human/cow embryonic stem cells
Photo courtesy University of Wisconsin Board of Regents

Although some have concerns about the crossing of human and ape species, the possible creation of a hybrid Hanuman or other entities previously thought to belong only to myth :

"In April 2005, the National Academies -- chartered by Congress to advise the nation on matters of science -- released a report affirming that scientists should be allowed to create such entities if the experiments were approved by special review boards. The advisers came down against the creation of human-monkey or human-ape embryos, as well as experiments in which a human-like brain might develop in a non-human animal" wp.

The UK has just approved research for the crossing the boarders of human bovine species limits to harvest stem cells:

"The bill would allow scientists to continue injecting human DNA into cows' eggs that have had virtually all their genetic material removed, as well as other hybrid embryo processes for stem cell research. Scientists say the embryos would not be allowed to develop for more than 14 days. "wp

In England apparently there has been a long reasoned debate on the issue, one has to wonder however what is going on with embryo research in emerging nations where the market for experimentation may be seen in only the context of its exchange value. Whatever the case it appears our future bodies will in some way or other cohabit, or draw upon a physical (subtle physical) world shared with other species

What follows is a report from the Washington Post on recent events in England along with some further context of chimeras from the Center on Bioethics and Public Policy. rc...

Inter-species hybrids and chimera are entities created from the mixing of two or more different species. Hybrids are organisms whose genetic make up has been created by mixing the genes of two or more species; typically the gametes of two species are fused to create a single zygote. Chimera are organisms consisting of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells; for example two fertilised eggs or early embryos may be fused together and develop as a single organism....
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Scientists have long agreed that climate change could have a profound impact on the planet; from melting ice sheets and withering rainforests, to flash floods and droughts. Now a team of climate experts has ranked the most fragile and vulnerable regions on the planet, and warned they are in danger of sudden and catastrophic collapse before the end of the century. In a comprehensive study published on Tuesday, the scientists identify the nine areas that are in gravest danger of passing critical thresholds or “tipping points”, beyond which they will not recover...   more »

The story of development and use of the atom bomb in the Second World War marks the beginning of another age in many ways. Sinister it may look from a certain point of view, but arrive it had to. The consequences in its wake might well be called “unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful, stupendous, and terrifying”, something which no man-made phenomenon had ever brought to man. But this had to happen, and it happened operationally due to the combination of two vastly different features, features associated with the academic institutions and military establishments, two very much dissimilar institutions, yet working together under the exigencies of the War circumstances.

The social transformation that we witness today had its overt roots in these remarkable developments. Today we live in the American era with all its glorious possibilities—and all its degrading pitfalls. Yet its creative spirit is something that should be recognised and applauded, creative in every walk of life, even though one may see a thousand vitalisitc and arrogant shortcomings in it. The great cycles of time needed this adventure of globalising consciousness and it is that which was effectively born on the fast lane of the Second World War. Where will this track lead us? Nobody knows; the answer to this question is not known. This zestful creative spirit has certainly opened itself to the wonderful working of Mahasaraswati, to put it in Sri Aurobindo’s terminology, but where do the other three indispensable cosmic powers stand, the luminous powers of Maheshwari, Mahakali, and Mahalakshmi? Can we have a deeper intuition of their presence and functioning in the universal order of things? If an answer to this question is to be found, the Sage must be born amongst us. Will that happen?   more »

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their "immortality". The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks. ...   more »

I got to know the remarkable Helena Norberg-Hodge, the Founder of ISEC, back in the 70's, when she was setting up the Ladakh Project, for which she shared the 1986 Right Livelihood Award, otherwise known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize.' –- Her selfless, Buddhist commitment to protecting the indigenous peoples of the Tibetan high plateau from Western commercial development deeply impressed me. I'll always remember her inspiring photos of the unique and glowing faces of the Ladakh people who hadn't yet been exposed to Western culture. Knowing Helena, I can unreservedly attest to the quality and integrity of ISEC. ... ~ ron   more »

This informative list of annotated links compiled by Resurgence Magazine includes interesting initiatives in the areas of Activism, Agricultural Development, Ecology, Economics, Education & Community, the Internet, Political & Corporate, Publishing, and Scientific Principles. The few I’ve had a chance to check out so far look like they’re indeed doing important work; e.g., ISEC (the International society for Ecology & Culture), which I’ll post more info about in my next article. — Recommended.   more »

This looks like an interesting book. ~ ron

Once in a few billion years, the conditions are right for life to transcend itself into a higher level of existence. Having spent more than a billion years in the form of single walled bacteria-like (Prokaryotic) cells, a happy set of circumstances happened about 1.5 Billion years ago that gave rise to Eukaryotic cells with a well defined cell nucleus. Those were heady times, and the Eukaryotic cells then went on to create all multi-cellular creatures, including plants and animals including humans. The experience of what it meant to live life changed completely!...

