early on.

At a time when the moral framework of America appears to be fractured – or at the very least confused – businesses are in the propitious position to espouse cultural standards that can help restore values that our youth can use to build the next generation of positive enterprise. In fact, whether businesses succeed in creating and promoting positive cultures might determine whether they stay in business at all. The future of business is morality, and the future is now.

Whether it’s the job of the corporation or not to set the moral tone for society, the expectation is trending towards companies setting the right example for others to follow. With the sharp rise in entrepreneurship, young companies have the opportunity to establish strong cultures early on and share them with their communities. Money must have a moral center, and from greater consciousness in business, greater profit will follow. ..."

6. Scientific American asks, After 40 Years, Has Recycling Lived Up to Its Billing?

7. AOL has a short piece about the rise of small nuclear reactors. The Next Big Thing in Nuclear Power: Going Small

8. Scientific American has a list of The Top 10 Science Stories of 2012.

9. Depression Surpasses Asthma as Top Disability Problem among U.S. and Canadian Teens

"New data show an increasing contribution of mental and behavioral disorders to deterioration in the health-related quality of life among teens in the U.S. and Canada over the past two decades, and increases elsewhere around the globe."

10. Robotic arm controlled by the mind allows paraplegic woman to feed herself

11. Interesting piece on Why We Prefer Masculine Voices (Even in Women).

12. Atlantic Cities looks into The Mystery of Our Declining Mobility.

13. People Are Leaving California In Record Numbers

More people moved out of California in 2011 than moved in, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau, signaling that the Democrat-run state’s economic woes continue to drive residents away.

Most statisticians attribute California’s net loss of 100,000 people last year to its high cost of living, increased population density and troubling unemployment rate.

The widening middle class in Mexico is also encouraging some immigrants to remain in that country instead of moving to California.

Texas — home to lower taxes, less regulation and what the Manhattan Institute calls a “labor pool with the right skills at the right price” — is one of the most attractive destinations for companies departing from California, according to the Census Bureau. ...

14. The United States Has Seen A Huge Drop In Executions Since 2000.

"The country reported 85 executions in 2000 but only 43 in 2012, according to a new report released by the Death Penalty Information Center. Plus, far fewer people are being sentenced to death row in the first place. The year 2000 saw 224 new inmates sentenced to death, while 2012 saw only 78, according to the report."

15. Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic had a great piece Why 'If We Can Just Save One Child ...' Is a Bad Argument, referring to a statement President Obama made at Newtown, CT. When we deal with complex topics like gun control, we are always talking about tradeoffs. For instance, I know how we can save more than 30,000 lives. The were 32,367 traffic fatalities last year. Let's set the speed limit to 5 miles per hour. Nearly all those lives would be saved. Should we do this "if we can save just one more life"? I, like Friedersforf, am not advocating any particular policy. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of making statements like this, as politicians often do.

16. The New York Times has an opinion piece  by John Dickerson, The Decline of Evangelical America

"I found that the structural supports of evangelicalism are quivering as a result of ground-shaking changes in American culture. Strategies that served evangelicals well just 15 years ago are now self- destructive. The more that evangelicals attempt to correct course, the more they splinter their movement. In coming years we will see the old evangelicalism whimper and wane."

He speaks of an Evangelical "collapse" having happened. That may be a bit premature but I think his articulation of trends is right.

17. I saw two interesting posts on the sociology Facebook this week. The New York Times had a piece about announcing bad news on Facebook: On Facebook, Bad With the Good. Mashable reports that Socioeconomic Status Predicts Number of Facebook Friends.

18. Gangnam Style hits one billion views on YouTube. K pop rules!

"Peak farmland" is here, crop area to diminish: study

Reuters: "Peak farmland" is here, crop area to diminish: study

(Reuters) - The amount of land needed to grow crops worldwide is at a peak, and a geographical area more than twice the size of France will be able to return to its natural state by 2060 as a result of rising yields and slower population growth, a group of experts said on Monday.

Their report, conflicting with United Nations studies that say more cropland will be needed in coming decades to avert hunger and price spikes as the world population rises above 7 billion, said humanity had reached what it called "Peak Farmland".

More crops for use as biofuels and increased meat consumption in emerging economies such as China and India, demanding more cropland to feed livestock, would not offset a fall from the peak driven by improved yields, it calculated.

If the report is accurate, the land freed up from crop farming would be some 10 percent of what is currently in use - equivalent to 2.5 times the size of France, Europe's biggest country bar Russia, or more than all the arable land now utilized in China.

"We believe that humanity has reached Peak Farmland, and that a large net global restoration of land to nature is ready to begin," said Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at the Rockefeller University in New York.

"Happily, the cause is not exhaustion of arable land, as many had feared, but rather moderation of population and tastes and ingenuity of farmers," he wrote in a speech about the study he led in the journal Population and Development Review. ...

Life Expectancy Rises Around the World, Study Finds

New York Times: Life Expectancy Rises Around the World, Study Finds

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a new report, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases more associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

 The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are dramatic: infant mortality has declined by more than half between 1990 and 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

But while developing countries made big strides – the average age of death in Brazil and Paraguay, for example, jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 28 in 1970 – the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries between 1990 and 2010. The two years of life they gained was less than in Cyprus, where women gained 2.3 years of life, and Canada, where women gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990. ...

... The World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differ substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others are similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries – representing about 15 percent of the world’s population – produce quality cause-of-death data. ...

Infant mortality and life expectancy at birth are probably the two best indicators of human well-being. So many interconnected factors must be present for improvement in these numbers to be realized. The reality is that human flourishing is getting better. Better does not mean utopia or the consummated Kingdom of God. Better means better. The challenge is to learn from what is going right and strengthen it.

Saturday Links

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Here are this week's Saturday links.

1. To celebrate the Christmas season, Deck the Halls with Macro Follies

2. The Explosion of 15th Century Printing: A Data Visualization

"... Drawing on data from the [Harvard] university's library collections, the animation below maps the number and location of printed works by year. Watch it full screen in HD to see cities light up as the years scroll by in the lower left corner. ..."

