technology:biotechnology

CRISPR might soon create spicy tomatoes by switching on their chili genes - MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/612721/the-next-feat-for-crispr-might-be-spicy-tomatoes-made-with-chili-g

https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/chili.jpg?sw=1200

Looking for perfect heat and lots of it? Gene engineers in Brazil think they might be able to create eye-watering tomatoes.

Hot stuff: Even though chili peppers and tomato plants diverged from a common ancestor millions of years ago, tomatoes still possess the genetic pathway needed to make capsaicinoids, the molecules that make chilis hot.

Now, Agustin Zsögön from the Federal University of Viçosa in Brazil writes in the journal Trends in Plant Science that gene-editing tools like CRISPR could turn it back on.

Spicy biofactories: Tomatoes are much easier to grow than peppers, so making them hot could turn them into spice factories. “Capsaicinoids are very valuable compounds; they are used in [the] weapons industry for pepper spray, they are also used for anaesthetics [and] there is some research showing that they promote weight loss,” he told the Guardian.

Strange fruit: Tomatoes are not the first food that scientists have suggested could be given an unusual new twist using CRISPR. Sweeter strawberries, non-browning mushrooms, and tastier ground-cherries have all been either attempted or mooted in the past.

#Biotechnology #Hubris #CRISPR

How to Build a Project Management Organization in 90 Days
▻https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-a-project-management-organization-in-90-days-783b907f4a12?s

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I recently took an IT #leadership role with a biotechnology company where software development is a critical capability and had the opportunity to build a Project Management Organization (PMO) from scratch. This essay represents my #agile and pragmatic point of view on project management and organizational change management.Have a Vision.What does a Good PMO capability look like? Write it down as the PMO charter document. Your team will need this mission statement, principles, and responsibilities as well as SMART metrics for how you will measure success. This is your truth and it will seed the culture that grows and guides the team around you.In my case, my mission statement went something like this:“Our Project Management Office (PMO) is a service-oriented capability whose purpose is (...)

#project-management #coaching #project-management-org

The 10 Skills Every Entrepreneur Needs to Develop
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-10-skills-every-entrepreneur-needs-to-develop-a268a0ce6584?source=rs

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The new world requires a new skillset. Are you prepared?The first world is shifting towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Defined as the fusion of technologies which blur the lines between the digital, physical and biological spheres. With advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, The Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing and autonomous vehicles characterizing it.In this new era, often called the Information Economy — workers aren’t valued for their productivity on the assembly line, or for their ability to work productively as a cog within a larger machine. They’re valued for their ability to innovate rapidly to outpace their competition. From 1955 to 2016 only 12% of the Fortune 500 companies have maintained their place atop the (...)

#startup #entrepreneurship #design #leadership #life

How to Talk About Vaccines on Television - Issue 60: Searches
▻http://nautil.us/issue/60/searches/how-to-talk-about-vaccines-on-television

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In 2008, John Porter, a Washington, D.C. lawyer and former Republican member of Congress, stood in front of a group of scientists at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and urged them to make their cases to the media and to the people. “America needs you,” Porter said, “fighting for science.” At the time, the number of science articles in American newspapers had shrunk dramatically. Science on television also suffered. CNN dismissed its entire science, space, environment, and technology unit. According to a National Science Foundation report, network nightly news programs from 2000 to 2012 devoted less than 2 percent of air time to science, space, and technology, and less than 1 percent to biotechnology and basic medical research. Nonetheless, (...)

#OGM - Mensonges et vérités

La #controverse entre pro-OGM (organismes génétiquement modifiés) et anti-OGM rend le débat passionnel et parfois incompréhensible. Ce tour d’horizon mondial démêle le vrai du faux, preuves scientifiques à l’appui.

Depuis plus de vingt ans, les OGM (organismes génétiquement modifiés), en particulier les plantes, ne cessent de s’étendre sur la planète, dans le but d’améliorer les rendements de soja, maïs, coton, colza, riz, etc. Dix pays, sur les vingt-huit qui en cultivent, représentent, à eux seuls, 98 % de la superficie mondiale des cultures transgéniques – soit 11 % des terres cultivées –, essentiellement sur le continent américain, le sous-continent indien et en Chine. Aux États-Unis, où les premières plantations de soja transgénique ont été introduites en 1996, les OGM représentent environ 90 % des cultures de soja, de maïs et de coton. Selon leurs défenseurs, ils sont indispensables pour répondre aux besoins d’une population en forte croissance. C’est l’argument du géant du secteur, le semencier américain Monsanto, qui produit aussi le célèbre Roundup, un herbicide total dont la substance active, le glyphosate, épargne les plantes OGM.