The exciting times are back again! In this very century, mankind will invent the technologies that will give us capabilities we have thus far associated only with Divinity. What is lacking now is a level of wisdom, and unity of purpose amongst us humans. If we can develop this transcendental wisdom, and inculcate a joint sense of identity and purpose as humanity, ours is the opportunity to transform our collective existence into a vastly more powerful presence. ...   more »

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho: "Many people have asked what exactly is Dream Farm 2. There are several answers. First of all, Dream Farm 2 is a model of an integrated, ‘zero-emission’, ‘zero-waste’ highly productive farm that maximises the use of renewable energies and turns ‘wastes’ into food and energy resources, thereby completely obviating the need for fossil fuels. It is our answer to the energy crisis and climate change, and more. It is a microcosm of a different way of being and becoming in the world, and in that respect, nothing short of a social revolution.

In a way, I have dedicated the past 20 years to developing the idea, and trying to live up to it. -- The challenge now is to make Dream Farm 2 a reality, to put flesh on the bare bones of the diagram, so we can start building the best when the site is agreed. Watch this space. ..."   more »

...Resurgence publish[es] articles that are on the cutting edge of current thinking, promoting creativity, ecology, spirituality and frugality.

While the corporate world advocates "free trade" Resurgence questions trade without responsibility and money without morality. While our governments define the "national interest" and its politicians pursue power at all costs, Resurgence argues for politics with principles. While technology invades our lives in the name of speed and efficiency, Resurgence advocates science with a soul.

But Resurgence not only offers a critique of the old paradigm, it gives working models for an emerging new paradigm. Resurgence is packed full of positive ideas about the theory and practice of good living: permaculture, community supported agriculture, local economics, ecological building, sacred architecture, art in the environment, small schools and deep ecology. ...   more »

Quantum jazz is the music of the organism dancing life into being, from the top of her head to her toes and fingertips, every single cell, molecule and atom taking part in a remarkable ensemble that spins and sways to rhythms from pico (10-12) seconds to minutes, hours, a day, a month, a year and longer, emitting light and sound waves from atomic dimensions of nanometres up to metres, spanning a musical range of 70 octaves (for that is the range of living activities). And each and every player, the tinniest molecule not withstanding, is improvising spontaneously and freely, yet keeping in tune and in step with the whole.

There is no conductor, no choreographer, the organism is creating and recreating herself afresh with each passing moment. Quantum coherent action is effortless action, effortless creation, the Taoist ideal of art and poetry, of life itself...

It’s about the physics of organisms in place of the physics of dead matter in mainstream biology and the world at large. It is why we are stuck in debates about the hazards of mobile phones and genetic engineering, or the benefits of complimentary medicine. There is nothing in mainstream biology that deals with wholeness or coherence, nothing that tells you how, because the whole body is interconnected, even very weak electromagnetic fields could be harmful or, if appropriately applied, beneficial. And because we fail to see nature as an interconnected whole, life appears entirely as a struggle for survival of the fittest, one against all and all against nature. We wage wars and exploit our planet to death. ...   more »

The idea of molecules communicating and exchanging energy by electromagnetic resonance fits in with accumulating evidence that cells and organisms are liquid crystalline, that all the molecules, including especially the 70 percent or water, are aligned and working coherently together [9, 12]. There is little or no free diffusion in such a system, as Fröhlich [14, 15] had pointed out earlier, and before that, cell physiologist Gilbert Ling [24, 25] ( Strong Medicine for Cell Biology , SiS 24) and biochemist/historian of Chinese science, Joseph Needham [26]. Instead, energy transfer - by molecular resonance or coherent excitations – probably has to occur through large distances, activating entire populations of similar molecules that are in different parts of the cell or different parts of the body, so long-range coordinating of function can happen instantaneously...