3. Drive-through fast-food not convenient enough for you? Burger King delivery: A new front in the fast-food wars?

4. There is a U-shaped happiness curve, consistent across cultures, that shows happiness declines from childhood until about our mid-forties and then begins to improve as me grow old. It appears it may hold true in primates as well. Our ability to discount bad news, even when we shouldn't, follows the same U-shaped curve. Our brains and experience are optimal for discerning bad news in middle-age. Turns out that ignorance (or maybe denial) truly is bliss. Viewpoint: How happiness changes with age. On a related note, it appears that Elderly Brains Have Trouble Recognizing Untrustworthy Faces.

5. The holiday season is in full swing and many people falsely believe this a time of elevated suicide rates. Actually, spring and summer have the highest rates and Nov - Jan have the lowest. In 2010, July was highest and December was lowest. Holiday suicide myth persists, research says

6. French sperm count 'falls by a third' but still within normal range. Researchers don't seem to know why.

7. The Atlantic has interesting article on Why Don't Parents Name Their Daughters Mary Anymore? It includes this graph.

"Michael" was in the top 3 names for boys from 1953-2010. It dropped to sixth last year. Want to know how your name ranks for each year since 1880? Go to the Social Security Online's Popular Baby Names. The Baby Name Wizard is also pretty cool.

8. More Dads Buy the Toys, So Barbie, and Stores, Get Makeovers.

"For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on.

It’s a combination that not only has Barbie building luxury mansions — they are pink, of course — but Lego promoting a line of pastel construction toys called Friends that is an early Christmas season hit. The Mega Bloks Barbie Build ’n Style line, available next week, has both girls — and their fathers — in mind.

“Once it’s in the home, dads would very much be able to join in this play that otherwise they might feel is not their territory,” said Dr. Maureen O’Brien, a psychologist who consulted on the new Barbie set...."

And this reminds me of last year, or the year before, when cooking sets were becoming big with boys. They've been watching Emeril Lagasse on the Food Network. "Bam!" New merchandising angle.

9. Instead of indiscriminately sending kids off to college and saddling them with huge debt, maybe a New push for two-year degrees could be smart move for US, report says.

10. Business Insider lists The 12 Most Corrupt Countries In The World.

11. Love them or hate them, the Koch brothers are intriguing. Many political junkies know of them but few others seem to know about them. Forbes has an interesting feature article in the most recent issue on the Koch empire and its influence: Inside The Koch Empire: How The Brothers Plan To Reshape America

12. Is the two party system fracturing? Coalition Is to Control State Senate as Dissident Democrats Join With Republicans

13. How is this economic recovery different from others? The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever

14. "Data-driven healthcare won't replace physicians entirely, but it will help those receptive to technology perform their jobs better." Technology will replace 80% of what doctors do

15. Another bright idea. New plastic lighting saves energy. Goodbye, fluorescent lights?

"Scientists have designed an energy-efficient light of plastic packed with nanomaterials that glow. The shatterproof FIPEL technology can be molded into almost any shape, but still needs to prove it's commercially viable."

16. Yet another good story about the rise of vertical farming. Salad in the sky: The rise of the vertical farm?

17. The Conservation Law Center has an interesting piece about the potential changes nanotechnology will bring to use of resources and the economy. Nanotechnology: The Potential to Make Every Industry Sustainable

"... Last month, at the first ever conference of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization in Washington DC, Michail Roco of the National Science Foundation, and architect of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative provided a response. He said, “every industrial sector is unsustainable…and nanotechnology holds the promise of making every one of them sustainable.”

It’s my belief that that is true: nanotechnology, or the ability to manipulate matter at a scale of one billionth of a meter, has far-reaching implications for the improvement of sustainable technology, industry and society.

Already, it is being used widely to enable more sustainable practices. Safer manufacturing, less waste generation, reusable materials, more efficient energy technologies, better water purification, lower toxicity and environmental impacts from chemotherapy agents to marine paints are all current applications of nanotechnology. There is no reason for this technology to develop in an unsustainable manner.

In the past, a lack of foresight has resulted in costs to society – people, businesses, and governments, and— that could have been avoided by proactive efforts to manage risks. Today, the tools to develop safer technologies and less harmful products exist. Let us not miss this opportunity. ..."

18. The American Enterprise Institute has an interesting summary of a Nielson report about social media usage. 8 fun facts about the incredible rise of social media

19. Death On Facebook Now Common As 'Dead Profiles' Create Vast Virtual Cemetery

"It used be that news of death spread through phone calls, and before that, letters and house calls. The departed were publicly remembered via memorials on street corners, newspaper obituaries and flowers at grave sites. To some degree, this is still the case. But increasingly, the announcements and subsequent mourning occur on social media. Facebook, with 1 billion detailed, self-submitted user profiles, was created to connect the living. But it has become the world's largest site of memorials for the dead."

20. From the "That's just not right!" file. Harvard Economics Department does their version of "Call me maybe."

Supporting Climate-Friendly Food Production

Worldwatch Blogs: Supporting Climate-Friendly Food Production

This [United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization] report, Innovations in Sustainable Agriculture: Supporting Climate-Friendly Food Production, discusses six sustainable approaches to land and water use, in both rural and urban areas, that are helping farmers and other food producers mitigate or adapt to climate change—and often both. They are:

• Building Soil Fertility: Alternatives to heavy chemical use in agriculture, such as avoiding unnecessary tilling or raising both crops and livestock on the same land, can help to drastically reduce the total amount of energy expended to produce a crop or animal, reducing overall emissions.
• Agroforestry: Because trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, keeping them on farms whenever possible can help mitigate climate change. Agroforestry also keeps the soil healthier and more resilient by maximizing the amount of organic matter, microorganisms, and moisture held within it. Agroforestry also provides shade for livestock and certain crops, and creates habitats for animals and insects, such as bees, that pollinate many crops.
• Urban Farming: Growing food in cities can mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions released from the transport, processing, and storage of food destined for urban populations. Urban agriculture also increases the total area of non-paved land in cities, making urban landscapes more resilient to flooding and other weather shocks, while improving the aesthetic value of these landscapes.
• Cover Cropping/Green Manure: Cover cropping, also known as green manure, is the practice of strategically planting crops that will deliver a range of benefits to a farming system, and often plowing these crops into the soil instead of harvesting their organic matter. Planting cover crops improves soil fertility and moisture by making soil less vulnerable to drought or heat waves. Cover crops also serve as a critical deterrent against pests and diseases that affect crops or livestock, such as corn root worm or Rift Valley fever, particularly as warmer temperatures enable these organisms to survive in environments that were previously too cold for them.
• Improving Water Conservation and Recycling: Innovations in water conservation, including recycling wastewater in cities, using precise watering techniques such as drip irrigation rather than sprinklers, and catching and storing rainwater, all help to reduce the global strain on already-scarce water resources.
• Preserving Biodiversity and Indigenous Breeds: Growing diverse and locally adapted indigenous crops, such as yams, quinoa, and cassava, can provide a source of income and improve farmers’ chances of withstanding the effects of climate change, such as heat stress, drought, and the expansion of disease and pest populations. Preserving plant and animal biodiversity also reduces farmers’ overreliance on a small number of commodity crops that make them vulnerable to shifts in global markets.

