84 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. Joy, Bill. “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us.” Wired, April 1, 2000. https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/.

      Annotation url: urn:x-pdf:753822a812c861180bef23232a806ec0

      Annotations: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A753822a812c861180bef23232a806ec0&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true

    2. The GNR technologies do not divide clearly into commercial andmilitary uses; given their potential in the market, it’s hard to imaginepursuing them only in national laboratories. With their widespreadcommercial pursuit, enforcing relinquishment will require a verificationregime similar to that for biological weapons, but on an unprecedentedscale. This, inevitably, will raise tensions between our individual pri-vacy and desire for proprietary information, and the need for verifica-tion to protect us all. We will undoubtedly encounter strong resistanceto this loss of privacy and freedom of action.

      While Joy looks at the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions as well as nuclear nonproliferation ideas, the entirety of what he's looking at is also embedded in the idea of gun control in the United States as well. We could choose better, but we actively choose against our better interests.

      What role does toxic capitalism have in pushing us towards these antithetical goals? The gun industry and gun lobby have had tremendous interest on that front. Surely ChatGPT and other LLM and AI tools will begin pushing on the profitmaking levers shortly.

  2. Aug 2023
    1. Mundas have DNA from both ANI and ASI, but are equidistant from both. They share longer IBDs with Southeast Asian populations.

      • for cultural evolution, speed of cultural evolution, cumulative cultural evolution, progress trap, Freeman Dyson,
      • comment
        • Freeman Dyson opines that cultural evolution of humans now determines the genetic fate of all species on the planet
          • and gives a warning of how human cumulative cultural evolution now has the potential to threaten, via genetic sciences to play God over biology itself -reference
        • Musician Yoyo Ma quotes Freeman:
        • https://hyp.is/go?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdocdrop.org%2Fvideo%2F2fBmGXqHvk8%2F&group=world
  3. Jul 2023
  4. Jun 2023
  5. May 2023
  6. Apr 2023
  7. Feb 2023
  8. Jan 2023
    1. We all know the eventual answer, which the discovery of genes made possible. Animals were simply trying to maximize the propagation of their own genetic codes. Curiously, this view—which eventually came to be referred to as neo-Darwinian—was developed largely by figures who considered themselves radicals of one sort or another.

      Neo-Darwinism: a modern version of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, incorporating the findings of genetics.

  9. Dec 2022
  10. Nov 2022
    1. The Great Depression and its aftermath offered Schmitz and a colleague one such opportunity. Poverty shrinks brains from birth By comparing markers of ageing in around 800 people who were born throughout the 1930s, the team observed that those born in US states hit hardest by the recession — where unemployment and wage reductions were highest — have a pattern of markers that make their cells look older than they should. The impact was diminished in people who were born in states that fared better during the 1930s.The cells could have altered the epigenetic tags during early childhood or later in life. But the results suggest that some sort of biological foundation was laid before birth for children of the Great Depression that affected how they would age, epigenetically, later in life.

      Aging markers affected in utero.

  11. Oct 2022
    1. this course considers at the very end the question of the essence of thereligion: Through all this change, does anything remain constant?

      Religion co-evolves with the people, places, and times in which it exists. Much like human genes, it works at the level of the individual, the local group, the larger groups and communities (of both the religion itself as well as the polities around it), and when applicable at the scale of all people on the planet.

      The Selfish Religion: How far might we take this religion/gene analogy with respect to Richard Dawkins' thesis (1976). Does religion act more like a gene that is part of the particular person or is it more like a virus which inserts itself? The latter may be closer as one can pick and choose a religion rather than it being a core part of their genetic identity.

      (highlight: anchor only)

  12. Sep 2022
    1. culture is gradually replacing genetics as the primary human system of inheritance. This hypothesis helps clarify the human ETI.

      !- conclusion : GCC - very important finding - nobody knows the implications of such a profound shift - it means we are profoundly dependent on culture, on artificial human-created adaptations for our survival !- in other words : GCC - we no longer genetically evolve to adapt, but rather cognitive create solutions to adapt!

  13. Jul 2022
    1. In just a decade, CRISPR has become one of the most celebrated inventions in modern biology. It is swiftly changing how medical researchers study diseases: Cancer biologists are using the method to discover hidden vulnerabilities of tumor cells. Doctors are using CRISPR to edit genes that cause hereditary diseases.
  14. Jun 2022
    1. Second, the application of the scientific method matters: what works for ants and other nonhuman species is not always relevant for health and/or human outcomes. For example, the associations of Black people with poor health outcomes, economic disadvantage and reduced life expectancy can be explained by structural racism, yet Blackness or Black culture is frequently cited as the driver of those health disparities. Ant culture is hierarchal and matriarchal, based on human understandings of gender. And the descriptions and importance of ant societies existing as colonies is a component of Wilson’s work that should have been critiqued. Context matters.