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#film #documentaire #reportage #vidéo
#BT #maïs_BT #rentabilité #TH #soja #Roundup #USA #Etats-Unis #monoculture #agriculture #élevage #Argentine #Monsanto #pommes_De_terre #risques #génie_génétique #toxine_BT #pesticides #industrie_agro-alimentaire #glyphosate #herbicide #super_mauvaises_herbes #darwinisme #soja_roundup_ready #atrazin #business #santé #cancer #Mexique #propriété_intellectuelle #brevets #Percy_Schmeiser #sécurité_alimentaire #Ghana #malformation_congénitale #justice #biodiversité

#USAID (qui lie #aide_au_développement et utilisation de OGM dans le pays qui va recevoir l’aide)

#Gates_Foundation (qui finance des tests de plantes OGM au Ghana)

#biotechnologie_agricole #coton #Bukina_Faso #coton_BT #Sofitex #rendements #Geocoton #Roundup_Ready_Flex_Cotton #néo-colonialisme

#MON810 #maïs_MON810 #riz_doré #riz #Philippines #golden_rice #Syngenta #technologie #dengue #oxitec #moustiques_transgéniques #AGM #animaux_génétiquement_modifiés

The #future with technology : #2 #biopayments.
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-future-with-technology-2-biopayments-c39eae18ac5b?source=rss----3a81

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*oXWBLEjG00mU7A3h2aVqmg.jpeg

How we can make biopayments main stream and build an eco system around it.▻https://www.rawpixel.com/image/733Imagine if we can receive (pay for) certain services by doing some exercise, donating blood, getting some tests done, or running a mile wearing a comfortable pair of shoes. Welcome to biopayments. Biopayments can be simply defined as #payments made by performing some activity which is beneficial to both the parties. It has also started in some countries where you can get a train ticket by doing a couple of sit-ups. Interesting ways to keep the citizens healthy.In Russia, 30 Squats Will Get You a Train TicketThere can be multiple areas of implementation of biopayments. The idea should be to build an ecosystem around it and engage the public in doing simple stuff.Biopayments have been (...)

#biotechnology #tech

Momies demi-frères (par la mère) une même étude (ci-dessous, accessible) des compte-rendus quasi similaires à quelques différences mineures (!) près sur l’interprétation…

The kinship of two 12th Dynasty mummies revealed by ancient DNA sequencing - ScienceDirect
▻https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X17305631

Highlights
• We study the kinship of two high-status Egyptians from the 12th Dynasty
• Ancient DNA was extracted from the teeth of the two mummies
• Sequences were obtained after hybridization capture of mtDNA and Y chromosome DNA
• Both mummies belong to mt haplotype M1a1, suggesting a maternal relationship
• Y DNA sequences showed variations, indicating that the mummies had different fathers
[…]
4. Discussion
[…]
Our results provide an intriguing insight into one facet of ancient Egyptian kinship, and illustrate the potential use of matrimonial alliance as a means of social reinforcement among the elite and sub-elite. Unfortunately, placing our results in a broader context is difficult because we are unaware of any comparable examples of two men buried together in an intact Pharaonic tomb (e.g. Garstang, 1907). There is a separate suggestion of #polyandry in the inscriptions on another set of monuments from the same period as the Two Brothers, although these may refer to two women with the same name rather than the same woman having two husbands (Simpson, 1974). The kinship of Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht also provides an example of the common practice in recorded filiations of this period to give precedence to the maternal rather than paternal line, individual rights being determined by social class rather than gender (Robins, 1993), and can perhaps be looked on as a reflection of the high status accorded to their mother Khnum-Aa in their particular social and family structure.

======================

Compte-rendu 1 Live Science

4,000-Year-Old Mummies Are Half-Brothers, DNA Analysis Shows
▻https://www.livescience.com/61448-mummies-are-half-brothers.html
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“The two mummies had identical mitochondrial profiles, [so] we can be sure they were related maternally,” the study’s lead researcher, Konstantina Drosou, a research associate at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, in the United Kingdom, told Live Science. “For the Y chromosome, the results were less complete due to the fact that the Y chromosome exists in only one copy per cell, whereas the mitochondrial DNA exists in multiple copies per cell.” [In Photos: Ancient Egyptian Tombs Decorated with Creatures]

Even so, the Y chromosome results indicated that the two men likely had different fathers.

Même mère, pères différents, POINT.

==========================
Compte-rendu 2 Washington Post
4,000-year-old Egyptian mummies were thought to be brothers. Genetics tells a different story. - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/01/19/4000-year-old-egyptian-mummies-were-thought-to-be-brothers-genetics-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/nh56b-kSbYigtHfeE55AfLTITfg=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/QF57WMU6X4773IPNGNOF6Y4XHA.jpg

Khnum-Nakht and Nakht-Ankh were not royalty. Each was the son of a local governor, according to the hieroglyphics. A governor was “basically the headman of the local town, making them elite,” said Campbell Price, the curator of Egypt at the Manchester Museum who worked with Drosou on the new research. “Most people were farmers, remember.”

Price said the discovery suggests an underemphasized aspect of this culture: the role of women in Egyptian high society. Khnum-aa, a member of the “highest social circles,” probably had a son with one local ruler and then, two decades later, had a son with another. “Perhaps,” he wondered, “the male local governors were only able to confirm or maintain their power by marrying this woman called Khnum-aa?”

Réévaluation du rôle social de la femme.
Pères différents mais successifs : two decades later.