By tapping into the multitude of climate-friendly farming practices that already exist, agriculture can continue to provide food for the world’s population, as well as be a source of livelihood for the 1.3 billion people who rely on farming for income and sustenance. If agriculture is to play a positive role in the global fight against climate change, however, agricultural practices that mitigate or adapt to climate change will need to receive increased research, attention, and investment in the coming years.

Saturday Links

Here are the links. BTW, if you haven't already, you can "like" the Kruse Kronicle Facebook page and see daily links in your Facebook feed.

1. When I was a kid, I used to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom on Saturdays. That was the beginning of my life-long appreciation for big cats. One of the organizations we support is the Turperntine Creek Wildlife Refuge for big cats in Arkansas. Check out this Nat Geo super slo-mo video of a running cheetah. Be sure to go to minute 5:00, and see him from the front. His head barely moves. Just amazing!

Cheetahs on the Edge--Director's Cut from Gregory Wilson on Vimeo.

2. Good news! Charitable giving increased slightly in 2011

3. Counting sheep not putting you to sleep? Eat These Foods For A Better Night's Sleep

4. Tiny Swarming Robots Play Beethoven.

5. Just a reminder. That Ebook you bought? You don't own it. That Barnes & Noble Ebook is Only Yours Until Your Credit Card Expires

6. Speaking of books, how about a Book-Scanning Robot Reads 250 Pages Per Minute?

7. If you are a man, getting along with the in-laws means you have 20% higher chance of not getting divorced. If you are a woman, getting along well the in-laws makes you 20% more likely to get divorced. Getting Along With The In-Laws Makes Women More Likely To Divorce

8. Could the first billion dollar athlete be less than a decade away? Why the World's First Billion-Dollar Athlete Is Just a Few Years Away

9. A business icon died this week. Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar dies at age 86.

10. This was pretty cool. An Inspiring Story Of A Grocery Store Owner Who Gave His Business To Employees

11. One of the challenges of colonizing the moon or Mars is all the supplies you would need to bring along to construct a habitat. 3D-printing may help solve that problem. 3D printer on moon or Mars could make tools from local rocks

12. Give us this day our monthly bread? "American company has developed a technique that it says can make bread stay mould-free for 60 days." Bread that lasts for 60 days could cut food waste

13. The Next Web has an interesting piece on the history of 3d-Printing. The Rise of 3D Printing

14. Supreme Court to Decide if Human Genes Are Patentable

"The Supreme Court announced Friday it would review a case testing whether human genes may be patented, in a dispute weighing patents associated with human genes known to detect early signs of breast and ovarian cancer. A 2009 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union claimed among other things the First Amendment is at stake because the patents are so broad they bar scientists from examining and comparing the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes at the center of the dispute. In short, the patents issued more than a decade ago cover any new scientific methods of looking at these human genes that might be developed by others."

I am guessing there are some bioethics questions to consider here as well. ;-)

15. 4.5 billion years of the earth's evolution in as if it happened in 24 hours.

16. The Real Story on the Falling U.S. Birth Rate

"The Pew Research Center announced Nov. 29 that the U.S. birth rate fell to its lowest level since at least 1920, when reliable record-keeping began. That was true—but not news. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that way back on Oct. 3.

What was news was Pew’s analysis of the government data, which showed that the birth rate decline was greatest among immigrant women. “We were the first to point that out,” Gretchen Livingston, the lead author of Pew’s report, said in an interview. ..."

17. Small-business optimism is tanking. Gallup

18. Also from Gallup. As it turns out, maybe Democrats really are socialists.

19. What's Driving Evangelical Enthusiasm?

"Data shows growing Catholic-evangelical "intensity gap"—but it doesn't indicate exactly why. ...

... New research shows that Catholics now report the lowest proportion of "strongly affiliated" followers among major American religious traditions, while the data indicates that evangelicals are increasingly devout and committed to their faith.

According to Philip Schwadel, a sociologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in the 1970s there was only a five-point difference between how strongly Catholics and evangelicals felt about their religion.

By 2010, he said, that "intensity gap" had grown to around 20 points, with some 56 percent of evangelicals describing themselves as "strongly affiliated" with their religion compared with 35 percent of Catholics. Even mainline Protestants reported a higher level of religious intensity than Catholics, at 39 percent. ..."

20. For Amish, fastest-growing faith group in US, life is changing.

"Indeed, for America’s Amish, much is changing. The Amish are, by one measure, the fastest-growing faith community in the US. Yet as their numbers grow, the land available to support the agrarian lifestyle that underpins their faith is shrinking, gobbled up by the encroachment of exurban mansions and their multidoor garages.

The result is, in some ways, a gradual redefinition of what it means to be Amish. Some in the younger generation are looking for new ways to make a living on smaller and smaller slices of land. Others are looking beyond the Amish heartland of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, seeking more space in states such as Texas, Maine, and Montana."

21. Finally, one of the things I found interesting about the presidential election was Team Romney's seeming confidence they were winning. I think every candidate who is losing often tries to spin things positively until the very end but I had the sense that Team Romney wasn't faking it. They believed they were winning. I think post-election analysis is revealing that was true. From The New Repbulic The Internal Polls That Made Mitt Romney Think He'd Win

7 Amazing Ways Nanotechnology Is Changing The World

Pop Sci: 7 Amazing Ways Nanotechnology Is Changing The World

Tiny nanoparticles are a huge part of our lives, for better or for worse.

