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takyon writes:

Following a September 3-4 meeting in Manchester, England, the Hinxton Group, "a global network of stem cell researchers, bioethicists, and experts on policy and scientific publishing" has published a statement backing the genetic modification of human embryos, with caveats:

It is "essential" that the genetic modification of human embryos is allowed, says a group of scientists, ethicists and policy experts. A Hinxton Group report says editing the genetic code of early stage embryos is of "tremendous value" to research. It adds although GM babies should not be allowed to be born at the moment, it may be "morally acceptable" under some circumstances in the future. The US refuses to fund research involving the gene editing of embryos. The global Hinxton Group met in response to the phenomenal advances taking place in the field of genetics.

From the statement:

Genome editing has tremendous value as a tool to address fundamental questions of human and non-human animal biology and their similarities and differences. There are at least four categories of basic research involving genome editing technology that can be distinguished: 1) research to understand and improve the technique of genome editing itself; 2) genome editing used as a tool to address fundamental questions of human and non-human animal biology; 3) research to generate preliminary data for the development of human somatic applications; and 4) research to inform the plausibility of developing safe human reproductive applications. These distinctions are important to make clear that, even if one opposes human genome editing for clinical reproductive purposes, there is important research to be done that does not serve that end. That said, we appreciate that there are even categories of basic research involving this technology that some may find morally troubling. Nevertheless, it is our conviction that concerns about human genome editing for clinical reproductive purposes should not halt or hamper application to scientifically defensible basic research.

BBC has this beginner's guide to the designer baby debate.

Related:

The Rapid Rise of CRISPR
NIH Won't Fund Human Germline Modification
Chinese Scientists Have Genetically Modified Human Embryos
UK Approves Three-Person IVF Babies

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HughPickens.com writes:

For fans of Stanley Kubrick's classic paranormal thriller, "The Shining," Julie Turkewitz has an interesting article in the NY Times about how operators of the Stanley Hotel, Stephen King's inspiration for the Overlook Hotel, have used "The Shining" and its paranormal plot as pure marketing gold. The resort retains an in-house psychic, offers ghost tours to tens of thousands of visitors a year, and hosts a film festival at which townspeople dress up as zombies and eat "brains." Kubrick was asked not to depict room #217 (featured in the book) in The Shining, because future guests at the Lodge might be afraid to stay there. So a nonexistent room, #237, was substituted in the film. Curiously and somewhat ironically, room #217 is requested more often than any other room at Timberline.

But generations of real-life visitors to the Stanley have been let down to find that the fictional labyrinth is just that. "People kept on looking for the maze," says John W. Cullen, owner of the property. The hotel held a contest seeking designs for a maze to be built on one of its lawns and judges selected Mairim Dallaryan Standing of New York as the winner. The contest earned 329 entries from 40 different states as well as countries from all over the world, including Brazil, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Ukraine and Australia. The only trouble is that Cullen chose to form the maze from juniper trees, making the Stanley's maze far less imposing than the 13-foot labyrinth in the Kubrick film. "However these will grow up with us and in about five years, they will be 5 to 6 feet in height, and we will be sending search parties out for little ones," says Cullen. While there is no hedge maze in King's original novel, it's an important symbol in Kubrick's film, says Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz, chair of the film studies program at the University of Colorado Boulder. "It's a much more eloquent way to represent Jack's mind and his insanity," the professor says.

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Phoenix666 writes:

McDonald's is giving itself an entire decade for its egg suppliers to comply with the cage-free directive, but Shapiro said he thinks the changeover will be much swifter. Herbruck, a major egg supplier to McDonald's, Shapiro said, is located in Michigan, where a law is already on the books forcing egg producers to go cage free by 2019.

Egg producers will likely switch to what is known as cage-free aviary systems, which are multi-tiered cages that give hens more freedom to engage in natural behaviors. It's not as if these aviary systems are like the great outdoors - hens are still closely crowded in big indoor barns, but they do have the freedom to move around up and down through the different levels of the aviary.

Shapiro said the Humane Society of the United States has been working with McDonald's to get them to go cage free, and that the organization had two other 'wish list' goals: the first was for Mickey D's to discontinue the use of gestation cages for pigs, which the fast food behemoth already pledged to do.

Corporations can make such decisions for cynical reasons, but it is possible for good to result anyway. Walmart's pledge to sell 100 million CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light) bulbs is cited for its role in putting an end to inefficient incandescent light bulbs.

