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Thank you to The Jade Assembly – It is Time for Change this Christmas!

· · Posted in Climate Change, Climate Science, Environment, Events, Extinction Rebellion, Global Warming, Science and Society ·

Email: press@risingup.org.uk
Phone: +44(0)7969 083 371 / +44 7979 971209

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Media Assets | Legal Crowd Funder  | What emergency? | Extinction Rebellion in Numbers |This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook
#EverybodyNow #ExtinctionRebellion #WhereIsYourPlan

Extinction Rebellion UK would like to thank The Jade Assembly for their support and wish them well in the charts this Christmas! It is great that their single ‘Time for Change’ brings attention to the climate and ecological emergency. 

What humanity does in the run up to this Christmas and during 2020, will affect the future of life on Earth. In the UK, the upcoming elections matter greatly.

We would like to clarify – that contrary to some media reports – there isn’t an ‘official’ campaign to get an XR ‘anthem’ to number one, as Extinction Rebellion doesn’t ‘team up’ or partner in this way. We are a movement of and for all music tastes, from grime to ambient, folk, jungle, classical, bassline, noisecore, pop or punk and beyond, and we welcome everyone and every part of everyone. 

We would of course be delighted if this issue could be at the heart of seasonal playlists this winter – whether celebrating Christmas or not – and will clearly be rooting for them to reach Number 1. 

Music has the power to influence and change society – so we’d also like to take this moment to call on artists of all genres to make music for this emergency. Your energy and creativity can help transform how people come together. We also encourage all with a platform; DJs, radio presenters, mixtape makers, playlist curators, to help tell the truth during these troubling times.

We would also like to thank those who have already helped Extinction Rebellion around the world, from the unknown singers to the big names. Thank you!

Extinction Rebellion UK has lots planned this festive period. Please keep an eye out for more to come in the coming week!

Notes for Editors

About Extinction Rebellion:

Time has almost entirely run out to address the ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, global pollution, and abrupt, runaway climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices, with human extinction also a possibility, if rapid action is not taken.

Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government.

Extinction Rebellion’s key demands are:

  1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
  2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
  3. Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

What emergency? | Extinction Rebellion in Numbers |This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook.

Get involved:

About Rising Up!

Extinction Rebellion is an initiative of the Rising Up! network, which promotes a fundamental change of our political and economic system to one which maximises well-being and minimises harm. Change needs to be nurtured in a culture of reverence, gratitude and inclusion while the tools of civil disobedience and direct action are used to express our collective power.

The post Thank you to The Jade Assembly – It is Time for Change this Christmas! appeared first on Extinction Rebellion.

Source: https://rebellion.earth/2019/11/14/thank-you-to-the-jade-assembly-it-is-time-for-change-this-christmas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=thank-you-to-the-jade-assembly-it-is-time-for-change-this-christmas

Monday 18 November: Extinction Rebellion to begin Global Climate Hunger Strikes in 22 countries

· · Posted in Climate Change, Climate Science, Environment, Events, Extinction Rebellion, Global Warming, Science and Society ·

Email: press@risingup.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)7561 098449 | +44 (0)79 7997 1209 

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Media Assets | New – Crowdfund the #ElectionRebellion! 
#ElectionRebellion #WhereIsYourPlan

  • Yesterday Extinction Rebellion activists around the world – from France, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, Spain, Poland, Turkey, Sweden, UK, USA and more – announced their intention to go on hunger strike to demand action on the Climate and Ecological Emergency 
  • Today Extinction Rebellion UK begin delivering letters of intent to strike to party leaders, if their demand for meeting on the Three Demands Bill is not met
  • Extinction Rebellion UK calls on all political parties’ duty of care for the current and future wellbeing of everyone in the United Kingdom and globally.
  • Global Climate Hunger Strike initiated by Giovanni Tamacas of Extinction Rebellion US.

Starting Monday 18 November, Extinction Rebellion activists from 22 countries – Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States – will be participating in a Global Climate Hunger Strike if demands for meetings with their governments on the climate and ecological emergency are not met.

More than 230 people have committed to take part for at least one week, with more signing up daily [1]. The strike aims to highlight the vulnerability of our food supplies and force governments to enact Extinction Rebellion’s three demands.

Today, Extinction Rebellion UK will hand deliver letters to each political party, requesting a filmed meeting with party leaders to ask for their support for the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill (the ‘Three Demands Bill’) [2][3]. If they refuse the meeting, Extinction Rebellion UK activists promise to join hunger strikers around the world this coming Monday.

