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The Watson co-incidence

Watsons no.1 and 2

IBM

Thomas J Watson senior: (1874 - 1956)

1874 born in Campbell, N.Y.

1892 began his career at age 18 as bookkeeper in Clarence Risley's Market in Painted Post, N.Y. Later, he sold pianos and sewing machines in the same village.

1895 took a job as a salesman with National Cash Register Company and later became general sales manager.

1913 married Jeannette M. Kittredge, daughter of an Ohio industrialist. They had four children.

1914 joined CTR (Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co) as general manager.

1915 became president of CTR.

After he was cleared of antitrust charges lingering from his tenure at NCR, Watson was promoted to president.

1924 CTR became IBM.

1937 became president of the International Chamber of Commerce.

1956 died at age 82.

President Eisenhower declared, "In the passing of Thomas J. Watson, the nation has lost a truly fine American - an industrialist who was first of all a great citizen and a great humanitarian."

Thomas J. Watson Jr. (1914 - 1993)

1914 born in Dayton, Ohio.

1933 entered Brown University.

1937 graduated from Brown University and joined IBM as a salesman in downtown Manhattan.

1940-1945 served as a B-24 pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

1941 married Olive Field Cawley. They had a son and five daughters.

1946 returned from war and rejoined IBM, within a year he became vice president and a member of the board of directors.

1956 became IBM CEO.

1971 stepped down as chairman and CEO after suffering a heart attack. T. Vincent Learson became CEO.

Watson said, "This is a very sentimental moment for me, because I am stepping down from a job that I have valued more than anything in my life outside of my own family." Watson remained on the board and served as chairman of the executive committee.

1979 served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union until 1981.

1985 stepped down from IBM board.

Watson retired at age 70, ending more than 70 years of Watson family leadership at IBM. He remained chairman emeritus and a member of IBM's advisory board.

1993 died at 79 in Greenwich, Conn.

"Perhaps the most important legacy of his leadership can be summarized in just three words: IBM means service," says IBM Chairman and CEO Louis V. Gerstner Jr.

history


Thomas Watson [IBM] meeting with Adolph Hitler

When Hitler came to power, a central Nazi goal was to identify and destroy Germany's 600,000 Jews. To Nazis, Jews were not just those who practiced Judaism, but those of Jewish blood, regardless of their assimilation, intermarriage, religious activity, or even conversion to Christianity. Only after Jews were identified could they be targeted for asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and ultimately extermination. To search generations of communal, church, and governmental records all across Germany--and later throughout Europe--was a cross-indexing task so monumental, it called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed.

When the Reich needed to mount a systematic campaign of Jewish economic disenfranchisement and later began the massive movement of European Jews out of their homes and into ghettos, once again, the task was so prodigious it called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed.

When the Final Solution sought to efficiently transport Jews out of European ghettos along railroad lines and into death camps, with timing so precise the victims were able to walk right out of the boxcar and into a waiting gas chamber, the coordination was so complex a task, this too called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed.

However, another invention did exist: the IBM punch card and card sorting system--a precursor to the computer. IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success. IBM Germany, using its own staff and equipment, designed, executed, and supplied the indispensable technologic assistance Hitler's Third Reich needed to accomplish what had never been done before--the automation of human destruction. More than 2,000 such multi-machine sets were dispatched throughout Germany, and thousands more throughout German-dominated Europe. Card sorting operations were established in every major concentration camp. People were moved from place to place, systematically worked to death, and their remains cataloged with icy automation.

IBM Germany, known in those days as Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, or Dehomag, did not simply sell the Reich machines and then walk away. IBM's subsidiary, with the knowledge of its New York headquarters, enthusiastically custom-designed the complex devices and specialized applications as an official corporate undertaking. Dehomag's top management was comprised of openly rabid Nazis who were arrested after the war for their Party affiliation. IBM NY always understood--from the outset in 1933--that it was courting and doing business with the upper echelon of the Nazi Party. The company leveraged its Nazi Party connections to continuously enhance its business relationship with Hitler's Reich, in Germany and throughout Nazi-dominated Europe.

Dehomag and other IBM subsidiaries custom-designed the applications. Its technicians sent mock-ups of punch cards back and forth to Reich offices until the data columns were acceptable, much as any software designer would today. Punch cards could only be designed, printed, and purchased from one source: IBM. The machines were not sold, they were leased, and regularly maintained and upgraded by only one source: IBM. IBM subsidiaries trained the Nazi officers and their surrogates throughout Europe, set up branch offices and local dealerships throughout Nazi Europe staffed by a revolving door of IBM employees, and scoured paper mills to produce as many as 1.5 billion punch cards a year in Germany alone. Moreover, the fragile machines were serviced on site about once per month, even when that site was in or near a concentration camp. IBM Germany's headquarters in Berlin maintained duplicates of many code books, much as any IBM service bureau today would maintain data backups for computers. - Edwin Black

The manhattan project and IBM

Jan 1939:
Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Walter Zinn, Herbert Anderson, and others begin work on nuclear fission in Columbia's Pupin Hall. Within a few months this work would become the Manhattan Project, funded by President Roosevelt (Columbia Law, 1905-07) in response to Albert Einstein's letter warning of Nazi research in this area. After Pearl Harbor, the project moved to the University of Chicago (supposedly to make it less vulnerable to German attack) and spread to the University of California, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Hanford, and other locations. Fermi's lab was in the same building as Professor Eckert's Astronomical Computing Bureau. I don't know to what degree, if any, Eckert's computing machines were employed in the early Manhattan Project, but as noted below they played a key role in 1945 in the final preparations for the first A-bombs. A number of other Columbia scientists worked on the project, including I.I. Rabi, Edward Teller, John Dunning (who identified U-235 as the fissionable uranium isotope using the Pupin cyclotron in Feb 1940), Harold Urey, and George Pegram (who assembled the original Manhattan Project team), as well as junior faculty who would later become well-known physicists, such as C.S. Wu and Bill Havens (both of whom I worked for in my student days), James Rainwater, Eugene Booth, and Richard Present. The following is taken from a narrative, Evolving from Calculators to Computers on the Los Alamos National Laboratory History website (May 2003):
Calculations at Los Alamos were originally done on manually operated mechanical calculators, which was not only laborious and time-consuming, but the machines broke down frequently under heavy use. The only one who could fix them promptly was Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965), which some thought was not the best use of his time. "Dana Mitchell, whom Laboratory Director J. Robert Oppenheimer had recruited from Columbia University to oversee procurement for Los Alamos, recognized that the calculators were not adequate for the heavy computational chores and suggested the use of IBM punched-card machines. He had seen them used successfully by Wallace Eckert at Columbia to calculate the orbits of planets and persuaded [Stanley] Frankel and [Eldred] Nelson to order a complement of them.
"The new IBM punched-card machines were devoted to calculations to simulate implosion, and Metropolis and Feynman organized a race between them and the hand-computing group. 'We set up a room with girls in it. Each one had a Marchant. But one was the multiplier, and another was the adder, and this one cubed, and all she did was cube this number and send it to the next one,' said Feynmann. For one day, the hand computers kept up: 'The only difference was that the IBM machines didn't get tired and could work three shifts. But the girls got tired after a while.'"

Columbia

Watson no.3

Behaviorism

Behaviorism originated with the work of John B. Watson, an American psychologist. Watson claimed that psychology was not concerned with the mind or with human consciousness. Instead, psychology would be concerned only with behavior. In this way, men could be studied objectively, like rats and apes.

Watson's work was based on the experiments of Ivan Pavlov, who had studied animals' responses to conditioning. In Pavlov's best-known experiment, he rang a bell as he fed some dogs several meals. Each time the dogs heard the bell they knew that a meal was coming, and they would begin to salivate. Pavlov then rang the bell without bringing food, but the dogs still salivated. They had been "conditioned" to salivate at the sound of a bell. Pavlov believed, as Watson was later to emphasize, that humans react to stimuli in the same way.
Behaviorism

Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it.
John B. Watson (1913).

First published in Psychological Review, 20, 158-177

Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist's total scheme of investigation.

It has been maintained by its followers generally that psychology is a study of the science of the phenomena of consciousness. It has taken as its problem, on the one hand, the analysis of complex mental states (or processes) into simple elementary constituents, and on the other the construction of complex states when the elementary constituents are given. The world of physical objects (stimuli, including here anything which may excite activity in a receptor), which forms the total phenomena of the natural scientist, is looked upon merely as means to an end. That end is the production of mental states that may be 'inspected' or 'observed'. The psychological object of observation in the case of an emotion, for example, is the mental state itself. The problem in emotion is the determination of the number and kind of elementary constituents present, their loci, intensity, order of appearance, etc. It is agreed that introspection is the method par excellence by means of which mental states may be manipulated for purposes of psychology. On this assumption, behavior data (including under this term everything which goes under the name of comparative psychology) have no value per se. They possess significance only in so far as they may throw light upon conscious states.1 Such data must have at least an analogical or indirect reference to belong to the realm of psychology.