What is clearly emerging is the predominant electronic nature of the living matrix and living activities, which will require a complete rewrite of biochemistry and cell biology, if not also physiology and medicine. ...   more »

The Institute of Science in Society says it's "The only radical science magazine on earth." I don't know if that's literally true, but at first look, this does seem worth a serious look. Thanks to koantum for telling us about it.

“SIS is the antidote to scientific mumbo-jumbo. It treats people as grown ups - capable of understanding and facing up to difficult issues - whilst demanding that scientists describe the challenges of science in terms people can understand. Every idea that SIS explores is an advocacy of good science. A must-read for all who wish to change society for the better.” Alan Simpson, Member of Parliament, UK ...   more »

Rich Carlson asked me to post this article for him. ~ ron

...Dr. Barney recently lectured at Mount Allison as a part of the Democratic Audit series, which is coming out in book form one of these days. Of the lectures in the series that I attended, Barney was the only speaker to explicitly and rigourously question the influence of corporate interests on democratic processes (something that, one would think, would be necessarily central to any "democratic audit" taking place in the last 200 years). Specifically, Barney elaborated on the corporate stranglehold of development of communications infrastructure policy and regulation in Canada. -- Dr. Barney answered my questions via email. What follows is an unedited transcript; an edited version with an extended introduction is forthcoming. - Dru Oja Jay

Dr. Barney: Still, I think it is important to think not only in terms of how we design or use these technologies, but also in terms of how social practices are designed by, and how we are, in a sense, used by, these technologies. Technological mythology leads us to believe that technologies arise, as if by magic, to address pre-existing needs and to provide solutions to pre-existing problems. In reality, technologies tend to create more needs than they address, and to manufacture the very problems they stand ready to solve. I think of cellular telephony in this regard. Was the ability to engage in phone conversation while riding the bus really a pressing social need prior to the arrival of the cellular phone, or did our perception of that as a need arise after this technology became widely available? Was the fact that everybody wasn't always accessible, everywhere, via personal communication technology a problem before the mobile phone, or did constant accessibility become an expectation in light of the domestication of mobile phones and e-mail? Theorists of technology used to call this "reverse adaptation," and it is, I think, a social dynamic that is widespread in the age of proliferating digital technology. ...   more »

The world uses a cubic mile of oil a year, costing almost $2 trillion. Oil and cars are the world's biggest and most entrenched industries. Yet an inexorable half-century transition beyond oil has begun, squeezing oil between efficient use and alternative supplies...

Fleet turnovers take time: putting the first half-million hybrid cars on the road took nearly a decade. Yet in 2007 20 new hybrid models will enter the American market, and operating efficiency will finally become entrenched as carmakers' top design priority, locking in oil savings for decades. Biofuels, too, will continue double-digit growth as Brazil's 2006 oil independence and Sweden's 2020 off-oil goal spur emulation. ...   more »

...Since the late 1960s, [Hawaii] has relied on oil to meet roughly 90 percent of its energy demand. The cost of this oil dependence translates to a higher overall cost of living, the nation's highest electricity prices, and very high gasoline prices. In September 2006, Hawaii's residential electricity revenues per kilowatt-hour ranged from 19.75 cents to 34 cents, with a statewide average of 24.24 cents compared to a national average of 10.92 cents. Overall, electricity costs were 21.51 cents per kilowatthour in Hawaii compared to the national average of 9.26 cents. Hawaii's gasoline prices consistently rank among the highest in the country. ...

Recognizing these vulnerabilities, the State crafted the first Hawaii Energy Strategy (HES) in 1995. The State's goal was to better understand the risks it faces due to its unique energy situation, and to propose recommendations for achieving its objectives of reduced oil dependence, lowered energy costs, increased environmental sustainability, and a diversified economic base. The strategy was updated in 2000 by Hawaii's Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism (DBEDT). This year, DBEDT retained Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) to help DBEDT craft HES 2007 and outline a strategy that will, among other things ...   more »

2007-03-20: A House committee released documents showing hundreds of cases where a White House official edited climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming or play down evidence of such a role.

2007-03-20: Rep. John Dingell once dismissed global warming as a "theory." Lately, the Democratic lawmaker from Michigan has had a change of heart. His conversion underscores the changed atmosphere on Capitol Hill.