The first letter of intent was delivered at 9:20 am this morning at the Conservative Campaign Headquarters, 4 Matthew Parker Street, London SW1H 9HQ. 

Hunger strikers range from 83-year-old La Pethick from the UK to 16-year-old Christina Dithmar in Germany [4]. Christina, Extinction Rebellion Germany, said: “I don’t want to hunger strike. I’m fully aware of all risks this brings with it as well as the fact that I’m actually too young to do a full hunger strike. Yet, I don’t see any other option given where we are headed. I don’t want to lie in my bed crying, feeling helpless, not taken seriously.”

The UK Hunger Strike will also mark the launch of the ‘Election Rebellion’, which will involve a series of disruptive actions in the run up to the General Election on the 12th December. 

Election Rebellion will focus on our vulnerability to the Climate and Ecological Emergency. Along with water shortages, floods, wildfires, threats to security and strain on our emergency services, the climate crisis threatens the planet’s food supply with extreme weather from drought to ever more dangerous and destructive storms. No one is safe from this crisis. It is time to act.  

Extinction Rebellion UK hunger strikers demand that all UK political parties and Parliamentary Candidates support Extinction Rebellion’s Bill and do all in their power to ensure it becomes law. The Bill calls for the following:

  • Tell the truth: Tell the truth by declaring a Climate and Ecological Emergency and do all in their power to communicate the urgency for change, including working with government and other institutions.
  • Act Now: Promote policies to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
  • Beyond Party Politics: Help the government create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

The Global Climate Hunger Strike was initiated by Giovanni Tamacas of Extinction Rebellion US. Giovanni’s mother is from Vietnam and father from El Salvador. Like millions globally, his family are already feeling the devastation of the Emergency. 

Giovanni, 20, said: “We are hunger striking because we have no choice. We are being taken to our deaths. Greedy governments and corporations have criminally and catastrophically failed to tackle the climate and ecological emergency. Our shortsighted governments are too systemically corrupt to stop mass starvation, societal collapse, and the death of billions of humans. We are therefore demanding that governments commission and be led by the decisions of an independent Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.”

The hunger strikers are employing this last resort tactic after more than three decades of petitions, protests and campaigns have failed to secure the urgently needed responses to mitigate ecological and climate breakdown. By denying themselves their basic needs, the hunger strikers hope that their bodies will sound the alarm.

Notes for Editors –

[1] Sign up for Global Hunger Strike here: https://rebellion.earth/event/global-hunger-strike/

[2] A copy of the letter delivered to all UK party leaders can be found here

[3] Draft of the Climate and Ecological Emergency (‘Three Demands’) Bill – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dXZif0DtyUkwUwQvj6XRQbFY_QwwoIUK/view

[4] Everyone who will participate as a hunger striker will need to fill in a form. The form is mandatory and if a striker is not registered, they will not be considered as part of the Extinction Rebellion Global Hunger Strike. This is for safety reasons.

Furthermore, we are imposing a strict 24 hours limit for participants under 18 to hunger strike for health and safety reasons. For an under 18 to participate they MUST have both medical and parental consent and complete this form.

Further information:

  • The UK XR’s action is inspired by the iconic DREAM walkers’ hunger strike of 2012, an occupation by two young ‘undocumented’ immigrant students of President Barack Obama‘s Denver campaign office. Their hunger strike led to Obama passing the DREAM Act after an 11 year hiatus the Act grants legal status to certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and went to school there. Massive displacement of populations and communities is accelerating in the wake of our global CEE.
  • Protesters vow hunger strike to push U.S. on climate change – https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climate-protests-trfn-idUSKBN1XM2KU

Photo & Film opportunity: For footage of Election Rebels handing the letter to Party Leaders, or to be present for this, please contact: 
Email: press@risingup.org.uk Phone: +44 (0)7726 195412 | +44 (0)79 7997 1209

About Extinction Rebellion

Time has almost entirely run out to address the ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, global pollution, and abrupt, runaway climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices, with human extinction also a possibility, if rapid action is not taken.

Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government.

Extinction Rebellion’s key demands are:

  1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
  2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
  3. Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

What Emergency? | Extinction Rebellion in Numbers |This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook 

About XR’s Election Rebellion

Our objective is to put the Climate and Ecological Emergency at the top of the agenda for this election.

