Stem Cell Compromise?
WaTimes – Advanced Cell Technology claims to have found a middle ground – utilizing embryos for research
The company says its technique takes just a single cell, or blastomere, from a two-day-old embryo, after the fertilized egg has divided into eight cells. They use the blastomere to seed a line of stem cells, which can then grow into any kind of human tissue.
As someone who has a lot personally invested in this research, it’s heartening to see some hints of moving forward bypassing the simpleminded moral debate. With the current political climate in mind (without much hope for change in the near future) real solutions are likely to come from outside the US system. Biotech companies (and nonprofits) should be rasing capital and going offshore.
How It Begins
UPI – Not to say this is the beginning of the Bosnian fiasco, but this is the kind of thing that starts off the long pathway of cohesive small networks breaking out of nation states –
A U.S. envoy says Bosnia-Herzegovina is a sovereign state and the Bosnian Serb entity cannot secede… “The status of Bosnia-Herzegovina has been solved. I am not aware of any reference in the constitution about secession or a referendum. That is simply not an option, and if somebody wants to change the constitution, he must have a two-thirds majority in parliament,” McElhaney told Bosnian news agencies.
Open Source Nuke Detection
The Department of Homeland Security announced plans last month to bolster U.S. port defenses with radiation scanners. The program, primarily aimed at detecting nukes smuggled by terrorists in shipping containers, will cost an estimated $1.15 billion, but won’t be completed until 2011.
Meanwhile a group of smart guys has built a portable detection device for about $12,000. It is a…
…boat-mounted scanner with off-the-shelf parts that might reliably spot radiation spikes in container ships at sea from a kilometer away.
Of course, this type of adhoc system would not be able to climb the massive bureaucracies with access to the resources required to scale and leverage the tech.
Robin Gets It
Cybersoc gets the splintering world –
Little neighbourhood pubs tend to have the opposite problem where they have a small core of often ageing customers and have a difficult time getting new visitors. But they do build a strong community, even if it is one that’s limited in size, and although they aren’t likely to bring in hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, the owner and/or landlord can carve out a decent living from their takings.
He’s right. It’s all about exploiting the waves of fragmentation and building organically:
The real successes of web 2.0 will be those who put most of their effort into building relationships with user communities and who don’t worry too much about, or invest too heavily in, whatever platform(s) those users happen to be using at the time.
Which means not getting lost in the nonsensical tech of Web 2.0 . The technology is an enabler, to be utilized to some end.
Off
I’ll be traveling for the next couple days. Sporadic posts at best.