      The author is going in two opposite directions here and neither match up. A massive swath of our medicine research is wholly based on translational genetics. (That is, our basic research on organisms like flies (drosophila), worms (C. elegans), zebrafish, mice, rats, primates, etc. is contingent on moving medicines applicable to simpler genetic models in these animals will also work for humans who share large amounts of genetic material as the result of evolutionary dynamics. Sure some of it may not be relevant for humans because of both genetic and epigenetic (environmental) factors, but generally we expect that more will than won't.

      This basic fact is wholly separate from the health disparities issue. While there are some (and few of these are generally scientists in my experience) who believe that culture is the driving factor, there is enough proof to show that structural racism is the driving factor in almost all cases. I'm unaware of any translational genetic work on ant culture into human culture in any of the scientific literature and she certainly doesn't cite any to provide any sort of evidence to the contrary. As a result, she isn't providing any context at all.

  15. Apr 2022
    1. Edward Nirenberg 🇺🇦 [@ENirenberg]. (2021, November 30). This is also not limited to the vaccine- any infection we encounter will do the same thing. It’s how we evolved to get around a massive genetic and bioenergetic challenge and it’s brilliant and it’s happening all the time regardless of any vaccines we get. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/ENirenberg/status/1465698637434933254

  16. Mar 2022
  17. Feb 2022
    1. During transcription, a strand of mRNA is made that is complementary to a strand of DNA

      Right after an RNA copy of a strand of DNA it becomes a messenger RNA, mRNA.

    2. Transcription takes place in the cytoplasm in prokaryotes and in nucleus in eukaryotes.

      Transcription takes place in: - cytoplasm for prokaryotes - nucleus for eukaryotes

  18. Dec 2021
  19. Oct 2021
    1. Because of birds’ chromosome system—ZZ makes males and ZW makes females—all avian parthenotes are males. If an egg with a W chromosome merges with its polar body, the resulting WW embryo will not be viable. Only the ZZ parthenotes ever hatch.
    2. Although parthenogenesis has now been found in many vertebrates, mammals seem incapable of it because some of our genes are selectively turned on, depending on whether they’re inherited from the mother or father, so we need both.
  20. Sep 2021
  21. Aug 2021
    1. We had quite a rough orientation experience. 

      Orientation at Genome Island has evolved, and the pedagogy of 3-D design is there to be observed. Has there been a need to document the design principles for an effective orientation experience? What are the instructions provided for teachers, like the instructor who sent the Peruvian students ?

  22. Jul 2021
  23. Jun 2021
  24. Feb 2021
    1. occasionally, either due to genetic factors or rampant viral infections like COVID-19, our immune system can become overzealous and go rogue - attacking and killing everything in sight, including healthy cells in the body
  25. Nov 2020
    1. Genomics

      The study of whole genomes of the organisms and incorporates elements from genetics. The genomics uses a combo of DNA, DNA sequencing, and bioinformatics to sequence, assembly, and analyze the structure and the function of the genomes.

  26. Oct 2020
  27. Aug 2020
    1. COVID-19 first appeared in a group of Chinese miners in 2012

      Take away: The COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV2) did not exist in 2012, however a related virus was isolated from bats in 2013.

      The claim: The same virus that is causing the COVID-19 pandemic existed in miners in 2012.

      The evidence:RaTG13, a virus that was isolated from bats by the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2013 is the closest known relative to SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19 (Ge 2016, Zhou 2020). This bat virus is not the same virus as SARS-CoV2, but is closely related (96% identical DNA). The virus was isolated from bats, not humans. However, it was isolated from a cave near where workers the previous year became sick and some died, and may be linked to the illnesses. The SARS-CoV2 virus shows a number of key adaptations that likely makes it much more infectious in humans than the related bat virus (Wrobel, 2020).

      Source:

      Ge XY, Wang N, Zhang W, Hu B, Li B, Zhang YZ, Zhou JH, Luo CM, Yang XL, Wu LJ, Wang B. Coexistence of multiple coronaviruses in several bat colonies in an abandoned mineshaft. Virologica Sinica. 2016 Feb 1;31(1):31-40.

      Zhou P, Yang XL, Wang XG, Hu B, Zhang L, Zhang W, Si HR, Zhu Y, Li B, Huang CL, Chen HD. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. nature. 2020 Mar;579(7798):270-3.

      Wrobel AG, Benton DJ, Xu P, Roustan C, Martin SR, Rosenthal PB, Skehel JJ, Gamblin SJ. SARS-CoV-2 and bat RaTG13 spike glycoprotein structures inform on virus evolution and furin-cleavage effects. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. 2020 Aug;27(8):763-7.

  28. Jul 2020
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  30. May 2020
  31. Apr 2020
  32. Feb 2020
  33. Dec 2019
    1. Th ough cautions are oft en expressed [e.g., Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, & Rutter, 1997], the fact that reported biological mothers-adopted children correlations are higher than adoptive mothers-adopted children correlations has had a big impact in psychology and on theories of development. Most usually, the correlations have been computed into heritability

      This does suggest some of the supposed heritability is actually prenatal environment (or some other analogous factor). It's also possible that e.g. mitochondrial DNA plays a bigger role than previously recognized, much how thyroid status is the #1 predictor of mental retardation. Perhaps IVF will shed further light on the issue.