Watsons theory

 

Behavioral Psychology

A History :TAKING THE "PSYCHE" OUT OF PSYCHOLOGY

 

watson no.4

DNA

James Watson was born in Chicago in 1928, was educated there at local grammar and high schools, and entered the University of Chicago in 1943. He received a BSc in Zoology in 1947.

His boyhood interest in birdwatching had promoted a serious desire to learn genetics, and this became possible via a Fellowship for graduate study at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he received his PhD in Zoology in 1950.

While there he was deeply influenced by the geneticists H J Muller, T M Sonnerborn and especially S E Luria who was his PhD tutor in his study of the effects of hard X-rays on bacteriophage multiplication.

During 1951 he met Maurice Wilkins at a Symposium in Naples and saw for the first time the X-ray pattern from crystalline DNA.

This greatly stimulated him to direct his research towards structural work on nucleic acids and proteins, and Luria was able to arrange for him to work with John Kendrew at the MRC Unit in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge where he first met Francis Crick from October 1952.

Watson and Crick discovered a common interest in solving the structure of DNA. They thought it possible to guess the structure from a study of the possible stereochemical configurations of polynucleotide chains, together with experimental data from King's College London.

Their first serious effort was unsatisfactory, but their second effort, based on more experimental evidence and a better appreciation of the nucleic acid literature, resulted in the complementary double-helical structure in March 1953.

In 1955-56 there was further collaboration with Crick on the general principles of construction of small viruses. In 1956, Watson joined the Biology Department at Harvard, investigating the role of RNA in protein synthesis. He became Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, in 1968.

Watson was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine jointly with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins in 1962 'for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material'.

He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1981 and awarded an honorary Knighthood in the New Year Honours in 2002.

A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid-the paper

The DNA Paper

sciencemuseum galleryguide

J Watson

Watson

Interview 1

What did Watson think was the most important result to come from the Human Genome Project? [From 1989 to 1992, Watson was the first director of the National Center for Human Genome Research.]

Watson answered, "The linking of genes and behavior," pointing in particular to studies on a potential gene for violence. In a study in the Netherlands, it was found that a gene for the enzyme monoamine oxidase, which destroys neurotransmitters, was inactive in violent males
in one family. Subsequent research discovered a weak promoter and a strong promoter for the gene, he explained. A study of youths in New Zealand with a history of violence found that they largely carried the weak promoter. Young people with the strong promoter, however, even those from violent, abusive homes, were unlikely to be aggressive.
caltech

Interview 2

Explain your theory of happiness.

W: My idea is we're dominated by our emotions. And emotions, you know, have chemical circuits. And these influence our genes, and this is not surprisingyou might need different sorts of people in a stable society. Some people get angry, some people don't. The gene for endorphin makes up part of a protein called POMC. So this protein is broken down by proteases. On the one end are endorphins, but on the other end is melanocortin and what used to be called MSH. Now MSH is made when you're in the sun. So when you make MSH, you're also making endorphins. So my theory is that that's why the sun makes you happy. But if you're not in the sun, you're unhappy. So my theory of happiness is that there are emotions that have a selective advantage; they make you do things that are good for you.

What about manipulating things like happiness or, say, intelligence or memoryif this becomes possible? What if you were able to genetically enhance these things?

W: I think that would be great, because I think so many people hardly have the intelligence that lets them survive in our civilization. Maybe one of the reasons for this growing inequality of income may in some sense be a reflection of some people being more strong and healthy than others. Some people, no matter how much schooling you give them, will never really be up to what is now considered a necessary degree of effective intelligence. We're sifting at the top of the pyramid of an awful lot of things that happen without us knowing it, that allow us to be sifting here. We never ask what it's like to be at the bottom. There seems to be a total lack of compassion for people at the bottom.

In the 1990s we had the "digital divide" between the technology haves and the have-nots. What will happen when the wealthy have access to genetic enhancements but not the poor?

W: The function of genetics should be somehow to try to reverse bad truths. I think we need to develop a political philosophy about this, to establish rules. One is that some people fail for reasons out of their control.... What function of you is really caused by having a bad throw of the genetic dice?

Do you worry that through genetic engineering we may create a new subspecies of human who is stronger, smarter, and healthier, and that this new species will end up surviving while the current Homo sapiens dies out? Something like the situation with the Neanderthals and our ancestors, the Cro-Magnons?

W: No, I don't think so. It depends on how we approach it. I think some people may have to be helped. Whether it's getting the genes for mental illness out of their family, however you do it. You could add a gene that would make you resistant to HIV. Wouldn't that be a rather nice thing? But I'm not in favor of a "sterilizing the lower classes" kind of argument.

Let me jump to the next step of that: You are Jim Watson. You're put in charge of how we as a society are going to react to issues raised by geneticsstem cells, bioengineering, and the like. What would you do?

W: Well, my sensibility is very libertarian. Just let all genetic decisions be made by individual women. That is, never ask what's good for the country; ask what's good for the family. I don't know what's good for the country, but you can often say what's good or bad for the family. That is, mental disease is no good for any family. And so if there's a way of trying to fight that, I'd let a woman have the choice to do it or not do it. Not give in and have the state tell you to have a certain sort of child. I would be very frightened by the state telling you one way or the other.

discover.com

 

50 years of DNA Nature.com

links to all these seemingly unrelated 'Watsons' are telling

Behaviorism and Eugenics

The term eugenics comes from the Greek roots for "good" and "generation" or "origin" and was first used to refer to the "science" of heredity and good breeding in about 1883.

Within 20 years, the word was widely used by scientists who had rediscovered the work of Gregor Mendel. Mendel had meticulously recorded the results of cross-breeding pea plants, and found a very regular statistical pattern for features like height and color. This introduced the concept of genes, opening the field of genetics to a tumultuous century of research. One path of genetic research branched off into the shadows of social theory, and in the first quarter of the twentieth century became immensely popular as eugenics. It was presented as a mathematical science that could be used to predict the traits and behaviors of humans, and in a perfect world, to control human breeding so that people with the best genes would reproduce and thus improve the species. It was an optimistic school of thought with a profound faith in the powers of Science.

The trappings of science, anyway. Even in its day, many people saw that eugenics was a dubious discipline, riddled with inconsistencies. But it was championed by a very prominent and respected biologist, Charles Davenport, and its conclusions told many people what they wanted to hear: that certain "racial stock" was superior to others in such traits as intelligence, hard work, cleanliness, and so on. In this view of human behavior, the work of Sigmund Freud was disregarded, while the ideas of behaviorism were just gaining ground.

Local eugenics societies and groups sprang up around the United States after World War I, with names like the Race Betterment Foundation. The war had given many Americans a greater fear of foreigners, and immigration to the United States was still increasing. In 1923, organizers founded the American Eugenics Society, and it quickly grew to 29 chapters around the country. At fairs and exhibitions, eugenicists spread the word and hosted "fitter family" and "better baby" competitions to award blue ribbons to the finest human stock -- not unlike the awards for prize bull and biggest pumpkin. Not only did eugenicists promote better breeding, they wanted to prevent poor breeding or the risk of it. That meant keeping people with undesireable traits in their heritage (including alcoholism, pauperism, or epilepsy) separate from others or, where law allowed, preventing them from reproducing. These vocal groups advocated laws to attain their aims, and in 1924, the Immigration Act was passed by majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. It set up strict quotas limiting immigrants from countries believed by eugenicists to have "inferior" stock, particularly Southern Europe and Asia. President Coolidge, who signed the bill into law, had stated when he was vice president, "America should be kept American. . . . Biological laws show that Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races."

