Noises in woman's head were from Flesh-Eating Maggots -

Noises in woman's head were from Flesh-Eating Maggots - 



A British woman returned from a holiday in Peru hearing scratching noises inside her head to be told she was being attacked by flesh-eating maggots living inside her ear.

Rochelle Harris, 27, said she remembered dislodging a fly from her ear while in Peru but thought nothing more of it until she started getting headaches and pains down one side of her face and woke up in Britain one morning with liquid on her pillow.

Thinking she had a routine ear infection caused by a mosquito bite, she sought medical treatment at the Royal Derby Hospital in northern England, where a consultant noticed maggots in a small hole in her ear-canal.

"I was very scared. Were they in my brain?" said Harris, recounting her ordeal in a new Discovery Channel documentary series called "Bugs, Bites and Parasites" to be aired in the UK from July 21.

Doctors tried first to flush the maggots out of the ear using olive oil.

"It was the longest few hours that I have ever had to wait... I could still feel them and hear them and knowing what those scratching sounds were, and knowing what that wriggling feeling was, that just made it all the worse," she said.

When flushing the maggots out failed, the medics resorted to surgery and found a "writhing mass of maggots" within her ear, raising concern they could eat into her brain.

The surgery removed a family of eight maggots. Analysis found that a New World Army Screw Worm fly had laid eggs inside Harris's ear.

"I'm not so squeamish around those kinds of bugs now. How can I be? They've been in my ear!" Harris said.

Read more - 

http://www.wellandtribune.ca/2013/07/19/noises-in-womans-head-were-from-flesh-eating-maggots

STUDY: Mothers of obese children more likely to be depressed... -

STUDY: Mothers of obese children more likely to be depressed... -



The findings of a new study indicate a possible relationship between mothers who suffer from symptoms of depression and children who are obese, especially in low-income families living in urban areas.

The study, titled “Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Child Obesity in Low-Income Urban Families,” was conducted by researchers from the Department of Pediatrics and the Montefiore Medical Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

“Maternal depressive symptoms are associated with child overweight and obese status and with several obesity-promoting practices,” a published summary of the study states. “These results support the need for maternal depression screening in pediatric obesity prevention programs.”

Information was collected by conducting cross-sectional surveys with mothers of children around 5 years of age who were receiving pediatric care.

“We used regression analyses to examine the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms … and … child weight status, … obesity-promoting feeding practices, including mealtime practices and feeding styles and … activity-related behaviors, including sleep time, screen time, and outdoor playtime,” the study further explained.

A total of 401 sets of mothers and children were involved in the study. Of those, a reported 23.4 percent reported depressive symptoms. Researchers were then able to determine that mothers who said they experienced those symptoms were more likely to have children with weight issues than mothers who did not.

The discrepancy in weight was said to be caused by depressive mothers having a lower likelihood of setting dietary limits and playing outdoors with their children while also setting poor examples for eating habits.

Researchers additionally noted in the study, “Further research should explore how to incorporate needed mental health support.”

There may be hope, however, at least in regards to obesity trends for young children in poor urban areas – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has found that obesity rates among preschool children from low-income families is declining.

“Obesity and extreme obesity among U.S. low-income, preschool-aged children went down for the first time in recent years, according to CDC’s first national study,” the CDC official website states. “From 2003 through 2010, the prevalence of obesity decreased slightly from 15.21 percent to 14.94 percent. Similarly, the prevalence of extreme obesity decreased from 2.22 percent to 2.07 percent.”

Read more - 

http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2013/07/18/study-maternal-depression-could-be-tied-to-childhood-obesity/

Wired Teddy Bear monitors kids' heartbeat, body temp... -

Wired Teddy Bear monitors kids' heartbeat, body temp... - 



With Fitbits clipped to our pants, sleep-assistance apps recording our sleep patterns during the night, and sports sensors helping us exercise, we're all getting used to the quantified life our smart devices are creating. But Teddy the Guardian, from Croatia-based firm IDerma, takes the idea to a whole new level. This kid's plushie is filled with electronics and sensors designed to measure heart rate, blood pressure, and other important medical data.

