The Looming Crisis in Human Genetics

The looming crisis in human genetics:
Some awkward news ahead
by Geoffrey Miller
Author of Spent

Human geneticists have reached a private crisis of conscience, and it will become public knowledge in 2010. The crisis has depressing health implications and alarming political ones. In a nutshell: the new genetics will reveal much less than hoped about how to cure disease, and much more than feared about human evolution and inequality, including genetic differences between classes, ethnicities and races.

About five years ago, genetics researchers became excited about new methods for “genome-wide association studies” (GWAS). We already knew from twin, family and adoption studies that all human traits are heritable: genetic differences explain much of the variation between individuals. We knew the genes were there; we just had to find them….

In 2010, GWAS fever will reach its peak. Dozens of papers will report specific genes associated with almost every imaginable trait—intelligence, personality, religiosity, sexuality, longevity, economic risk-taking, consumer preferences, leisure interests and political attitudes. The data are already collected, with DNA samples from large populations already measured for these traits. It’s just a matter of doing the statistics and writing up the papers for Nature Genetics…

World's water supply 'running low'

From 2003 but it has only gotten worse.
World's water supply 'running low'

The world's natural supply of underground water, on which two billion people depend, is being run down, according to the United Nations.

Water tables are falling by about three metres a year across much of the developing world, according to a study by the UN Environment Programme (Unep).

DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER

Unsurprisingly our government is doing nothing to protect us from dangerous imports.
From June 2009
Radioactive cheese grater found in Flint illustrates lack of federal oversight

U.S. Military Preparing for Domestic Disturbances

A new report from the U.S. Army War College discusses the use of American troops to quell civil unrest brought about by a worsening economic crisis.

The report from the War College’s Strategic Studies Institute warns that the U.S. military must prepare for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States” that could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.”

Entitled “Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development,” the report was produced by Nathan Freier, a recently retired Army lieutenant colonel who is a professor at the college — the Army’s main training institute for prospective senior officers.

December 23, 2008

Swiss are going down the wrong path with this legislation.
Self-defense is the inherent right of all humans.

February 24, 2009 -- Updated 1055 GMT (1855 HKT)
Swiss soldiers face loss of right to store guns at home

* Swiss soldiers could lose their famous right to store their weapons at home
* Coalition of groups get enough signatures for referendum on gun laws
* They want weapons stored on bases and a national register

Ebola in USA

The virus is indigenous to Africa

1st US case of Marburg fever confirmed in Colo.
The Associated Press - Feb 7, 2009

Storm front approaching

"I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am by no means a nervous man. At the same time, it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you."
Sherlock Holmes, THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: The Final Problem