NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - Face Paint Video

Watch Face Paint Tell the Story of Human Evolution in 1:38 Minutes

CODE OF LIFE - Gene Editing

COMMENT:  The question is, is gene editing safe?  Human's are notoriously known to make mistakes, and gene editing has the potential to become dangerous because genes mutate and we may not be aware of what has happened for generations.  If you think GMO foods are a bad idea, this is even worst.

"How CRISPR gene editing puts scientists in the driver's seat of evolution" PBS NewsHour 1/5/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Imagine you could edit a mouse's genes to be resistant to Lyme Disease.  The mouse would breed and evolution would take its course, leading to the extinction of the disease.  That's the vision for scientists developing CRISPR, technology that allows scientists to rewrite the code of life.  William Brangham talks to Michael Specter who wrote about CRISPR for The New Yorker.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  CRISPR is a technique that allows scientists to go into the DNA of a plant or an animal or even a human being, and remove or replace a small part of that organism's genetic code.

This technique, which can be used to improve crops, eliminate genetic diseases, or specifically target the viruses and pathogens that have killed billion, could be a revolutionary advancement.

The potential for CRISPR is described in the recent issue of The New Yorker.  The story is called “Rewriting the Code of Life.”

And I'm joined now by its author, New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter.  He joins me from California.

Michael Specter, welcome.

In your story, you profile a young scientist named Kevin Esvelt.  And I want to quote a line from your story.  You say that Esvelt directs the — quote — “sculpting evolution group at MIT, where he and his colleagues are attempting to design molecular tools capable of fundamentally altering the natural world.”

I mean, that's a pretty extraordinary set of ambitions.  What are they trying to do?

MICHAEL SPECTER, The New Yorker:  You know, they're trying to look out the problems we have in health, in crops in a variety of ways, and rewrite DNA, which is the basic code of life, so that it can make us healthier, safer, protect crops, protect trees, protect endangered species.

It's a tremendously energetic and ambitious idea.  And it has — like all wonderfully ambitious ideas, it has great risks, too.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  You report on a particular experiment they're running up in Nantucket trying to target Lyme disease.

Can you explain what they're hoping to do there?

MICHAEL SPECTER:  Mostly, people think about Lyme disease in deer.  And there is a relationship.

But the real reservoir for Lyme is the white-footed mouse.  At Kevin Esvelt at MIT said, gee, let's rewrite the DNA of the mouse so that it is resistant to the Lyme tick, so when a Lyme tick bites it, it doesn't matter.

And when you do that, you sort of break this chain of transmission between mice and deer and humans.  And if you did that enough, and if you really rewrote the DNA — mice are not that rapid, but they're relatively rapid at reproducing — and you can quite easily see a way in which you would get rid of that disease.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  I mean, as you describe it in this piece, CRISPR is really putting us in the driver's seat for evolution, and not only to control, in some ways, evolution, but to accelerate evolution.

Am I understanding that this just seems to be a tremendously — tremendous potential for this?

MICHAEL SPECTER:  I think the particularly revolutionary thing here is the combination of CRISPR, which is an editing program — it's like editing something on your computer so that you can cut and paste words — combining that with this phenomenon called gene drive.

ANTHROPOLOGY - 1.8 Million-Year-Old Human Skull and Possible Reverberations

"1.8 million-year-old skull may revise understanding of human evolution" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 10/18/2013

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  Now to an important finding of ancient fossils that could rewrite the latest thinking about human evolution and is the subject of scientific debate.

Jeffrey Brown has the story.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  The 1.8 million-year-old skull is the most complete ever found of a human ancestor from what's known as the human genus Homo.

It was unearthed in 2005 below a medieval village in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.  Now, after eight years of research, the scientists who found it say it may show that human evolution followed a more straightforward line than has been thought and that fossils currently identified as different species may actually be variations within a single species.

DAVID LORDKIPANIDZE, Georgian National Museum:  This new discovery shows that many features which we previously thought as variability and diversity could be lumped in one group.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The skull was discovered with other partial remains, marking the earliest evidence of human ancestors moving out of Africa.

MAN:  The species that we thought were different species in Africa now we realize probably are variants of the same species.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Other scientists were more cautious in making that leap, though, even as they acknowledged that the new findings, published in the journal "Science," were spectacular, indeed.

"'Mind-boggling' skull discovery offers researchers a view into the ancient past" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 10/18/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The discovery of a 1.8 million-year-old skull at Dmanisi in Georgia has revolutionized scientists' idea of human evolution.  Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss what these ancient remains teach us about our ancestors and origins.

HUMOR - Opinion on Evolution

Couldn't resist..... this is actually a wallpaper

OUR RIGHTS - More Proof of Religious Nazism

"University investigates threatening e-mails condemning evolution" by Jerrrey Wolf, 9 News Colorado

University of Colorado police are investigating threatening e-mails with anti-evolution messages sent to biology professors at the Boulder campus.

Police Commander Brad Wiesley says the e-mails claim be from a religious group but investigators don't know whether more than one person was behind them.

He said the e-mails were considered threatening and made reference to killing people who back evolutionary theory. He said they didn't contain any specific threat against any individuals.

"The people that are worried in biology are certainly concerned. I mean it's not every day they're threatened by somebody who doesn't agree with the work that they're doing and so there's heightened concern," said Wiesley.

Some professors had been receiving critical e-mails for more than a year, but the tone became more threatening last week and they reported them to police.

Then, last weekend, someone slid anti-evolution materials under the doors of offices and laboratories of the building housing the ecology and evolutionary biology department.

"We just try and keep a cool nerve and basically not try and take any action ourselves, just report it to the department heads or security," said Michael Robeson, a CU graduate student.

"Christian Right Activists Disrupt Hindu Chaplain In The Senate" by Eric Kleefeld, TPM Cafe

Today was a historic first for religion in America's civic life: For the very first time, a Hindu delivered the morning invocation in the Senate chamber — only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Christian right activists.

The three protesters, who all belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, and who apparently traveled to Washington all the way from North Carolina, interrupted by loudly asking for God's forgiveness for allowing the false prayer of a Hindu in the Senate chamber.

"Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight," the first protester began.

"This is an abomination," he continued. "We shall have no other gods before You."

Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), serving as the presiding officer for the morning, immediately ordered them taken away — though they continued to yell at the Hindu cleric as they were headed out the door, shouting out phrases such as, "No Lord but Jesus Christ!" and "There's only one true God!"

The cleric, Rajan Zed of Reno, Nevada, was visibly nervous and uncomfortable as he then delivered the morning prayer. But to his credit, he soon regained his footing and was able to make it through in a dignified fashion.

For their part, Operation Save America put out an interesting press release, claiming responsibility for the protests and castigating Senators for not joining in:

• Theology Moved to the Senate and was Arrested



• Theology has moved from the church house onto the floor of the United States Senate, and has been arrested.



• Ante Pavkovic, Kathy Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar were all arrested in the chambers of the United States Senate as that chamber was violated by a false Hindu god. The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.



• "Not one Senator had the backbone to stand as our Founding Fathers stood. They stood on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There were three in the audience with the courage to stand and proclaim, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' They were immediately removed from the chambers, arrested, and are in jail now. God bless those who stand for Jesus as we know that He stands for them." Rev. Flip Benham, Director, Operation Save America/Operation Rescue.

Typical rantings of those who cannot clime to believe in our Constitutional protected right to freedom of religion. That religious practice is an individual's right, not a right of any group to use the government to impose their beliefs on others.

They are, NO MATTER WHAT THEY CLAIM, supporting a Taliban-style government, but based on their fundamentalist Christian beliefs.