Connected via Bluetooth, the bear reports a kid's vital signs to their parents' smartphones--and can also provide long-term data on background health stats to physicians when the child actually is ill, to provide a good comparative data set.

Demonstrating that this is definitely an idea with (fluffy) legs, the bear has just received FDA approval for the medical tech inside it.

Read more - 

http://www.fastcompany.com/3014491/fast-feed/this-teddy-bear-has-sensors-that-measure-your-kids-health

Jumbo viruses hint at 'fourth domain' of life -

Jumbo viruses hint at 'fourth domain' of life  - 



The discovery of two new jumbo-sized viruses is blurring the lines between viral and cellular life and could point to the existence of a new type of life, scientists suggest. 
The two large viruses, detailed in this week's issue of the journal Science, have been dubbed "Pandoraviruses" because of the surprises they may hold for biologists, in reference to the mythical Greek figure who opened a box and released evil into the world.
The discovery of Pandoraviruses is an indication that our knowledge of Earth's microbial biodiversity is still incomplete, explained study coauthor Jean-Michel Claverie, a virologist at the French National Research Agency at Aix-Marseille University.
"Huge discoveries remain to be made at the most fundamental level that may change our present conception about the origin of life and its evolution," Claverie said.
Eugene Koonin, a computational evolutionary biologist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Md., who was not involved in the study, called the Pandoraviruses a "wonderful discovery," but not a complete surprise.
"In a certain sense, it's something that we saw coming, and it's wonderful that it has come," Koonin said.
A systematic search
Claverie's lab found one of the viruses, Pandoravirus salinus, in sediments collected off the coast of Chile.  The other, Pandoravirus dulcis, was lurking in mud in a freshwater pond near Melbourne, Australia.
'These viruses have more than 2,000 new genes coding for proteins and enzymes that do unknown things.'
- virologist and study coauthor Chantel Abergel
Both of the new viruses are so massive that they can be seen using a traditional light microscope. Their genomes are also super-sized: the genome of P. salinus is 1.91 million DNA bases long, while that of P. dulcis is 2.47 million DNA bases. For comparison, the size of the previous viral genome record holder, Megavirus chilensis, is 1.18 million bases.
M. chilensis is a marine relative of Mimiviruses, a class of large viruses that was first discovered more than a decade ago and forever changed scientists' conceptions of how large viruses could be.
After sequencing the first Mimivirus genome in 2010, Claverie and his team began a systematic search for even larger viruses. They found P. salinus in the same environment in Chile where M. chilensis was found.
The discovery of P. dulcis was more serendipitous, being the result of water sample Claverie took during a trip to Melbourne.
At first, the French scientists thought both viruses were the same. But after comparing the two genome sequences and their encoded proteins, they realized that the pair represented a new virus family, said Claverie.
What are they?
The team also conducted several experiments to confirm that Pandoraviruses were indeed viruses. Using light and electron microscopes, the scientists followed their newfound entities through a complete replication cycle. The gigantic entities met all three key criteria to be labeled viruses.
First, instead of splitting in two like typical bacterium or cells, the Pandoraviruses spawned hundreds of new copies in one cycle. Secondly, they both lacked the genes needed for energy production. Finally, they could not produce proteins without infecting single-celled organisms known as amoebas, which seem to be the Pandoraviruses' preferred hosts.
Further surprises awaited the team when they analyzed the Pandoraviruses' genomes. That of P. dulciscontained about 1,500 genes, while that of P. salinus contained more than 2,500 genes. A typical flu virus can have as few as 10 genes, and M. chilensis has only about 1,000 genes.
What's more, scientists don't know what most of the Pandoravirus genes do. There are "a few recognizable genes involved in DNA replication, and a few transcription-related genes. Not much else is recognizable," explained study co-first author Matthieu Legendre, who is also at CNRS.
The Pandoraviruses are also unlike other viruses in that they lack the gene for the capsid protein that typically forms the housing, or "capsid," of giant viruses.
The fourth domain
These irregularities raise interesting questions about the origins of Pandoraviruses, scientists say.
According to a theory preferred by Claverie and his team, the ancient ancestors of Pandoraviruses were once free-living cells that gradually lost most of their genes as they became parasites.
Some scientists think this hypothetical ancestral cell could have constituted a so-called "fourth domain" of life — that is, a previously unknown branch of life that is distinct from the accepted three domains: Bacteria; Archaea, another type of single-celled organism; and Eukaryotes, the domain that animals and plants belong to.
Practical applications
Claverie and his team are now on the hunt for other Pandoraviruses to unravel their evolutionary origins and better study their genes.
"These viruses have more than 2,000 new genes coding for proteins and enzymes that do unknown things, and participate in unknown metabolic pathways," explained virologist and study coauthor Chantel Abergel, who is also at CNRS.
"Elucidating their biochemical and regulatory functions might be of a tremendous interest for biotech and biomedical applications," she added.
The scientists have reason to believe that many more Pandoraviruses await discovery.
"The fact that two of them were found almost simultaneously from very distant locations either indicate that we were incredibly lucky," Claverie said, "or that they are not rare."