Behaviorism was introduced in 1913, and the genetic work of Thomas Hunt Morgan and others became known through the 'teens. After World War I, few scientists joined the ranks of the eugenicists. As the weight of the scientific community shifted toward behaviorism and true genetics, popular opinion followed. John Watson's articles about childrearing and self-improvement popularized behaviorism still further. The eugenics craze was already fading when the horrors of institutionalized eugenics revealed in Nazi Germany during World War II doused it entirely as a movement.
Eugenics movement reaches its height

"In Germany interest in eugenics flourished after the turn of the century when Dr. Alfred Ploetz founded the Archives of Race-Theory and Social Biology in 1904 and the German Society of Racial Hygiene in 1905. The German term Rassenhygiene or race hygiene was broader than the word eugenics; it included all attempts at improving hereditary qualities as well as measures directed at population increase. By the 1920s various German textbooks incorporated ideas of heredity and racial hygiene, and German professors were participating in the international eugenics movement. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics was founded in 1927; by 1933 a sterilization law which had been entitled "Eugenics in the service of public welfare" indicated compulsory sterilization "for the prevention of progeny with hereditary defects" in cases of "congenital mental defects, schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, hereditary epilepsy... and severe alcoholism."
Eugenics scope note 28

IBM & the holocaust -

a society based on the labelling of dissident humans
via a 'technological system' IS a society grounded in fear based behaviorism...

"As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s. Only after Jews were identified -- a massive and complex task that Hitler wanted done immediately -- could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation and organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 1930s no computer existed. But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor."
Edwin Black

DNA and behaviorism

The philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

This adage is appropriate to our current rush into the "gene age," which has striking parallels to the eugenics movement of the early decades of the 20th century.

Eugenics was, quite literally, an effort to breed better human beings by encouraging the reproduction of people with "good" genes and discouraging those with "bad" genes. Eugenicists effectively lobbied for social legislation to keep racial and ethnic groups separate, to restrict immigration from southern and eastern Europe, and to sterilize people considered "genetically unfit." Elements of the American eugenics movement were models for the Nazis, whose radical adaptation of eugenics culminated in the Holocaust."
eugenics archives

BF skinner and the perversion of science

IBM and the DNA database

Mayo, IBM to develop genetic database

Published 3/26/2002 1:50 PM

-- The Mayo Clinic is joining forces with IBM Corp. to develop a multi-million-dollar DNA database of patients for genetic research and health care.

The high-tech information system would contain archival data on tissue from blood, tumors and other body parts that would be immediately available to doctors and researchers to compare diagnoses and treatments with DNA profiles and other information.

"If you go (to Mayo) with an illness, (doctors) should be able to reach into this database and find other individuals just like you," IBM Life Sciences director of strategy Jeff Augen told Tuesday's Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Mayo would not put a price on the project but last month said it needed $80 million for information systems, equipment, staff and training for genomics. The UNIX-based IBM pSeries server also will allow investigators to identify potential participants for clinical trials.

"The new system could enable the clinic's medical staff to quickly draw meaning from data to support medical treatments, including genomic information from public and private databases and retrospective studies of millions of archived records from patients," IBM said in a statement.

Mayo's extensive archive of more than 6 million patients will be loaded into the database by July and genetic information will be added in subsequent phases of the project.

Officials said the world-renown clinic would protect patient confidentiality by removing all information that would permit identification of individuals in the database.

Liberty's position on DNA databases

A reliance on technology as a solution to crime is simplistic. A society should address the causes of crime (especially drug dependence and poverty). Technical answers are inadequate and raise their own problems.

1. Technology is now able to capture and retain detailed information about individuals. Police computers contain fingerprint information, sentencing information and records of contacts with police. There are millions of pieces of information held in these computers about citizens of Victoria. An addition o f a genetic identity database is more worrying.

2. There is no time limit on how long the information can be held.

3. There are some safeguards about when a DNA sample is to be taken, but if the testing of person's sample exonerates him or her from a crime, the sample should be destroyed, not retained in a growing computer databank.

4. The State is now creating a database about an individual's genetic identity. The Kennett Government intends to put the police computers in private hands. The implications of this transfer to the private sector have not been adequately addressed. The individual has no opportunity to correct wrong information contained on the database.

5. The State has huge resources to use expert evidence. Even technical experts can be wrong (as the Lindy Chamberlain case proved so dramatically). But the defendant does not have equal resources - Legal Aid budgets have been cut to shreds.not have

DNA database socially worthless? Not if you're a slave to it...

"What all this means is that any genetic susceptibility will be swamped by the social and environmental factors, ie, geography, social class, ethnicity, and lifestyle. It is hard to see how there can be significant findings from the BioBank project that could justify the huge investments called for. It is a hangover from the human genome project, and still driven by the same genetic determinist ideology that has been thoroughly discredited as the human genome map unfurled. "

Human DNA 'BioBank' Worthless

British Police Propose Universal DNA Database

By Mike Wendling
CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
September 09, 2003 London (CNSNews.com) -

Police in Britain have called for debate on the possibility of collecting genetic codes from every U.K. resident. The information would be stored in a database as a means to fight crime, but civil liberties groups are opposed to the idea.

Kevin Morris, chairman of the Police Superintendents' Association, proposed the idea in a speech at the group's annual conference on Tuesday.

Police believe the database would help them tackle unsolved crimes and that public opposition to the plan is not as widespread as politicians and civil liberties campaigners say it is.

Rick Naylor, the association's vice president, said that the database would not only aid police in closing cases but would also provide an additional deterrent to criminals.

"We understand this technology and the potential that this technology has," he said by phone from the conference. "It would be a major tool in the reduction of crime."

Currently, British police can take DNA samples from anyone appearing in court on criminal charges, even if they are acquitted.

A national database compiled by police holds about two million DNA samples.

The government has proposed extending sampling to anyone arrested on suspicion of a crime, even if they aren't charged, but Naylor said police are worried that the new rules would "either wittingly or unwittingly lead to discrimination."

The solution to this, police say, is to make the database universal.

Naylor acknowledged that the public would have valid privacy concerns and that the project, which he said won't come to fruition for at least five to 10 years, would be very costly. The exact price wouldn't be available until more research is commissioned, he said.

"One thing we've got to impress on the public at large is that we want safeguards in place, that this information couldn't be used for anything other than the prevention and detection of crime," he said.

But the country's foremost civil liberties group has already come out in opposition to the proposal.

"To be fair to the Police Superintendents, what they're really calling for is a debate on the issue, which we welcome," said Barry Hugill, spokesman for Liberty.

However, Hugill added: "We find the idea of a DNA database covering a (British) population of 60 million a frightening scenario."

"Once a national database is set up, there will be endless other uses for it besides solving crimes," he said, citing potential interest by the insurance industry and genetic scientists.

Liberty would also be concerned about government use of the database outside of the realm of law and order, Hugill said.

"A very real danger is that governments in years to come will want to access the database as an instrument of social policy," he said.

Liberty, Privacy, and DNA Databases

The Human Genome
As The Ultimate Implication
Of The Superpowers
Of The Human Biomind

The Management of disease - population control?

hmmm

Avian flu - menace from the east

"Master" Disease Gene Fountain of Youth?

GenoMed has discovered and applied for patent protection on a treatment that could have wide-ranging use for over 150 common diseases that currently carry a dismal prognosis. These include diabetes and its complications (which affects 20 million in the United States alone), high blood pressure and its complications (which affects 60 million in the U.S.); emphysema and other smoking-related diseases; and many other serious diseases, including infection with HIV and progression to AIDS, common solid cancers such as lung, colon, pancreas, liver, and kidney; cancers of the blood-stream such as chronic leukemias, multiple myeloma, and lymphomas; and immune-mediated diseases such as multiple sclerosis, degenerative joint disease (osteoarthritis) and rheumatoid arthritis.

GenoMed has found that over-activity of a single enzyme, angiotensin I-converting enzyme ("ACE"), may be behind these diseases. The logical treatment is effective inhibition of the ACE enzyme, using the correct dose of the correct ACE inhibitor. As a class, ACE inhibitors have been in widespread use since the 1970's, and have a very well-known safety profile. The company has so far had dramatically positive results in the following diseases:

[snip]

GenoMed has found close to 160 common diseases which it predicts should respond to its patent-pending approach (see reference #2). All of these diseases are acquired as one ages. If GenoMed's proprietary treatment can dramatically delay or even prevent these diseases, then GenoMed's treatment could justifiably be called at least a component of the Fountain of Youth. The more diseases which respond to this treatment, the more appropriate will be the name "Fountain of Youth" itself for GenoMed's approach. Only time and further clinical experience will tell.

disease control via Electromagnetic Frequency manipulation from advertising hoarings???

"Advanced Optics primary initial product that will be marketed to users of the outdoor advertising industry is the flat-panel display, which will provide an image measuring approximately three meters by eight meters, similar in size to existing printed billboards." - Yahoo finance

"GenoMed Inc. announced today that the Company has secured an additional $900,000 in equity financing from Advanced Optics Electronics, Inc.. " - Genomed news

On Race-Targetable Biological Weaponry

You may have wondered about the recent suspicious death of Dr. David Kelly, a microbiologist in the UK with connections high in the Tony Blair administration.

