RFID implants linked to animal tumors

AP: "When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly. The FDA found 'reasonable assurance' the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top 'innovative technologies.'

But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had 'induced' malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats. 'The transponders were the cause of the tumors,' said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich."


Um. Whoops. More on the back-story, including hints of political corruption and coverup of the risks at 27bStroke6... Un-chip your pets.

Scientists to create artificial life

Telegraph: "Scientists could create the first new form of artificial life within months after a landmark breakthrough in which they turned one bacterium into another.

In a development that has triggered unease and excitement in equal measure, scientists in the US took the whole genetic makeup - or genome - of a bacterial cell and transplanted it into a closely related species.

This then began to grow and multiply in the lab, turning into the first species in the process.

The team that carried out the first “species transplant” says it plans within months to do the same thing with a synthetic genome made from scratch in the laboratory."


File under "What could possibly go wrong?"

The Monkeysphere. This explains literally everything.

Inside the Monkeysphere: "That's the whole thing, right here. Life on Earth, in a nutshell. We are hard-wired to have a drastic double standard for the people inside and out of our Monkeysphere and those outside make up 99.999% of the world's population. "

Rhesus monkey genome sequenced.

Chron.com: "An international team of 170 scientists led by Baylor College of Medicine has sequenced the genome of the rhesus monkey, an important research animal and the most wide-ranging primate aside from humans."


Yes, but does the rhesus monkey really taste like peanut-butter and chocolate?

So... everything really tastes like T-Rex?

CNN: "Tiny bits of protein extracted from a 68-million-year-old dinosaur bone have given scientists the first genetic proof that the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex is a distant cousin to the modern chicken.

"It's the first molecular evidence of this link between birds and dinosaurs," said John Asara, a Harvard Medical School researcher, whose results were published in Friday's edition of the journal Science."


I think we're going to need a bigger ziplock...

15% human. 85% sheep. 100% tasty?

the Mail on Sunday: "Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs. The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer."


File under "what could possibly go wrong?"... We wonder if New Zealand is somehow behind this - as a means of increasing the apparent human:sheep ratio? We also wonder what happens if the beastie gets into the wild and breeds. Will we all one day be cannibals?

U.S. Set to Begin a Vast Expansion of DNA Sampling

New York Times: "The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering"

"The goal, justice officials said, is to make the practice of DNA sampling as routine as fingerprinting for anyone detained by federal agents, including illegal immigrants. Until now, federal authorities have taken DNA samples only from convicted felons."

"While the proposed rules have not been finished, justice officials said they were certain to bring a huge new workload for the F.B.I. laboratory that logs, analyzes and stores federal DNA samples. Federal Bureau of Investigation officials said they anticipated an increase ranging from 250,000 to as many as 1 million samples a year. The laboratory currently receives about 96,000 samples a year, said Robert Fram, chief of the agency’s Scientific Analysis Section."


All your DNA are belong to us. Forever.
And still doesn't address the issue of the millions of chimeric twins out there. One body - multiple versions of DNA.