=======================
Compte-rendu 3 Les Cahiers de Science & Vie, n° 173, mars 2018, p. 8 (pas de version en ligne)

Mais, surprise !, les frères ne l’étaient qu’à moitié : " Chose rare, nous avons pu récupérer de l’ADN issu du chromosome Y, donc paternel, poursuit la chercheuse. Cette fois, les variations mesurées indiquent des pères probablement différents. "

Écart indélicat de madame ? En fait, la découverte éclaire d’anciennes inscriptions «  qui, à l’époque, font plus souvent référence à la mère qu’au père, Indique Konstantina Drosou. _Ici les pères de Khnoum-Nakht et Nakht-Ankh avaient tous les deux un haut statut et partageaient une épouse… Il semble que la femme avait alors une position clé.  »

Ces données génétiques ont donc une réelle portée sociologique.

Réévaluation du statut social de la femme et #polyandrie (possible…) sans le dire trop explicitement : partageaient une épouse.

GRAIN — Health Canada approves GM “Golden Rice” not intended for sale in Canada
▻https://www.grain.org/fr/bulletin_board/entries/5907-health-canada-approves-gm-golden-rice-not-intended-for-sale-in-canada

March 20, 2018. Ottawa – Health Canada has announced its approval of the genetically modified (GM or genetically engineered) Vitamin A enhanced “Golden Rice” even though it is not intended for sale in Canada and has not yet been approved by regulators in the intended markets.

“Health Canada should not be spending public resources to assess the safety of GM foods that will not be sold in Canada,” said Lucy Sharratt of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN).

#Canada #ogm #exportation

▻https://www.edge.org/conversation/george_church-church-speaks

Things like Jeopardy, Go, or Chess aren’t tasks that we need to do. They were always activities that give you bragging rights. Except for game playing as an end in itself, our ancestors did not depend on being able to win those games. They were representative of intellectual skills that would be beneficial, like the ability to be a good businessperson. The point is, in order for a computer to win at those games, they have to use 100,000 watts of power continuously while a human brain is using 20 watts. Admittedly, the body it’s in is using another 80 watts, and maybe that body has creature comforts that require more watts, but the fact is we’re very energy-efficient for doing this. Humans are also doing a lot more than losing games of Chess, Go, and Jeopardy; we’re worrying about our family, about our careers, and about existential risk. We’re doing all kinds of things that computers can’t yet do. The thing is we’re ahead, and biotechnology is going faster than computer technology.

How to Build an Artificial Womb
▻https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-to-build-an-artificial-womb-476464703

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Artificial wombs are a staple of science fiction, but could we really build one? As time passes, we’re inching closer and closer to the day when it will finally become possible to grow a baby entirely outside the human body. Here’s what we’ll need to do to pull it off.

Top image by Mondolithic Studios.
More than just an incubator

A fully functional artificial uterus will be substantially more complex than a modern incubator, a clunky (and somewhat obtrusive) device that provides a preemie with oxygen, protection from cold, hydration and nutrition (via intravenous catheter or NG tube), and adequate levels of humidity.
Recent Video from Gizmodo
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The World’s First Ping-Pong Robot
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Even in the best of cases, the current state-of-the-art doesn’t allow for viability outside of the womb until mid to late second trimester. Prior to that, a mother’s womb is the only option. Quite obviously, future incubators, or a full-blown artificial uterus, will push the limits of viability further and further until the entire gestational cycle can happen external to the body.

We’re still several decades away, but the two primary areas that need to be developed include biotechnology (for things like personalized genomics and tissue engineering) and nanotechnology (to facilitate micro-scale interactions and growth through artificial means). Smart computer systems and monitoring devices should also be developed to track the progress of the fetus’s growth, while automatically adjusting for changing conditions.

#utérus_artificiel

Shhhh. The “Gene Silenced” Apple Is Coming. – Mother Jones
▻http://www.motherjones.com/food/2018/01/shhhh-the-gene-silenced-apple-is-coming/#

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Why go through all this trouble to change the color of the fruit? The Arctic’s non-browning properties mean it can be sold pre-sliced, which the company says makes it more appealing as a snack food for kids. And unlike other prepackaged apple slices, “our non-browning sliced apples are preservative free, avoiding negative flavor and aroma impacts of anti-browning treatments,” Okanagan President Neal Carter told me.

Et l’argument écologiste en prime

And if the apples stay white, we’re less likely to toss them out, according to the Breakthrough Institute, which is helping promote the fruit: “By eliminating superficial bruising and browning, the Arctic Apple holds the potential to dramatically reduce consumer food waste once it enters the market.” Food makes up the largest share of waste at municipal landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Around the world, almost half of all fruits and vegetables are wasted every year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, and that includes a startling 3.7 trillion apples.
Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc.

But if the point of the apple is to help reduce food waste, why market it in a way that requires so much packaging? I asked the company, and it responded that the plastic bags are recyclable, as are the shipping cartons and trays. Still, it’s hard to see how whole apples would require as much plastic, recyclable or not.