Read more -

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/07/18/jumbo-viruses-hint-at-fourth-domain-life/?intcmp=features

'Comet of the century' nears Earth -

'Comet of the century' nears Earth - 



About 10,000 years ago, Comet ISON left our solar system's distant shell, a region known as the Oort cloud, and began streaking toward the sun. This November, the icy wanderer will reach the climax of its journey, potentially providing a stunning skywatching show here on Earth.
Comet ISON was discovered just last September by two Russian amateur astronomers. Scientists have since recognized ISON as a possible "comet of the century," but to live up to its promise, it will have to survive its dangerous perihelion, or closest approach to the sun. 
ISON is what's known as a sungrazing comet. These suicidal objects have orbits that bring them within 850,000 miles of the sun, and scientists estimate that ISON's closest pass will be about 730,000 miles above the surface of Earth's star. [Photos of Comet ISON: A Potentially Great Comet]
Sometime this month or perhaps in August, ISON is set to cross what's called the frost line. At this boundary, which lies some 230 million to 280 million miles from the sun, our star's radiation will start taking its toll on the comet, driving off more of its water and making ISON appear brighter.
ISON's road will only get rockier from there. After the comet flies by Mars in October and then Mercury in mid-November, intensifying solar radiation will boil more material off ISON; pressure from solar particles could break the comet into pieces; tidal forces will create great gravitational stress; and one ill-timed solar storm could rip the comet's tail right off.
All eyes will be on ISON as it makes this perilous journey. The comet has already had its picture taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Swift spacecraft, and in the coming months, the agency has a slew of ISON observations planned for its solar telescopes in space and some instruments on the ground.
In September, NASA will even launch a comet-watching balloon almost 23 miles above Earth's surface to capture images of ISON with minimal interference from the atmosphere.
If the sun is merciful to ISON when it whips around the star on Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving Day), the comet could light up the sky for weeks. In the Northern Hemisphere, it could be visible in the morning near the east-southeast horizon in early December. Later in the month, and into early January, the comet could be visible all night, according to NASA.
Even if ISON fizzles, tracking the comet's path and reaction to solar forces could shed light on the makeup of the early solar system, scientists say.
Sungrazing comets like ISON sometimes plunge into parts of the sun's fiery atmosphere where no spacecraft can go. Researchers can learn about the sun itself by watching how the comet and its tail interact with the solar atmosphere.
For example, Comet Lovejoy passed just 87,000 miles above the solar surface in mid-December 2011. The strange wiggle of Lovejoy's tail as it dove through the sun's corona helped scientists map out the region's complex magnetic field.


