Science

Serial Biotech Entrepreneur Kevin Ness Has Raised $260 Million To Get His Genome-Engineering Device Into The Hands Of Every Scientist Who Wants One – Forbes
Excerpt:
Kevin Ness has made a career of building tools for biologists. Now, with the burgeoning field of synthetic biology booming, he’s ramping up his latest venture, Inscripta, which wants to get a genome-engineering device into the hands of every scientist who wants one. The company has been operating largely under the radar, but with the announcement today that it had raised $125 million in a round led by Paladin Capital Group, for total funding of $260 million, it’s ready to make its mark.
“Our instrument is the early Apple. It’s the first personal computer for biology,” Ness told Forbes during a recent meeting in New York City.

Need follows the path to least resistance, but should the resistance increase, the divergent nature of the path will only become more pronounced. Case in point, as humans find it increasingly difficult to afford purchasing prescription drugs in the legal market, they will increasingly, by necessity, take on the risk of engaging in divergent paths, paths such as the dread black market. And thanks to the internets, that black market is a worldwide network. And I, for one, love it. Don’t you?
People Buy, Trade, Donate Medications on the Black Market – Here’s Why – Scitech Daily
Excerpt:
Results from the study were published online in the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology on December 4, 2019.
An online survey of 159 people with diabetes and their caregivers showed the group had participated in different types of underground exchange activities, from donating (56%) to receiving donated goods (34%) to trading (24%), borrowing (22%) and purchasing (15%). Many had taken part in more than one kind of transaction.
When asked why they turned to underground exchange, lack of affordability and accessibility were frequently mentioned. These comments supported statistics showing that over half of participants in the study engaged in underground exchange activities out of financial necessity. People donated and traded with family, friends and strangers who could not get supplies themselves, despite most having health insurance.

Piglets Born With Monkey Cells Are a World First – Real Clear Science
Excerpt:
Scientists in China created piglets whose organs contained some monkey cells. The piglets all died within a week, illustrating the challenges ahead as researchers work toward the goal of growing human organs inside other animals.
These pig-monkey chimeras are a scientific first, but to be clear, we’re not talking about some kind of dystopian half-pig, half-monkey. Rather, these animals were mostly pigs, but with a dash of monkey thrown in.
The experiment wasn’t some kind of frivolous Frankensteinian undertaking, either, as the Chinese scientists who led this study are doing some important stage-setting for something bigger: growing human organs inside other animals, pigs in particular. Donated organs are in short supply in China and around the world, so a biotechnology like this would do much to alleviate demand.

An interesting take on Milgram’s terrible experiment is this, to not bemoan the high percentage of folks who would push a button they thought might kill someone merely because authority assured them it would be fine to do so, but to focus on the fact that, again and again, in multple experiments that repeated similar conditions to the Milgram experiment, a significant minority of people refused to take action that would harm others, even unseen others, because authority told them to do so.
But what is it to be the lone guy not saluting in the sea of Nazi supporters if the people around you will rip you to shreds if you threaten that thing they’re saluting? More often than not, in nation-states where authoritarianism is on the increase, the small number of people who have somehow avoided the mass hysteria are simply the most at risk as the tyranny rises and turns from rhetoric to action.
Rethinking the Infamous Milgram Experiment in Authoritarian Times – Scientific American
Excerpt:
So maybe it is a mistake to view Milgram’s work as an “obedience experiment”—although he clearly did. Maybe what he actually conducted was a disobedience experiment, showing that some people will not follow orders no matter how strong the social pressure.
They are out there, waiting the moment when history calls upon them to disobey. We should not lose sight of them in the weeds of social psychology. They are Stanley Milgram’s unheralded legacy—and we may even stand among them.