Et la mention OGM n’est pas sur l’emballage

ut the Arctic apples are one of the first genetically modified foods created to please consumers, rather than farmers. “It’s good for people to bite into one of these apples and see in their own hand how simple it is,” says Professor Pam Ronald, a plant pathologist and geneticist at the University of California-Davis. “It tastes the same.”
If you come across a packet of Arctic apple slices in stores, it won’t say “GM” on the label.

That’s only if they know what they’re eating. A law signed in 2016 by President Barack Obama requires companies to reveal whether a product is genetically modified, but it does not force them to print that information on its packaging. If you come across a packet of Arctic apple slices in stores, it won’t say “GM” on the label. Instead, there will be a QR code on the back that you can scan with a smartphone to learn more about Okanagan and the biotechnology at work.

#OGM #discours #Pomme

The NIC Global Trends Main Report
▻https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends/letter-nic-chairman
Là c’est gratuit, la traduction allemande vient de sortir pour ca. € 25,00

This version, the sixth in the series, is titled, “Global Trends: The Paradox of Progress,” and we are proud of it. It may look like a report, but it is really an invitation, an invitation to discuss, debate and inquire further about how the future could unfold. Certainly, we do not pretend to have the definitive “answer.”

Long-term thinking is critical to framing strategy. The Global Trends series pushes us to reexamine key assumptions, expectations, and uncertainties about the future. In a very messy and interconnected world, a longer perspective requires us to ask hard questions about which issues and choices will be most consequential in the decades ahead–even if they don’t necessarily generate the biggest headlines. A longer view also is essential because issues like terrorism, cyberattacks, biotechnology, and climate change invoke high stakes and will require sustained collaboration to address.

Peering into the future can be scary and surely is humbling. Events unfold in complex ways for which our brains are not naturally wired. Economic, political, social, technological, and cultural forces collide in dizzying ways, so we can be led to confuse recent, dramatic events with the more important ones. It is tempting, and usually fair, to assume people act “rationally,” but leaders, groups, mobs, and masses can behave very differently—and unexpectedly—under similar circumstances. For instance, we had known for decades how brittle most regimes in the Middle East were, yet some erupted in the Arab Spring in 2011 and others did not. Experience teaches us how much history unfolds through cycles and shifts, and still human nature commonly expects tomorrow to be pretty much like today—which is usually the safest bet on the future until it is not. I always remind myself that between Mr. Reagan’s “evil empire” speech and the demise of that empire, the Soviet Union, was only a scant decade, a relatively short time even in a human life.

Grasping the future is also complicated by the assumptions we carry around in our heads, often without quite knowing we do. I have been struck recently by the “prosperity presumption” that runs deep in most Americans but is often hardly recognized. We assume that with prosperity come all good things—people are happier, more democratic and less likely to go to war with one another. Yet, then we confront a group like ISIL, which shares none of the presumption.

Given these challenges to thinking about the future, we have engaged broadly and tried to stick to analytic basics rather than seizing any particular worldview. Two years ago, we started with exercises identifying key assumptions and uncertainties—the list of assumptions underlying US foreign policy was stunningly long, many of them half-buried. We conducted research and consulted with numerous experts in and outside the US Government to identify and test trends. We tested early themes and arguments on a blog. We visited more than 35 countries and one territory, soliciting ideas and feedback from over 2,500 people around the world from all walks of life. We developed multiple scenarios to imagine how key uncertainties might result in alternative futures. The NIC then compiled and refined the various streams into what you see here.

This edition of Global Trends revolves around a core argument about how the changing nature of power is increasing stress both within countries and between countries, and bearing on vexing transnational issues. The main section lays out the key trends, explores their implications, and offers up three scenarios to help readers imagine how different choices and developments could play out in very different ways over the next several decades. Two annexes lay out more detail. The first lays out five-year forecasts for each region of the world. The second provides more context on the key global trends in train.

The fact that the National Intelligence Council regularly publishes an unclassified assessment of the world surprises some people, but our intent is to encourage open and informed discussions about future risks and opportunities. Moreover, Global Trends is unclassified because those screens of secrets that dominate our daily work are not of much help in peering out beyond a year or two. What is a help is reaching out not just to experts and government officials but also to students, women’s groups, entrepreneurs, transparency advocates, and beyond.

Many minds and hands made this project happen. The heavy lifting was done by the NIC’s Strategic Futures Group, directed by Dr. Suzanne Fry, with her very talented team: Rich Engel, Phyllis Berry, Heather Brown, Kenneth Dyer, Daniel Flynn, Geanetta Ford, Steven Grube, Terrence Markin, Nicholas Muto, Robert Odell, Rod Schoonover, Thomas Stork, and dozens of Deputy National Intelligence Officers. We recognize as well the thoughtful, careful review by NIC editors, as well as CIA’s extremely talented graphic and web designers and production team.

Global Trends represents how the NIC is thinking about the future. It does not represent the official, coordinated view of the US Intelligence Community nor US policy. Longtime readers will note that this edition does not reference a year in the title (the previous edition was Global Trends 2030) because we think doing so conveys a false precision. For us, looking over the “long term” spans the next several decades, but we also have made room in this edition to explore the next five years to be more relevant in timeline for a new US administration.