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fliptop writes:

Using a combination of Teflon® and ceramic, electrical engineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a drone cloaking device:

The Teflon has a low refractive index, while the ceramic's refractive index is higher, which allows light to be dispersed through the sheet without any absorption. Compared to an invisibility cloak, this technology has not only the ability to conceal, but the ability to increase optical communication signal speed and to collect solar energy.

DOD says that the goal of this design is to create devices that make any object appear invisible by scattering the electromagnetic waves, such as light and radar, off the object, making it less detectable to these wave frequencies. Metamaterial that surrounds the target is able to force light to bypass a region of space, which effectively "cloaks" the object, making it isolated from incoming electromagnetic waves.

Related:
New "Corner Cloak" Directs Light Around Sharp Bends
Scientists Design New Invisibility Cloak for US Military

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Phoenix666 writes:

In 1813, the Russian-American Company frigate Neva wrecked near Kruzof Island, Alaska. The survivors managed to live for nearly a month — in winter — despite struggling to shore with almost nothing.

Now, archaeologists are uncovering the story of how these sailors lived until rescuers arrived. The researchers found that the sailors started fires with gunflints and steel scraps and cannibalized the ship's wreckage to build the tools they used to survive.

[...] The researchers found hearths surrounded by artifacts: copper, musket balls and a Russian axe. The researchers realized that, in many cases, they were looking at washed-up wreckage that the sailors desperately modified to make something useful. For example, musket balls had been whittled down to fit smaller weapons than the ones they were made for. A fishhook was fashioned out of copper scraps.

"Collectively, the artifacts reflect improvisation in a survival situation," McMahan said.

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An anonymous submitter writes in with a story from the BBC on a climate-affecting decision in California:

California's climate change policy was initially instigated by ex-Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger. Governor Jerry Brown and other senior lawmakers had included the proposal in a climate change bill, but were forced to retreat amid growing opposition.

State senate leader Kevin de Leon, who supported the cut, accused oil firms of deploying "scare tactics". The leaders have vowed to push ahead with other reforms, including boosting renewable electricity use. The plans to require a 50% reduction in petroleum use in motor vehicles by 2030 were met with fierce opposition from business groups and oil companies, who warned of negative consequences for California's economy. California is the second-biggest producer of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels among US states.

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Phoenix666 writes:

In the course of billions of years continents break up, drift apart, and are pushed back together again. The cores of continents are, however, geologically extremely stable and have survived up to 3.8 billions of years. These cores that are called cratons are the oldest known geological features of our planet. It was assumed that the cratons are stable because of their especially solid structure due to relatively low temperatures compared to the surrounding mantle.

A team of German-American scientists now discovered that these cratons that were assumed to be "as solid as a rock" are not that solid after all. The team leading[sic] by Dr. Mikhail Kaban from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences now discovered that the craton below the North American continent is extremely deformed: its root is shifted relative to the center of the craton by 850 kilometers towards the west-southwest.

The Canadian Shield is a visible section of the North American craton. That region is rich in mineral ores, particularly nickel, gold, silver, and copper. The portion in the Northwest Territories is the sixth largest source of diamonds in the world.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Police investigating a mass intoxication of a homeopathy conference in Germany with psychedelic drugs have said they still do not know nearly a week later whether it was an accident or an experiment gone wrong.

Emergency services called to the meeting in Handeloh, south of Hamburg, last Friday afternoon found a group of 29 alternative healers hallucinating, staggering around, groaning and rolling on the grass.

[...] Nicklesen added that police suspect the group took 2C-E, known in Germany as Aquarust, a drug which heightens perceptions of colours and sounds and in higher doses triggers hallucinations, psychosis and severe cramps.

[...] The homeopaths' meeting - billed as a "further education seminar" - was suspended shortly after it started when delegates began experiencing psychotic hallucinations, cramps, racing heartbeats and shortage of breath. One of them alerted the emergency services.

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"gewg_" writes:

The Deccan Herald reports

Leveraging the power of the Internet and its own open source digital platform, Pratham Books has launched the StoryWeaver, featuring the stories. The launch coincides with International Literacy Day.

StoryWeaver, which also features over 2,000 openly licensed images and illustrations, goes beyond story-reading. The idea is to encourage collaboration between content creators and users of children's content. The stories can be read, downloaded, translated, versioned, or printed using the tools embedded [in] the platform.

New stories [can] be created and published. All the content on StoryWeaver is available under Creative Commons [licenses] to encourage collaboration and reuse. The platform can be accessed on any digital device, including mobile phones. The stories are available in 14 Indian and 12 international languages.