General Election 2019:

  • Get the Climate and Ecological Emergency top of the election Agenda.
    • Show the distance between our vulnerability and the actions taken by Politicians and Parties.
    • Tell our story and build Rebellion beyond the election.

Our purpose is to connect people with the emergency

  • Sound the alarm #ThisIsNotaDrill
  • Do all you can to change the paradigm #ActNow
  • We are #BeyondPolitics
  • Get your candidate to sign #ThreeDemandsBill
  • Hold a Citizens’ Assembly #WeCanWorkItOut & #ComeTogether 

Get involved

About Rising Up!

Extinction Rebellion emerged from the Rising Up! network, which promotes a fundamental change of our political and economic system to one which maximises well-being and minimises harm. Change needs to be nurtured in a culture of reverence, gratitude and inclusion while the tools of civil disobedience and direct action are used to express our collective power.

The post Monday 18 November: Extinction Rebellion to begin Global Climate Hunger Strikes in 22 countries appeared first on Extinction Rebellion.

Source: https://rebellion.earth/2019/11/14/monday-18-november-extinction-rebellion-to-begin-global-climate-hunger-strikes-in-22-countries/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=monday-18-november-extinction-rebellion-to-begin-global-climate-hunger-strikes-in-22-countries

The Real Story This X(R)mas

· · Posted in Climate Change, Climate Science, Environment, Events, Extinction Rebellion, Global Warming, Science and Society ·

Email: press@risingup.org.uk
Phone: +44(0)7969 083 371 / +44 7979 971209

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Media Assets | Legal Crowd Funder  | What emergency? | Extinction Rebellion in Numbers |This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook.

#EverybodyNow  #ExtinctionRebellion #WhereIsYourPlan

  • Extinction Rebellion will not be releasing an ‘anthem’ to take Christmas Number 1 in the music charts. 
  • Climate breakdown is igniting creativity across all genres and we encourage artists to continue using their platform to address the emergency.
  • Extinction Rebellion will be taking action in the run up to Christmas and the general election, to encourage voters to pay attention to the environmental policies and pledges of political parties; do they have the XR Factor? Who is thinking about election cycles and who is genuinely concerned for the future of life on our planet? #WhereIsYourPlan?

Recent media coverage has suggested that Extinction Rebellion are releasing an ‘anthem’ to take Christmas number 1 in the music charts. Whilst we appreciate the band’s enthusiasm, Extinction Rebellion have not ‘joined forces’ with The Jade Assembly on this track. We’d like to address the following:

  • The band’s music video includes footage owned by Extinction Rebellion. We frequently give creatives and video makers access and permission to use footage from our video archive. This does not mean that the resulting content is an official partnership.
  • Although people within Extinction Rebellion had expressed their support for the band’s enthusiasm and willingness to act, the movement has not officially endorsed their musical project or taken ownership of it. We, as a decentralised movement of hundreds of thousands of people with diverse tastes across many genres, do not partner officially with any businesses, artists or musicians.
  • The information provided was not fact-checked by the journalists before being published and two Extinction Rebellion co-founders were quoted without consent and without our press office being contacted for comment. 

We are very grateful for the band’s support and that of other artists who give their time, creativity, and even donations to help Extinction Rebellion. Many people approach us with songs, videos etc and it is encouraging to see so many people inspired to create art around the climate and ecological emergency. Creativity is the lifeblood of this movement and we encourage everyone with a platform to help tell the truth about this crisis.

Earlier this year Greta Thunberg and The 1975 supported Extinction Rebellion with their release, and musicians came together to create Music Declares Emergency: an ongoing campaign to drive systemic change across the industry. This week will see the launch of Letters to the Earth, with authors and actors, poets and parents giving voice to the crisis. On top of that, Writer’s Rebel was launched during the October Rebellion which brought together 40 of the UK’s top writer’s to speak truth to power and demand radical action on the emergency. 

Tell the Truth this Christmas 

This December Extinction Rebellion will be engaged in many activities. Please see the following:

12 Days of Crisis – Extinction Rebellion political team will be highlighting the plight facing humanity (more information to come shortly). 

Sarah Lunnon, from Extinction Rebellion Political Working Group said: “What will you do at the start of advent and the countdown to the December election? Extinction Rebellion will use the 12 Days of Crisis to highlight our fragility to devastating weather events. We don’t go immediately from where we are now to extinction after 2050, we lose everything we that matters to us on the way: security, power, food and ultimately everyone we love.”