#USA #politique #impérialisme #CIA #NSA #stratégie

Biopunk : Subverting Biopolitics – The New Inquiry
▻https://thenewinquiry.com/biopunk-subverting-biopolitics

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My own work has also taken a political and critical approach to working with biotechnology. With Stranger Visions, in 2012, I created portraits of strangers from their abandoned DNA. I began by collecting genetic artifacts I found in public: hair, cigarette butts, chewed-up gum. I learned how to extract DNA, how to sequence it, and how to analyze it to generate a portrait of what someone might look like based on an interpretation of their DNA, utilizing scientific research ranging from the established to the speculative. I 3-D printed the portraits life size, in full color, and exhibited these alongside documentation of the artifact, where and when it was collected, and what I analyzed.
Stranger Visions (installation view)

https://thenewinquiry.com/app/uploads/2017/06/hagborg-installation.jpg

The work was meant to call attention to the vulnerability of the body to new forms of surveillance and to predict the future direction of forensic DNA phenotyping—the profiling of a person’s outward characteristics from their DNA. At the time there were clear signals this research was happening, but it hadn’t been publicly discussed.

Two years later the prediction came true with the launch of Parabon Nanolabs DNA “Snapshot”, offering genomic mugshots to police around the country. The danger of offering stereotypes based primarily on sex and ancestry predictions is that a black box algorithm in the hands of the police can become a new form of racial profiling which appears to have the authority of real genetic evidence.

Most recently, I worked with Chelsea Manning. Subject to a strict policy of visitation and representation, Chelsea’s image had been suppressed since her sentencing and gender transition in 2013. She realized that DNA could give her a kind of visibility or presence that she had been stripped of for years. Chelsea didn’t want to appear too masculine in the portraits. I realized it was a perfect opportunity to highlight the reductionism of DNA phenotyping. Instead of producing one portrait to represent her, I generated two: one that was algorithmically gender “neutral” and one parameterized “female.” I presented the two portraits side by side to focus attention on the limitations of this technique even in regards to a genetic trait considered “legible.”

Just as the libertarian fraction of the cyberpunks fantasizes about the singularity putting the mind into software, biopunk-driven positivism fantasizes about DNA code being the instructions for life itself. “We have discovered the secret of life.” This was how Watson and Crick bragged about their discovery of the DNA double helix after poaching the work of their colleague Rosalind Franklin. Code is the ultimate dream.

#Génomique #biopunk #23andme #surveillance
So let’s imagine what happens as this runs its course. What will evolve from biohacking, taking into consideration what we have said so far?

Bioammo Technologies | Munición Ecológica
▻http://bioammo.es

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Welcome to Bioammo Technologies

Since 2008 Bio Ammo Ltd has been dedicated to development, manufacturing and distribution of biodegradable ammunition.

For many years the lands and waters have been contaminated with used plastic ammunition and its parts. The problem of plastic wastes becomes bigger from one year to another, causing a huge impact on environment.

Our company found ecological solution to this problem. We achieved the goal by combining biotechnology, environmental care and ammunition, brining you the unique product of high quality, product which is non-toxic, pollution-free and biodegradable.

The range of our patented products includes biodegradable pellet for airsoft and military training, cartridge for hunting and shooting sports and biodegradable bullet for firearms.

#munition #balle #bio #projectile #guerre_durable @reka

#AltWoke Manifesto - &&& Journal
▻http://tripleampersand.org/alt-woke-manifesto

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1. Theoria

#AltWoke is a new awakening for the post-modern Left to navigate the protean digital era. #Altwoke can be categorized as the new New Left. Or Second Wave Neo Marxism. The Post- Truth Left. Anti-liberal postcapitalist left. #AltWoke is antithetical to Silicone Valley techno-neoliberalism. #AltWoke is not the cult of Kurzweil. #AltWoke is not merely analogous to the Alt-Right. #AltWoke injects planning back into left-wing politics. #AltWoke supports universal basic income, biotechnology & radical energy reforms to combat climate change, open borders, new forms of urban planning & the liquidation of Western hegemony. AltWoke sees opportunity in disaster. #AltWoke is the Left taking futurism away from fascism. David Harvey is #altwoke. Situationist International is #altwoke. Jean Baudrillard is #altwoke. Roberto Mangabeira Unger is #altwoke. Eric Snowden is #altwoke. Daniel Keller is #altwoke. Chelsea Manning is #altwoke. William Gibson is #altwoke. Holly Herndon is #altwoke. Franz Fanon is #altwoke. Alvin Toffler is #altwoke.