What did he know? What did he say .... when, and to whom? Was he killed because he 'knew too much'?

"... former member of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), Dedi Zucker, caused a storm ... when he claimed that the institute (the Institute for Biological Research, one of the most secret places in Israel).was "trying to create an ethnic specific weapon" in which Arabs could be targeted by Israeli weapons."

A suspicious pattern of deaths of prominent microbiologists has emerged around the world, but especially highly-advanced researchers connected with the USA, the UK, Russia, and Israel, and who were known to be familiar with this arcane branch of germ weapons research.

Are these people being killed in order to hush a scandalous, monstrous fact of recent research in this field -- that secret services in major countries are investigating how to kill off whole races of people with germ weapons -- even developing the means to do that?

What accounts for the appearance of AIDS (HIV), and now SARS, which have predominantly victimized people of other than European ancestry?

That may not really apply, but what of the facts in this matter? Do people high up in Israeli and US government really intend to develop germ weapons that will selectively attack or kill off certain races of people?

The fake presidency -- the Bush regime -- is known to be influenced by individuals who advocate this kind of research ... in fact, specifically calling for the "political usefulness" of gene-targetable bio-weapons (see the quote and reference below). Several of these individuals have strong links to Israel; possibly even dual citizenship:

"... the art of warfare ... will be vastly different than it is today ... combat likely will take place in new dimensions ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can target specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."

From 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' the leading policy "white paper" of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which has essentially dictated Bush regime "defense" policies since early 2001 The Peace Studies Discussion Group

Ethnically Specific Bioweapons???

"Ethno-Bombs": Warnings were raised a decade ago

In 1993, RAFI, Rural Advancement Foundation International, now the ETC Group - Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration,21 raised concerns that the gathering of human genetic material by, among other organizations, the Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) could make feasible the development of ethnically targeted viruses.

RAFI's executive director, Pat Roy Mooney wrote: "Not since we warned, at the beginning of the 1980s, that herbicide manufacturers were buying seed companies in order to develop plant varieties that liked their chemicals, has RAFI borne the brunt of so much abuse. But in 1996, Dr. Vivienne Nathanson, the British Medical Association's (BMA) Head of Science and Ethics told a congress of the World Medical Association that ethnically targeted genetic weapons were now possible, and she cited as example the possibility of designing an agent that could sterilize or pass on a lethal hereditary defect in specific ethnic groups.

In 1999, the BMA issued a report called Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity, which warned that genetic knowledge could be misused to develop weapons aimed at specific ethnic groups. The executive summary, available online, stated: Over the last few decades rapid advances in molecular biology have allowed the heritable material (DNA) of different organisms to be interchanged. The Human Genome Project and the Human Genetic Diversity Projects are allowing the identification of human genetic coding and differences in normal genetic material between different ethnic groups.

During the review conferences on the BTWC, an increasing level of concern has been expressed by national governments over the potential use of genetic knowledge in the development of a new generation of biological and toxin weapons.

Legitimate research into microbiological agents, relating both to the development of agents for use in, for example agriculture, or to improve the medical response to disease causing agents, may be difficult to distinguish from research with the malign purpose of producing more effective weapons.

Research that could be used to develop ethnic weapons has historically been based upon natural susceptibilities, or upon the absence of vaccination within a target group. Genetic engineering of biological agents, to make them more potent, has been carried out covertly for some years, but not as an overt step to produce more effective weapons. In genetic terms there are more similarities between different people and peoples than there are differences. But the differences exist, and may singly or in combination distinguish the members of one social group (an "ethnic" group) from another.

Israel: CBW program finds genetic differences between Arabs and Jews

On November 15, 1998, the Sunday Times of London ran a front page article reporting that the Israelis were planning an ethnic bomb.41 The article stated that the Israelis were trying to identify distinctive genes carried by some Arabs, particularly Iraqis. "The intention is to use the ability of viruses and certain bacteria to alter the DNA inside their host's living cells. The scientists are trying to engineer deadly microorganisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes."

The article reported that the program was based at Nes Tziyona, Israel's main biological and chemical weapons research facility, and that an unnamed scientist there said that while the common Semitic origin of Arabs and Jews complicated the task, "They have, however, succeeded in pinpointing a particular characteristic in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities, particularly the Iraqi people." The report also quoted Dedi Zucker, a member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) as saying, "Morally, based on our history, and our tradition and our experience, such a weapon is monstrous and should be denied." Israel has never signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. from the wilderness

The reported existence of the Israeli ethnic bullet will almost predictably trigger a gene weapons arms race in the Middle East. Worse still the research and development of such weapons can be carried out in amazingly small facilities that are next to impossible to monitor. Perhaps most ominously, the "science" of genetically specific bioweapons is still in its infancy and no one knows if breakthroughs might reduce the cost of their production to the point that small and extremely malevolent groups such as the neo-Nazis may attempt to bring about a new Final Solution. - Genetic Bullets - Ethnically Specific Bioweapons from the wilderness

Fascism - The next level

Gene scientists plan aggression drug
20 July 2004
By David Adam


Scientists yesterday raised the prospect of drugs being developed to treat violent behaviour.

As experts gathered in London for a conference to discuss the role that genes play in aggression, Donald Pfaff of Rockefeller University said there was enough known about how genes influence behaviour in animals to consider designing human medicines to fight the rising tide of antisocial behaviour.

"One question we're looking at is opportunities for pharmacogenomics," Professor Pfaff said. "The use of cleverly designed drugs to control inappropriate aggression and violence [could] bring that individual into a range where normal social controls, including a good family environment and good school environments, can work." The Guardian

Liberty, Privacy, and DNA Databases

IBM targets humanitarian projects with world grid

Hoping to harness a few million of the personal computers are not already running the SETI@home screen saver, IBM and United Devices have launched a new World Community Grid project designed to act as a clearing house for humanitarian computing projects.

Users who would like to see their computers work for the betterment of humanity every time they grab a coffee can download a 1.5Mb software package that will turn their desktop PC into number crunching node on a worldwide grid. arn net

IBM to Build Supercomputer for U.S. Army

NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said it had been selected to build a supercomputer for the U.S. Department of Defense that help develop advanced weapons for the army.

The computer, code named "Stryker," will be deployed at the Army Research Laboratory Major Shared Resource Center in Aberdeen, Maryland, IBM said. IBM did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

The supercomputer consists of 1186 powerful IBM computers connected together with a total of about 2,300 64-bit microprocessors made by AMD. The supercomputer would run on the Linux operating system.

This would be the largest Linux based supercomputer in the U.S. military, IBM said.

The system will perform at a peak speed of 10 teraflops, or 10 trillion mathematical operations per second. That means the supercomputer will be able to accomplish in just one second what it would take a person with a calculator a few million years.

Reuters

IBM gives free trial for DNA tool

The life sciences field is seen as a fertile one for information technology providers. Market research firm IDC estimates that IT spending for biosciences will jump from $12 billion in 2001 to $30 billion in 2006. IBM says its life sciences division is its fastest-growing unit. Formed in 2000, the division enjoyed triple-digit growth last year. Charles River Laboratories, which provides products and services related to drug research and development, is using technology from IBM and Proteome Systems in its Charles River Proteomics Services unit, IBM said. The technology, called ProteomIQ, relies on IBM technology, including IBM DB2 Universal Database, Tivoli storage and access management software, and IBM p690 pSeries servers. Znet

Gene blocking turns monkeys into workaholics

Procrastinating monkeys were turned into workaholics using a gene treatment to block a key brain compound, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. Blocking cells from receiving dopamine made the monkeys work harder at a task -- and they were better at it, too, the U.S. government researchers found. Dr. Barry Richmond and colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health used a new genetic technique to block the D2 gene.

"The gene makes a receptor for a key brain messenger chemical, dopamine," Richmond said in a statement.

Dopamine is a message carrying chemical associated with rewards, movement and a variety of other important functions. - CNN

monkeys now...whose next?

Remember the economic buzzword of the 90's?

The 'new Asian miracle'?

see: disaster hits Asia

The Asian genome study, a project spanning populations in seventeen Asian countries, will also allow scientists to compare genetic maps and find out if people prone to certain illness have a common characteristic in their DNA set. - Genetic study focuses on Asians
Research will expand upon genome project

Ethnic drugs: sensible treatment or racist ideology?

The cancer industry

Are activists and critics of the Government genetically abnormal? Is there an insubordination gene? Could gene-scans help identify troublemakers be sedated?

the latest technology could be used to stop 'protests' and other behaviour that is labelled as anti-social for political reasons...