Election Rebellion – We will be scrutinising the manifestos and election candidates themselves for their ‘XR Factor’ asking #WhereIsYourPlan? What are your climate and ecological strategies to avert this crisis? This follows news that emerged yesterday suggesting the ban against Fracking is simply an empty election promise that could be overturned at the time of application.

Journalism Christmas Climate Pledge – Extinction Rebellion are continuing our Media Tell the Truth campaign. We are urging journalists to cover real news stories this festive season – Outcomes from United Nations COP25, the ongoing wildfires, the scale and impacts of over consumption during the Christmas period.

Sarah Greenfield Clark, Spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion said: “There is a temptation to bury our heads in the sand during this festive season and continue as if we are not in a climate and ecological emergency. It is during this time more than any other that I feel a deep grief over this reality, with its excessive waste and thoughtless consumption. There’s climate news to fill enough papers everyday sadly; just because it’s hard to hear and bursts our Christmas bubble doesn’t mean journalists should be afraid to report on it during December”.

‘Disco-bedience’ – Internationally, rebels are using music to raise awareness of the crisis with global flash mobs coinciding with COP25. Extinction Rebellion Australia will be teaching the routine in a video to be released shortly. Actions in the host Country Madrid have already begin being organised.

Local actions are happening this December up and down the country. Find your nearest group here.

Notes for Editors

About Extinction Rebellion:

Time has almost entirely run out to address the ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, global pollution, and abrupt, runaway climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices, with human extinction also a possibility, if rapid action is not taken.

Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government.

Extinction Rebellion’s key demands are:

  1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
  2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
  3. Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

What emergency? | Extinction Rebellion in Numbers |This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook.

Get involved:

About Rising Up!

Extinction Rebellion is an initiative of the Rising Up! network, which promotes a fundamental change of our political and economic system to one which maximises well-being and minimises harm. Change needs to be nurtured in a culture of reverence, gratitude and inclusion while the tools of civil disobedience and direct action are used to express our collective power.

The post The Real Story This X(R)mas appeared first on Extinction Rebellion.

Source: https://rebellion.earth/2019/11/12/the-real-story-this-xrmas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-real-story-this-xrmas

Can AI Rescue Modern Medicine From Itself?

· · Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Events, Exponential Medicine, General, Science and Society ·

Can AI Rescue Modern Medicine From Itself?

Labor unions have been around since the mid-19th century, and they’ve helped many a teacher, government employee, electrical worker, and others gain fairer pay or better working conditions. Unions give workers a chance to dictate their own terms and present a united front, ideally leaving everyone better off (though parents whose kids can’t go to school for days at a time due to teacher’s strikes might disagree).

But one profession that unionization has eluded is medicine. Dr. Eric Topol is the co-host of popular podcast Medicine and the Machine, editor in chief of medical news and education website Medscape, and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. In his opinion, the lack of a functioning union for doctors has detracted both from the satisfaction physicians get from their jobs, and the quality of care their patients receive.

“There frankly hasn’t been a voice for physicians, because the largest organization, the American Medical Association, barely has over 200,000 of the million-doctor workforce in the US,” Topol said. Associations for sub-specialties, he added, are “balkanized,” and are focused on the business aspects of medicine rather than on patient care.

AI modern medicine Verghese Topol
Eric Topol and Abraham Verghese at Exponential Medicine

But there’s hope. In a conversation with author, physician, and Stanford medicine professor Abraham Verghese at Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine conference last week, Topol discussed how technology could change modern medicine for the better, including the potential of artificial intelligence to help doctors get back to what they should really be doing: caring for patients.

The Doctor Will See You Now, Real Quick

Think back to your last doctor’s visit. You most likely sat in a waiting room for a while, then when your name was finally called, a nurse or administrative employee took you into the exam room and ran through several questions with you, maybe taking your blood pressure or weight. Then he or she left, and you sat in the exam room by yourself for a while, staring at the faded anatomy posters tacked on the walls and thinking, ‘no way, is that really what the inside of my [insert body part] looks like?’

Just when you’re starting to think that maybe they forgot about you and you should go find someone, the doctor breezes in. He or she greets you, asks you a few compulsory questions, then does a hurried exam, all in all spending less than ten minutes in the room with you. You have more questions, but can sense that the doctor doesn’t have time to sit down and answer them thoroughly and thoughtfully, so you figure you’ll just google them when you get home.

