Archive for the ‘Humanity’ Category
“A new genetic engineering technique could make it as easy to rewrite a genome as it is to read it.
Using the process, which grafts pieces of synthetic DNA into the genomes of dividing cells, researchers generated 15 billion different genomic patterns in just three days. The process would normally take years, and could eventually be used to produce industrial chemicals, drugs, fuel and anything else that comes out of bacteria.
‘Automated sequencing really advanced the way we can read genetic information. We hope automated genome engineering will advance the way we write genetic information,’ said Harris Wang, a Harvard University biophysicist.
Earlier methods of manipulating genomes involved a painstaking biological cut-and-paste process, with target genes removed, tweaked and reinserted, one at a time. Alternatively, bioengineers could use a mutagen that turned genomes to hash.
But Wang and George Church — a co-author of the study, and a pioneer in DNA synthesis, genome sequencing and all-purpose biotechnological wizardry — want to speed that process up.
Their technique, known as Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering, or MAGE, starts with single-stranded pieces of DNA, custom synthesized to fit on target sections of a genome. In a microscopic remix of the famous Dr. Frankenstein movie scene, a target cell is then jolted with energy, opening holes in its membrane. The DNA flows inside. When the cell divides, it uses the new DNA in copying itself.”
source: wired.com
“We live in an era defined by its brutality. Our challenge is whether to accept this – or to take the risks necessary to transform our world commons in beloved community.
A year ago this August, forty-four ordinary people from seventeen different countries sailed to Gaza in two, small wooden boats. We did what the world would not do – we broke through the siege of Gaza. Over the last year the Free Gaza Movement has organized seven more voyages, successfully arriving to Gaza on five separate occasions. Ours remain the only international ships to reach the Gaza Strip in over forty-two years.
In the Middle-East, the struggle for justice is an uncertain endeavour in the best of times. On all sides human rights workers are beset with difficulties and distress. The Arab states are tyrannies, their peoples subject to secret police, arbitrary arrest, torture, and oppression. Within their societies, the Arab world is equally fractured by ethnic and class tensions, poverty, and political stagnation. From the outside, from the West, the Middle-East faces both open and covert acts of intimidation, intervention, economic destabilization, and even war, invasion, and mass killings…”
source: counterpunch.org
“Britain may need to send more troops to Afghanistan despite the success of Operation Panther’s Claw, military chiefs admit.
The scale of the challenge was revealed yesterday as it emerged that British soldiers have faced nearly 1,000 roadside bombs in the past three months. Although 3,000 troops managed to drive out about 500 Taleban during the five-week offensive, they will be fully deployed holding an area in Helmand province about the size of the Isle of Wight, their commanding officer admitted.
Brigadier Tim Radford, commander of Task Force Helmand, said that the existing troops could not be expected to mount further significant operations without reinforcements. Gordon Brown hailed the offensive as an ‘heroic’ military success, saying it had made Britain safer and ‘pushed back the Taleban’. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, however, called for renewed efforts to engage the Taleban politically…”
source timesonline.co.uk