Read more: -

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/07/18/comet-century-comet-ison-faces-risky-road/?intcmp=features

World's first mission to the Moon's South Pole announced -

World's first mission to the Moon's South Pole announced - 



The world’s first mission to the South Pole of the Moon was announced Thursday, opening up the possibility that the public will be able to access images from the moon online.
The private enterprise mission, announced by the International Lunar Observatory Association and Moon Express, Inc., will be both scientific and commercial, and plans to deliver the International Lunar Observatory (ILO) aboard a Moon Express robotic lander. 
 The observatory is intended to establish a base for permanent astrophysical observations and a lunar commercial communications systems for researchers to utilize.
“We are very excited to announce that our second Moon mission will be to the lunar South Pole to deliver the International Lunar Observatory and to prospect for resources,” said Moon Express CEO Dr. Robert Richards.  “The mission will provide a historic landing in an unexplored region of the Moon that may harbor some of the greatest resource deposits in the solar system.”
If successful, the ILO will be the first private space telescope to operate from the lunar surface and be available to researchers, educators and the general public through the internet.
 It will allow them to access images from the surface of the Moon, and it is hoped that it will create a new model of “citizen science” public participation and international collaboration.


Read more:-

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/07/18/world-first-mission-to-south-pole-moon-announced/?intcmp=trending

Robert Seldon Lady, former CIA chief in Milan, was detained after he entered Panama - for 'extraordinary rendition' -

Robert Seldon Lady, former CIA chief in Milan, was detained after he entered Panama - for 'extraordinary rendition' - 



A former CIA base chief convicted in the 2003 abduction of a terror suspect from an Italian street has been detained in Panama after Italy requested his arrest in one of the most notorious episodes of the U.S. program known as extraordinary rendition, Italian and Panamanian officials said Thursday.

Robert Seldon Lady, the former CIA chief in Milan, was detained after he entered Panama and unsuccessfully tried to cross the border into Costa Rica, according to an Italian official familiar with Italy’s investigation of the rendition of Cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the case.

A Panamanian National Police official said Lady, 59, had been detained yesterday on the Costa Rica-Panama border. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity due to lack of authorization to discuss the matter.

The government of Panama, which maintains one of the region’s closest relationships with the U.S., was officially silent on the case. Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino told The Associated Press that he was unaware of Lady’s detention and the press office of the National Police — which works with Interpol, the international police agency — said it had no information. The CIA also declined to comment.

Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was abducted in February 2003 and transferred to U.S. military bases, first in Italy then Germany, before being flown to Egypt. He alleged he was tortured in Egypt before being released.

Italy conducted an aggressive investigation and charged a series of CIA and other U.S. government employees, despite objections from Washington, in a case that led to the first convictions of agents involved in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program

Lady was sentenced to nine years in prison by an Italian appeals court in Milan this after being tried in absentia. Two other Americans were also tried and convicted.

Lady, who was born in Honduras, left Italy early into the Italian investigation of the abduction. He also retired from the CIA. Interpol had issued a request for Lady’s arrest, reflecting Italy’s determination to get him back.

Italy and Panama have no extradition treaty, Italian diplomats said, but Panama would be free to send Lady to Italy if it wanted.

Read more - 

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/panama-holds-ex-cia-station-chief-extraordinary-rendition

USDA Grants $149,074 to Study Food Shopping Patterns with GPS -

USDA Grants $149,074 to Study Food Shopping Patterns with GPS - 



The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded a $149,074 grant to study food shopping patterns that may form the basis of future shopping “interventions.”
The USDA award went to the University of Kentucky in April for the study titled, “Adolescent and Parent Food Activity Patterns as Drivers of Food Choice and Behaviors.”
According to the grant abstract, “There is limited research understanding how adolescents and their parents move within their daily lives which may influence their food choices and ultimately diet behavior.”
The project will examine the influences on food shopping patterns, or as the proposal put it: “The overall goal of the proposed project is to examine the drivers of food shopping patterns, behaviors and food purchasing choices within the food activity space among adolescents and their parents.”

