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POPSNew quantum algorithm helpes solving big problems. “Large-scale linear systems of equations exist in many fields, such as weather prediction, engineering, and computer vision”, says Harrow. “Quantum computers could supply serious improvements for these and many other problems. For example, a trillion-variable problem would take a classical computer at least a hundred trillion steps to solve, but using the new algorithm, a quantum computer could solve the problem in just a few hundred steps”. The solution could also be applied to other complex processes such as image and video processing, genetic analyses and even Internet traffic control. Sounds pretty good to me!
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POPSBioHacking: The Plot for the Next Real-life Blockbuster Thriller? Solitary citizens are toiling over test-tubes, sacrificing their time and money to create brand new lifeforms - but this isn't a science fiction movie, it's a hobby. "DIY Biochemistry" sees private citizens converting their dining rooms into DNA labs. It's only a pity that Michael Crichton has passed on, because we've got the plot of his next book right here.
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POPSScientists Create New Life Form to Clean Up Water "We're kind of making a new machine," said Dan Tarjan, a senior majoring in biology at University of Virginia. The live machine is to be entered in The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, which will be held Halloween weekend at MIT. The annual competition is built on the premise that life can be broken down into a warehouse of off-the-shelf, interchangeable parts and reassembled into creatures that have never existed. Over 100 teams will use synthetic biology (similar to genetic engineering) to show that DNA building blocks (BioBricks) don’t have to come from nature and can be designed and built from standardized parts that behave predictably. The hope is that these tiny factories will produce clean biofuels, powerful new medicines and environmental pollution sponges. Good luck to all contestants.
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POPSFood Be aware of what you are eating. Read more information revealed about the harmful fast food and junk food products.
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POPSGenome engineering goes high speed "In a paper published Sunday in Nature, Church and Wang describe how they turned E. coli bacteria into factories for lycopene, an antioxidant that might have anti-cancer properties. In just three days, they ended up with billions of cells containing various combinations of 24 lycopene-linked genes. Some cells produced five times more lycopene than usual. According to Church, the process would normally take months, even years." Needless to say how good it is. Just great, great news!
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POPSMonsanto to Charge as Much as 42% More for New Seeds "Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase US crop yields." Still Monsanto is going to claim yet a bigger piece of the non-existent pie. What greedy bastards. GM Fails To Boost Crop Yields
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POPSLifting the Lid on America's Biowarfare Research Reporting guidelines are so lax that dangerous pathogens such as hantavirus, SARS and dengue fever "are not on the select agent list" nor are there requirements "that the theft, loss or release of these agents ... be reported to Federal officials." More recently, Global Security Newswire reported in June that an inventory at USAMRIID at Fort Detrick, Md., "found nearly 10,000 more vials of potentially lethal pathogens than were known to be stored at the site." The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine was so-alarmed by the prospect that in 2003 they commented, "the possibility for genetic engineering and aerosol transmission suggests an enormous potential for bioterrorism." Unsaid, of course, was the gravest threat posed by such dark research may be state terrorism. Any one of these pathogens should they escape or made to "disappear," could be transformed into a doomsday weapon.
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POPSCorporate Agi-Science a Planet Killer? The drive to get the world's farmers to be dependent forever on companies for seeds of people's basic cereal foods could open up world to first global crop failure! Do you want to risk that? Read up some on subject yourself and then you will join others with an OMG something has to be done - then do it!
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POPSprOnnovation? Pornography and Technological Innovation. I'll probably be getting this book soon, it looks interesting and relevant.
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POPSMaking fat disappear; or how to augment? "the study borrows strategies from synthetic biology, a field that has for the most part focused on engineering new functions into bacteria and other lower organisms. The study suggests that the same concepts could be applied to mammals: just as we create bacteria that produce biofuels, we could introduce new abilities into the bodies of humans and other animals." A new path in the road of augmenting the specification of a said specie.
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POPSNASA & Google Join Forces to Research Singularity -the "Intelligence Revolution" (VIDEO) Real AI effects are closer than you might think, with entirely automated systems producing new scientific results and even holding patents on minor inventions. The key factor in singularity scenarios is the positive-feedback loop of self-improvement: once something is even slightly smarter than humanity, it can start to improve itself or design new intelligences faster than we can leading to an intelligence explosion designed by something that isn't us. The Singularity University proposes to train people to deal with the accelerating evolution of technology, both in terms of understanding the directions and harnessing the potential of new interactions between branches of science like artificial intelligence, genetic engineering and nanotechnology.
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POPSGreenwash of the Week: Monsanto "Imagine"
Right now, there is probably no other company that is doing more to endanger the health of this planet, and it's inhabitants, than Monsanto. With Nazi-like attitude, they are leading the world in shear destructive evil greed. First they were a drug company, and then they expanded to become a drugs and genetic engineering company, and now Monsanto is attempting to acquire water rights in countries with water shortages in a move to control the people's basic means of survival, and production of the global food supply. Giant transnational corporations like Monsanto, in collusion with the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, seek to commodify and privatize the world's water and put it on the open market for sale to the highest bidder. Millions of the world's citizens are being deprived of this fundamental human right, and vast ecological damage is being wrought as massive industry claims water once used to sustain communities and replenish nature.
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POPSDo Not Take A Swine Flu Vaccine! [IE: Remember 1976] big problem during a pandemic is that these simple supplies will become extremely scarce awfully quickly. Stock up now. Medical supplies. personal hygene supplies and don't forget fido, or any other pet. Once a pandemic hits, it will be too late to stock up. Water, too. We may lose clean water and electric power, so be prepared.
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POPSIslands at Risk: Genetic Engineering in Hawaii Produced for Earthjustice, a non-profit public interest law firm, this half-hour program focuses on experiments with genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) in Hawai’i, a place that has been named the GMO testing capitol of the world because of the more than 2,000 secret experimental field tests carried out over the past decade. Farmers, legal and medical experts and community activists share their perspective on the genetic engineering of crops and the patenting of life forms. In addition, they warn against the possible health impacts of GMOs, including allergic and immune system responses from exposure to biopharmaceutical crops —both in humans and in Hawai’i’s endangered species — and contamination of regular food crops such as papaya, taro, coffee and corn with genetically modified versions of those crops.
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POPSType A Personalities Have the Edge in Baby-Making "That's because, as past studies have shown, the higher your intelligence, the less sex you tend to have — and, therefore, the fewer kids you will have. The last 20 years have been a golden era for dorks as video games and graphic novels and software engineering have become respectable, even mainstream. But in the end, the brutish football players who tormented them in high school will likely win in the merciless world of genetic favor."
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POPSA solemn walk through HR 875 The Pennsylvania Sustainable Agriculture Association, PASA, sent out information about HR 875 which lists 'facts' to counter 'myths' and 'rumors' on the internet. It gives no specifics to back up its 'facts,' so the following close up view of the bill and accompanying commentary offers readers a chance to decide for themselves what is myth and what is fact. Neither of us are lawyers, but are both farm activists. Sue Diederich heads the Illinois Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, an organization formed to protect the rights of farmers and consumers to deal directly with each other without government interference.
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