The Man Who Kicked Off the Biotech Revolution - Issue 44: Luck
▻http://nautil.us/issue/44/luck/the-man-who-kicked-off-the-biotech-revolution

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It’s hard to tell precisely how big a role biotechnology plays in our economy, because it infiltrates so many parts of it. Genetically modified organisms such as microbes and plants now create medicine, food, fuel, and even fabrics. Recently, Robert Carlson, of the biotech firm Biodesic and the investment firm Bioeconomy Capital, decided to run the numbers and ended up with an eye-popping estimate. He concluded that in 2012, the last year for which good data are available, revenues from biotechnology in the United States alone were over $324 billion. “If we talk about mining or several manufacturing sectors, biotech is bigger than those,” said Carlson. “I don’t think people appreciate that.”MATCHMAKER: Biotech pioneer Hamilton Smith chose to study recombination in a species of bacteria (...)

Food made from natural gas will soon feed farm animals – and us | New Scientist
▻https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112298-food-made-from-natural-gas-will-soon-feed-farm-animals-and-us

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All of the food you’ve ever eaten was made with sunlight captured by plants just a few months or years before you ate it. But some of the energy on your plate could soon come from sunlight captured by plants millions of years ago, thanks to plans to feed livestock with fossil fuels.

A biotechnology company called Calysta, based in Menlo Park, California, is set to announce the first ever large-scale factory that uses microbes to turn natural gas – methane – into a high-protein food for the animals we eat. The factory, which will be built in the US in collaboration with food-giant Cargill, will produce 200,000 tonnes of feed a year.

#alimentation_cyborg #agriculture_cyborg #élevage #gaz #it_has_begun

A Souvenir Smuggled Home From Cuba : A #Cancer Vaccine
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/health/cancer-vaccine-cuba-medical-tourism.html

Since beginning to normalize relations with the United States in 2014, Cuba has become a hot tourist draw with its unspoiled beaches and vibrant night life. But the country also has a robust biotechnology industry that has generated an innovative vaccine called Cimavax. It is part of a new chapter of cancer treatment known as immunotherapy, which prompts the body’s immune system to attack the disease.

[...]

“There’s no doubt that without this medicine, I would be dead,” said Mick Phillips, 69, of Appleton, Wis., who first went to Cuba in 2012 and has been returning annually ever since. “When we were children, we were taught that Cubans didn’t know what they were doing. Turns out they do.”

[...]

The Cuban health care system has long been recognized for providing high-quality health care. A 2015 report on the Cuban health system by the World Health Organization noted, “In Cuba, products were developed to solve pressing health problems, unlike in other countries, where commercial interests prevailed.”

#santé #pharma

Greenpeace to Nobel Laureates : It’s Not Our Fault Golden Rice Has ’Failed as a Solution’
▻https://ecowatch.com/2016/06/30/nobel-laureates-greenpeace-gmo-golden-rice

Une petite enquête sur le contexte s’impose. L’idée que je m’en fait pour l’instant est qu’on a remplacé, aux Philippines notamment, les cultures vivrières par celle du riz à tous les étages. C’est bien beau mais les humains ont besoin d’une nourriture diversifiée et le riz c’est pas suffisant. C’est calorique mais c’est tout. Alors plutôt que conjuguer cultures vivrières et cultures céréalières, pof, on te balance un riz breveté enrichi aux vitamines !

Greenpeace was targeted Wednesday by more than 100 Nobel laureates who have signed a letter calling on the environmental group to end its campaign against genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

In the letter, Greenpeace is accused of leading “the fact-challenged propaganda campaign against innovations in agricultural biotechnology.” The NGO’s opposition on a particularly controversial GMO crop, golden rice, was put on blast.

New Norwegian Study Accuses Monsanto Of Falsely Claiming GMOs Are Safe | Collective-Evolution
▻http://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/04/09/new-norwegian-study-accuses-monsanto-of-falsely-claiming-gmos-

The Norwegian government, via The Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board (NBAB), is one such group. Commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency late last year to develop a guidance document in line with the Norwegian Gene Technology Act, their aim was to assess the sustainability of genetically modified (GM) herbicide-tolerant (HT) plants.

The report examines a dossier that was submitted to the Brazilian government by Monsanto, and it outlined how the research was flawed and lacking a tremendous amount of data. The study also pointed out a myriad of other concerns with regards to GMO Intacta Roundup Ready 2 Pro soybeans, finally concluding that the science behind the cultivation of this crop is simply inadequate. The report highlights a range of methodological weaknesses as well as the problem of incomplete information, research, and science on Genetically Modified Crops. This is something various other countries and scientists around the world have already suggested before.

#ogm #santé #tests

Why We Should Teach Kids to Code Biology, Not Just Software - Singularity HUB
▻http://singularityhub.com/2016/04/07/we-should-be-teaching-kids-to-code-biology-not-just-software

Domesticating biotechnology means bringing it to the masses, and that means we’d have even less control over it than when it was limited to university or government funded labs.

The answer to Dyson’s first question seems clear: This trend is not going to stop. There’s too much momentum. We have learned too much about how to control our own biology to turn back.

And this is all the more reason to teach the next generation early on about the power and ethics of rewriting the code of life.

