Scientists Can Suck It

Conditions: Calm Before Storm

The Human Factor

Whenever people have worried out loud that genetically tinkering with our food could lead to total disaster, scientists have always been quick to state that no no, that everyone was overreacting, that any GM experiments would be done professionally, that there was no way GM food could accidentally be introduced into the general food chain. Who said anything about accidents?

A lamb born with a jellyfish gene was mistakenly sold for human consumption and probably ended up on someone’s plate, French authorities have said. A dispute between researchers at a highly respected national institute may have been the cause of the animal being deliberately sent to the abattoir last year. Police have now been called in and an inquiry launched into how the lamb could have been passed as fit for human consumption.

Le Parisien newspaper reported that the animal’s mother was a sheep called Emeraude whose DNA had been modified to include a jellyfish gene called Green Fluorescent Protein by researchers at the National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) in Paris. Her lamb, Rubis, was born with the gene in the spring of 2014. Although produced for research purposes, Rubis was allegedly deliberately mixed with several other lambs that had not been genetically modified and sent to an abattoir.

[...]

In what could have been the plot of a science fiction film, Emeraude and Rubis were reportedly part of a programme called Green Sheep launched in 2009, aimed at carrying out experiments on mammals for “therapeutic research”. The jellyfish protein was reportedly introduced into the sheep to make their skin transparent and enable researchers to “visualise and study heart transplants”.

Investigators suspect a researcher may have tricked his superior into signing a document sending the animal to the abattoir where it was sold to an unknown individual in November 2014. When the the team leader discovered the deception, he failed to report the missing animal to his bosses. Working relations between the two men were said to have been tense.

- theguardian.com/

So there we go. Dangerous new technology. Man tinkering with things they don’t yet fully understand. Those things getting out into the general population. And you thought Jurassic Park was just a fantasy. So, back to digging my post-apocalyptic bunker.



Bonus Edition: Your guide to WW3

For your reading pleasure, a flowchart has been assembled that breaks down how we could still get a big giant global thermonuclear war with the current tensions in Estonia.

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8858909/russia-war-flowchart



Film Review: Spy

The James Bond movies are ripe for parody, and this one, directed by Paul Feig and starring Melissa McCarthy is a pretty feisty one. McCarthy plays a technical expert who works in some CIA basement as the handler for a top notch CIA agent played by Jude Law. When he is taken out in the middle of a mission in Hungary to track down a stolen nuclear weapon it becomes clear that all the active agents have been compromised, which leads to McCarthy then being sent in as no one knows what she looks like. All this gives McCarthy a terrific opportunity to play a character completely out of her depth, who then rises to the challenge through good old guts, and some luck.

Comedies are difficult to review because the emphasis is on pursuing jokes more than any real drama of the story. Also, at various points the film has to stop to allow the actors to have a moment to improv and riff of each other, or even themselves. As such, the key is probably just to sit back and enjoy the ride. So I did.

It’s a really funny film, McCarthy allows her natural kick-ass attitude to take over more and more as the film develops, and she’s surrounded by actors who are really enjoying themselves. At the top of that list has to be perennial tough guy Jason Statham, who plays a classic hard case agent with such gusto and glee he steals every scene he’s in. It’s a really fun movie. Four swear words out of five.



Film Review: Tomorrowland

The future! Often a cold and dark place. A place usually filled with death and destruction. Tomorrowland tries to be a different kind of futuristic film. One with optimism and hope about the future. This is personified in the character Casey - an enthusiastic and inventive young character full of hope and can-do spirit. When she receives a pin that allows her to see a futuristic city full of gadgets and smiling people using them, she is agog with awe and excitement. Shortly after she’s lured by a robot girl to a house where a cranky old George Clooney lives. He’s cranky because he used to be full of hope and can-do spirit.

This pushes us, surprisingly, into the final part of the film. See, Clooney used to work in Tomorrowland, and got kicked out. But he built something that is causing him, and the ruler of Tomorrowland a lot of worry, but he thinks Casey can fix it. It’s a mystery that kind of slows the film down, and guides it as well. Now he has to get them back into the futuristic city so she can essentially work her magic and confront the ruler.

It’s got Disney written all over it really. All about being optimistic and special and imaginative. It’s a nice message I guess. But it’s not remotely practical. And there’s constant reminders of how impractical and stupid this whole idea is. The world needs more than dreamers. It needs checkers and thinkers and even the doubters. All are important. This film seems to say that if it weren’t for the sceptics, we’d all have jetpacks by now. Personally, I find that offensive. And I don’t need to have that thrown at me in a theatre. Two bottles of coke out of five.



- Peace out