Read more -

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/usda-grants-149074-study-food-shopping-patterns-gps

Steam Rising Again From Fukushima Reactor -

Steam Rising Again From Fukushima Reactor - 



As Japan’s infatuation with the great nominal stock market experiment continues, the government wishes nothing more than to put the Fukushima nuclear disaster in the past, so it can restart its nuclear power plants: the critical, decisive factor if Abenomics has any chance of succeeding, as the country’s economy will never recover if it has to rely on foreign sources of energy. Alas, for the time being this looks improbable and following the latest news out of Fukushima, it may be downright impossible. According to the BBC, the Fukushima nuclear power plant has been emitting steam from its destroyed reactor, confirming that while one can bury radioactive garbage under the rug, it continues to emit gamma rays and is likely to get much worse before it gets better.
From BBC:
 Steam has been seen rising from a reactor building at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator says. It says it is investigating what is causing the steam at the damaged No 3 reactor building. The plant, crippled by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, has seen a series of water leaks and power failures.
Water is being pumped into the reactors to cool them, but that has left Tepco with the problem of storing the contaminated waste water. A worker first noticed the steam after reviewing camera footage taken of the building, Tepco said.
The operator said in a statement there was a “steam-like gas wafting through the air near the central part of the fifth floor [equipment storage pool side]” of the No 3 reactor building.
The reactor water injection and the cooling of the spent fuel pool were “continuing stably”, Tepco said. There were also no significant change in the temperature of the reactor. “We will continue to monitor the status closely,” the statement added.
Tepco, naturally, despite admitting it is not sure what is going on, had a prepared “all is well” statement:
Tokyo Electric Power Company said there was no emergency situation and there were no signs of increased radiation in the area.
“We do not believe an emergency situation is breaking out although we are still investigating what caused this,” a spokesman told Agence-France Presse news agency. Mayumi Yoshida, another Tepco spokesperson, told Reuters news agency: “We think it’s possible that rain made its way through the reactor building and having fallen on the primary containment vessel, which is hot, evaporated creating steam.”
This is the latest in a series of problems that the Fukushima power plant has faced in recent months. Last week, a sharp increase in radioactive cesium was detected in groundwater 25m (82ft) from the sea. In June, radioactive water was also found to be leaking from a storage tank.
NYT has more:
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant stood ready Thursday to inject boric acid into one of its most heavily damaged reactors after it found steam emanating from the reactor building. The preventive measure would stave off sustained nuclear reactions in the reactor’s damaged core, though officials stressed that such reactions were a remote possibility.
The incident has brought the Fukushima plant’s vulnerable state into sharp relief, more than two years after its reactors suffered multiple meltdowns when its cooling systems were overwhelmed by a powerful earthquake and tsunami. A recent jump in levels of radioactive cesium and tritium in the groundwater at the coastal plant, along with suggestions that the groundwater is leaking into the Pacific, has also raised alarms over the continued environmental threat posed by the plant.
Remote camera footage Thursday showed steam escaping from the top of the No. 3 reactor’s primary containment structure, which houses its fuel vessel, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco. A worker who checked the footage Thursday morning noticed the steam, said Hiroki Kawamata, a spokesman for the operator.
…
Mr. Kawamata said officials were unsure what was generating the steam, and hypothesized that rainwater seeping into the containment vessel may have turned to vapor because of elevated temperatures there. Extremely high levels of radiation in the now roofless upper sections of the No. 3 reactor building — destroyed in a hydrogen explosion that rocked the reactor during the early days of the 2011 disaster — make it too dangerous for workers to approach. Debris removal work is carried out by remotely-operated cranes.
Video footage seemed to show less steam Thursday evening, and after sundown it became too dark to accurately check for any vapor, Masayuki Ono, acting general manager of Tepco’s nuclear power and plant siting division, later told an emergency news conference.
Still, workers were ready to inject water containing boric acid into the reactor from the outside at any signs of further trouble, such as a rapid rise in temperature or radiation parameters, the company said in an e-mailed statement.
Such spikes would raise the chilling possibility of criticality in the reactor’s damaged fuel, most which is thought to have melted and slumped to the bottom of its containment structure after the hydrogen explosion, one of several at the site in 2011. Boric acid would slow that rate of fission, preventing the worst-case scenario of uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions in the core.
As is well known, however, all those ongoing radioactive events are purely “due to the weather” and nothing to do with the most glaring disaster coverup in recent history.

