He just wants to know if E.Coli can evolve into a person. Honest question.
Jurassic Park for humans
How could you work this into a murder mystery?
SPIEGEL: Wouldn’t it be ethically problematic to create a Neanderthal just for the sake of scientific curiosity?
Church: Well, curiosity may be part of it, but it’s not the most important driving force. The main goal is to increase diversity. The one thing that is bad for society is low diversity. This is true for culture or evolution, for species and also for whole societies. If you become a monoculture, you are at great risk of perishing. Therefore the recreation of Neanderthals would be mainly a question of societal risk avoidance.
SPIEGEL: Setting aside all ethical doubts, do you believe it is technically possible to reproduce the Neanderthal?
Church: The first thing you have to do is to sequence the Neanderthal genome, and that has actually been done. The next step would be to chop a human genome up into, say, 10,000 chunks and then synthesize these. Finally, you would introduce these chunks into a human stem cell. If we do that often enough, then we would generate a stem cell line that would get closer and closer to the corresponding sequence of the Neanderthal. We developed the semi-automated procedure required to do that in my lab. Finally, we assemble all the chunks in a human stem cell, which would enable you to finally create a Neanderthal clone.
SPIEGEL: And the surrogates would be human, right? In your book you write that an “extremely adventurous female human” could serve as the surrogate mother.
Church: Yes. However, the prerequisite would, of course, be that human cloning is acceptable to society.
SPIEGEL: Could you also stop the procedure halfway through and build a 50-percent Neanderthal using this technology.
Church: You could and you might. It could even be that you want just a few mutations from the Neanderthal genome. Suppose you were too realize: Wow, these five mutations might change the neuronal pathways, the skull size, a few key things. They could give us what we want in terms of neural diversity. I doubt that we are going to particularly care about their facial morphology, though (laughs).
I Do Not Understand Fashion
A heartwarming story…?
An eight year old boy used Facebook to reunite a brother and sister who were separated 65 years ago.
This is a lovely story. As long as it’s not this 66 year old Clifford Boyson.
Age: 65
DOB: 1946-09-01
Height: 5 ft. 10 in.
Weight: 150
Race/Ethnicity: White
Hair Color: Unknown / Unspecified
Eye Color: Unknown / Unspecified
Offense: AGGRAVATED CRIMINAL SEXUAL ASSAULT
Incarcerated: N
First, spend a semester teaching intro comp. Then you can write about the “cushy” life of a college professor.
Gawker is on the story.
“Even when school is in session they don’t spend too many hours in the classroom. For tenure-track professors, there is some pressure to publish books and articles, but deadlines are few. Working conditions tend to be cozy and civilized and there are minimal travel demands, except perhaps a non-mandatory conference or two.”
That’s all? Apparently papers grade themselves.
Also, safe and low-stress ? Sure, until the Entitled Genius who has Gone off his (or her) Meds blows a gasket.
Addio, Rita Levi-Montalcini, age 103
You can go to jail for grade-fixing.
I have to admit, I derived an unseemly amount of satisfaction from this story.
He was the kind of school administrator some college students might have considered themselves lucky to encounter, someone who was willing to raise grades issued by professors when the students’ marks fell short of graduation requirements…Mr. Koutsoutis, 56, who was director of executive programs at the college’s Zicklin School of Business, appeared in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to 21 felony forgery charges and 10 misdemeanor charges of falsifying business records.
He received no money or favors for making the changes, according to court papers. When Justice Larry Stephen asked him to explain his motivation, Mr. Koutsoutis quietly said that he just wanted to give the students their best chances to succeed.
Real life inspirations for mystery plots:
3. Paul Babeu
Paul Babeu’s coming out may be one of the most sensational, and complicated, of the year. The fiercely conservative, anti-immigrant Republican Sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, and a good friend of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, another extremely anti-immigrant law enforcer, Babeu was outed in February, when his undocumented Mexican immigrant boyfriend of a decade accused him of threatening him with deportation during a nasty break-up.
Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/2012/12/2012_gay_coming_out.html#ixzz2FRVZdQpz
Exercise doesn’t make you live longer, but it does help you deteriorate less rapidly.
“Typically, the most aerobically fit people lived with chronic illnesses in the final five years of their lives, instead of the final 10, 15 or even 20 years.”
Of course they can’t disentangle cause and effect, as “aerobic fitness is partly determined by genetics, and to that extent, the luck of the universe.”
Still, “much of a person’s fitness, especially by middle age, depends on physical activity, Dr. Berry says speculates”
Fortunately, a moderate (rather than an insane) amount of exercise is best.
Thinking about this is exhausting. I’m going to go lie down now.
Science confirms what you already knew
When interviewing, “Employers sought candidates who were not only competent but also culturally similar to themselves in terms of leisure pursuits, experiences, and self-presentation styles.”
Or as Forbes puts it,
Employers Hire Potential Drinking Buddies Ahead Of Top Candidates