2007-03-20: Leading US financial investors joined some of the country's larges companies and urged Capitol Hill to follow Europe by setting mandatory targets to reduce US carbon emissions. ...    more »

Gaia Education Educators for a Sustainable Earth (the GEESE) flew from the 4 corners of the world into Thailand to meet in a beautiful, curvaceous mud building surrounded by lotus ponds and bamboo groves. Inspired by Ghandian ashrams where social change meets spiritual practice and working with the land, Wongsanit Ashram is a hub of sustainability and grassroots leadership training in South East Asia. Wongsanit is also an idyllic eco-settlement complete with organic gardens and traditional thatched and cob houses. This was a wonderful base to come together to discuss the Ecovillage Design Education (EDE). In keeping with the diversity of the group the Southerners revelled in the sultry, humid tropical days whilst Northerners were challenged by the heat! ...   more »

...Oster argues that health is an investment. If you’re expecting to live a good, long time, you might be more inclined to make health investments than if you expect to die soon. If your life expectancy is only 40-50 years due to environmental factors, you might be more willing to take this 3% risk than a gay man in America who otherwise expects to live almost 80 years.

To test this effect, Oster looked at sexual behavior rates in countries that had high, low and medium levels of malaria. In countries with low malaria, there’s a very strong correlation between prevalence of AIDS and change in behavior - in countries with high malaria, there’s no correlation, or in fact, an opposite effect. There’s a similar correlation with maternal health and child mortality. This suggests that if you want to combat AIDS, you also need to deal with malaria, internal air quality and maternal health. ...   more »

...So, climate negative. Any plan which doesn't measure itself against that bar is no plan at all. To get a sense of how difficult our task will be, take a look at the boldness and complexity of Energy [R]evolution, a blueprint for reducing global CO2 by 50% worldwide by 2050.

Cutting our CO2 in half, the authors say, will take major breakthroughs in solar, wind, geothermal, bioenergy, hydropower, and advanced fossil fuel technologies. It will take behavioral changes. It will take policy shifts, changing the way we tax energy and pollution and incentivize innovation and investment to level the playing field. And it will take proceeding on different paths in different places. It will be, in short, a massive undertaking.

Now imagine that as a half step, and one that will come too late. Imagine not just radical change, but transformation. ...   more »

...The first prize winner for 2007 is James Nachtwey, a remarkable war photographer who’s been described as a “one man human rights watch”. He’s been extensively honored for his work, winning numerous prizes for his work covering some of the most difficult images in the world.

He apologizes for using notes - “after spending an entire career trying to be invisible” speaking before a group is an “out of body” experience. The truth is, his images are so powerful and moving, I found it very hard to even follow his voice for much of his talk. As he said, “I have been a witness - these pictures are my testimony.” ...   more »

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, & Design) conference in Monterey, CA, USA, brings together more than 1000 thought-leaders, movers and shakers for four days of learning, laughter and inspiration. -- The first TED in 1984 included the public unveiling of the Macintosh computer and the Sony compact disc, while mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals and AI guru Marvin Minsky outlined his powerful new model of the mind. Several influential members of the burgeoning 'digerati' community were also there, including Nicholas Negroponte and Stewart Brand.

Those who have spoken at TED include Bill Gates, Frank Gehry, Jane Goodall, Billy Graham, Herbie Hancock, Murray Gell-Mann, Larry Ellison. Yet often the real stars have been the unexpected: Li Lu, a key organizer of the Tiananmen Square student protest, Aimee Mullins, a Paralympics competitor who tried out a new pair of artificial legs on-stage, or Nathan Myrrhvold speaking not about Microsoft platforms, but about dinosaur sex. ...    more »

Daniel Tammet is a high-functioning autistic savant. He can calculate huge sums in his head in seconds and instantaneously recognise prime numbers, but he finds emotions difficult to understand and has trouble telling left from right. One of fewer than fifty such people living worldwide, Daniel is unique in his ability to articulate his savant experience.

Daniel can also learn to speak a language fluently from scratch in a week. In the documentary "Brainman," he is challenged to learn a difficult new language - Icelandic - from scratch in just seven days, and then does a succesful interview in Reykjavik entirely in Icelandic. ...   more »

...Sony Computer Entertainment' Phil Harrison officially opened the doors on "Home" for PS3. This unique avatar-based real-time virtual community will enter a large scale beta trial in April and the service itself (which will be found after a free download on the XMB) is scheduled to launch this fall.

