Liquid Biopsy; Stem Cell Walk; RNA Splicer; Butterfly Screens; Artificial Leaf; Transgendering Games; Banning Gas Cars in Norway; The Big Red Button; Space Station Tour; and Get Angry, Lose Work

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.

SecurAIty; Future Tech Dream'n; When Reality is Fantasy; Pepper Goes for a Sail; Bentley Been There; Egyptian Amulet Found at Temple Mount; Israel Makes U.S. So...GRRR!; Merkel and Abbas Joining Hands; Ecuador's Shaken and out of Cash; Partial for Turkey (Mosques); Ancient Lizards Sure Look Modern; Old Rocket Scuffle; Circuit Court Trans-Sends Virginia Out; and the Joys of Global Rule Making

Things are heating up between the US and Israel, Bentley talks about what it's going to do now that peasants will be driven around also, and a long, fascinating look at how a "mixed-reality" company intends to shape our future-reality.

AI

MIT develops system that can detect 85% of cyberattacks using artificial intelligence ibtimes.co.uk

Rather than requiring cybersecurity analysts to spend all day analysing huge amounts of data that may or may not be a sign that cybercriminals are attacking a network, AI2 is instead trained to pick out the 200 most abnormal events it has detected during that day.

The human expert looks at the events and picks out which events relate to a cyberattack, and as days pass by, the computer learns how to identify more and more of the events as attacks, accurately, by itself – meaning that, eventually, the cybersecurity analyst might only need to look at 30-40 flagged events per day.

North Carolina Support; Discriminating Behavior Not People; New Morality Pope; Rich and Famous Sinners; Wrestling with the Future; Turkey's State; Girl Infantry-Man; and Testing Global Banking

Society

Six Reasons North Carolina Got It Right townhall

On Monday Lt. Governor Dan Forest, who helped call the special session to pass HB2, called the executive in charge at one large protesting company and simply asked if him if he or anyone there had a actually read the bill.

He admitted they had not. They just labeled it “discriminatory” without even reading it.

An article linked to by today's Tim Challies update. Been tricky to find anyone not bashing North Carolina over this law.

3 Reasons Why Religious Liberty Laws Don’t Discriminate thegospelcoalition.org

One of the most ubiquitous phrases is that such bills are a “license to discriminate.” According to this line of thinking, it is invidiously discriminatory if a baker, florist, or photographer declines to use his or her creative talents in service of a same-sex wedding ceremony.

Two from Tim Challies in one day!

The New Morality of Pope Francis newyorker

I was ordained in early 1969, a few months after the promulgation of “Humanae Vitae,” the Vatican’s resounding condemnation of “artificial birth control,” which would define my future. I was a chaplain at a university where, true to the era, the norms of sexual morality had been upended. I certainly saw the need, in those wild days, for a humane and ethical analysis of the state of sexual intimacy, personal commitment, erotic longing, and gender rights. But, believe me, the triumphalist salvo from Rome made the moral condition worse, not better.

An opinion piece on how relative moralism was enshrined in Catholism long before Pope Francis. This article's author sees that as a good thing, and is praising the latest pope for pulling back further from absolutes. I found it worth reading, seeing the insights of one who is lost and deep within an idolatrous system where the issue at stake is not whether or not any decisions conform to God's word, but the words of the popes. Interesting read: sad because of the utter blindness of this man and enraging because of the utter joy taken in promoting a system wickedly at odds with God and calling it good. (Rom 1:32)

Depravity

The Troubled Minds of the Rich and Famous news.nationalgeographic

Talking from her home in Alexandria, Virginia, Kalb takes us inside the brain of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, explains how Howard Hughes had a grilled cheese sandwich problem, and why Charles Darwin is her hero.

Sin has affected how we think and relate and understand (known as the Noetic Effect of sin). This means that people really do end up a mess even by man's noeticly-effected-standard, but when we look for an answer in psychology, as the author of this book is doing, we are missing that we, ourselves, are corrupted and looking for the out for our own responsibility! This look at those in history shows us that being well-known doesn't change our nature. Not even one bit.

Singularitry

The funny things happening on the way to singularity techcrunch

About 10 years ago, inventor, futurist and now Director of Engineering at Google Ray Kurzweil famously embraced the concept of “the singularity” — that moment in time when machine intelligence surpasses our own. Kurzweil predicted the singularity would occur by 2045, and man and machine would become inseparable.

Given the relationship most people have with their smartphones, you could argue it’s already happening.

Though deeply entrenched in a humanistic worldview, an engaging read.

Turkey

One day after Israel issues travel warning to Turkey, US follows suit jpost

"The US Mission in Turkey would like to inform US citizens that there are credible threats to tourist areas, in particular to public squares and docks in Istanbul and Antalya," the statements reads.

Military

Louisiana woman makes U.S. Army history ksla

A Robeline native is making armed forces history as the first woman to enlist in the infantry in the United States Army.

