Boiling lobsters alive may be banned under a new law in the UK designed to protect the welfare rights of animals considered sentient beings. So, are lobsters sentient, do they feel pain, and what does science have to say about the moral quagmire of crustacean agony and cooking pots?
Back in May 2021, the UK government introduced a bill to formally recognize animals as sentient beings. Among the many facets of the bill, it aimed to limit the import of products from trophy hunting, push for fairer space requirements for farm animals, and stop people from owning primates as pets.
However, the bill only covered animals with a backbone and didn’t include any protections for non-vertebrates, which includes octopuses, squid, insects, and crustaceans. The Times reports that ministers are now preparing to back an amendment to the House of Lords, the upper house of the UK Parliament, to extend the legislation to shellfish and cephalopod mollusks. As per the report, this is likely to involve an outright ban on boiling lobsters alive.
A serving of mushrooms is just 0.08 kg of CO2 emissions—only lentils have a lower per serving CO2 emission level.
One common question J.P. and I get over and over again is about the problem of overpopulation—if human life extension is a humanitarian goal worth pursuing, won’t there be an inevitable environmental crisis? One worse than what we’re already facing?
When we covered the ethics of life extension we partially answered this question based on what we know about population and consumption trends now (tl;dr: we’re more likely to face a crisis of under population than overpopulation). That said, it’s practically impossible to be able to fully forecast environmental trends 50200, and further years into the future. We noted, “Spanners actually need to address it because we will have to continue living through the consequences of climate change if we don’t.”
In other words, if you’re interested in indefinitely extending your own life, sustainable eating should be a priority today because you’ll most likely be alive in the trash-filled, resource-scarce world of tomorrow.
Quick, accurate and easy-to-use, CRISPR-Cas9 has made genomic editing more efficient—but at the same time has made human germline editing much more feasible, erasing many of the ethical barriers erected to prevent scientists from editing the genes of heredity.
“The ethical debate about what is now called human gene editing has gone on for more than 50 years,” writes Dr. John H. Evans, co-director of the Institute for Practical Ethics at the University of California, San Diego. “For nearly that entire time, there has been consensus that a moral divide exists between somatic and human germline editing.”
In an essay published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Evans contends that many of the potent bioethical arguments that once made germline editing a verboten concept, have begun to dissolve in the era of CRISPR.
The way the team made the human–monkey embryo is similar to previous attempts at half-human chimeras.
Here’s how it goes. They used de-programmed, or “reverted,” human stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These cells often start from skin cells, and are chemically treated to revert to the stem cell stage, gaining back the superpower to grow into almost any type of cell: heart, lung, brain…you get the idea. The next step is preparing the monkey component, a fertilized and healthy monkey egg that develops for six days in a Petri dish. By this point, the embryo is ready for implantation into the uterus, which kicks off the whole development process.
This is where the chimera jab comes in. Using a tiny needle, the team injected each embryo with 25 human cells, and babied them for another day. “Until recently the experiment would have ended there,” wrote Drs. Hank Greely and Nita Farahany, two prominent bioethicists who wrote an accompanying expert take, but were not involved in the study.
Scientists have been aware of the existence of stem cells since the 1900’s, but it wasn’t until the turn of the millennium that the medical community (and in turn the public) sat up and took notice of their potential. Unfortunately, the first public debut of stem cell therapy in the eyes of the public was through the political and moral minefield of deriving stem cell lines from human embryos. It was long before religious and secular objections lead to President Bush Banning any Federal funding for studies utilising newly created stem cell lines. The public opinion of stem cells was extremely polarised, with the public split heavily down the middle, between support and condemnation. What happened next was unfortunately as predictable as the tide coming in.
To compensate for the pushback against stem cell research, more and more extravagant claims were made in support of stem cells. Although most of these claims were based upon perfectly reasonable extrapolation from what was known of the potential for stem cells, the time frame in which these advances could be made was wildly underestimated. Confounding that problem was the fact that it would be many years until a method through which stem cells could be reverse engineered from a patient’s tissue, which meant that medical treatments had to based around stem cell lines derived from embryonic stem cell lines, which as discusses previously was an ethical nightmare, as well as being logically untenable for the majority of people (as most people don’t have embryonic tissue samples stored away for future use). Great promises were made to the public, without a full understanding of what was needed in order to get stem cell therapy to a functional level.
Today, Sunday, May 30, 2021, at 1 p.m. Pacific Time, join us for a U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Ryan O’Shea, as we discuss the state of the transhumanist movement, life-extension advocacy, biohacking, Ryan’s Future Grind podcast, and more!
Watch on YouTube here:. You will be able to post questions and comments in the live YouTube chat.
On Sunday, May 30, 2021, at 1 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invites Ryan O’Shea for a Virtual Enlightenment Salon to discuss a wide array of subjects related to transhumanism, including the state of the contemporary transhumanist movement, Ryan O’Shea’s Future Grind podcast, biohacking, the Human Augmentation Institute and the Human Augmentation Code of Ethics, Ryan O’Shea’s media work with the Lifespan Extension Advocacy Foundation with the goal of popularizing life-extension science, how to respond to common criticisms of transhumanism, thoughts on consciousness and free will, and strategies for advancing the transhumanist movement in the future.