  34. Sep 2019
  35. Jul 2019
    1. genome annotation

      This sort of genome annotation could also be said to have enabled police to find the serial killer known as the Golden State Killer. see also: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/health/dna-privacy-golden-state-killer-genealogy.html

  36. Jun 2019
    1. This article concentrates on 5 different areas of Quebec (Beauce, Terrebonne, Charlevoix, Rimouski and Sanguenay) where hereditary disorders occur at varying rates and for a variety of specific disorders. They investigate how frequent or rare these genes and/ or mutations are in present day populations, keeping in mind the geographic migrations of the founding population. The population is unique because not only did the "founder's effect" occur, but the French-Canadians kept very in-depth genealogical records (mainly through Catholic Church supported baptismal and marriage records and the Church's encouragement of large families), and also due to their historical isolation after their "founding" due to political changes in Europe and the US.

      "Because of the structure and demographic history of its population, Quebec, which developed from a small pool of founders and whose rapid expansion was primarily the result of natural increase, constitutes a remarkable laboratory for population genetics studies. The genealogies that can be reconstructed for this context possess levels of completeness and depth rarely obtained elsewhere." Thoughts: these 5 populations are different than the usual studies I have come across which tend to focus just on the areas north of the St. Lawrence River (Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean) where the genetic disease rate is astronomical in comparison to the large immigrant-centered cities of Montreal and Quebec City. The study's authors note their weaknesses as: their relatively small sample size (must have skewed their results), also did not take in the nature of recessive genes in these populations.

  37. Feb 2019
  38. Jan 2019
    1. Lewontin’s fallacy

      For the article to name this fallacy and thoroughly debunk it, see Edwards, A. W. F. (2003). Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy. BioEssays, 25, 798-801. doi:10.1002/bies.10315

    2. In recent years, the evidence that genes are at least a partial influence of every human behavior and psychological trait has mounted so quickly that the early 21st century may be the dawn of a behavioral genetics revolution in psychology. Such a revolution may be as important—or more important—for psychology than the cognitive revolution was in the mid-20th century.

      This is one of the most important quotes in the article. Check with me in 30 years to see if my coauthors and I are correct.

  39. Dec 2018
    1. Girls, even when their abilities in science equaled or excelled that of boys, often were likely to be better overall in reading comprehension

      What does this say about different skill sets? Is this biological or genetic, or is it just conditioned?

  40. Sep 2018
    1. euromuscular disease is a general term thatencompasses a variety of acquired or geneti-cally inherited diseases that can affect the mus-cle and peripheral nerves, generally causingmuscle weakness (

      genetic influences

    2. Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the foremost genetic cause of infant mortality.

      Talk to authors about recent developments.

    1. One explanation has been that many of an animal's traits are not fixed, but can change during its lifetime. This "phenotypic plasticity" enables individual animals to alter their appearance or behavior enough to survive in a new environment. Eventually, new adaptations promoting survival arise in the population through genetic changes and natural selection, which acts on the population over generations. This is known as the "Baldwin effect" after the psychologist James Mark Baldwin, who presented the idea in a landmark paper published in 1896.
  41. Jun 2018
  42. Mar 2018
    1. If scientists can be confident of anything, it is that whatever we currently believe about the genetic nature of differences among populations is most likely wrong. For example, my laboratory discovered in 2016, based on our sequencing of ancient human genomes, that “whites” are not derived from a population that existed from time immemorial, as some people believe. Instead, “whites” represent a mixture of four ancient populations that lived 10,000 years ago and were each as different from one another as Europeans and East Asians are today.

      I'd like to see that study. This article.

    2. Beginning in 1972, genetic findings began to be incorporated into this argument. That year, the geneticist Richard Lewontin published an important study of variation in protein types in blood. He grouped the human populations he analyzed into seven “races” — West Eurasians, Africans, East Asians, South Asians, Native Americans, Oceanians and Australians — and found that around 85 percent of variation in the protein types could be accounted for by variation within populations and “races,” and only 15 percent by variation across them. To the extent that there was variation among humans, he concluded, most of it was because of “differences between individuals.”In this way, a consensus was established that among human populations there are no differences large enough to support the concept of “biological race.” Instead, it was argued, race is a “social construct,” a way of categorizing people that changes over time and across countries.It is true that race is a social construct. It is also true, as Dr. Lewontin wrote, that human populations “are remarkably similar to each other” from a genetic point of view.

      The Lewontin blood protein argument against race as a biological phenomenon.

  43. Nov 2017
  44. Oct 2017
  45. Sep 2017
  46. Sep 2016
    1. Module 1: Quantitative Genetics

      Interesting module, introduces the base concepts needed to conduct the project, for instance the analysis of complex characters where both genetic and environment factors contribute to trait variation.

      Details annotated: https://via.hypothes.is/http://cnsgenomics.com/sisg/Module1.html