Authors, translators, illustrators and educators will be part of this unique collaborative platform. Here's the Pratham Books rationale: "We believe that by bringing together all the stakeholders and openly licensing our content, we are creating a participatory culture that will catalyse the creation of more content. We hope that this will create a multiplier effect to address the scarcity of multilingual reading resources that exists in India."

Pratham Books chairperson Suzanne Singh elaborated that anyone could download the books by attributing only the original source to 'Pratham Books'. "People can print them and distribute them. We are hoping that they do. Since 2008, our open licensing source method has had a tremendous multiplier effect with people even creating YouTube videos and Braille books. Now, with the launch of our digital platform, it becomes even easier."

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Scientists Claim Discovery of New Species of Human Ancestor, Homo naledi

takyon writes:

A new species of ancient human relative has been found in South Africa, according to a National Geographic-funded team. However, others believe that the new specimens belong to Homo erectus and dispute claims of intentional burial of the dead:

The excavators recovered more than 1,500 pieces of bone belonging to at least 15 individuals. The remains appear to be infants, juveniles and one very old adult. Thousands more pieces of bone are still in the chamber, smothered in the soft dirt that covers the ground.

The leaders of the National Geographic-funded project believe the bones - as yet undated - represent a new species of ancient human relative. They have named the creature Homo naledi, where naledi means "star" in Sesotho, one of the official languages of South Africa, and the primary official language of Lesotho. But other experts on human origins say the claim is unjustified, at least on the evidence gathered so far. The bones, they argue, look strikingly similar to those of early Homo erectus, a forerunner of modern humans who wandered southern Africa 1.5m years ago.

[...] Measurements of the bones show that the creature has a curious blend of ancient ape and modern human-like features. Its brain is tiny, the size of a gorilla's. Its teeth are small and simple. The thorax is primitive and ape-like, but its hands more modern, their shape well-suited to making basic tools. The feet and ankles are built for walking upright, but its fingers are curved, a feature seen in apes that spend much of their time in the trees. The findings are reported in two papers published in the online journal eLife.

[...] The Dinaledi chamber is extremely hard to access today, raising the question of how the creatures came to be there. They may have clambered in and become stuck, or died when water filled the cave. But Berger and his colleagues favour a more radical explanation. "We have, after eliminating all of the probable [scenarios], come to the conclusion that Homo naledi was utilising this chamber in a ritualised fashion to deliberately dispose of its dead," Berger said. The conclusion is not widely accepted by others. "Intentional disposal of rotting corpses by fellow pinheads makes a nice headline, but seems like a stretch to me," said Jungers. Zollikofer agrees. "The 'new species' and 'dump-the-dead' claims are clearly for the media. None of them is substantiated by the data presented in the publications," he said.

Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa

Geological and taphonomic context for the new hominin species Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa

NOVA and National Geographic special, "Dawn of Humanity" [1:53:07], premieres online Sept. 10th, airs Sept. 16th.

New Human-like Species Discovered in S Africa; May Have Practiced Ritual Burial

Phoenix666 writes:

Homo naledi is a previously-unknown species of extinct hominin discovered within the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. This species is characterized by body mass and stature similar to small-bodied human populations but a small endocranial volume similar to australopiths. Cranial morphology of H. naledi is unique, but most similar to early Homo species including Homo erectus, Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis. While primitive, the dentition is generally small and simple in occlusal morphology. H. naledi has humanlike manipulatory adaptations of the hand and wrist. It also exhibits a humanlike foot and lower limb. These humanlike aspects are contrasted in the postcrania with a more primitive or australopith-like trunk, shoulder, pelvis and proximal femur. Representing at least 15 individuals with most skeletal elements repeated multiple times, this is the largest assemblage of a single species of hominins yet discovered in Africa.

A BBC article on the find reports:

Ms Elliott and her colleagues believe that they have found a burial chamber. The Homo naledi people appear to have carried individuals deep into the cave system and deposited them in the chamber - possibly over generations.

If that is correct, it suggests naledi was capable of ritual behaviour and possibly symbolic thought - something that until now had only been associated with much later humans within the last 200,000 years.

Prof Berger said: "We are going to have to contemplate some very deep things about what it is to be human. Have we been wrong all along about this kind of behaviour that we thought was unique to modern humans?

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The Mighty Buzzard writes:

In one of those brilliant, "why has nobody thought of this before" moments, the pocket protector crowd over at MIT have come up with a way to make the shared cache in processors significantly more efficient.

In a modern, multicore chip, every core—or processor—has its own small memory cache, where it stores frequently used data. But the chip also has a larger, shared cache, which all the cores can access.

If one core tries to update data in the shared cache, other cores working on the same data need to know. So the shared cache keeps a directory of which cores have copies of which data.

