Soon two American biotechnology firms hope to offer couples undertaking in vitro fertilisation the chance to screen embryos before they are implanted. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is already widely used to test for chromosomal abnormalities or specific genetic disorders. But MyOme and Genomic Prediction plan to reconstruct the whole sequence of an embryo’s genome using just a few cells from a biopsy and genetic sequences of both parents. They can then, in theory, calculate the risk the embryo will develop a wide range of different diseases in later life—including ailments that are extraordinarily complicated, involving thousands of genetic variants. By selecting between different embryos, those undergoing IVF can optimise the health of their progeny in a way that those who conceive naturally cannot. That raises ethical concerns. Although both firms will screen embryos for disease risk only, there is no reason why traits such as height or intelligence might not be selected in the same way.
Month: December 2018
👓 Trump Administration Suggests Furloughed Workers Do Chores for Landlords to Help Pay Rent | The Daily Beast
Nearly 800,000 federal workers lack a paying job because of the shutdown.
For Trump, a landlord, this sounds exactly like what he’s been asking the American people to do for him for two years now.
Late night snack run. Shocked that after I went through a dozen cakes to find one with a perfect swirl on top that the checker actually purposely squeezed the plastic container and smushed the perfect decoration. All the joy in the trip ruined for pettiness.
👓 Words I wrote in 2018 | Adactio: Journal
I wrote just shy of a hundred blog posts in 2018. That’s an increase from 2017. I’m happy about that. Here are some posts that turned out okay…
I’m thinking I should sift through my 2018 and highlight a few things as well.
👓 Tumble log xyz
A domain to delegate your tumblr to so it is no longer under tumblr.com.
This stops the Oath interstital showing up, and I am told it also measn that your flagged content is still available. I haven't verified that - if it works for you, do please tell me.
Take these steps: Go to www.tumblr.com/sett...
Apparently Kevin Marks has managed an awesome workaround for Tumblr’s filter by allowing you to re-delegate your Tumblr to another domain. Hopefully people have learned their lesson and own their own domain, but it’s useful if you’ve been trapped.
Jeremy Keith (adactio.com)
Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
—Groucho Marx
📺 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) | Warner Bros.
Directed by David Yates. With Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Michael Gambon. As Harry Potter begins his sixth year at Hogwarts, he discovers an old book marked as "the property of the Half-Blood Prince" and begins to learn more about Lord Voldemort's dark past.
👓 KTLA’s Chris Burrous Dead After Possible Overdose: Police | PEOPLE.com
Burrous was found unresponsive in a Glendale, California Days Inn on Thursday afternoon
Meg on Twitter (Twitter)What did I say about blogging again? I’m seriously considering all internet output/consumption in 2019 to be a blog, email, and feed reader. Join me in turning back the clock!
— Meg (@djgussieberger) December 29, 2018
Seems like every time I turn around more and more people are going back to old school methods.
#IndieWeb #netpositiveblog Happy #newwwyear
#IndieWeb #netpositiveblog Happy #newwwyear
Reply to uonaiii on Twitter
Uonai (Twitter)It is. One of my side projects at the moment is building an RSS feed reader that has social capabilities. So you can add friends, curate feed lists, and see what other people in your network are reading and recommending.
— Uonai (@uonaiii) December 28, 2018
I want exactly this. Let me know what you come up with. The closest thing I’ve seen recently is https://aaronparecki.com/2018/03/12/17/building-an-indieweb-reader
📺 THE FAVOURITE | Official Trailer | FOX Searchlight
Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah. Sarah takes Abigail under her wing and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become quite time consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach to fill in as the Queen’s companion. Their burgeoning friendship gives her a chance to fulfil her ambitions and she will not let woman, man, politics or rabbit stand in her way.
A Film By Yorgos Lanthimos
Written by: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
Produced by: Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult , Joe Alwyn, James Smith, Mark Gatiss
Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a spiritually moribund religion in need of new blood. ❧
I read this quote on Nov 29, 2018 12:04pm through @dswanson's post and it has stuck with me. I thought I’d dig up some additional detail on it. It turns out Swanson’s version was a slight misquote/variation and even at that MLK may have been modifying a quote from somewhere else.
King may have adopted this passage from Harry Emerson Fosdick’s The Hope of the World [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933], p. 25:
“Any church that pretends to care for the souls of people but is not interested in the slums that damn them, the city government that corrupts them, the economic order that cripples them . . . that kind of church, I think, would hear again the Master’s withering words: ‘Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”’
—annotation in The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project (okra.stanford.edu) “Address at the Religious Leaders Conference on 11 May 1959” on page 200
📺 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) | Warner Bros.
Directed by David Yates. With Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler. The adventures of writer Newt Scamander in New York's secret community of witches and wizards seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book in school.
📺 “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Gary Anthony Williams 4 | CW
With Aisha Tyler, Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady. Guest: comedian Gary Anthony Williams. Games performed: Questions (With Hats), Sound Effects (With Audience Members), Film Dub, Scenes from a Hat, Greatest Hits.
📺 Documenting Hate: New American Nazis | S36 E17 | FRONTLINE | PBS
SEASON 36: EPISODE 17
In the wake of the deadly anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, FRONTLINE and ProPublica present a new investigation into white supremacist groups in America – in particular, a neo-Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division, that has actively recruited inside the U.S. military. Continuing FRONTLINE and ProPublica’s reporting on violent white supremacists in the U.S. (which has helped lead to multiple arrests), this joint investigation shows the group’s terrorist objectives and how it gained strength after the 2017 Charlottesville rally. [Watch the first documentary in this series, August 2018’s Documenting Hate: Charlottesville, online.]