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-18/steam-rising-again-fukushima-reactor

Human-Animal Hybrids: Sick And Twisted Chimeras Are Being Created In Labs All Over The Planet -

Human-Animal Hybrids: Sick And Twisted Chimeras Are Being Created In Labs All Over The Planet - 



Did you know that scientists all over the globe are creating extremely bizarre human-animal chimeras?  Over the past decade, there have been some absolutely stunning advances in the field of genetic modification.  Today, it is literally possible for college students to create new lifeforms in their basements.  Unfortunately, laws have not kept pace with these advancements, and in many countries there are very few limits on what scientists are allowed to do.  As you will read about below, extremely creepy human-animal hybrids are now being created in laboratories all over the planet.  And this is just the stuff that is publicly admitted.  Can you imagine what kind of sick and twisted experiments are taking place in the dark corners of secret labs that nobody knows about?  And what happens if these creatures get out into the wild and starting mating?  At that point, it would be nearly impossible to “put the genie back into the bottle”.  Scientists seem very eager to test the limits of what is possible, but what they are unleashing may have consequences that none of us ever dreamed possible.

Just the other day, we learned that scientists have created mice that have an artificial human chromosome “in every cell of their bodies”. 

So what should we call such creatures?  They are definitely not fully mice anymore.

Scientists are hailing this as a “breakthrough” which could lead to all sorts of new treatments for disease.  The following is from an article entitled “Mice with human chromosomes – the genetic breakthrough that could revolutionise medicine“…

Scientists have created genetically-engineered mice with artificial human chromosomes in every cell of their bodies, as part of a series of studies showing that it may be possible to treat genetic diseases with a radically new form of gene therapy.

In one of the unpublished studies, researchers made a human artificial chromosome in the laboratory from chemical building blocks rather than chipping away at an existing human chromosome, indicating the increasingly powerful technology behind the new field of synthetic biology.

This is quite bizarre.

But creating mice with artificial human chromosomes is one thing.

Creating mice with partly human brains is a whole different ball of wax.

According to LifeNews.com, researchers at the University of Wisconsin have successfully transferred cells from human embryos into the brains of mice.  Those cells began to grow and develop, and they actually made the mice smarter…

Yet experiments like these are going forward just the same. In just the past few months, scientists at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Rochester have published data on their human-animal neural chimeras. For the Wisconsin study, researchers injected mice with an immunotoxin to destroy a part of their brains–the hippocampus–that’s associated with learning, memory, and spatial reasoning. Then the researchers replaced those damaged cells with cells derived from human embryos. The cells proliferated and the lab chimeras recovered their ability to navigate a water maze.

For the Rochester study, researchers implanted newborn mice with nascent human glial cells, which help support and nourish neurons in the brain. Six months later, the human parts had elbowed out the mouse equivalents, and the animals had enhanced ability to solve a simple maze and learn conditioned cues. These protocols might run afoul of the anti-hybrid laws, and perhaps they should arouse some questions. These chimeric mice may not be human, or even really human, but they’re certainly one step further down the path to Algernon. It may not be so long before we’re faced with some hairy bioethics: What rights should we assign to mice with human brains?

Is this really a good idea?

Do we really want to start creating entities that are part-human?

Apparently, it is now even possible to grow entire human organs inside animals.  In fact, scientists in Japan plan to start systematically growing human organs inside of pigs within 12 months.  The goal is to increase the number of organs available for medical transplants as a recent Infowars.com article explained…

A panel of scientists and legal experts appointed by the Japanese government will be gathering together to begin drafting guidelines governing Japan’s historic embryonic research. If all goes according to plan, scientists hope to begin growing human organs in animals within the next 12 months.
The research sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. Scientists place a human stem cell into the embryo of an animal to create a “chimeric embryo” that can be implanted into the animal’s womb. According to the Telegraph, the animal in question will most likely be a pig.
Once the embryo is implanted it will grow into a perfect human organ – a heart, a kidney, a pancreas, and so on. Then, when the adult pig is slaughtered, the organ will be harvested and transplanted into someone who needs a new one.
But once a human organ is grown inside a pig, that pig is no longer fully a pig.