That directory takes up a significant chunk of memory: In a 64-core chip, it might be 12 percent of the shared cache. And that percentage will only increase with the core count. Envisioned chips with 128, 256, or even 1,000 cores will need a more efficient way of maintaining cache coherence.

At the International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques in October, MIT researchers unveil the first fundamentally new approach to cache coherence in more than three decades. Whereas with existing techniques, the directory's memory allotment increases in direct proportion to the number of cores, with the new approach, it increases according to the logarithm of the number of cores.

In a 128-core chip, that means that the new technique would require only one-third as much memory as its predecessor. With Intel set to release a 72-core high-performance chip in the near future, that's a more than hypothetical advantage. But with a 256-core chip, the space savings rises to 80 percent, and with a 1,000-core chip, 96 percent.

You can always tell genius when the solution is simple but takes ages for someone to figure out.

[Update: The full report (pdf) is available. -Ed.]

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Phoenix666 writes:

Lewis Yakich, an engineer who built houses in the States and now owns a hotel in the Philippines, has 3D printed a 1500 square foot suite for his hotel, with two bedrooms, a living room and a spa with a big 3D printed Jacuzzi tub.

"The assembly time for the first printer was 2 months, but this can be replicated now within a couple weeks as the assembly process has been worked out," Rudenko explains. "It took approximately 1 month to develop and test the right mix, using local materials. We have sand with volcanic ash here in the Philippines, which is difficult to extrude, but a reliable process was developed and we obtained great results with pretty strong walls and good bonding between layers."
...
We had to stop several times to install plumbing, wiring, and rebars," Rudenko tells us. "In the future this can all be done while printing, but for now we took it slow as we were developing a process and doing testing as we went along.

The article has several photos of the suite in process.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The BBC News' Magazine tells how accelerated melting of Alpine glaciers has given rise to glacial archaeology. Household items from 5000 years ago have been found, as has Oetzi, a corpse from 5300 years ago. The bodies of mountain climbers who died in the 1970s and 1980s have recently been recovered.

All sorts of things have been retrieved from Alpine snow and ice over the year, from the remains of a crashed World War Two American bomber, to a cache of emeralds, rubies and sapphires being carried on an Air India flight which came down on Mont Blanc in 1966.

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tt0106168 writes:

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been sifting through hundreds of supposedly private medical files, looking for Texas doctors and patients to prosecute without the use of warrants.

Instead, the agents are tricking doctors and nurses into thinking they're with the Texas Medical Board. When that doesn't work, they're sending doctors subpoenas demanding medical records without court approval.

The DEA can't even count how many times it has resorted to the practice nationwide. A spokesman estimated it was in the thousands.

But, as a legal brief filed last week points out, lawyers for the federal government can't find a single case in which a court has "authorized the use of such a broad array of patient information with such a sparse record as to why it needs such information."

Earlier this year, a federal judge in Texas did just that, setting up a showdown in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals over whether the DEA needs a reason to go rummaging through private medical records in search of pill mills and prescription drug abusers.

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Phoenix666 writes:

This summer, the Justice Department obtained a court order in a case involving guns and drugs and demanded that Apple turn over iMessages sent between suspects in the case. Apple's response was that it couldn't comply – the encryption prevented it from being able to read the messages, so turning the data over to law enforcement would be useless.

Now, some senior Justice Department and FBI officials are calling for Apple to be taken to court over the issue, reports The New York Times. Earlier this year, FBI director James Comey argued that tech companies who serve lots of message traffic, such as Apple, Google, and WhatsApp, should build in master keys to bypass end-to-end encryption.

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The Mighty Buzzard writes:

Having just this week seen a bunch of game devs discussing on twitter what it costs to make a AAA game nowadays and how it couldn't be done for under a hundred million dollars, this article tells me that the guys at CD Projekt Red really knew their business when building The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

CD Projekt Red has announced exactly how much money it spent to make the celebrated open-world role-playing game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Speaking during CD Projekt Red's latest financial briefing, the English translation of which was published today, CEO Adam Kicinski revealed the game's total budget--including development and marketing costs--as 306 million złoty or about $81 million USD.

By comparison, Star Wars: The Old Republic--a MMO--reportedly cost $200 million to develop. Meanwhile, Rockstar Games supposedly spent $265 million to develop and market Grand Theft Auto V. These figures, however, are unconfirmed, while The Witcher 3's budget number comes directly from the source.

Now if they'd just get the Linux port out the door, I could get down to playing it instead of reading articles about it while impatiently waiting.

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