The combination of gene drive and gene editing technology could override the checks and balances of natural selection.
Credit: vchal/Shutterstock

Newly released emails show that a branch of the U.S. military is spending millions of dollars on research into a gene editing technique that has the power wipe out entire species.

Gene drives are a controversial new tool that could be used to fundamentally alter the DNA of a species. Use of the technology sets off alarms bells for critics who are concerned about the U.S. military funding the research, despite its positive potential to eliminate deadly malaria mosquitoes.

This week, The Guardian publicized documents released under the Freedom of Information Act between scientists at the University of North Carolina who are investigating “gene drive” technology and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, which is funding the work.

One concern is that a gene drive could override the checks and balances of natural selection.

Critics such as members of the ETC Group, a technology watchdog that originally published the documents, worry about the risks to the […]

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A Right Whale
Credit: Australian Animal Learning Zone

North Atlantic right whales are facing a severe threat of extinction after this year saw the death of 17 of the species, leaving their numbers dwindling at around 450 individuals in the wild.

Given the situation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is set to watch their migration down south along the Atlantic coast and has cautioned fishermen and boats in the region to steer clear of them.

But, NOAA scientists warned the species is already under severe threat and extinction could be a very real possibility.

In a November report, the organization said the deaths of right whales in American and Canadian waters was a blow to the already declining numbers; this prompted a meeting of officials on last Tuesday to discuss the future of the species.

The meeting of the regulatory New England Fishery Management Council saw officials discuss the possibility of extinction.

According to them, 2017 marked a year of high mortality and it also coincided with a year of poor reproduction, which left only about 100 breeding female North Atlantic right whales.

We are very […]

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Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said he’s “not a big fan of the ABA. … It’s blatantly political. Often. Not always.”
Credit: John Shinkle/POLITICO

Senate Republicans have declared war on the American Bar Association.

Since 1953, the venerable legal organization has played a critical, behind-the-scenes role in assessing judicial nominees and their fitness to serve on the bench.

But with the ABA emerging as a major stumbling block in President Donald Trump’s effort to transform the courts, the GOP is accusing the non-partisan group of holding a liberal slant and is seeking to sideline it.

The ABA has deemed at least four of Trump’s judicial nominees “not qualified” — a high number, although other administrations evaluated candidates privately before they were nominated. Democrats warn of dire consequences of ignoring the group’s evaluations. But Republicans are intent on a dramatic reshaping of the federal judiciary that could last for decades and so far, haven’t been persuaded by the ABA’s ratings.

As the Senate prepares this week to confirm one appellate […]

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Hungry girl nibbles on a breakfast bar
Credit: Shutterstock

United Nations official investigating poverty in the United States was shocked at the level of environmental degradation in some areas of rural Alabama, saying he had never seen anything like it in the developed world.

“I think it’s very uncommon in the First World. This is not a sight that one normally sees. I’d have to say that I haven’t seen this,” Philip Alston, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told Connor Sheets of AL.com earlier this week as they toured a community in Butler County where raw sewage flows from homes through exposed PVC pipes and into open trenches and pits.

The tour through Alabama’s rural communities is part of a two-week investigation by the U.N. on poverty and human rights abuses in the United States. So far, U.N. investigators have visited cities and towns in California and Alabama, and will soon travel to Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.

Of particular concern to Alston are specific poverty-related issues that have surfaced across the […]

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Kansas slashed taxes at the top to try to spur growth – but the plan crippled the state’s finances and proved disastrous for its Republican governor
Credit: Guardian

Is Donald Trump about to turn America into Kansas? It’s a question some worried people who live in the state are asking as the Republican party pushes through the biggest tax overhaul in a generation – an overhaul that, they claim, bears an uncanny resemblance to a tax plan that left their midwestern home in disarray.

After a failed economic experiment meant to boost economic growth blew a holein the Kansas budget as big as a prairie sky (a $350m deficit in the current fiscal year and nearly $600m in the next) state jobs and services have been slashed.

Prison guards are sharing stab vests at the El Dorado maximum security prison in southern Kansas. At the end of a shift, the sweat-soaked vests, worn all day in a facility without air […]

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