“Everything, when miniaturized to the sub-100-nanometer scale, has new properties, regardless of what it is,” says Chad Mirkin, professor of chemistry (and materials science, engineering, medicine, biomedical engineering and chemical and biological engineering) at Northwestern University. This is what makes nanoparticles the materials of the future. They have strange chemical and physical properties compared to their larger-particle kin. The thing that matters about nanoparticles is their scale.

Nanoscale materials are used in everything from sunscreen to chemical catalysts to antibacterial agents--from the mundane to the lifesaving. “I spilled wine at a Christmas party once, and I was terrified. Red wine on a white carpet. And it wipes right up,” Mirkin recalled. “The reason is the nano-particulate used to coat the carpet keeps that material from absorbing into the carpet and staining the carpet.”

On a more sophisticated side, researchers are developing nanoscale assays used to screen for cancer, infection and even genes. Gold nanoparticles that have been doped with DNA can be used to detect bacteria in a person’s bloodstream, determining whether a patient has infection and what kind. Or they can be used to detect changes in a person’s immune system that reflect the presence of cancer. Nano-flares can measure the genetic content of cells, and light up--or flare--when they detect a specific cell of a doctor’s choosing, maybe cancer, stem cells or even the reaction to a small molecule used in a new drug. ...

View the slideshow. Here are the seven examples:

Nanoparticle-Filled Ink Conducts Electricity
Cancer Detectors
Nano-Absorption
Fighting Cancer At The Source
Gene Therapy and Drug Delivery
Protective Coating For Your Skin
Nanomaterials In The Food Supply

Saturday Links

Here are this week's odds and ends that didn't make it on to the blog. Enjoy the leftovers!

1. MIT Technology Review says Geoengineering Could Be Essential to Reducing the Risk of Climate Change. "Using technology to cool the planet may be the only way to deal with the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, argues scientist David Keith." On a similar topic is this piece by Robert Kurlwich at NPR, Will We 'Fix' The Weather? Yes. Should We Fix The Weather? Hmmm. Kurlwich discusses the possibility that we may one day be able to control the earth's climate and wonders if that is a good thing.

2. Research indicates that Millennial Generation Becoming More Fiscally Conservative.

3. Are E-readers a transitional technology? Analysis: E-readers grapple with a future on the shelf.

4. Inhabitat reports on The World's First Commercial Vertical Farm Opens in Singapore. "The dense metropolis of Singapore is now home to the world’s first commercial vertical farm! Built by Sky Greens Farms, the rising steel structure will help the city grow more food locally, reducing dependence on imported produce. The new farm is able to produce 1 ton of fresh veggies every other day, which are sold in local supermarkets."

5. The New Republic has a very lengthy article The Mormon Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It offers some interesting insights in to Mormonism's road from communalism to economic individualism, a trajectory followed by many Protestant sectarian movements. Jackson Lears writes:

"Mormons embraced economic individualism and hierarchical communalism; they distrusted government interventions in business life but not in moral life; they used their personal morality to underwrite their monetary success. They celebrated endless progress through Promethean striving. They paid little attention to introspection and much to correct behavior. And their fundamental scripture confirmed that America was God’s New Israel and the Mormons His Chosen People. It would be hard to find an outlook more suited to the political culture of the post–Reagan Republican Party."

6. Annie-Marie Slaughter maintains that the "having it all" debate about work-life balance isn't just about women. Work-Life Balance as a Men's Issue, Too.

"A number of students asked foreign policy questions, and then a young woman asked me about the responses I have received to my Atlantic cover story from this past summer, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." I answered, and several other young women followed up. After ten minutes or so, I saw that the roughly 50 percent guys in the room had gone completely silent. When I commented on the suddenly one-sided nature of the conversation, one young man volunteered that he "had been raised in a strong feminist household" and considered himself to be fully supportive of male-female equality, but he was reluctant to say anything for fear he would be misunderstood. A number of the other guys around the table nodded in agreement."

7. French and Spanish legal documents from colonial Louisiana are being digitized, opening up a new window on colonial history in that part of the world. Colonial La. records shed new light on US history

8. People who know me personally know I tend to use sarcasm and double entendre in spoken communication. One of my biggest blogging challenges is editing most of this out of posts. Emoticons can help but some of the biggest misunderstandings I have had came from people not being able to see my wink or big grin as I write certain things. For that reason, I found this interesting: The Strange Science Of Translating Sarcasm Online

9. Ever wonder why sign language often seems so animated? Why Great Sign Language Interpreters Are So Animated

10. Africa: sociologists cite religion as a key factor in preventing and alleviating AIDS epidemic

"In their new book "Religion and AIDS in Africa" (Oxford University Press), sociologists Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb seek to challenge the widespread view that religious beliefs and communities have unwittingly assisted in the spread of the disease through their resistance to preventative sex education. They also show that not only have religious groups had a largely positive role in AIDS prevention, but also how the epidemic has shaped religious beliefs in unexpected ways."

Why Are Environmentalists Taking Anti-Science Positions?

Environment360: Why Are Environmentalists Taking Anti-Science Positions?

On issues ranging from genetically modified crops to nuclear power, environmentalists are increasingly refusing to listen to scientific arguments that challenge standard green positions. This approach risks weakening the environmental movement and empowering climate contrarians.

From Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring to James Hansen’s modern-day tales of climate apocalypse, environmentalists have long looked to good science and good scientists and embraced their findings. Often we have had to run hard to keep up with the crescendo of warnings coming out of academia about the perils facing the world. A generation ago, biologist Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb and systems analysts Dennis and Donella Meadows’ The Limits to Growth shocked us with their stark visions of where the world was headed. No wide-eyed greenie had predicted the opening of an ozone hole before the pipe-smoking boffins of the British Antarctic Survey spotted it when looking skyward back in 1985. On issues ranging from ocean acidification and tipping points in the Arctic to the dangers of nanotechnology, the scientists have always gotten there first — and the environmentalists have followed.

And yet, recently, the environment movement seems to have been turning up on the wrong side of the scientific argument. We have been making claims that simply do not stand up. We are accused of being anti-science — and not without reason. A few, even close friends, have begun to compare this casual contempt for science with the tactics of climate contrarians.