Meanwhile, the doctor retreats back to a corner office to update your file in the electronic medical records system—which takes as much time as he or she spent with you or more—then hurry off to speed through the next patient’s exam before the schedule starts getting backed up.

A Growing Disconnect

“Doctors are spending an hour on the computer for every hour we spend with patients,” Verghese said. “Electronic medical records have been the source of more distress than any other invention that’s happened in modern medicine. It’s like physicians have been demoted to data clerks.”

Both patients and physicians dislike not being present with each other. “If the connection isn’t ideal then everything can fall apart, from compliance to even hearing what’s being said,” Verghese added. “The effects are huge.”

If doctors aren’t happy, why aren’t they doing something about it? This goes back to the lack of a union, and to the fact that medicine has become a profit-driven business.

“Part of the problem is a loss of autonomy,” Verghese said. “We haven’t been able to dictate our work style, rather it’s been dictated for us.”

Machines to the Rescue?

So how can technology help? It’s easy to fall into the ‘robots will take away our jobs’ trap here, especially with new papers coming out almost every week about AI systems that can diagnose illnesses and speed through image interpretation at a faster rate than any human doctor ever could.

But this is exactly where tech’s value lies. “We don’t believe that medicine and AI are at all competitive,” Topol said. “That’s why it’s medicine and the machine. We need all the aspects of humanism in medicine, but we’d also like to get help.”

That help is fast approaching. Software will ideally be able to not only take over repetitive tasks, but carry them out with far greater speed and accuracy. Deep learning is already being used to interpret radiology and pathology slides, electrocardiograms, and ultrasounds, as well as identify skin lesions and analyze colonoscopies; one recent paper details a deep learning system that uses machine vision to detect whether or not someone’s colon has cancerous regions in real time, with 93 to 99 percent accuracy.

“We are facing the greatest opportunity in healthcare and medicine in many generations, which is the gift of time, afforded by being able to rely much more on machines to process data,” Topol said. But if physicians don’t band together to support the changes they want, the extra time they get from implementing tech solutions will end up being used by healthcare administrators to increase throughput and make doctors’ day-to-day jobs even more stressful and less human-centered.

Topol’s words—and the article he published in the New Yorker in August—are already leading to action. Osler’s Alliance is a new non-profit coalition for doctors that aims to protect the doctor-patient relationship, focusing on the impact doctors can make in the present and uniting them to steer their profession in the right direction for the future. The organization hopes to garner a far higher membership rate among physicians than any existing association.

“The greatest gift that AI can give us is to go back to the future, to get us to the humanity in medicine, which is presence,” Topol said. “Which is a physical exam. Listening. Building trust. Communication with deep empathy. If we don’t seize this opportunity, if we just focus on what AI can do with respect to technical aspects, we’re missing out.”

Image Credit: Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

Source: Singularity Hub:  https://singularityhub.com/2019/11/11/can-ai-rescue-modern-medicine-from-itself/

Why Designing Our Own Biology Will Be the Next Big Thing in Medicine

· · Posted in Biotechnology, Events, Experts, Exponential Medicine, General, Perspectives, Science and Society, Topics ·

Why Designing Our Own Biology Will Be the Next Big Thing in Medicine

It’s hard to watch a loved one get sick. Their eyes go glassy. Their breathing is punctuated by body-wracking coughs. Feverish and aching, they struggle to get out of bed.

Hard as these symptoms are to witness, they’re so familiar you don’t need a medical degree to know it’s probably a bad cold and maybe the flu. Get some rest, hydrate, pop some ibuprofen, see a doctor if the symptoms significantly worsen—and wash your hands, for heaven’s sake.

For most of history, however, even the finest physicians only slowly advanced beyond the basics of biology and medicine we take for granted. There have long been forms of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention, but these were rudimentary at best and superstitious at worst.

“The history of innovation is not that exciting—until you get to the 20th century,” Jane Metcalfe, cofounder of Wired and founder of Neo.Life, told the audience at Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine in San Diego this week.

exponential medicine san diego jane metcalfe speaking
Jane Metcalfe at Exponential Medicine.

Since then, biology and medicine have been on a tear, Metcalfe said. Early last century, doctors mastered blood transfusions and complex surgeries. They began controlling and eradicating infectious disease with sterilization, antibiotics, and vaccines and found drugs to manage pain.

Then, around the middle of the century, scientists began amassing a deep body of biological knowledge—knowledge we’re now using to manipulate the fundamental processes of living things.