#biotechnology #biohacking

Acreage for Genetically Modified Crops Declined in 2015 - NYTimes.com
▻http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/business/acreage-for-genetically-modified-crops-declined-in-2015.html?_r=1&referer=http://mobile.newsnow.co.uk/h/Industry+Sectors/Biotech/GM+Food

In 2015, for the first time, the acreage used for the crops declined, according to a nonprofit that tracks the plantings of biotech seeds.

The organization said the main cause for the decline, which measured 1 percent from 2014 levels, was low commodity prices, which led farmers to plant less corn, soybeans and canola of all types, both genetically engineered and nonengineered.

But the figures for the last few years show that the existing market for the crops has nearly been saturated.

Only three countries — the United States, Brazil and Argentina — account for more than three-quarters of the total global acreage. And only four crops — corn, soybeans, cotton and canola — account for the majority of biotechnology use in agriculture. In many cases, more than 90 percent of those four crops grown in those three countries, and in other large growers like Canada, India and China, is already genetically modified, leaving little room for expansion.

Efforts to expand use of biotechnology to other crops and to other countries have been hindered by opposition from consumer and environmental groups, regulatory hurdles and in some cases scientific obstacles.

https://cdn1.nyt.com/images/2016/04/12/business/Less-Acreage-in-GMO-Crops-1460500919948/Less-Acreage-in-GMO-Crops-1460500919948-mediumThreeByTwo225.png

Food and biopolitics : some literature

Bobrow-Strain, Aaron (2013) White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf

Bobrow-Strain, Aaron White bread bio-politics: purity, health, and the triumph of industrial baking Cultural Geographies January 2008 vol. 15 no. 1 19-40

Carney, Megan A. 2014. The biopolitics of ’food insecurity’: towards a critical political ecology of the body in studies of women’s transnational migration. Journal of Political Ecology 21: 1-18

Cloke, J. (2013) Empires of Waste and the Food Security Meme, Geography Compass 7/9 (2013): 622–636.

D Maye, J Kirwan (YEAR) Food security: A fractured consensus Journal of Rural Studies 29, 1-6

Emel, J, and Neo, H eds. Political Ecologies of Meat. Routledge, 2015.

Essex, Jamey. 2012. Idle Hands are the Devil’s Tools: The Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of Hunger. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Vol. 102, No. 1

Gibson, Kristina E. & Dempsey, Sarah E. (2015) Make good choices, kid: biopolitics of children’s bodies and school lunch reform in Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution children geographies Volume 13, Issue 1, 2015

Goodman Michael K. and Sage, Colin (Eds.) Food Transgressions. Making Sense of Contemporary Food Politics

Goodman, D. (1999) Agro-Food Studies in the ‘Age of Ecology’: Nature, Corporeality, Bio-Politics Sociologia Ruralis Volume 39, Issue 1, pages 17–38, January 1999

Goodman, M. K. (2015) Afterword: the everyday biopolitics of care-full eating. In: Abbots, E., Lavis, A. and Attala, L. (eds.) Careful Eating: Embodied Entanglements Between Food and Care. Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN 9781472439482

Goodman, M. K. (2015) Technicolor foods: the everyday biopolitics of Cuba. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5 (2). pp. 243-246. ISSN 2043-8214) doi: 10.1177/2043820615586690

Guthman, J, and DuPuis, M (2006) “Embodying neoliberalism: economy, culture, and the politics of fat.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24.3: 427-448.

Guthman, J. (2009) Teaching the Politics of Obesity: Insights into Neoliberal Embodiment and Contemporary Biopolitics Antipode Volume 41, Issue 5, pages 1110–1133

Heynen, Nik. 2008. Bringing the body back to life through Radical Geography of Hunger: The haymarket affair and its aftermath. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, Vol. 7 (No. 1), pp. 32-44

Holloway L (2015) Biopower and an ecology of genes: seeing livestock as meat via genetics. In: Emel J and Neo H (eds) Political Ecologies of Meat. London, Earthscan, pp.178-194

Holloway L and Morris C (2012) Contesting genetic knowledge-practices in livestock breeding: biopower, biosocial collectivities and heterogeneous resistances. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30 60-77

Holloway L, Bear C and Wilkinson K (2013) Re-capturing bovine life: robot-cow relationships, freedom and control in dairy farming. Journal of Rural Studies

Kurtz Hilda E. (2015) Scaling Food Sovereignty: Biopolitics and the Struggle for Local Control of Farm Food in Rural Maine, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105:4, 859-873, DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2015.1022127

Le Heron, R., Campbell, H., Lewis, N., & Carolan, M. (Eds.). (2016). Biological Economies: Experimentation and the politics of agri-food frontiers. Routledge.

MacAuslan, Ian. 2009. Hunger, Discourse and the Policy Process: How do conceptualizations of the Problem of ‘Hunger’ affect its measurement and solution? European Journal of Development Research. Vol. 21., No. 3. pp. 397-418

Mansfield, B. (2012) Gendered biopolitics of public health: regulation and discipline in seafood consumption advisories Environment and Planning D: Society and Space volume 30, pages 588 – 602.

Mansfield, B. (2012) Race and the new epigenetic biopolitics of environmental health BioSocieties Vol. 7, 4, 352–372.