That should hurt.

Three current issues suggest that the risks of myopic adherence to ideology over rational debate are real: genetically modified (GM) crops, nuclear power, and shale gas development. The conventional green position is that we should be opposed to all three. Yet the voices of those with genuine environmental credentials, but who take a different view, are being drowned out by sometimes abusive and irrational argument. ...

The environmental movement is a diverse coalition of people. You can't make a blanket statement about any movement this large. There are two significant groups that make up this coalition that I expect explain this inconsistency between embracing science on some things and not on others.

First, I think there is a segment that is simply anti-technological, anti-21st Century living. They have a natural aversion to much of 21st Century existence and want to return to a far less technological (read "natural") existence. That climate science (and the frequently attached moralism about the evils of consumerism) would dovetail with their ideology of bucolic bliss is a welcomed happenstance. It gives legitimization to their cause against those who embrace the modern socio-economic order. GM crops and nuclear power do just the opposite. These would enable the current despised structures to continue and grow. Thus, their embrace of climate change science has little to do with a rigorous understanding and commitment to science.

Second, there is another segment that sees economic freedom as unjust and destructive and wants more centralized control over the global economy. Climate science can be effectively be used to support that vision. The case is made that our current competing economies are leading us to global catastrophe. Political and economic freedom need to be curtailed on a global scale by centralized authorities who will rationally manage world affairs. GM crops and nuclear power offer the opportunity to adapt to current challenges without a significant reordering of the world order. Once again, the commitment is not so much to science as it is to using science as debate tool to achieve an ideological end.

I'm not saying that these are by any means the only two groups backing environmental measures. I am saying that these are two groups that do have meaningful influence on what happens within the environmental movement.

An author who makes a case in book length form, similar to what Fred Pearce is making here, is Seymour Garte in Where We Stand: A Surprising Look at the Real State of Our Planet. He is another scientist who is fully persuaded about anthropogenic global warming. He is optimistic about solutions but sees the anti-science, anti-technology, crowd as a real problem.

Star Trek technology: how 21st century scientists are making it so

The Guardian: Star Trek technology: how 21st century scientists are making it so

Many have been inspired by Star Trek to become scientists, and some are starting to make its gadgetry a reality.

Destination Star Trek London has kicked off at the ExCeL exhibition centre, and I'm willing to bet that among those heading down for a weekend of pointy-eared fun, there'll be a high proportion of scientists and engineers.

Many have been inspired by Star Trek to take up a career in science, technology or engineering. I think the franchise deserves more respect as a science popularisation medium – how many other prime-time TV shows would allow their characters to toss out phrases like "I performed a Fourier analysis on the harmonics, Captain"?

Since its inception in 1966, Star Trek has familiarised us with the lingo and applications of science. At least, that was the case for me. I felt pretty disenfranchised from science at school: it wasn't until I discovered science fiction that I realised I could understand "difficult" technical concepts.

Since the show began, many of us have become more tech-savvy than we could possibly have imagined at school. More than that, we're now seeing emergent technology here on Earth that was once little more than a Star Trek scriptwriter's dream. To get you in the mood for this weekend's festivities, here's a roundup of some of the best Star Trek-inspired technology.

Replicators - ... Three-dimensional printers have been on the open market commercially for most of the 21st century.  ...

Transporters - Earlier this year, Nature reported that photons had been teleported 89 miles, between La Palma and Tenerife. OK, it wasn't exactly transportation ...

Bioneural circuitry - ... And in February of this year, the Scripps Research Institute published details of a DNA-based biological computer based on an original design by Alan Turing. ...

Cloaking devices - ... In January, our first real "invisibility cloak" was unveiled at the University of Texas. ...

Tricorders -

Hyposprays -

Nanites - ... They've constructed a set of nanorobots, with inbuilt chemical sensors, that can silence genes within cancerous cells. ...

Androids - Japanese scientists have created some remarkably human-looking androids, though they wouldn't beat Data in a game of three-dimensional chess. ...

Of course, we all ready have personal communication devices. But as someone recently pointed out, while we all have communication devices, we don't see people in Star Trek constantly looking down at them and running into things. ;-) Warp drive would be pretty cool. Any other Trekkie devices that you want to see?

Top Five Myths Of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted

NPR: Top Five Myths Of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted

Having just stepped into the shouting match over patents on genetically engineered crops, there are a few small things that I, too, would like to get off my chest.

I say small things. I'm not talking about today's big hot issues: Whether genetically modified organisms — GMOs — should be labeled, or cause cancer in rats, or might improve the lives of poor farmers in Africa; none of that.

This is about something simple: Seeds of GMOs. Various myths have grown up around these seeds. Like most myths, they are inspired by reality. But they've wandered off into the world of fiction.

Myth 1: Seeds from GMOs are sterile. ...

Myth 2: Monsanto will sue you for growing their patented GMOs if traces of those GMOs entered your fields through wind-blown pollen. ...

Myth 3: Any contamination with GMOs makes organic food non-organic. ...

Myth 4: Before Monsanto got in the way, farmers typically saved their seeds and re-used them. ...

Myth 5: Most seeds these days are genetically modified. ...

 

Complex Body Parts Could Soon Be Lab-Grown

Discovery News: Complex Body Parts Could Soon Be Lab-Grown

Various groups of scientists have recently created thyroid cells in the lab, grown a new ear in the skin a woman's own arm, and won a Nobel Prize for figuring out how to reprogram cells so that they can turn into a variety of cell types.

In the future, there may be no limit to the kinds of organs and body parts that can be created from scratch.

One hope is to make donor organs obsolete, or at least far less necessary, eliminating long waiting lists for transplants. By using a patient's own cells, the new wave of regenerative medicine also circumvents ethical arguments and reduces the chance that recipients will reject their new parts.

"We now have the ability for the first time to create a virtually unlimited supply of all the cell types and building blocks we need to make what we want to make," said stem cell researcher Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, a biotechnology company in Marlborough, Mass. "Now we just have to put it all together." ...

Breast Cancer-Sensing Bra Detects Tumors Years Before Some Mammograms

Genetically modified mouse created to detect landmines

The Guardian: GM mouse created to detect landmines

The genetically modified mouse is five hundred times more sensitive to the smell of explosive than a normal mouse.