This is yet another angle on getting everyone on the dna database

HTT 5 is the serotonin transporter

ritalin and other behavior modification via
pharmaceutical 'solutions' affect this mechanism
as they are inhibitors of the brains Serotonin production

they are genetically modifying all human life...

into what?

as we have seen with the 'E generation' -
the effects of MDMA' abuse on seretonin producers
could lead to a 'moodless zombified' population

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology can be thought of as bar codes that operate at a distance to provide advanced product tracking and inventory control. With the IBM RFID solution for asset tracking and inventory management, your manufacturing business can identify and manage in-transit raw materials, manufactured goods or products in near real time.
IBM
Dutch electronics maker Philips is one of the producers of RFID chips. Together with Japan's Sony Corp, credit card company Visa and handset maker Nokia it is pushing an advanced version called Near Field Communication which can be used for wireless electronic payments and other transactions by using a phone. Fifty percent of all items will be tagged by 2005, IBM estimates, which is when billions of products will be smart enough to know what they are and when they were manufactured.
CNN

Techno fascism

Remote-control for Bacteria

Radio waves switch proteins on and off.

6 December 2002 PHILIP BALL - Remote-controlled bacteria could be just around the corner. Researchers have found a way to switch cell processes on and off with radio waves. The goal is "microbial machines", Joseph Jacobson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge told this week's Materials Research Society meeting in Boston.

Cells, he explained, could be equipped with a toolbox of 'software' - such as the ability to glow periodically1. Remote-controlled enzymes could cut and paste these modules as if downloading a particular program into the cells. This is a long way off, but the components are taking shape.

Jacobson's team uses an electromagnetic field to switch on and off an enzyme that snips open the genetic messenger molecule RNA. First they attach a tiny particle of gold to the enzyme. Only millionths of a millimetre across, the gold nanoparticle acts as an antenna, harvesting energy from a radio-frequency electromagnetic field. This energy breaks up the enzyme, rendering it useless. When the field is switched off, the parts of the enzyme re-assemble of their own accord.

Earlier this year the same team manipulated DNA in a similar way2 . They stuck a gold antenna to DNA strands that spontaneously curl up into hairpin structures where the two ends zip together. A radio-frequency pulse picked up by the gold antenna opened up the hairpin.

Showing that the approach works for proteins too greatly increases the range of things that might be done with it - proteins orchestrate nearly all the chemical processes in a cell. - lauralee.com

DNA computer

In 2001, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, made headlines when they created a computer so small that a single drop of water would hold a trillion of the machines. The device used DNA and enzymes as their software and hardware and could perform a billion operations per second with 99.8% accuracy. Now, as reported by National Geographic, the same team, led by Professor Ehud Shapiro, has announced a new version of its biomolecular computer, 50 times faster than its predecessor, that not only reads DNA as data but actually uses it for fuel. The Guinness Book of World Records has recognized it as the world's "smallest biological computing device". "Once the input, software, and hardware molecules are mixed in a solution it operates to completion without intervention," said David Hawksett, the science judge at Guinness World Records. "If you want to present the output to the naked eye, human manipulation is needed." Two spoonfuls could hold up to 30 million billion of the computers, and they could perform 660 trillion operations per second--nearly 20 times the speed of the Earth Simulator in Yokohama, Japan, the world's most powerful supercomputer.

Shapiro and his colleagues described their new DNA computer in a report published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DNA computing is in its infancy, but it could one day transform the future of computers, especially in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. Some scientists predict a future where our bodies are patrolled by tiny DNA computers that monitor our well-being and release the right drugs to repair damaged or unhealthy tissue. "Autonomous bio-molecular computers may be able to work as 'doctors in a cell,' operating inside living cells and sensing anomalies in the host," said Shapiro. "Consulting their programmed medical knowledge, the computers could respond to anomalies by synthesizing and releasing drugs." - Sci Scoop magazine

Intelligence

Dysbindin-1 gene (DTNBP1) - The Intelligence Gene

By North Shore-Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Health System Apr 30, 2006, 23:10 -

Psychiatric researchers at The Zucker Hillside Hospital campus of The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have uncovered evidence of a gene that appears to influence intelligence. Working in conjunction with researchers at Harvard Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics in Boston, the Zucker Hillside team examined the genetic blueprints of individuals with schizophrenia, a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by cognitive impairment, and compared them with healthy volunteers.

They discovered that the dysbindin-1 gene (DTNBP1), which they previously demonstrated to be associated with schizophrenia, may also be linked to general cognitive ability.

"A robust body of evidence suggests that cognitive abilities, particularly intelligence, are significantly influenced by genetic factors. Existing data already suggests that dysbindin may influence cognition," said Katherine Burdick, PhD, the study's primary author. "We looked at several DNA sequence variations within the dysbindin gene and found one of them to be significantly associated with lower general cognitive ability in carriers of the risk variant compared with non-carriers in two independent groups."

The study involved 213 unrelated Caucasian patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 126 unrelated healthy Caucasian volunteers. The researchers measured cognitive performance in all subjects. They then analyzed participants' DNA samples. The researchers specifically examined six DNA sequence variations, also known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), in the dysbindin gene and found that one specific pattern of SNPs, known as a haplotype, was associated with general cognitive ability: Cognition was significantly impaired in carriers of the risk variant in both the schizophrenia group and the healthy volunteers as compared with the non-carriers.

"While our data suggests the dysbindin gene influences variation in human cognitive ability and intelligence, it only explained a small proportion of it -- about 3 percent. This supports a model involving multiple genetic and environmental influences on intelligence," said Anil Malhotra, MD, principal investigator of the study.

The specific role of dysbindin in the central nervous system is unknown, but it is highly present in key brain regions linked to cognition, including learning, problem solving, judgment, memory and comprehension. Scientists speculate that dysbindin plays a role in communication between brain cells in these regions and helps promote their survival. An alteration in the genetic blueprint for dysbindin may ultimately interfere with cell communication and fail to protect brain cells from dying, with a resulting negative impact on cognition and intelligence.

Final chromosome in human genome sequenced

By Reuters

Scientists have reached a landmark point in one of the world's most important scientific projects by sequencing the last chromosome in the human genome, the so-called "book of life".

Chromosome 1 contains nearly twice as many genes as the average chromosome and makes up eight percent of the human genetic code.

It is packed with 3,141 genes and linked to 350 illnesses including cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

"This achievement effectively closes the book on an important volume of the Human Genome Project," said Simon Gregory, who headed the sequencing project at the Sanger Institute in England.

The project was started in 1990 to identify the genes and DNA sequences that provide a blueprint for human beings.

Chromosome 1 is the biggest and contains, per chromosome, the greatest number of genes.

"Therefore it is the region of the genome to which the greatest number of diseases have been localized," added Gregory, from Duke University in the United States.

The sequence of chromosome 1, which is published online by the journal Nature, took a team of 150 British and American scientists 10 years to complete.

Researchers around the world will be able to mine the data to improve diagnostics and treatments for cancers, autism, mental disorders and other illnesses.

Final chapter

Chromosomes, which are found in the nucleus of a cell, are thread-like structures that contain genes that determine the characteristics of an individual.

The human genome has an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 genes. The sequencing of chromosome 1 has led to the identification of more than 1,000 new genes.

"We are moving into the next phase which will be working out what the genes do and how they interact," Gregory told Reuters.

The genetic map of chromosome 1 has already been used to identify a gene for a common form of cleft lip and palate. It will also improve understanding of what processes lead to genetic diversity in populations, according to Gregory.

Each chromosome is made up of a molecule of DNA in the shape of a double helix which is composed of four chemical bases represented by the letters A (adenine), T (thymine), G (guanine) and C (cytosine). The arrangement, or sequence, of the letters determines the cell's genetic code.

The scientists also identified 4,500 new SNPs--single nucleotide polymorphisms--which are the variations in human DNA that make people unique.

SNPs contain clues about why some people are susceptible to diseases like cancer or malaria, the best way to diagnose and treat them and how they will respond to drugs.

First molecular-machine combination revealed

18:30 22 March 2006- NewScientist.com news service - Stu Hutson

It twists and swims - and little else - but the first combination of two molecular machines is an important step on the long path to nanodevices sophisticated enough to, for example, perform repair functions within our cells.

"The next step is to integrate multiple molecular machines" into much bigger devices, says Kazushi Kinbara, who developed the tiny contraption with colleagues at the University of Tokyo, Japan. "That project is now in progress."

The last decade of research has produced a wide array of nanoscale widgets - ranging from a 350-atom propeller to an elevator with a 2.5-nanometre rise. But virtually all have been a demonstration of principle, and of little or no real use in isolation.

