General Science Thread

Single Payer Healthcare is a thing, there's no reason to believe that Single Payer Augmentation can't also exist.

No technical reason, perhaps, but affordable healthcare plans tend to scrimp on nonessential procedures.

Yeah, I can see things like fixing possible cancer or growth defects maybe being covered under insurance, but then we get into Gattaca territory of paying to make sure your baby is harder, better, faster, and stronger.

So apparently it's possible to encode malware into physical strands of DNA.

Well that's...horrifying.

... Well now, the Legion organic computer virus from RoboCop: Prime Directives (specifically the fact that it was somehow "incubated" within the Mad Scientist's daughter for years) just became both more plausible and far more horrific.

Edited by MarqFJA on Feb 2nd 2019 at 10:11:05 PM

"In new research they plan to present at the USENIX Security conference on Thursday, a group of researchers from the University of Washington has shown for the first time that it’s possible to encode malicious software into physical strands of DNA, so that when a gene sequencer analyzes it the resulting data becomes a program that corrupts gene-sequencing software and takes control of the underlying computer. While that attack is far from practical for any real spy or criminal, it's one the researchers argue could become more likely over time, as DNA sequencing becomes more commonplace, powerful, and performed by third-party services on sensitive computer systems."

It sounds like a flaw in the design of the average gene sequencer device.

Yeah that sound very....cyber/biopunk, is getting weirder isnt?.

Sorry, but to me this sounds like a normal computer security flaw.

Hmm, gene sequencers are computers, yes, but how common is it for a pattern analyzer to become infected by the pattern it is analyzing? It must draw a picture of some sort of the gene sequence, since that is what it does, but why would the gene sequence have access to the gene sequencer's operating system?

This is some sort of memory buffer problem, isnt it?

Maybe someone wanted to start the Gene AntiVirus business.

I for one welcome becoming one with a Machine. Having malware protection would be a nice addition to that.

So the Atlantic Ocean has a group of underwater mountains named after Lord of the Rings characters

Picture◊ for those without journal access.

Bumping, since after last year the names Florence and Michael on the hurricane names list have been sent to retirement home; their replacements are "Francine" and "Milton".

In the Atlantic and Pacific (both sides of the northern hemisphere) tropical cyclone basins, there is a list of tropical cyclone names that is re-run every six years. If a storm becomes overly destructive, it is yanked.

@DeMarquis: In my considered opinion, the only sort of "transhumanism"* that's remotely close to becoming a reality** is life extension, and the wealthy countries of the world also tend to be the ones with the sort of top heavy demographic pyramid that would benefit from broadly applied anti-aging interventions. It's far more likely that disparities will be between countries rather than within countries, which is no less unfair, but happens to be the case today with the huge number of preventable deaths that occur in many parts of the world as a consequence of inadequate access to modern healthcare.

* And I dislike this association; given that people die of age related ill-health and diseases rather than being chronologically old, "life extension" is ultimately just medicine for age related diseases that is curative rather than palliative.

** To the extent that clinical interventions directly targeting aspects of aging are actively being developed.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Apr 16th 2019 at 11:29:01 AM

The National Hurricane Service of the United States has officially stated that Hurricane Michael last year was a Category 5 hurricane when it made landfall in Florida, making it the fourth Atlantic hurricane to make landfall at that intensity on the continental United States in recorded history.

For those who wonder, the other three are the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Florida Keys, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992. If we add the non-continental US "San Felipe Segundo" in 1928 and Typhoon Yutu 2018 should also be considered.

[[self-edit: posted in better topic]]

Edited by speedyboris on May 6th 2019 at 8:48:48 AM

So, do people remember how last November a Chinese physician had genetically modified two babies to make them immune to HIV, sparking a controversy about whether this is ethically and medically proper?

Well, it seems like the particular change might also substantially shorten the life expectancy of the people that carry it.

I'd say I'd be surprised, except that I would be lying if I claimed that.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Jun 4th 2019 at 12:42:29 PM

I'll be honest I didn't think the chickens would be coming home to roost quite this fast.

I don't think that's all of the chickens, yet. Wait for the raptors...

Ain't no way messing pretty much blindly with CRISPR doesn't come with more specific, metabolically spiky surprises. <_<

Everybody involved with that "program" needs to be drummed out of the profession for crimes against humanity. And reckless child abuse.

No bets: epigenetic effects on any younger siblings born, because surprise-nasty feedback on mothers.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Jun 4th 2019 at 7:30:56 PM

Probably gets covered up, everyone gets a round of promotions and they'll be doing tests on people in Xinjiang.

In the end the CRISPR editing didn't even work. The suspected shortened life expectancy comes from studies done on people who already have the gene in question. Both babies did not have the targeted modified gene, they ended up with almost random defective modifications.

Not surprising, wasn't this the first time that such a thing had occurred?

First human trials with CRISPR? Yes, it was. Mice were the most complex organism they'd performed gene-editing on up til this point.