Mansfield, B. (2012)Environmental Health as Biosecurity: “Seafood Choices,” Risk, and the Pregnant Woman as Threshold Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102(5), pp.969-976.

Morris C and Holloway L (2013) Genetics and livestock breeding in the UK: co-constructing technologies and heterogeneous biosocial collectivities. Journal of Rural Studies

Nally, David (2011) The biopolitics of food provisioning, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Volume 36, Issue 1, pages 37–53

Nally, David P. (2011) Human encumbrances: political violence and the Great Irish Famine. 2011.

Peet, R., Robbins P. and Watts, M (2011) Global Political Ecology

Roe, E. (2006) Material Connectivity, the Immaterial and the Aesthetic of Eating Practices: An Argument for How Genetically Modified Foodstuff Becomes Inedible Environ Plan A vol. 38 no. 3 465-481

Roe, E. and Buser, M. (2016) Becoming ecological citizens:connecting people through performance art, food matter and practices Cultural Geographies1–18

Sharp, G. (forthcoming) chapter on food and metabolic rift in James Ormrod (Ed.) Changing Our Environment Changing Ourselves, Palgrave

Slocum, R. and Saldhana, A. (eds.) Geographies of Race and Food, Routledge.

Smoyer Amy B. (2016) Making Fatty Girl Cakes - Food and Resistance in a Women’s Prison, The Prison Journal vol. 96 no. 2 191-209

Smoyer Amy B. and Blankenshipb Kim M. (2014) Dealing food: Female drug users’ narratives about food in a prison place and implications for their health Int J Drug Policy 25(3): 562–568.

Smoyer, Amy B. Prison Food Bibliography ▻http://www.amysmoyer.com/prison-food-biblio

Twine, Richard (2010) Animals as Biotechnology:" Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies". Routledge.

Vernon, James. 2007. Hunger: A Modern History. Harvard University Press

Winter, M. (2005) Geographies of food: agro-food geographies - food, nature, farmers and agency

Worby, E. (1994) ‘Maps, names and Ethnic Games: The Epistemology and Iconography of Colonial Power in North western Zimbabwe’, Journal of Southern African Studies 20, 3: 371-392

Worby, E. (1995) ‘What does agrarian wage labour signify?: Cotton, commoditization and social form in Gokwe, Zimbabwe’ Journal of Peasant Studies 23, 1: 1-29

Worby, E. (1998a) ‘Tyranny, parody, and ethnic polarity: Ritual engagements with the state in Northwestern Zimbabwe’ Journal of Southern African Studies 24, 3: 561-578

Worby, E. (1998b) ‘Inscribing the State at the “edge of beyond”: danger and development in north-western Zimbabwe’ Political and Legal Anthropology Review 21: 55-70

Worby, E. (2000) ‘ ‘Discipline without oppression’: sequence, timing and marginality in Southern Rhodesia’s post-war development regime’ Journal of African History 41, 1: 101-125

#alimentation #biopolitique #articles_scientifiques #nourriture #agriculture

Liste reçue via mailing-list critical geoforum :
▻https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=CRIT-GEOG-FORUM;ccb62d05.1603

Argentina Protests Monsanto Toxicity and GMO Plant | News | teleSUR English
►http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Argentina-Protests-Monsanto-Toxicity-and-GMO-Plant-20160109-0009.html

http://www.telesurtv.net/__export/1452348372642/sites/telesur/img/news/2016/01/09/monsanto.jpg_1810791533.jpg

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in Argentina to protest Monsanto following news of an impending eviction at a key resistance camp blocking a huge Monsanto GMO seed plant in the agricultural province of Cordoba.

Protests in Buenos Aires and other major cities on Friday slammed Monsanto over the dangers of widespread use of toxic agrochemicals on large-scale export crops like GMO soy and corn that cover large swathes of agricultural areas, shouting slogans like “Monsanto, get out!”

...

Argentina is the world’s largest soybean producer, and Monsanto sees the country as a target for future growth.

According to activists, the province of Cordoba where Monsanto wants to build the GMO plant is suffering an “environmental emergency.”

The movement against Monsanto, agrochemicals, and GMOs in Argentina is part of a larger mobilization of social organizations and researchers across Latin America that have also spoken out against Monsanto products in pursuit of wider ban of the biotechnology company in the region.

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
“►http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Argentina-Protests-Monsanto-Toxicity-and-GMO-Plant-20160109-0009.html”. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

#Argentite #protestation #ogm #pesticides #agro-industrie #santé

#Shkreli, le feuilleton épisode 3 : Martin Shkreli, Controversial Pharmaceuticals CEO and $2 Million Wu-Tang LP Purchaser, Arrested
Just yesterday, Shkreli revealed that he’s been working to bail Bobby Shmurda out of jail (and is fighting with RZA)

Shkreli has been “charged with illegally taking stock from Retrophin Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings,” according to Bloomberg.

▻http://pitchfork.com/news/62596-martin-shkreli-controversial-pharmaceuticals-ceo-and-2-million-wu-t

#big_pharma et #gros_cons