"The motion of just one of these types of constructs is something that researchers spend years on," says Ross Kelly, who built a molecular motor in 1999 at Boston College. "Joining two moving pieces, and actually getting them to work together, is a considerable achievement."

Twisted prongs

The first part of the team's molecular machine works a little like a pair of pliers (see diagram). But opening one end of the structure's central X-shape does not widen the other end. Instead, the two prongs at that end twist around until they are 90° from their original position. This contortion is hinged on a pair of iron-based molecules that act as molecular ball bearings.

The opening and closing action is powered by exposure to ultraviolet and visible light. The UV light causes a pair of double-bonded nitrogen atoms strung between the two plier "handles" to kink, closing them. Exposure to visible light unkinks the bond, opening it up.

The second half of the machine is a pair of flipper-like pedals suspended between the prongs on the other side of the X. The twisting motion prompted by light exposure causes the pedals to flap, much like the flippers of a toy diver. The result is the first example of one molecular machine controllably driving the action of another, say the researchers.

Magnetism vs gravity

Both science and science fiction have long imagined that such tiny contraptions would one-day produce awe-inspiring results - whether as artery cleaning nanorobots or out-of-control producers of grey goo.

However, the mechanics of molecular machines is extraordinarily complex. It relies on the dynamics of chemical bonds and nanoscale forces, as apposed to the relatively straight-forward engineering principles at work in large-scale mechanical devices, like cars. Furthermore, magnetism becomes more important than gravity, and the strongest "welding" is a chemical bond that can be ripped open by nearby molecules.

But perhaps the biggest challenge is that the devices are not usually built one molecule at a time. Instead machines such as this new one are produced by a series of chemical reactions in solution that assemble billions of billions of units at a time.

Killer application

"After you finally have finished the very difficult task of making a ball-and-stick model for a molecule that will perform a particular task, you face the even more difficult challenge of building it," said Josef Michl, a nanotechnologist at the University of Colorado.

However, it is a challenge that researchers are getting better yet each year. Kinbara expects his work will yield sophisticated molecular machines in as little as five years. Some of the first applications of complex molecular devices will probably be in microfluidics or very small-scale electrical systems.

"What the final product will be 50 years from now, we don't know," Michl says. "We're still at the very beginning. Ultimately, the killer application is going to be something we haven't even thought of yet." Journal reference: Nature (DOI: 10.1038/nature046735)

Could nanomachines be tomorrow's doctors?

Scientists have built a tiny biological computer that might be able to diagnose and treat certain types of cancer. The device, which only works in a test-tube, is years from clinical application. But researchers hope it will be the precursor of future 'smart drugs' that roam the body, fixing disease on the spot. Instead of silicon chips and electrical circuits, the miniscule machine is made of DNA. And rather than being controlled by electrical signals, it senses changes in its environment and responds by releasing biological molecules.
The biocomputer senses messenger RNA, the DNA-like molecule that helps create proteins from the information in genes. In particular, it can detect the abnormal messenger RNAs produced by genes involved in certain types of lung and prostate cancer.
When the computer senses one of these RNAs it releases an anticancer drug, also made of DNA, which damps expression of the tumour-related gene, researchers report in Nature1.
Billions of the computers can be packed into a single drop of water, so they could easily fit inside a human cell. "It is decades off, but future generations of DNA computers could function as doctors inside cells," says Ehud Shapiro from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, who led the research. The idea is they could diagnose disease from within cells and dispense drugs as necessary.

Fantastic voyage
"It is a little early to start thinking about applications," cautions DNA computer expert Lloyd Smith from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "But it is an important conceptual leap." DNA computers are not new but this is the first in which both input and output are biological, which means it can be hooked up to living systems. So far, the computer only works in the confines of a finely balanced salt solution, and there are many hurdles to overcome before it can be applied to real disease. It is necessary to ensure that the computers will survive inside a biological setting, will not provoke an immune response and will be safe to use, says Shapiro. They would also need to be far more complex than the prototype, which recognizes only messenger RNAs related to cancer. And they would need to deliver a wide variety of drugs, not just DNA therapies. They would need to be tested in cell suspensions, tissue cultures, simple organisms, mammals and finally humans. But if such hurdles could be overcome, then "it could be the killer application for DNA computing", says Smith. The idea is not a million miles from the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, where a surgical team is miniaturized and inserted into a dying man. Research like this is the interface between real science and "off the wall" science fiction, says Smith. "It is where science fiction is driving technology."
Nature
 

Nano-needle operates on cell

Will nano-machines be the next stromtroopers
as they cruise our bloodstreams?

Will we be forced to OBEY, modifying and compromising our behavior and beleifs through fear of these M-BEMS?
[micro bio-electronic machines]

 

whats really going on in this picture?

the cliche has never been truer: It is the golden rule. He who has the gold, makes the rules.

But these systems of control are more than rules. They are defined within the parameters of every mode of expression. Of TV, Radio, Print, Electronic Media, Film, Music, Art, Sport, Cuisine. Normality is perpetuated rather than individually or communally explored and questioned.

Tradition is encouraged in order to create bland uniformity & fear of difference. All cultural products are to be enjoyed in order to feed the Corporate hive. Anything that is free becomes dangerous. Alternative culture is hijacked and marketed. Culture becomes Disenfranchised and then re-enfranchised as a malleable industry. It is a process of Dehumanization and re-humanization. In short - a money cult of designed reality.

The corporate Hive does not stop at redefining and assimilating the culture we see around us. It wants to claim your inner space too. It craves to turn your body and your mind into a continuously upgradable entity.

This is the Transhumanist agenda.

It can be argued that trans-humanism is a form of neo futurism. Futurism being that artistic movement of the early 20th century which glorified the machine age and saw war and it's transformation into a mechanized indiscriminate tool of killing as a logical evolutionary step.

This neo futurism sees humans evolving to the point known as 'singularity'. This is the complete blurring of human and machine. It is neither artificial intelligence nor Human bio-machinery, but somehow both, simultaneously. It is said to the fateful day in the future when humans as we know them cease to be.

Now, here's a question. Should human evolution be mapped out like this?

Does it not cease to be evolution?

Doesn't this start to sound like a plan?

Art is like Santa Claus - Difficult to believe in... [by cw 2005]

Ames Research Center maintains a coordinated program that integrates a broad, interdisciplinary investigation of the origins, evolution, and future of habitable environments and life, with a parallel, high-impact, education and public outreach effort. Tracing a path from interstellar materials to inhabited worlds and beyond, the team's research unites investigations of the formation, evolution, and climates of habitable planets; the roles of interstellar chemistry in supplying potential biological precursors to these worlds; the origins and nature of metabolism in the first cells; the impact of established biospheres on planetary chemistry and climate, emphasizing the formation of detectable biosignatures; the response of vegetation to regional climate change; and the potential for life to transcend planetary boundaries through transfer between habitable worlds. - NASA

Lynne Rothschild: Lead C0-investigator

Here we focus on life moving beyond its planet of origin, a question of evolutionary interest and because the human exploration of space is the movement of life from Earth. Today, our research effort provides a home within NAI for an integrated research program relating to this major area of Astrobiology. With this renewal, we propose a focused research plan as a nucleus for an expanded emphasis on this area of interplanetary travel of life as the field of Astrobiology matures. - NASA

Defending Against Radiation

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 - Space travel has its dangers. One of the biggest risks will come from the various types of radiation that flood space. Scientists are learning how life on Earth has evolved different kinds of tricks to resist radiation. Some animals and plants have evolved protective covering or pigmentation, but some forms of bacteria can actually repair damage to its DNA from radiation. Future space travelers might take advantage of these techniques to minimize the harm they get from long exposure.

In Star Wars and Star Trek movies, people travel between planets and galaxies with ease. But our future in space is far from assured. Issues of hyperdrive and wormholes aside, it doesn't seem possible that the human body could withstand extended exposure to the harsh radiation of outer space.

Radiation comes from many sources. Light from the sun produces a range of wavelengths from long-wave infrared to short-wavelength ultraviolet (UV). Background radiation in space is composed of high-energy X-rays, gamma rays and cosmic rays, which all can play havoc with the cells in our bodies. Since such ionizing radiation easily penetrates spacecraft walls and spacesuits, astronauts today must limit their time in space. But being in outer space for even a short time greatly increases their odds of developing cancer, cataracts, and other radiation-related health problems.

To overcome this problem, we may find some useful tips in nature. Many organisms already have devised effective strategies to protect themselves from radiation.