Scientists have genetically modified mice to enable them to sniff out landmines. They hope the GM mouse, known as MouSensor, could one day become a useful tool to help deal with the dangerous legacies of past wars.

More than 70 countries are contaminated by landmines, a constant reminder of previous conflicts. "Long after wars have ended, communities are still impeded from going back to their normal, daily activities because of all these mines still affecting their land," said Charlotte D'Hulst of Hunter College, New York, who led the team that developed the MouSensor.

One approach to clearing landmines is to use HeroRats, giant pouched rats that are trained to sniff out landmines by the Belgian NGO, Apopo.

Two of these, with a human handler, can clear an area of 300 sq metres in less than two hours. It would take two people about two days to do the same. One disadvantage of the HeroRats system, however, is that the rats need nine months' training before they are ready for landmine detection. ...

Am I the only one who finds this a little wierd? Who goes to be bed at night and thinks, "Gee. I wonder if I could breed bomb-sniffing rodents?" I suspect the mice would appreciate some GM that would improve feline detection faculties.

Seriously, I don't have a problem with this particular application of GM but just think of the moral and ethical implications this is going to have has we begin to tinker with humans.

Gathering Waste and Making Good of It

Worldwatch: Gathering Waste and Making Good of It

... Sanergy, for example, is a company launched by a group of students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Sloan School of Management. The group has designed low-profile sanitation centers that can be constructed anywhere to provide hot showers and clean toilets. These facilities can be built quickly and easily with affordable materials. Waste from the centers is deposited into airtight containers that are collected daily. Then it’s brought to processing facilities that can convert it into biogas. The biogas generates electricity, while the leftover material is made into fertilizer.

The company won a USD $100,000 grant from MIT and has been building its first units in Nairobi. It charges a low pay-per-use fee and hopes to grow by franchising the operation of its units, creating an income opportunity for enterprising residents. As the number of toilets proliferates, so too will the amount of energy the company is able to generate from its processing facilities. It hopes to eventually generate enough energy that it can sell its power to the national grid.

The company’s unique and innovative approach is notable for the way it combines the decentralization of waste collection with the centralization of waste processing. Retrofitting the slums with proper sewage drains is a near impossibility and can be an expensive and potentially politically volatile effort in areas where landownership is at best ambiguous. The self-contained units grant access to sanitary facilities to even those far off the grid. But by centralizing the processing of waste, Sanergy’s facilities will take advantage of the economies of scale present in the waste conversion process. ...

New technique paves the way for instant 3D-printed biological tissues

ZietNews: New technique paves the way for instant 3D-printed biological tissues

... The latest advance comes from University of California, San Diego Nanoengineering Professor Shaochen Chen, whose group has demonstrated the ability to print three-dimensional blood vessels in seconds.

If the technique proves scalable, it could revolutionize regenerative medicine. Imagine being able to recover from a heart attack by replacing your faulty aortic valve with a brand new one, made of your own cells. No more pig valves, no more mechanical solutions, no more waiting for a donor. The donor is you.

How does it work? All printers require feedstock. For 2D printers, that’s ink. For 3D, it can be plastic, some metals – or in this case, biocompatible hydrogels. What’s new here is the adaptation of techniques ideal for printing large objects – such as car parts or tools for the home – to a micro and nano scale, in order to print the tiny veins responsible for shipping oxygen and nutrients around the body.

The new approach, reported in Advanced Materials, is called dynamic optical projection stereolithography (DOPsL). ...

 

Ingestible sensor sends health data to your phone

Springwise: Ingestible sensor sends health data to your phone

"Just cleared by the FDA late last month, this new ingestible sensor from California-based Proteus Digital Health is about the size of a grain of sand and can be integrated into an inert pill or medicine. Once in the stomach, it is powered solely by contact with stomach fluid and communicates a unique signal that identifies the timing of ingestion. This information is transferred through the user’s body tissue to a battery-operated patch worn on the skin that detects the signal along with physiological and behavioral metrics such as heart rate, body position and activity. That data, in turn, gets relayed by the patch to a mobile application, where it can be made accessible by caregivers and clinicians."

Harvard cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terabytes of data into a single gram

ExtremeTech: Harvard cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terabytes of data into a single gram

A bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data — around 700 terabytes — in a single gram of DNA, smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times.

The work, carried out by George Church and Sri Kosuri, basically treats DNA as just another digital storage device. Instead of binary data being encoded as magnetic regions on a hard drive platter, strands of DNA that store 96 bits are synthesized, with each of the bases (TGAC) representing a binary value (T and G = 1, A and C = 0).

To read the data stored in DNA, you simply sequence it — just as if you were sequencing the human genome — and convert each of the TGAC bases back into binary. To aid with sequencing, each strand of DNA has a 19-bit address block at the start (the red bits in the image below) — so a whole vat of DNA can be sequenced out of order, and then sorted into usable data using the addresses. ...

... Just think about it for a moment: One gram of DNA can store 700 terabytes of data. That’s 14,000 50-gigabyte Blu-ray discs… in a droplet of DNA that would fit on the tip of your pinky. To store the same kind of data on hard drives — the densest storage medium in use today — you’d need 233 3TB drives, weighing a total of 151 kilos. In Church and Kosuri’s case, they have successfully stored around 700 kilobytes of data in DNA — Church’s latest book, in fact — and proceeded to make 70 billion copies (which they claim, jokingly, makes it the best-selling book of all time!) totaling 44 petabytes of data stored.

Looking forward, they foresee a world where biological storage would allow us to record anything and everything without reservation. Today, we wouldn’t dream of blanketing every square meter of Earth with cameras, and recording every moment for all eternity/human posterity — we simply don’t have the storage capacity. There is a reason that backed up data is usually only kept for a few weeks or months — it just isn’t feasible to have warehouses full of hard drives, which could fail at any time. If the entirety of human knowledge — every book, uttered word, and funny cat video — can be stored in a few hundred kilos of DNA, though… well, it might just be possible to record everything (hello, police state!) ...

 

Brain-Damaged Emma Finds a Voice With Grassroots IPad App

Bloomberg: Brain-Damaged Emma Finds a Voice With Grassroots IPad App

Emma Edwards, 26, has no control over the fine motor muscles in her hands, which stay tightly and awkwardly clenched. She also can’t talk, walk or move her arms more than 20 inches at a time.

Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2001, can write e-mails, though, and she’s revisiting a favorite pastime, sketching, for the first time in a decade, thanks to her iPad and software applications that can cost as little as $7.

That’s a switch from the $15,000 communication device she had tried, a 9-pound machine approved by her insurer that tracks eye movement on a special grid corresponding to the alphabet. That device kept her tied to those in the room around her. The iPad, along with several other consumer-driven apps, has reopened the world to her.

“You see the joy on her face” when she’s using it, said her mother, Jill. “It represents freedom for her.”

Edwards, of Rochester, Minnesota, is part of a grassroots movement sweeping the $1 billion-a-year assistive-technology market. While Pittsburgh-based DynaVox Inc. (DVOX), closely held Tobii Technology from Stockholm and Prentke Romich GmbH of Kassel, Germany, dominate the field, the advent of Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPad and an open operating system that enables anyone to create software is changing the way thousands of disabled people communicate and take care of their daily lives. ...

Wide Awake During Heart Surgery Saves Costs

I'd jump at this procedure in a heartbeat. I'd want a video viewer so I could see what is happening.

Astronaut Muscles Would Wither by Mars

Wired: Astronaut Muscles Would Wither by Mars

Even if we could farm on Mars, astronauts might be too weak by the time they get there to help plow the fields.

The first cellular analysis of muscles from astronauts who have spent 180 days at the International Space Station shows that their muscles lost more than 40 percent of their capacity for physical work, despite in-flight exercise.

No matter how good their shape was before the astronauts left, they returned with muscle tone that resembled that of the average 80-year-old. In fact, the astronauts who were in the best shape before they launched were the most likely to come back with withered, or atrophied, muscles.

NASA currently estimates it would take a crew 10 months to reach Mars, with a one year stay, and 10 months to get back, for a total mission time of about three years. These studies suggest they would barely be able to crawl by the time they got back to Earth with the current exercise regime. ...

Doctor fixes heart with remote-controlled robot

Reuters: Doctor fixes heart with remote-controlled robot

(Reuters) - Doctors at a British hospital have carried out the first heart rhythm operation using a remote -controlled robot and say its success means patients could be treated by doctors in other cities, or even other countries.

Andre Ng, who performed the procedure on Wednesday from outside the operating theater, told Reuters it went very well and the patient's irregular heart rhythm was restored to normal within an hour.

"It exceeded our expectations and we achieved what we set out to in very good time," said Ng, a consultant cardiologist and electrophysiologist at Leicester's Glenfield Hospital.

Robotic surgery is becoming more common in wealthy nations and can be used on patients suffering from gynecological cancer, coronary artery disease, kidney cancer, and bladder cancer.

Ng said he was the first doctor in the world to carry out this type of remote-controlled operation on a human patient using a system called a Remote Catheter Manipulation System. ...

Third time lucky

The Economist: Third time lucky

Industrial biotech: A “third wave” of biotechnology is arriving. Will it be able to avoid a poor reception from the general public this time around?



FOR a long time the public has perceived biotechnology to mean dangerous meddling with the genes in food crops. But biotechnology is of course about much more than transgenic food: it also encompasses the use of microbes to make pharmaceuticals, for example. The many benefits of the first wave of biotech products, in medicine, have unfortunately been overshadowed by the supposed risks of biotech’s second wave, in agriculture. Might its third wave—so-called industrial biotech, also known as “white biotech” or “green chemistry”—resolve biotech’s image problem? ...

Food crunch opens doors to bioengineered crops

Wired: Food crunch opens doors to bioengineered crops

KUNMING, China (AP) -- Zeng Yawen's outdoor laboratory in the terraced hills of southern China is a trove of genetic potential - rice that thrives in unusually cool temperatures, high altitudes or in dry soil; rice rich in calcium, vitamins or iron.

"See these plants? They can tolerate the cold," Zeng says as he walks through a checkerboard of test fields sown with different rice varieties on the outskirts of Kunming, capital of southwestern China's Yunnan province.

"We can extract the cold-tolerant gene from this plant and use it in a genetically manipulated variety to improve its cold tolerance," Zeng says.

In a mountainous place like Yunnan, and in many other parts of the developing world, such advantages can tip the balance between hunger and a decent living. And China is now ready to tip that scale in favor of genetically modified crops. ...

Robodoc: surgeon of the future in theaters now

Reuters: Robodoc: surgeon of the future in theaters now

LONDON (Reuters) - A mechanical snake that can enter the body through natural orifices -- not an incision -- to perform operations is just one futuristic device researchers believe will transform traditional surgical techniques.

With a world recession looming and healthcare budgets under pressure, it may seem an odd time to be bullish about hi-tech surgery.

Robots, after all, are not cheap. The average selling price of the market-leading da Vinci system from California's Intuitive Surgical Inc is $1.35 million.

Some critics, including British fertility expert Robert Winston, have questioned the cost-effectiveness of robots when other treatments, such as cancer drugs, are being rationed.

But proponents note prices will inevitably fall as usage and competition increase, as happened with once-costly computers.

Tens of thousands of prostate, heart and other procedures are already being performed by robots, and experts predict machines will be used to penetrate deeper into ailing bodies in the years ahead.

In a university laboratory behind London's Science Museum, researchers are working on a new generation of hi-tech gadgets to take minimally invasive robotic surgery to the next level. ...

Sulabh International Toilets

Defeating Global Poverty: Sulabh International Toilets

Dealing with human waste is still a challenge for many countries. Sulabh International, a NGO based in New Delhi, India has created an ingeniously simple latrine which costs $100 with the following characteristics:

• it first empties into one pit, and then, when it is full into a second pit
• it flushes with 2 litres of water vs. 10 litres required by a standard cistern toilet
• it takes 10 people two years to fill one pit, by which time the waste in the other has turned into composted manure, clean enough for growing vegetables.

Sulabh has built 1.2 million of these latrines across India. Along with this they have helped 60,000 manual scavengers (people who clean feces from streets/houses that lack flushing toilets.) ...

The First Genetically Modified Human Embryo: Advance or Abomination?

Wired: The First Genetically Modified Human Embryo: Advance or Abomination?