It’s a familiar story, but one that suggests something radical. Just as physics and chemistry have given humans power over the world of the inanimate, biology is giving us the ability to engineer living systems, from viruses and bacteria to animals and people.

Which is why Metcalfe thinks design could be the next big thing in medicine.

We’ll combat disease and improve human health by designing biological systems from the ground up. “We can design embryos. We can edit genes in humans. We have synthetic biology. And so we really are looking at designing future humans,” Metcalfe said. 

Tools to Design Our Own Biology

The best known bio-design tool to date is undoubtedly CRISPR genome editing. With CRISPR, scientists are closer than ever to manipulating genes down to the letter.

There are now a number of increasingly refined CRISPR-based systems, the latest of which, CRISPR prime editing, has been described as a word processor for gene editing. Meanwhile, the first approved gene therapies are making their way (at times painfully) into cancer treatment.

Just last year, Metcalfe said, the world was shocked to learn a scientist in China, Dr. He Jiankui, had used CRISPR to edit human embryos and confer immunity to HIV (and potentially other unintended traits in the process). He went even further by implanting the embryos, and the first genetically modified babies were born in China in 2018. He’s work was universally condemned by the scientific community as sloppy and unethical. Yet, another scientist, this time in Russia, has since made public his intentions to use CRISPR to edit human embryos too.

The ethics quite clearly haven’t caught up to the science, and the tools themselves are still being sharpened, but it’s likely only a matter of time before scientists, researchers, and doctors begin more responsibly snipping out disease-causing genes and, perhaps, even splicing in beneficial ones.

George Church is anticipating that day.

“George is probably the most prolific bioengineer of our time,” Metcalfe said. “[There] are fifty different alleles that he’s tracking that are beneficial to humans.” These variants include genes that help protect against cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Others may improve memory and learning and extend your telomeres.

But our design abilities won’t be limited to existing genes, Metcalfe said. Scientists are assembling entirely new synthetic biological systems from scratch too.

Beyond Evolutionary Design

“We’re writing DNA code—and we’ve been doing this for a while—but we’re starting to get good at it,” said Andrew Hessel, Humane Genomics CEO and nanotechnology/biotechnology faculty at Singularity University, in a talk following Metcalfe’s.

Hessel pointed to Twist Bioscience a synthetic biology company that went public in late 2018. Twist manufactures short custom sequences of DNA (oligos) at scale. Customers can design and order sequences and have them delivered by Fedex. With tools like this, synthetic biologists have begun creating synthetic enzymes and proteins, some of which have even proven themselves functional—like their natural siblings—in bacteria.

Scientists are thinking bigger too.

exponential medicine san diego andrew hessel speaking
Andrew Hessel at Exponential Medicine.

Craig Venter, already famed for his work sequencing the first human genome, announced the first reproducing synthetic bacteria back in 2010. He followed up with a streamlined “minimal” synthetic cell in 2016. Boasting the smallest known genome, it has no natural counterpart. Then this year, another group announced they’d made synthetic E. coli bacteria with a four million base-pair genome—four times longer than Venter’s 2010 achievement—and using just 61 codons instead of 64. Currently, scientists are working with yeast to make the first synthetic eukaryotic cells.

The ultimate goal is writing whole human genomes from scratch, and Hessel cofounded Genome Project-write (GP-write) to convene the world’s top synthetic biologists to do just that.

There are obviously big hurdles that still need clearing—including software that can make design more accurate and efficient and DNA synthesis tools that assemble longer base-pair sequences—and Hessel’s group recently published a paper outlining the challenges. Nonetheless, Hessel said the group doesn’t think any of these will take more than a decade to solve.

“Literally in 10 years we’ve gone from making proteins synthetically to making a eukaryote,” he said. “As soon as we can start making whole chromosomes, well, we’ve only got 23 of them. It’s not going to take very long until you end up bumping up against the human genome.”

Now’s the Time to Start the Conversation

The pace of change in biology and medicine has been swift, Metcalfe said.

Researchers discovered DNA’s structure in 1953, the first IVF baby was born in 1978, and we met Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal, in 1996.

In just the last two decades, scientists went from sequencing the human genome at great cost and effort to sequencing it for under $1,000 in a day. Now there are an estimated million-plus complete human genomes on the books.

We’ve graduated from complex and costly gene editing tools to tools that can be sold in a kit for a few hundred bucks. Scientists are building genomes from scratch and booting them up.

The question is no longer whether we’ll be able to design our own biology—the tools are already here—the question is can we handle the responsibility?