...Game 1.0 was represented by the disconnected console and static game discs; Game 2.0 was brought to us by connected consoles (or PCs) that offered static content; but Game 3.0 takes connected consoles to a new level by leveraging online collaboration and user-generated content. Suddenly the content is dynamic and, as Sony says, Game 3.0 "puts the spotlight back on the consumer." Harrison explained that Sony was influenced by the ideas put forth by web 2.0 – sites such as MySpace and YouTube that are driven by user-generated content. Harrison also made clear that Sony is not trying to trademark Game 3.0; they simply want to get the developer and gaming communities thinking about a trend which Harrison believes "will power the next decade of growth in our industry." ...   more »

Last year, 161 exabytes of digital information were created and copied, according to research firm IDC. Can't get your mind around that number? That's understandable. Try this -- that amount of information is equal to three million times the amount of information in all the books ever written. It's also equal to 12 stacks of books, each extending the 93 million miles between the Earth and the sun. -- And it's only going to continue to grow exponentially. According to IDC, the amount of information created and copied in 2010 will surge more than six fold to 988 exabytes. That amounts to a compound annual growth rate of 57%. -- An exabyte is one quintillion bytes or a billion gigabytes...

The largest component of the digital universe, IDC said, will be images captured worldwide by more than 1 billion devices, from digital cameras to camera phones, medical scanners, and security cameras. The number of images captured on consumer digital still cameras in 2006 exceeded 150 billion worldwide, while the number of images captured on cell phones hit nearly 100 billion, IDC said. Digital photography by 2010 will capture more than 500 billion images...

"This ever-growing mass of information is putting a considerable strain on the IT infrastructures we have in place today," said Mark Lewis, EMC executive VP and chief development officer, in a written statement. "This explosive growth will change the way organizations and IT professionals do their jobs, and the way we consumers use information." ...   more »

On April 26, Dr. Hawking, surrounded by a medical entourage, is to take a zero-gravity ride out of Cape Canaveral on a so-called vomit comet, a padded aircraft that flies a roller-coaster trajectory to produce periods of weightlessness. He is getting his lift gratis, from the Zero Gravity Corporation, which has been flying thrill seekers on a special Boeing 727-200 since 2004 at $3,500 a trip.

Peter H. Diamandis, chief executive of Zero G, said that “the idea of giving the world’s expert on gravity the opportunity to experience zero gravity” was irresistible.

In some ways, this is only a prelude. Dr. Hawking announced on his 65th birthday, in January, that he hoped to take a longer, higher flight in 2009 on a space plane being developed by Richard Branson’s company Virgin Galactic, which seeks to take six passengers to an altitude of 70 miles. ...   more »

Ray Kurzweil wrote this article as the introduction to James Gardner's new book, "The Intelligent Universe: AI, ET, and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos." It's a good summary of Ray's latest thinking. Though its very techno-optimistic view is contrary to the post-modern skeptical flavor often presented on SCIY, I've been following Ray's thinking for years and continue to be impressed with his erudite scholarship. -- In any case, I believe it's an important function of SCIY to present viewpoints that are contrary to our own; to be skeptical of our own skepticism.

... It is remarkable to me that almost all of the discussions of cosmology fail to mention the role of intelligence. In the common cosmological view, intelligence is just a bit of froth, something interesting that happens on the sidelines of the great cosmic story. But in the standard view, whether the universe winds up or down, ends up in fire (a great crunch and new Big Bang), or ice (an ever-expanding and ultimately dead universe), or something in-between, depends only on measures of dark matter, dark energy, and other parameters we have yet to discover. That the story of the universe is a story yet to be written by the intelligence it will spawn is almost never mentioned. This book will help to change the common "unintelligent" view.

So what will we do when our intelligence is in the range of a google (10^100) cps? One thing we may do is to engineer new universes. Similarly, our universe may be the creation of some superintelligences in another universe. In this case, there was an intelligent designer of our universe--that designer would be the evolved intelligence of some other universe that created ours. Perhaps our universe is a science fair experiment of a student in another universe. (Reading the news of the day, you might get the impression that this erstwhile adolescent superintelligence who designed our universe is not going to get a very good grade on his or her project.)

But the evolution of intelligence here on Earth is actually going very well. All of the vagaries (and tragedies) of human history, such as two world wars, the cold war, the great depression, and other notable events, did not make even the slightest dent in the ongoing exponential progressions I previously mentioned. ...   more »