Lynn Rothschild of the NASA Ames Research Center says that radiation has always been a danger for life on Earth, and so life had to find ways to cope with it. This was especially important during the Earth's earliest years, when the ingredients for life were first coming together. Because our planet did not initially have much oxygen in the atmosphere, it also lacked an ozone (O3) layer to block out harmful radiation. This is one reason why many believe life originated underwater, since water can filter out the more damaging wavelengths of light.

Yet photosynthesis - the transformation of sunlight into chemical energy - developed relatively early in the history of life. Photosynthetic microbes like cyanobacteria were using sunlight to make food as early as 2.8 billion years ago (and possibly even earlier).

Early life therefore engaged in a delicate balancing act, learning how to use radiation for energy while protecting itself from the damage that radiation could cause. While sunlight is not as energetic as X-rays or gamma rays, the UV wavelengths are preferentially absorbed by DNA bases and by the aromatic amino acids of proteins. This absorption can damage cells and the delicate DNA strands that encode the instructions for life.

"The problem is, if you're going to access solar radiation for photosynthesis, you've got to take the good with the bad -- you're also exposing yourself to the ultraviolet radiation," says Rothschild. "So there's various tricks that we think early life used, as life does today."

Besides hiding under liquid water, life makes use of other natural UV radiation barriers such as ice, sand, rocks, and salt. As organisms continued to evolve, some were able to develop their own protective barriers such as pigmentation or a tough outer shell.

Thanks to photosynthetic organisms filling the atmosphere with oxygen (and thereby generating an ozone layer), most organisms on Earth today don't need to contend with high energy UV-C rays, X-rays or gamma rays from space. In fact, the only organisms known to survive space exposure - at least in the short term - are bacteria and lichen. Bacteria need some shielding so they won't get fried by the UV, but lichen have enough biomass to act as a protective spacesuit.

But even with a good barrier in place, sometimes radiation damage does occur. The lichen and bacteria hibernate while in space - they do not grow, reproduce, or engage in any of their normal living functions. Upon return to Earth, they exit this dormant state and, if there was damage inflicted, proteins in the cell work to piece together DNA strands that were broken apart by radiation.

The same damage control occurs with organisms on Earth when they're exposed to radioactive materials such as uranium and radium. The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans is the reigning champion when it comes to this sort of radiation repair. (Complete repair is not always possible, however, which is why radiation exposure can lead to genetic mutations or death.)

"I live in eternal hope of unseating D. radiodurans," says Rothchild. Her search for radiation-resistant microorganisms has brought her to Paralana hot spring in Australia. Uranium-rich granite rocks emit gamma rays while lethal radon gas bubbles up from the hot water. Life in the spring is therefore exposed to high levels of radiation - both below, from the radioactive materials, and above, from the intense UV light of the Australian sun.

Rothschild learned about the hot spring from Roberto Anitori of Macquarie University's Australian Centre for Astrobiology. Anitori has been sequencing the 16S ribosomal RNA genes and culturing the bacteria that live quite happily in the radioactive waters. Like other organisms on Earth, the Paralana cyanobacteria and other microbes may have devised barriers to shield themselves from the radiation.

"I have noticed a tough, almost silicone-like layer on some of the microbial mats there," says Anitori. "And when I say "silicon-like," I mean the sort you use on window pane edging."

"Apart from possible shielding mechanisms, I suspect that the microbes at Paralana also have good DNA repair mechanisms," adds Anitori. At the moment, he can only speculate about the methods used by the Paralana organisms to survive. However, he does plan to closely investigate their radiation resistance strategies later this year.

In addition to Paralana, Rothschild's investigations have brought her to extremely arid regions in Mexico and the Bolivian Andes. As it turns out, many organisms that evolved to live in deserts are also quite good at surviving radiation exposure.

Prolonged water loss can cause DNA damage, but some organisms have evolved efficient repair systems to combat this damage. It's possible that these same dehydration repair systems are used when the organism needs to repair radiation-inflicted damage.

But such organisms may be able to avoid damage altogether simply by being dried out. The lack of water in desiccated, dormant cells makes them much less susceptible to the effects of ionizing radiation, which can harm cells by producing free radicals of water (hydroxyl or OH radical). Because free radicals have unpaired electrons, they eagerly try to interact with DNA, proteins, lipids in cell membranes, and anything else they can find. The resulting wreckage can lead to organelle failure, block cell division, or cause cell death.

Eliminating the water in human cells is probably not a practical solution for us to minimize our radiation exposure in space. Science fiction has long toyed with the idea of putting people into suspended animation for long space journeys, but turning humans into shriveled, dried-out raisins and then rehydrating them back to life isn't medically possible - or very appealing. Even if we could develop such a procedure, once the human raisinettes were rehydrated they would again be susceptible to radiation damage.

Perhaps someday we can genetically engineer humans to have the same super radiation-repair systems as microorganisms like D. radiodurans. But even if such tinkering with the human genome was possible, those hardy organisms aren't 100 percent resistant to radiation damage, so health problems would persist.

So of the three known mechanisms that life has devised to combat radiation damage - barriers, repair, and desiccation - the most immediately practical solution for human spaceflight would be to devise better radiation barriers. Anitori thinks his studies of the Paralana Spring organisms could someday help us engineer such barriers.

"Perhaps we will be taught by nature, mimicking some of the shielding mechanisms used by microbes," he states.

And Rothschild says radiation studies also could provide some important lessons as we look toward establishing communities on the moon, Mars, and other planets.

"When we start to build human colonies, we're going to take organisms with us. You're ultimately going to want to grow plants, and possibly make an atmosphere on Mars and on the moon. We may not want to spend the effort and the money to protect them completely from the UV and cosmic radiation."

In addition, says Rothschild, "humans are just full of microbes, and we couldn't survive without them. We don't know what effect the radiation will have on that associated community, and that may be more of a problem than the direct effect of radiation on the humans."

She believes her studies also will be useful in the search for life on other worlds. Assuming that other organisms in the universe also are based on carbon and water, we can postulate what sort of extreme conditions they could survive in.

"Each time we find an organism on Earth that can live further and further into an environmental extreme, we've increased the size of that envelope of what we know life can survive within," says Rothschild. "So if we go to a place on Mars that has a certain radiation flux, desiccation, and temperature, we can say, 'There are organisms on Earth that can live under those conditions. There's nothing that precludes life from living there.' Now, whether life is there or not is another matter, but at least we can say this is the minimum envelope for life."

For instance, Rothschild thinks life could be possible in the salt crusts on Mars, which are similar to salt crusts on Earth where organisms find shelter from solar UV. She also looks at life living under ice and snow on Earth, and wonders if organisms could live a comparatively radiation-protected existence under the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa. - universetoday.com

How is it that we will progress? Sooner rather than later, either the United States, China, Russia or the European Union (most likely some combination of the these) will take the first steps into space. Eventually, we will put a moon base up and become a multi-planet species.

Our moon has no atmosphere, so the stars are out all the time. Earth appears about 4 times as large in the moon's sky as the moon does in the Earth's sky. The astronauts on the moon in the late 1960's and and early 1970's could even see the continents on Earth!

After the moon base or moon colonization is Mars. Our friendly red neighbor is ripe for being terraformed into an eventual Earth-like world.

With the moon we can only put bases there. With Mars in the longterm, we can create a new home. In the short run (decades), an early base like this one leading to more elaborate and planet-wide colonies will have to do. But for the long run (centuries), terraforming Mars to be like the Earth, and human friendly, will be in the books.

"Using solar power in space as a free source of endless energy will certainly be the best method of generating power. Already on Earth, we have conducted bio-sphere experiments successfully for indoor, hydroponic farming. These lunar bases would operate on the same principles, writ large." - hudsonfla.com

are they starting this experiment with Planet earth?

Future society will be a totally managed environment...reliant upon an artificial planet...not only a space station, but a computer in which its inhabitants will be symbiotic trans-human components serving for the survival of the Hive...

are the Borg a virus?

The Borg or Borg Collective is a race of cyborgs in the Star Trek fictional universe. They are known both within and beyond Star Trek fandom for their relentless pursuit of what they want to assimilate, their rapid adaptability to almost any defense, and their ability to continue functioning after what may seem a devastating or even fatal blow seemingly unaffected. As such, the Borg have become a powerful symbol in popular culture for any seemingly unstoppable force against which "resistance is futile"

The Borg are an amalgam of humanoids of many different races that are enhanced with cybernetic implants, giving them improved mental and physical abilities. The Borg function as automata; the minds of all Borg drones are connected via implants and networks to a hive, a collective mind (the Borg Collective), orchestrated by the Borg Queen and controlled from a central hub, the Unicomplex. According to themselves, the Borg only seek to "improve the quality of life for all species" by integrating organic (biological) and synthetic (artificial) components in their quest for perfection. To this end, they travel the galaxy, increasing their numbers and advancing by "assimilating" other species and their technologies, and subjugating captured individuals by injecting them with nanoprobes and surgically implanting prostheses, quickly changing their biological anatomy and biochemistry to the Borg standard.