Scientists have created the first genetically modified human embryo.

What does this mean to you?

Led by Nikica Zaninovic, researchers at Cornell University added a green fluorescent protein to an embryo left over from assisted reproduction. They destroyed the embryo five days later. It is believed to be the first documented genetic modification of a human embryo.

British newspaper The Times reports that Zaninovic's feat was announced at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual meeting in 2007, but was only publicized recently when the United Kingdom's reproductive technology regulators reviewed the research. The House of Commons is about to consider legislation permitting this and other controversial reproductive technologies, such as the creation of chimeras -- human-animal hybrid embryos.

The research raises a number of thorny ethical questions. ...

Malaria: Exterminate! Exterminate!

The Economist: Malaria: Exterminate! Exterminate!

New malaria vaccines—and a pep talk from the man who is paying for some of them—are raising the idea that malaria might be eliminated once and for all.

“WE'VE made vaccines from pus and poop, we make them now using eggs—so why not make them in live mosquitoes?” So says Stefan Kappe, a researcher at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute. To prove the point, his team is breeding millions of Anopheles mosquitoes (pictured above) and infecting them with malaria-causing parasites.

Not any old parasites, either. Those he uses have had some of their genes knocked out to stop them breeding in humans. Their destiny, like that of the “attenuated” viral strains grown in eggs, is to form part of a vaccine.

Once the parasites have had time to breed in the mosquitoes, the insects are killed and dissected under a microscope. The gold inside them is their salivary glands, the parts richest in parasites. These are extracted, processed and turned into what Dr Kappe hopes will become a successful vaccine. By injecting this vaccine of pared-down parasites into uninfected individuals, he intends to provoke an immune response to malaria that will be strong enough to kill a real infection before it gets going.

Provoking such a response is, of course, the idea behind any vaccine, and there are various ways of doing it. Dr Kappe's looks promising in the laboratory, but has yet to undergo clinical trials. Another method, however, has been on trial for several years by Pedro Alonso of the Barcelona Centre for International Health Research. This week saw the publication in the Lancet of the latest results from those trials. They look very promising indeed. ...

One for the Road

The Economist: One for the Road

A new biofuel made from fruit sugars promises more oomph than traditional ethanol.

.... By their very nature, biofuels cannot be carbon-free because carbon is essential to life on Earth. Burning biofuels does indeed release carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The attraction is that the volume of gas released exactly matches that taken up by the plant when it was growing. So overall (and with the huge proviso that you do not count the fossil fuel used to farm the stuff) biofuels are carbon-neutral.

In America the Department of Energy has set a target for 30% of the 2004 gasoline demand for vehicles to be met by biofuels by 2030. The European Union wants 25% of transport fuels to be derived from biofuels by the same date. At present, the most widely used substance is ethanol, which can be made from sugar cane, sugar beet and maize (or corn, as it is called in America). But ethanol does not pack a particularly powerful punch. It is also susceptible to absorbing water, further diluting its oomph. It takes days to ferment the stuff. A biofuel that did not suffer from these limitations would be welcome.

That is what a team led by James Dumesic of the University of Wisconsin-Madison claims to have developed. The researchers think they have devised a biofuel that has a 40% higher energy density than ethanol, that repels water and that can be made relatively speedily.

Biofuels Discovery Promises to End Dependence on Natural Gas

From Scientific American:  Biofuels Discovery Promises to End Dependence on Natural Gas

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a new, carbon-neutral way to convert vegetable-based fuels to syngas, a breakthrough that could allow producers to power hydrogen fuel cells or create a replacement for America's dwindling supplies of natural gas, all without relying on fossil fuels. ...

Cat-Cloning Company to Close Its Doors

From ABC News (via wastedblog): Cat-Cloning Company to Close Its Doors

SAN FRANCISCO Oct 11, 2006 (AP)— Genetic Savings & Clone, a biotechnology company that sold cloned pets, sent letters to its customers last month informing them it will close at the end of the year because of little demand for cloned cats. The company had recently reduced the price from $50,000 to $32,000.

The letters said the Sausalito company was not accepting new orders for clones because it was "unable to develop the technology to the point that cloning pets is commercially viable."

.....

Animals rights activists complained that new feline production systems aren't needed because thousands of stray cats are euthanized each year for want of homes. Those groups were elated Wednesday at news of the company's demise.

This is what is referred to in the investment community as a CAT-tastrophic business idea.

My Big Biofuels Bet

From Wired: My Big Biofuels Bet

Which is why this Mead, Nebraska, farm is so exciting to me: The ethanol made here is not only clean but also cheap – this is perhaps the first ethanol plant to achieve both. More important, it is an early demon­stration of the great potential of biohols – liquid fuels derived from biomass for internal combustion engines. The facility is the first data point in what I call the biohol trajectory. (See “March of the Biohols,” page 143.) Like Moore’s law, this trajectory tracks a steady increase in performance, affordability, and, importantly, yield per acre of farmland. A number of biohols appear along this performance curve, among them corn ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, higher-energy-content butanol, and other biomass-derived fuels that are even more energy-rich than butanol. We’ll see fuels with higher energy density and better environmental characteristics, and we’ll develop engines better optimized for biohols. Ethanol and the newer fuels will yield better fuel efficiency as innovations like higher compression-ratio engines make their way into vehicles. In addition, we can count on the emergence of complementary technologies like cheaper hybrid vehicles, better batteries, plug-in hybrids, and more efficient, lighter-weight cars.

But the single most critical variable in the biohol trajectory is the coming rise in the number of gallons of fuel produced per acre. As we migrate from biomass derived from corn to biomass from so-called energy crops like switchgrass and miscanthus, I estimate that biomass yield will reach 20 to 24 tons per acre, a fourfold increase. At the same time, new technologies will enable us to extract more biohols from every ton of biomass, potentially to 110 gallons per ton. The result: We’ll be extracting 2,000 to 2,700 gallons of fuel per acre (as opposed to about 400 gallons with today’s technology). With better fuels and more-efficient engines improving mileage by about 50 percent, we can safely predict a seven- to tenfold gain in miles driven per acre of land over the next 25 years. Given this biohol trajectory, a future of independence from gasoline becomes not only possible but probable. And the trajectory begins with garden-variety corn ethanol.