And without a doubt, that organ will no longer be a fully human organ after it is grown inside the pig.  Those receiving those organs will be allowing human-animal hybrid organs to be implanted into them.

One can only imagine what the consequences of doing such a thing would be.

You would think that there should be strict limits on this kind of a thing.  And in a few areas around the globe, there are some limits.  But most of the time the ethical decisions are left up to the scientists…

Two years ago, the UK Academy of Medical Sciences released a groundbreaking report on “animals containing human material”. It concluded that most research on chimeras is permitted by existing UK laws. But it also identified some experiments that should not (yet) be done because of strong ethical objections. One is to breed an animal that has human sperm or eggs. Another is to create a non-human primate with a humanised brain.

Most people would be absolutely shocked to learn some of the things that are currently being done in the name of science.

For example, did you know that rice that contains actual human genes is being grown right now in Kansas?…

Unless the rice you buy is certified organic, or comes specifically from a farm that tests its rice crops for genetically modified (GM) traits, you could be eating rice tainted with actual human genes. The only known GMO with inbred human traits in cultivation today, a GM rice product made by biotechnology company Ventria Bioscience is currently being grown on 3,200 acres in Junction City, Kansas — and possibly elsewhere — and most people have no idea about it.

Since about 2006,Ventria has been quietly cultivating rice that has been genetically modified (GM) with genes from the human liver for the purpose of taking the artificial proteins produced by this “Frankenrice” and using them in pharmaceuticals.

We are corrupting nature, and yet very few people seem alarmed.  When the Daily Mail reported back in 2011 that scientists in the UK had created “more than 150″ human-animal hybrid embryos, hardly anyone got upset about it…

Last night a campaigner against the excesses of medical research said he was disgusted that scientists were ‘dabbling in the grotesque’.

Figures seen by the Daily Mail show that 155 ‘admixed’ embryos, containing both human and animal genetic material, have been created since the introduction of the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act.

This legalised the creation of a variety of hybrids, including an animal egg fertilised by a human sperm; ‘cybrids’, in which a human nucleus is implanted into an animal cell; and ‘chimeras’, in which human cells are mixed with animal embryos.

Sadly, this kind of thing is being done all over the planet.  Just check out some of the truly bizarre human-animal hybrid experiments that have been taking place all over the globe according to a recent Slate article…

Not long ago, Chinese scientists embedded genes for human milk proteins into a mouse’s genome and have since created herds of humanized-milk-producing goats. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Michigan have a method for putting a human anal sphincter into a mouse as a means of finding better treatments for fecal incontinence, and doctors are building animals with humanized immune systems to serve as subjects for new HIV vaccines.

Are you disgusted by those examples?

You should be.

Here are some other ways that humans and animals are being combined…

-Rabbit Eggs with Human Cells

-Pigs with Human Blood

-Sheep with Human Livers

-Cow Eggs with Human Cells

-Cat-Human Hybrid Proteins

And these are just the things that we know about.

What kind of sick and twisted experiments are going on around the globe that we don’t know about?

Like I mentioned at the top, we live at a time when the possibilities in the field of genetic modification seem endless.

But just because we can do something does not mean that we should actually do it.

The movie “Splice” demonstrated the danger of creating an entirely new lifeform that is only partially human.  When we create something that is neither fully human or fully animal, what kind of spirit enters that being?  What would the consequences be if such beings started mating with other animals?  Could we end up creating creatures that are far beyond our capacity to control?

Unfortunately, Pandora’s box has already been opened and it is going to be extremely difficult to control the creation of human-animal hybrids.  This technology is racing ahead all over the planet, and at this point even college students can create new lifeforms in their own basements.

We are entering a strange new world, and nobody is quite sure what comes next.

Read more - 

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Human-Animal_Hybrids%3A_Sick_And_Twisted_Chimeras_Are_Being_Created_In_Labs_All_Over.../27282/0/0/0/Y/M.html?morestories=obinsite