Genetics
Chinese researchers announce designer baby breakthrough foxnews
Chinese researchers used a genome editing technique called CRISPR to rid normal embryos of hereditary diseases that cause blood disorders and other ailments, according to New Scientist. Experts who reviewed the project told the publication that, even though it involved just six embryos, it carries promise.
Society
Washington’s Supreme Court Imposes Its Progressive Faith on a Christian Florist nationalreview
If you care about the Bill of Rights, the rights of conscience, or even the English language, there’s a chance that this morning you felt a disturbance in the Force — as if the Founders cried out in rage and were suddenly silenced. That disturbance was the Washington Supreme Court’s oppressive ruling in State of Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers, a case holding that a florist was bound by state law to use her artistic talents to design floral arrangements to celebrate what she viewed as an immoral event: a gay wedding.
North Korea
North Korea Close to Having Nuclear-Armed ICBM: Official defensetech.org
North Korea now has an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, armed with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, but they have yet to solve the “re-entry problem” that would burn up the warhead as it hits the atmosphere, a senior military official said Thursday.
False Unity
Amazon Christmas advert 2016: Imam and priest push festive message of friendship independent.co.uk v
A spokesman for Amazon told The Independent: "Our casting reflects this: the gentleman playing the vicar is a practising vicar in London, the gentleman playing the imam is a devout Muslim and the principal of a Muslim school. We used an actual church and mosque for our scenes within the places of worship."
Oh, Amazon...
CRISPR
Chinese scientists use gene-editing techniques in humans for first time cnn
On October 28, genetically modified cells were injected into a patient at the West China Hospital in Chengdu with aggressive lung cancer, according to the scientific journal Nature.
Liao Zhilin, who handles communications for the team, told CNN "everything is going as planned," but would not go into details.
Society
Meet CoverGirl’s first-ever CoverBoy, James Charles usatoday v
CoverGirl ambassador Katy Perry took to Instagram to break the news that the beauty behemoth had signed the 17-year-old New York-based makeup artist. "Just wrapped another great CoverGirl shoot. Honored to have the pleasure to announce the very first CoverBoy, James Charles!" the pop artist captioned a photo of herself posing alongside Charles in all his contoured glory.
EU
Europe forges ahead with plans for 'EU army' telegraph.co.uk
Federica Mogherini, the EU's foreign policy chief, is preparing to forward a timetable setting out steps to create EU military structures “to act autonomously" from NATO.
Society
Barack Obama's transgender bathroom guidelines challenged by more than a dozen states independent.co.uk
The states will appear before a federal judge in Fort Worth on Friday to argue that the Obama administration’s directive presents “unlawful changes” in US law.
Also see 13 states to ask court to stop White House transgender bathroom policy washingtonexaminer
That lawsuit, filed in federal court in Nebraska, includes Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming.
China
China to shut churches in G20 host city on safety grounds – reports theguardian
In an effort to reduce congestion, local officials have declared a week-long public holiday to coincide with the G20 summit g20.org and are reportedly trying to convince thousands of residents to leave town. Now reports have emerged that authorities are also banning religious worship during the annual summit.
Peace
If occupation ends, so will terror worldwide, Abbas tells EU timesofisrael
“We are against terrorism, in whatever form it may take, and whoever carries it out,” Abbas told members of the European Parliament to a resounding applause. “Once the occupation ends, terrorism will disappear, there will be no more terrorism in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world,” he said.
See also EU to Back Mideast Peace With 'Unprecedented' Support
AI
IBM’s AI system Watson just edited an entire magazine all on its own digitaltrends
According to a press release published via The Drum, the magazine edited by Watson consists of a variety of features that cover Watson’s different analytical functions, as well as how it can assist modern-day marketers. Moreover, The Drum reports that Watson has also been programmed to have the ability to answer a series of questions pertaining to “advertising legend” David Olgivy. and has even predicted a list of winners for this year’s Cannes Lions awards.
Fraud
The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife theatlantic v
The American Association of Museums’ Guide to Provenance Research warns that an investigation of an object’s origins “is not unlike detective work”: “One may spend hours, days, or weeks following a trail that leads nowhere.” When I started to dig, however, I uncovered more than I’d ever expected—a warren of secrets and lies that spanned from the industrial districts of Berlin to the swingers scene of southwest Florida, and from the halls of Harvard and the Vatican to the headquarters of the East German Stasi.
This is a fascinating long-form article by a reporter who set out to find the origins of a (supposed) 1,300 yr-old papyrus about Jesus' wife, and the ensuing series of lies, historical invention, and deceit of the man behind it. It's a long read, but worth it - particularly for those who've heard the Biblically unsupported "Jesus had a wife" argument. Warning: some aspects of the primary figure's personal life uncovered during the investigation are sexually graphic in nature (the article doesn't dwell TOO MUCH on them).
Medical
A Blood Test for Cancer Gets Closer time
...new advances in genetic sequencing is leading to more hope for a liquid biopsy for cancer, a way to track cancer through the blood. In a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, researchers from Guardant report encouraging results from a study involving 15,000 patients who were tested with the company’s test that looks at 70 different tumor genes. The technology picks up tiny fragments of DNA shed by tumors into the blood, and sequences the DNA to provide a picture of which mutations are present in the tumor. That helps doctors decide which treatments are most effective against that person’s cancer, since many of the newer anti-cancer drugs specifically target certain mutant processes common in cancer.
