Lifeboat Foundation

New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression.

Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In all likelihood, it is not healthy for humans.

It certainly is not good for mice. The new study, published this month in the journal Endocrinology, compared mice fed three different diets high in fat: soybean oil, soybean oil modified to be low in linoleic acid, and coconut oil.

This year marks the Eighth Review Conference (RevCon) of the Biological Toxins and Weapons Convention (BWC). At the same time, ongoing international efforts to further and more deeply investigate the brain’s complex neuronal circuitry are creating unprecedented capabilities to both understand and control neurological processes of thought, emotion, and behavior. These advances have tremendous promise for human health, but the potential for their misuse has also been noted, with most discussions centering on research and development of agents that are addressed by existing BWC and Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) proscriptions. In this article, we discuss the dual-use possibilities fostered by employing emergent biotechnologic techniques and tools—specifically, novel gene editors like clustered regular interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)—to produce neuroweapons. Based on our analyses, we posit the strong likelihood that development of genetically modified or created neurotropic substances will advance apace with other gene-based therapeutics, and we assert that this represents a novel—and realizable—path to creating potential neuroweapons. In light of this, we propose that it will be important to re-address current categorizations of weaponizable tools and substances, so as to better inform and generate tractable policy to enable improved surveillance and governance of novel neuroweapons.

Keywords: : CRISPR, Gene editing, Neuroweapon, Neurotherapeutic pathways, Dual-use neuroscience, Biosecurity policy.

T his year marks the Eighth Review Conference (RevCon) of the Biological Toxins and Weapons Convention (BWC), the purpose of which is to ensure that the convened parties’ directives continue to be relevant to and viable for prohibiting the development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons in the face of newly emerging scientific advancements and biotechnologies. Apropos of issues raised at previous RevCons and elsewhere, there are growing concerns about current and future weaponization of neurobiological agents and tools (ie, “neuroweapons”^1–6).

• Editorial
• Open Access
• Published: 05 July 2018

• Foteini Spagopoulou ORCID: orcid.

Computational biology is the combined application of math, statistics and computer science to solve biology-based problems. Examples of biology problems are: genetics, evolution, cell biology, biochemistry. [1].

A, C57BL/6J mice were genetically engineered using CRISPR–Cas9 genomic editing to encode 288L and 330R in mDPP4 on one chromosome (heterozygous, 288/330^+/−) or on both chromosomes (homozygous, 288/330^+/+). b, Northern blot of mDPP4 mRNA expression. c, Immunohistochemistry (IHC) of mDPP4 protein in the lungs, brain and kidneys of individual C57BL/6J wild-type (WT), 288/330^+/− and 288/330^+/+ mice. d, Viral titres for MERS-CoV at 3 days post-infection from C57BL/6J WT, 288/330^+/− and 288/330^+/+ (all n = 4) mice infected with 5 × 10⁵ plaque-forming units (p.f.u.) of the indicated viruses. Bar graphs show means + s.d.

If you look up ‘scientific overachiever’ in the dictionary, you’re likely to find a two-word definition: George Church.

The American geneticist, molecular engineer, and chemist splits his time between roles as Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT. He’s also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, acts as an advisor to a plethora of cutting edge companies, and heads up synthetic biology at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, of which he’s a founding member.

Oh, and George is author to hundreds of published papers, 60 patents and a popular science book (also, theoretically, George Church may live in an alternate reality where there are more than 24 hours in a day).

“Tim Crow must be proud to see his theory being tested at a complex level.” That’s how I tweeted the news on a recent Brain article by van den Heuvel et al (2019). Tim Crow’s theory on schizophrenia as a possible by-product of human brain evolution was quite inspiring and led to many fruitful discussions in our evolutionary psychiatry group when I was a junior trainee (which I wrote about a while ago: EPSIG Newsletter, June 2018). And here it was, the theory was tested by using novel methodology. Now I am pleased to say that the article did not disappoint, so I can enjoy the initial thrill and share my take with the Mental Elf World.

Tim Crow’s original question was intriguing: “Is schizophrenia the price that Homo sapiens pay for language?” (Crow, 1997). He argued that schizophrenia may be considered an extreme variation of brain systems which are relatively new in evolutionary timescale. Brain structures that are mostly implicated in schizophrenia were also unique to humans as mediators of language and higher cognitive functions. Those relatively new (in evolutionary timescale) brain systems may be more vulnerable to insults (e.g. stress, trauma, neurodevelopmental conditions) and manifest as dysfunctional brain circuits in schizophrenia.

The prevalence of schizophrenia is fairly constant across human populations (Jablensky et al. 1992), and the prevalence does not change despite low fecundity rates of people with schizophrenia. This can only be possible in the case of overall genetic predisposition across the population.

Interesting research paper on a new nanobot technology. I’m watching for ways in which suitable substrates for mind uploading can be constructed, and DNA self-guided assembly has potential.

Here are some excerpts and a weblink to the paper:

“…Chemical approaches have opened synthetic routes to build dynamic materials from scratch using chemical reactions, ultimately allowing flexibility in design…”

Continue reading “Dynamic DNA material with emergent locomotion behavior powered by artificial metabolism” »