“This technology is going to touch every business, every sector, every government, every person,” Hessel said. “This isn’t a presentation for now, it’s the start of a conversation with all of you for the future.”

Image Credit: gustavo centurion / Unsplash

Source: Singularity Hub:  https://singularityhub.com/2019/11/10/why-designing-our-own-biology-will-be-the-next-big-thing-in-medicine/

Act Now: Our House is Flooding

· · Posted in Climate Change, Climate Science, Environment, Events, Extinction Rebellion, Global Warming, Science and Society ·

Extinction Rebellion activists staged an action on the river Thames in London. A classic suburban house was seen floating down the river sinking into the water in yet another attempt to send an SOS to the government on climate inaction and draw attention to the threat humans face from climate change and rising sea levels.

The post Act Now: Our House is Flooding appeared first on Extinction Rebellion.

Source: https://rebellion.earth/2019/11/10/act-now-our-house-is-flooding-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=act-now-our-house-is-flooding-2

Act Now – Our house is flooding

· · Posted in Climate Change, Climate Science, Environment, Events, Extinction Rebellion, Global Warming, Science and Society ·

Credit: Guy Reece

Credit: Guy Reece

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Act Now – Our house is flooding

In the early hours of Sunday 10thNovember, Extinction Rebellion activists staged an action on the river Thames in London. A classic suburban house was seen floating down the river, sinking into the water in yet another attempt to send an SOS to the government on climate inaction and draw attention to the threat humans face from climate change and rising sea levels. 

Representing the disastrous realities of projected sea level rises, perhaps the stunt was unnecessary. As the ongoing flood disaster in Derbyshire and Yorkshire has so starkly illustrated, our homes, businesses and families are at very real risk. We are watching, in real-time, as people’s lives are destroyed around the world and in the UK. Unless action is taken to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero these tragedies are set to worsen. 

Stephan Harrison, Head of the Climate Expert Committee (which advises the UK government on climate risks) commented: “We may be close to passing a tipping point for at least some of the large outlet glaciers draining the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and this would commit us to significant sea level rise whatever we decide in terms of reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions.”

Scientific predictions of rising sea levels by 2100 range from less than 1 metre to as high as 5. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest a rise of less than 2 metres, but past assessments have almost always underestimated the pace of climate change. The rate of melting Greenland ice sheets recorded this summer was not predicted until 2070. At its peak, this ice was melting at a rate of 140,000 tonnes per second – a total figure equivalent to 200 river Thames.

When asked for his own opinion, Professor Harrison added: “My prediction is that IPCC has probably underestimated the ice sheet response and the likely rate of future sea level rise”.

Katey Burak and Rob Higgs, who built ‘The Sinking House’ commented: “Sadly, climate-change is something that affects every one of us. We want to respectfully raise awareness of the severity of the impending human-made disaster. We need urgent action to address the Climate Emergency and devastation of our beautiful and precious natural world, which is being decimated at an unprecedented and tragic rate. We implore the government to act responsibly and we will continue to make our voices heard until they act.”

“When I hear the facts about climate change my brain can scarcely comprehend them, they are vast and scary. We wanted to make something that people can visually connect to, whilst leaning on the government and the experts to make the changes that need to be made. Until they make the big legal and financial changes, it’s very hard for people like me or you to make significant changes to protect ourselves and the world around us.”

Flooding is a political issue, disproportionately impacting our poorest and most vulnerable communities and Extinction Rebellion is calling on the government and those standing in the General Election to commit to acting now on the ecological and climate emergency. 

Under new sea level rise projections, Stratford, Barking and Dagenham and large swathes of South and West London, East Anglia, Essex and Kent will be underwater by 2050.1 Despite our government’s denial, this is a national disaster eeking ever closer to the capital.

The Prime Minister does not consider widespread flooding across the UK to be a national emergency.3 Extinction Rebellion disagrees. Many people in the UK have had life-changing experiences this week, and there will be many more in low-lying and coastal areas affected by flooding over the coming winter. We stand in solidarity with all of those who have lost their homes and livelihoods and will continue to demand action until the severity of this national and global emergency is realised. 

With thanks to Hermitage Wharf Community Moorings for their help with this action.