AI
Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence whitehouse.gov
...the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is excited to announce that we will be co-hosting four public workshops over the coming months on topics in AI to spur public dialogue on artificial intelligence and machine learning and identify challenges and opportunities related to this emerging technology.
Fuel
There will be pandemonium: The end of the old oil order has already begun (Opinion) salon
It is hard to overstate the significance of the Doha debacle. At the very least, it will perpetuate the low oil prices that have plagued the industry for the past two years, forcing smaller firms into bankruptcy and erasing hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in new production capacity. It may also have obliterated any future prospects for cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC producers in regulating the market. Most of all, however, it demonstrated that the petroleum-fueled world we’ve known these last decades — with oil demand always thrusting ahead of supply, ensuring steady profits for all major producers — is no more. Replacing it is an anemic, possibly even declining, demand for oil that is likely to force suppliers to fight one another for ever-diminishing market shares.
Genetics
Breakthrough method means CRISPR just got a lot more relevant to human health theverge
The new method, described today in Nature, is called the "base-editing technique." It relies on the same basic mechanism as the standard CRISPR method, but unlike its predecessor, it doesn’t need to cut both strands of the DNA double-helix to alter the genetic code. Instead, the technique can directly convert a single letter of DNA to another, without deleting and inserting a bunch of random letters in the process. Because of this, the researchers were able to genetically alter human cells and mouse cells to reverse single-letter mutations that are associated with late-onset Alzheimer’s and breast cancer.
Another, somewhat related article: New Genetically Modified CRISPR-Mushroom Bypasses USDA Regulations
Drones
UK Royal Navy uses pilotless aircraft to navigate through ice vesselfinder v
The UK Royal Navy’s ice patrol ship HMS Protector has launched tiny pilotless aircraft from her decks for the first time to assist with navigating through the Antarctic. A quadcopter and a 3D-printed aircraft have scouted the way for the survey ship so she can find her way through the thick ice of frozen seas.
Medical
Cure for HIV possible within three years as scientists snip virus from cells telegraph.co.uk
Although the experiments have so far only been carried out in a lab, researchers at Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, are confident that within three years they will be able to start trials on humans.
Promising lab-grown skin sprouts hair and grows glands bbc
This would be vastly superior to the culturing and grafting techniques that are currently available, which produce skin without many of the the biological components and functionality that we are used to.
Suicide
Californians Can Choose to Die – With the Help of Taxpayers usnews
“When you’re willing to legalize the intentional killing of patients in order to save Medi-Cal money, there’s something a little bit utilitarian about that,” he says. “We have a law that isn’t really designed for those we care for, but for those we don’t wish to care for anymore, that’s why Medi-Cal is paying for this.”
Subjected to Futility
New Invasive Tumble Weed Rapidly Expanding Across U.S. natureworldreport
The plant in question is actually a hybridization of two invasive species of tumbleweeds, creating a sort of “super” tumbleweed. Called “Salsola ryanii”, the species was first discovered in 2002 in two separate areas of California’s central valley. The species has since spread throughout much of the central valley and has even been found in San Francisco, in the coastal areas, and also in the Ventura area in the south.
Israel
UN censors exhibit on Israel at NY headquarters, Israeli diplomat says jta.org
Three of the 13 panels in the exhibition “Israel Matters,” had to be deleted, the U.N. reportedly decided over the weekend. The censored panels deemed “inappropriate” are on the subjects of Zionism, Jerusalem and Arab-Israelis.
See also UN censors Israeli exhibition featuring Zionism and Jerusalem
AI
This infographic shows which jobs are most likely to become extinct due to robots businessinsider
While many of those robots will be used in the automotive and electronics sectors, there are many other roles that robots will be filling in the future. Surprisingly, according to global consultant McKinsey & Co, not all of these jobs are low-skill, low-wage jobs, either.
Can we trust robots to make moral decisions? qz
“The issues of morality in general are very vague,” says Ronald Arkin, professor and director of the mobile robot laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology. “We still argue as human beings about the correct moral framework we should use, whether it’s a consequentialist utilitarian means-justify-the-ends approach, or a Kantian deontological rights-based approach.”
There are clearly some difficult moral choices, so my intention is not to marginalize those. However, not only does this article show mankind trying to inject a form of morality into its creation, but that by and large society has rejected the absolute morality of our Creator, and as a result only has a nebulous, arbituary, relative understanding of morality to start with.
Drones
Flying Nightmare: Drone Gets Armed With Chainsaw sputniknews
Basically a video "article"
Space
NASA's Bolden: Mars mission is 'closer than ever' cnbc
We think we're on the right trajectory to get humans to Mars in the 2030's," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told CNBC's "On the Money" in an interview this week.
Includes interview video
Abortion
Poles protest possibility of total ban on abortion philly
Thousands of Poles took part in street demonstrations on Sunday to protest a possible tightening of the country's abortion law, already one of the most restrictive in Europe.
Minimum Wage
California, New York enact $15 minimum wages foxnews
In Los Angeles, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that will lift the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022.
Together with New York, it marks the most ambitious moves yet to close the national divide between rich and poor. Experts say other states may follow, given Congress' reluctance to act despite entreaties from President Barack Obama.
Santanism
Satanic book provided in Colorado schools coloradoan
Atheists provided pamphlets on topics like sex in the Bible, problems with the Ten Commandments and a Satanic activity book to middle and high school students in a rural Colorado district Friday, the result of a fight between Delta County schools and critics over whether it should continue to let everyone from Little League organizers to the Gideons distribute literature in schools.
Other...
World’s Longest Bridge is 102.4 Miles Long industrytap