Banking

4 top banks used blockchain tech to trade credit swaps qz

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) successfully traded credit default swaps on the blockchain, according to an announcement today.

Keeping AI in Balance; New Rembrandt; Executives Against Morality; Indiana Sued for Abortion Law; Nature of Men and Boys; DNA Data Storage; Artificial Seizures; Automated Submarine; Robotic Artist; Pope Holds Unity-Hand out to Methodists; and Is it a Bird or a Plane of FBI Spies?

AI

When Is the Singularity? Probably Not in Your Lifetime nytimes

In March when Alphago, the Go-playing software program designed by Google’s DeepMind subsidiary defeated Lee Se-dol, the human Go champion, some in Silicon Valley proclaimed the event as a precursor of the imminent arrival of genuine thinking machines.

What has not been shown, however, is scientific evidence for such an event. Indeed, the idea has been treated more skeptically by neuroscientists and a vast majority of artificial intelligence researchers.

The Next Rembrandt nextrembrandt

Short film of a computer painting a new "Rembrandt" based on his original works

Society

U.S. Executives Urge Repeal of Mississippi Law fortune

Executives of several major U.S. corporations urged Mississippi on Wednesday to repeal a new state law that allows businesses to deny wedding services to same-sex couples on religious grounds.

Still, nearly two-thirds of Mississippi voters supported the law, according to a poll highlighted on Tuesday by the Christian-based Family Research Council.

Lawsuit against state of Indiana calls abortion law 'unconstitutional' theguardian

The state of Indiana is being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, over an abortion law recently signed by Governor Mike Pence.

One thing that bothers them about this law is that they would need to treat unborn babies as dead humans, and not discarded medical waste:

The law also requires fetuses to be buried or cremated, which the lawsuit called a costly requirement that does not exist for the disposal of medical waste for other types of operations.

Nature of Man

Can children be natural born killers? bbc

It seems to rip the notion of childhood - a supposed age of innocence - to shreds. We are accustomed to regarding children as in transformation - young people who will eventually shape into a good, bad or indifferent citizen. We do not generally consider them capable of adult crimes such as premeditated murder.

When proved wrong, shockwaves ripple through the fabric of society.

Paul reminds us that God has said all of us are sinners (Romans 3:23) and that by nature we are in rebellion of God and children of wrath (Eph 2:3). It is true that our sins tend to blossom and get more severe as we get older, but there is no such thing as the morally innocent child. From birth we are capable of murder (evil by nature), and it's only God's restraining grace that keeps most from fully realizing their potential even as adults. This article reminds us that what seems unexpected (children who murder) is only because we misunderstand just how wicked we are.

DNA Tech

UW team stores digital images in DNA — and retrieves them perfectly washington.edu

The team of computer scientists and electrical engineers has detailed one of the first complete systems to encode, store and retrieve digital data using DNA molecules, which can store information millions of times more compactly than current archival technologies.

Brain Tech

IBM Wants to Implant Fake Brains in Real Brains to Prevent Seizures wired

In Melbourne, Australia, Stefan Harrer is running an artificial software brain atop an artificial hardware brain in an effort to analyze a brain that isn’t artificial at all. Ultimately, he and his colleagues envision merging these three brains together so that the artificial can augment the real.

Military Tech

Submarine-hunting drone ship Sea Hunter unveiled by the US watoday.au

The 40-metre-long unarmed prototype, dubbed Sea Hunter, is the naval equivalent of Google's self-driving car, designed to cruise on the ocean's surface for two or three months at a time - without a crew or anyone controlling it remotely.

Industrial Tech

Scientists invent robotic 'artist' that spray paints giant murals phys.org

The researchers wanted to create a way to help non-artists create accurate reproductions of photographs as large-scale murals using spray painting. So, they developed a computer-aided system that uses an ordinary paint spray can, tracks the can's position relative to the wall or canvas and recognizes what image it "wants" to paint. As the person waves the pre-programmed spray can around the canvas, the system automatically operates the spray on/off button to reproduce the specific image as a spray painting.

Apostasy

Pope speaks to Methodists, calls for unity christiantoday

Dialogue between Methodists and the Catholics isn't the only ecumenical discussion happening at the moment. The Pope has held discussions with Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican and Pentecostal leaders. However, there is no immediate prospect of formal unity between them as theologians grapple with the doctrinal differences between the Churches.

Government

Spies in the Skies buzzfeed

Each weekday, dozens of U.S. government aircraft take to the skies and slowly circle over American cities. Piloted by agents of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the planes are fitted with high-resolution video cameras, often working with “augmented reality” software that can superimpose onto the video images everything from street and business names to the owners of individual homes....Most of the aircraft are small, flying a mile or so above ground, and many use exhaust mufflers to mute their engines — making them hard to detect by the people they’re spying on.

Other...

See what a tattoo will look like on your skin before you get inked techspot

InkHunter uses augmented reality to overlay a tattoo onto a body’s surface area. You can select from a series of designs by different artists that are included in the app, or you can upload your own sketches to see how they’ll look on your skin.