Notes to Editors:

Global warming contributes to sea level rise in two ways. Initially, sea levels rose because of thermal expansion. We are now experiencing sea level increases caused by melting ice. Floating sea ice does not cause significant sea level rises in the same way that melting ice in a drink does not increase the level of liquid in the glass. Melting ice on land, however, does lead to increases in sea levels. If all of the ice on Greenland, currently melting at an alarming rate, were to melt into the sea it would increase average sea levels by 7 metres. Melting Antarctic ice from collapsing ice cliffs is fuelling sea level rises and there is sufficient water stored in such ice to eventually increase sea levels by between 20 and 60 metres. Sea levels are currently rising by around 3.3mm per year.

* IPCC says in a leaked draft report that if the planet warms beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius it would create ocean conditions “poised to unleash misery” (AFP)

* At 1.5 degrees Celsius, sea levels will rise high enough to displace around 280 million people – four times the current number of worldwide refugees (AFP)

* By 2100, “annual flood damages are expected to increase between 100 and 1,000-fold (AFP)

* Fish stocks could decline substantially from already depleted numbers as a third of all fisheries are being exploited at an unsustainable rate. Fish and marine life declined by 50 percent between 1972 and 2012 (IPCC)

* A study by scientists at Exeter and other universities suggests that communities in Cornwall are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and sea level rises and poorly equipped to mitigate the impacts. A combination of decentralised decision-making and budget cuts impede local adaptations to climate change.

1https://coastal.climatecentral.org/map/9/0.378/51.4239/?theme=sea_level_rise&map_type=coastal_dem_comparison&elevation_model=coastal_dem&forecast_year=2050&pathway=rcp45&percentile=p50&return_level=return_level_1&slr_model=kopp_2014

2https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/07/uk-railways-cannot-cope-with-effects-climate-change-warns-rail-boss

3https://news.sky.com/story/uk-weather-public-urged-to-stay-away-from-swollen-rivers-amid-extensive-flooding-11857056

Sources:

Larissa A. Naylor et al, A multiscale analysis of social-ecological system robustness and vulnerability in Cornwall, UK Regional Environmental Change (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-019-01530-7)

Peter U. Clark et al, Consequences of Twenty-First-Century Policy for Multi-Millennial Climate and Sea-Level Change, Nature Climate Change, February 2016

Professor Stephan Harrison – Personal communication

About Extinction Rebellion:

Time has almost entirely run out to address the ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, global pollution, and abrupt, runaway climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices, with human extinction also a possibility, if rapid action is not taken.

Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government.

Extinction Rebellion’s key demands are:

  1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
  2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
  3. Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

What Emergency?| Extinction Rebellion in Numbers|This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook| What is a citizens’ assembly?

Get involved:

●     In the UK, come to one of our events, join the Rebellion Networkand let us know how you can help out.

●     Start a group where you are: in the UKor around the world.

●     Find your local group.

●     Check out the International XR website, with links to the French, German, Italian and UK websites.

●     And while your time and energy are of most importance, if you are financially able to donate money, see our crowdfunder.

About Rising Up!

Extinction Rebellion emerged from the Rising Up! network, which promotes a fundamental change of our political and economic system to one which maximises well-being and minimises harm. Change needs to be nurtured in a culture of reverence, gratitude and inclusion while the tools of civil disobedience and direct action are used to express our collective power.

The post Act Now – Our house is flooding appeared first on Extinction Rebellion.

Source: https://rebellion.earth/2019/11/10/act-now-our-house-is-flooding/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=act-now-our-house-is-flooding

Every Single Being on the Planet

· · Posted in Climate Change, Climate Science, Environment, Events, Extinction Rebellion, Global Warming, Science and Society ·

Fifty people, aged 7 to 70, converged on a beach in North West England to create a 110m diameter representation, of the ‘Extinction Rebellion Symbol’ to highlight the need for urgent action on climate change and biodiversity loss.

The post Every Single Being on the Planet appeared first on Extinction Rebellion.

Source: https://rebellion.earth/2019/11/09/every-single-being-on-the-planet/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=every-single-being-on-the-planet

Saul Williams ‘I have kids… we have to find a way to shift the paradigm’

· · Posted in Climate Change, Climate Science, Environment, Events, Extinction Rebellion, Global Warming, Science and Society ·

The post Saul Williams ‘I have kids… we have to find a way to shift the paradigm’ appeared first on Extinction Rebellion.

Source: https://rebellion.earth/2019/11/08/saul-williams-i-have-kids-we-have-to-find-a-way-to-shift-the-paradigm/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=saul-williams-i-have-kids-we-have-to-find-a-way-to-shift-the-paradigm