Despite being perceived as an evil conquering juggernaut by all who know of or have encountered them, the Borg harbor no ill will to anyone; they merely fulfill their imperative to assimilate and achieve perfection. As they say, "Resistance is futile — you will be assimilated." They make good on that threat through their ability to quickly adapt to any attack, rendering it harmless. Thus, any successful defense depends on the ingenuity of the opponent to find a method to stop the Borg completely before they can neutralize it. - wikipedia

big brother

Further into the HIVE mind

Defining identity - concept of self "no longer important"

Perhaps most troubling - and most difficult to deal with from a scientific basis - is the question of personhood.

"Some people just think messing with the brain is unnatural because the brain is the seat of who we are," Caplan says. "To change it is to change our identity." "It's at the heart of what this new field of neuroethics is all about,"

Dr. Illes says. That doesn't mean we must forestall research "because it's getting too close to our personhood," she says, "but rather to empower research with critical ethical thinking." The concept of a "self" does not make much sense in the framework of neuroscience,

"where you and I are just big networks of neurons that can be changed by a drug or other procedure,"
Farah adds. On the other hand, she says,

"I feel I have a self, I feel that other brains are persons, and even though this may be an illusion, it is part of my understanding of life that I am not ready to dispense with, no matter what neuroscience tells me!
CSM

Planet earth - the experiment:

Trans-humanism- Brave new world or Orwellian distopia?

"The World Transhumanist Association is an international nonprofit membership organization which advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. We support the development of and access to new technologies that enable everyone to enjoy better minds, better bodies and better lives. In other words, we want people to be better than well. "

"Futurists have been examining the potential impacts of emerging technologies for decades, creating scenarios that inform anticipatory democratic debate and prospective social policy-making. Through the program on the Consequences and Ethics of Emerging Technologies the WTA seeks to catalog the emerging technologies we believe will extend human capacities and create a database of their projected consequences. This database will then be the basis for proposed policies to ensure the fullest realization of human potential. "
Transhumanism.org

Visionary Biologist Foresaw Transhuman Future

While critical of genetic determinism, Maynard Smith retained most of his transhumanist perspectives throughout his life. He described the major phases in the evolution of life, from the simplest replicators to complex human societies with language and how there is increasing complexity in the way information is either stored or transmitted. He saw the marriage of DNA, programmed intelligence and silicon as hovering on the horizon, and predicted that humanity is likely headed for a major evolutionary shift. "Technically, that would be a major transition because it would be a new way of transmitting information between generations, and storing it," said JMS, "But if we come back in a hundred years' time, will the prostheses continue to be computers on our desks, will they be personalized bits of us, or will we find only silicon beings surviving? That remains to be seen." And cognizant of advances in computing and artificial intelligence, Maynard Smith once noted that, "We like to think that computers are our slaves. It does seem to be possible that the relationship might be inverted." He also believed that humans were continuing to evolve genetically, particularly in things such as disease resistance. Concerned with the accumulation of deleterious genetic traits, he argued in favor of influencing our own genome.

"Eugenics is a dirty word, but I don't think it should be, I think we are going to have to think quite seriously about it," he noted.

"The words 'eugenics' and 'fascism' are regarded as almost synonymous and I think that's just plain silly."
from Better Humans.com

Book revue: THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR: When Humans Transcend Biology

by Ray Kurzweil Duckworth Publishers £14.99, 652 pages

Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and futurologist, has stumbled on a discovery of earth-shattering importance. It is the arrival of singularity, and according to him it will happen in 2045. "Gradually," he says, at the beginning of The Singularity is Near, "I’ve become aware of a transforming event looming in the first half of the 21st century... the impending Singularity in our future is increasingly transforming every institution and aspect of human life, from sexuality to spirituality."

Singularity, says Kurzweil, is a development "representing a profound and disruptive transformation in human capability" and a "radical upgrading of our bodies’ physical and mental systems". What are its elements? The first half of the 21st century, Kurzweil maintains, will be characterised by three overlapping revolutions - human genetics, robotics or artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.

Biotechnology, rapid advances in genomics and gene therapies will enable us to turn off disease and ageing and thus we can live for much longer. Since we will be soon able to "reverse engineer the brain" and simulate its functions, he claims, technology will increasingly merge with human intelligence to create something with greater capacity and speed. Nanotechnology, the science of small things, will enable us "to redesign and rebuild - molecule by molecule - our bodies and brains and the world with which we interact, going far beyond the limitations of biology".

Kurzweil knows a lot about new technology - and he knows how to make it sound fun. He is dazzling in his enthusiasm for things to come, and has a grasp of the exciting developments pulsing through the intersection of science and technology. He recognises technology’s power to improve the lot of humankind, and is sceptical of the doom-mongers who argue it will lead to overpopulation or mass unemployment.

New technologies, Kurzweil recognises, usually create new jobs for those displaced by it. Cloning, for example, is not as scary as it is made to sound, and might even offer solutions for world hunger, creating meat and other protein sources in a factory without animals by cloning animal muscle tissue.

But what is the evidence for "singularity" itself? Kurzweil has borrowed the metaphor from mathematics and physics, where it means something that has reached the stage of being infinite. He recognises that singularity does not amount to anything that might be described as "infinite" in the social sphere, but still feels that the metaphor is appropriate. Humans, he too often forgets, have always sought to transcend biology.

Kurzweil thinks we are turning into cyborgs - part human, part machine - but any old man with a walking stick might be seen as a cyborg too. Technology, it is important to remember, conducts its way through society as a series of quantitative heaves rather than a qualitative leap. He thinks that the exponentially increasing processing power of computers can help us understand the speed of social change. The changes he describes might look fast on paper, but they filter through to social life at a snail’s pace. Many of them do not make it at all, because of a lack of investment or human enthusiasm.

Throughout his book Kurzweil capitalises singularity. He even has a name for someone who is a follower of the faith. "I regard someone who understands the Singularity and who reflects on its implications for his or her own life as a ‘singularitarian’." He pays lip service to a kind of humanism - "we will transcend biology, but not our humanity" - but sounds like a religious evangelist, or a West Coast new ager who has spent too long in front of a computer. Being human, Kurzweil rightly points out, "means being part of a civilisation that seeks to extend its boundaries". Is a human modified by technology no longer human, he wonders? The doom-mongers make it sound like a slippery slope, but Kurzweil envisages it as a kind of second coming, a technological Noah’s ark through which only true believers will pass.

Kurzweil pays tribute to the notion of human consciousness, but seems to regard it as a lost cause in the long run. His determination to keep humans central to his vision is admirable, but is not borne out by the thrust of his work, which suggests that he takes his spiritual sustenance from the machine part of the equation.

For Kurzweil all that remains is an ethical problem, of how humanity adapts to the new post-singular world in which we have become outsmarted by machines. His metaphor of singularity plays well in the science-fiction community, among Hollywood scriptwriters in need of inspiration and among military spooks whose job it is to think ahead of the curve -

Kurzweil is one of five members of the science advisory group for the American army. For us ordinary mortals, it is singularly unhelpful.

In his 2001 essay, The Law of Accelerating Returns,, Ray Kurzweil proposed a generalization of Moore's law that forms the basis of many people's beliefs regarding a "Technological Singularity". Moore's law describes an exponential growth pattern in the complexity of integrated semiconductor circuits. Kurzweil extended this to include technologies from far before the integrated circuit to future forms of computation. He declared that, whenever a technology approaches some kind of a barrier, a new technology will be invented to allow us to cross that barrier. He predicts that such paradigm shifts will become more and more common as time goes on. He believes that the exponential growth of Moore's law will continue beyond the use of integrated circuits into technologies that will lead to the "Singularity", which he defines as a technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.

Kurzweil writes:

"An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense 'intuitive linear' view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The 'returns,' such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity—technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light."

Kurzweil is also an enthusiastic advocate of using technology to achieve immortality. He advocates using nanobots to maintain the human body, but given their present non-existence he adheres instead to a strict daily routine involving ingesting "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea."

In December 2004, Kurzweil joined the advisory board of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. - wikipedia.org

 

 

Captain Wardrobes

Down with Murder inc.