Ryan O’Shea is an entrepreneur and futurist speaker from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the host of Future Grind — https://futuregrind.org/ — a multimedia production company that seeks to increase technoliteracy and democratize access to information about emerging technologies, enabling more voices to be a part of the societal conversation surrounding technology. Ryan is also a founder of the Human Augmentation Institute, an organization focused on upholding bodily autonomy and ensuring that any efforts in human augmentation are done ethically, safely, and responsibly. He also serves as the spokesperson for Grindhouse Wetware, a group specializing in technology to augment human capabilities. In 2017, Ryan co-founded a National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation-supported artificial intelligence startup that is working to use machine learning and automated just-in-time intervention for behavior change. Ryan has represented NASA and CalTech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a Solar System Ambassador and serves both as a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and an ambassador for Pittsburgh AI. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and currently serves on the boards of multiple non-profit organizations.
Become a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside: https://transhumanist-party.org/membership.
The modern idea that nature is discrete originated in Ancient Greek atomism. Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus all argued that nature was composed of what they called ἄτομος (átomos) or ‘indivisible individuals’. Nature was, for them, the totality of discrete atoms in motion. There was no creator god, no immortality of the soul, and nothing static (except for the immutable internal nature of the atoms themselves). Nature was atomic matter in motion and complex composition – no more, no less.
Despite its historical influence, however, atomism was eventually all but wiped out by Platonism, Aristotelianism and the Christian tradition that followed throughout the Middle Ages. Plato told his followers to destroy Democritus’ books whenever they found them, and later the Christian tradition made good on this demand. Today, nothing but a few short letters from Epicurus remain.
Atomism was not finished, however. It reemerged in 1417, when an Italian book-hunter named Poggio Bracciolini discovered a copy of an ancient poem in a remote monastery: De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), written by Lucretius (c99–55 BCE), a Roman poet heavily influenced by Epicurus. This book-length philosophical poem in epic verse puts forward the most detailed and systematic account of ancient materialism that we’ve been fortunate enough to inherit. In it, Lucretius advances a breathtakingly bold theory on foundational issues in everything from physics to ethics, aesthetics, history, meteorology and religion. Against the wishes and best efforts of the Christian church, Bracciolini managed to get it into print, and it soon circulated across Europe.
**Space Renaissance International (SRI) Medici Fund** is happy to announce that, due to the generosity of our Education Sponsors, we are able to award a few **prizes and grants for students** of any age, interested to space settlement, exploration and civilian development. Three programmes are now open to applicants, in the frame of the **2021 Space Renaissance Congress “The Civilian Space Development”**.
The 3° SRI World Congress (SRIC3) will take place in a virtual format and will provide attendees with cutting-edge developments in Space Settlement & Exploration, Human Rights, Ethics, Policies, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Energy, Economics and Education from leaders in their respective fields. Experts in research and industry will present the emerging technologies and future directions in their field. Students at all ages, who are interested in Space Science, Technology, Philosophy, Economy, Policy, Law, Art, are warmly encouraged to participate to the 2021 Space Renaissance Congress. Please visit this link to apply to any of the Student Sponsored Programmes: https://2021.spacerenaissance.space/index.php/students-sponsored-programs/
The Art Of Human Care For Covid-19 — Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh MD, Health Mission Chief, U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, The Pentagon.
Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh, MD, is the Health Mission Chief, at the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, serving to advance the objectives of the DoD AI Strategy, and improve war fighter healthcare and readiness with artificial intelligence implementations.
Dr. Tetteh is also an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, adjunct faculty at Howard University College of Medicine, a Thoracic Staff Surgeon for MedStar Health and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and leads a Specialized Thoracic Adapted Recovery (STAR) Team, in Washington, DC, where his research in thoracic transplantation aims to expand heart and lung recovery and save lives.
In the past, Dr. Tetteh has served as Chief Medical Informatics Officer, United States Navy, and Division Lead for Futures and Innovation at Navy Medicine’s Headquarters, a Command Surgeon for the National Defense University, and as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, assigned to the U.S. Congress, Congressional Budget Office, (CBO).
Dr. Tetteh served as Ship’s Surgeon and Director of Surgical Services for the USS Carl Vinson, deployed as a trauma surgeon to Afghanistan’s Helmand and Nimroz provinces, and has supported special joint forces missions to South America, the Middle East, the South Pacific, Australia, and Africa. He earned both the Surface Warfare Medical Department Officer and Fleet Marine Force Qualified Officer designations, and his military honors include two Meritorious Service Medals and the Joint Service Commendation Medal.
Dr. Tetteh is also an accomplished author, including the novel “Gifts of the Heart”, “Star Patrol” (co-authored with his son Edmund Tetteh), as well as “The Art of Human Care” and “The Art of Human Care for COVID-19″ (illustrated by his daughter Ella Bleue), and has published numerous articles on surgical innovation, health information technology, ethics, wounded warriors, and process improvement. He also serves on the board of directors for the Brooklyn, New York based Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, Fayetteville, Arkansas based Champions for Kids, and Miriam’s Kitchen, a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit that works to end chronic homelessness.
Dr. Tetteh received his B.S. from State University of New York (SUNY), his M.D. from SUNY Downstate Medical Center, his M.P.A. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, M.B.A. from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, and M.S. in National Security Strategy with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence from the National War College. He completed his thoracic surgery fellowship at the University of Minnesota and advanced cardiac surgery fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Tetteh is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management, board certified in thoracic surgery, general surgery, clinical informatics, and healthcare management, and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
But the latest work has divided developmental biologists. Some question the need for such experiments using closely related primates — these animals are not likely to be used as model animals in the way that mice and rodents are. Nonhuman primates are protected by stricter research ethics rules than are rodents, and they worry such work is likely to stoke public opposition.
The chimaeras lived up to 19 days — but some scientists question the need for such research.
