Future Fluxuations

Future Fluxuations Video Games: The Ultimate Creators on Page 18 All About AI on Page 6

Don’t Be Alarmed on Page 28

Humanity Reaching for Future Advancements That Will

Change the World

Genes, Genes, Nothing But Genes on Page 12

GMOs Tomorrow on Page 24

Table of Contents About the Editors

4-5

All About AI

8-11

AI and Machine Learning

12-13

Genes, Genes, Nothing But Genes

14-17

Genetics Through the Ages

18-19

Video Games: The Ultimate Creators

20-23

One Upped

24-25

GMOs Tomorrow

26-29

GMO Perception

30-31

Don’t Be Alarmed

32-35

Armed With Reinnervation

36-37

Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/3

A

m

te Fro o N The

Editors

We created this magazine with the intent of shining a spotlight on some new or future technological advancements from Genetics, to AI, to Prosthetics, to Video Games. We sincerely hope that this will inspire you to go out and research some more on these subjects, as we could only scratch the surface. Thank you, dear reader, for taking time out of your day to learn about some of these brilliant advancements.

4/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

Eleanor Photo and Graphics Editor

Eleanor has always been interested in science and engineering, but ever since seventh grade science, she has known that she wants to study biology--specifically genetics. This love has stemmed from the support of her parents, friends, and most importantly, her seventh grade biology teacher, Ms. McClellan.

In her free time, Eleanor enjoys petting her cats and crocheting various animals. She would also like to apologize to her group for how stressed she gets about deadlines and would like to thank them for supporting her throughout this process. She apologizes to the readers in advance for her mediocre writing, but hopes that they will enjoy learning about her interest.

Diego is a 15 year old from South Austin. His favorite subject is science and more specifically physics. In his free time he likes to listen and produce music, play soccer, and recently started coding. He has always been interested in computers and new innovations that revolutionize technology. He was intrigued by the idea of a machine being able to learn and improve without a human doing anything. He was inspired by companies like Tesla and Google that actively develop and implement Artificial Intelligence. He hopes readers will be compelled to learn more about AI and its potential in the world.

Soren

Features Editor

Layout Editor

Fact Check Editor

Soren wanted to be an engineer since he was very young, but he decided what kind of engineer when he was 12 or so; that being a genetic engineer. He was inspired mainly by a team of Germany-based researchers and animators called Kurzgesagt who make videos that explain various scientific and hypothetical phenomena. He cares deeply about the future and looks forward to living in an ultra modern world with technology we can’t imagine today. He is fairly invested in politics and prioritizes solving world problems like climate change and overpopulation.

He thinks that genetic engineering will be the most important component in saving our species from collapse.

When she was in 7th grade Genevieve’s heart dissection group was arguing about the directions and to pass the time she decided to examine the heart. What she found was that hearts are super cool and intricate. From that day forth she possessed a fascination with biomedical engineering. That is why for this magazine she chose to research and write an article on prosthetics! While her love for hearts and all things circulatory remains strong, she also thinks that prosthetics are super cool!

Especially the new work in prosthetics that can feel! Things like that are super awesome!

Cyrus

Diego

Genevieve Copy and Content Editor

In grade school, all of Cyrus Bello’s friends had the most wondrous smartphones, playstations, and more technology.

Unfortunately, he was banned from the most important form of modern entertainment: Video games. He was always fascinated by these glorious things he could not have, and that fascination carried on through grade school, middle school, and high school as well, even though he had been granted permission to play video games. This fascination is what caused him to choose his topic for this magazine, and is a driving force in his life.

Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/5

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to

magic.“

- Arthur C. Clarke 6/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

“ As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete. Even when builders pound nails by the thousand with pneumatic nail guns, every household needs a hammer. ” –James Gleick Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/7

All About AI Artificial Intelligence to flourish or fail?

By Diego Little

8/Future Fluctuations/Fall 2018 8/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

Flying Drone (Photo By Oleksandr Pidvalnyi)

A

utomation could cause up to 70 million jobs in America to be lost by 2030. Artificial Intelligence(AI) is a rapidly growing industry that aims to develop machines that can learn and evolve to work with data. It’s used in countless applications like sales, image recognition, natural language processing, auditory recognition, autonomous driving and countless other settings. In such a quickly growing industry, definitions and ideas aren’t very concrete when it comes down to the fundamentals of AI, as UT professor and CTO of Sentient Technologies, Risto Miikkulainen, speaks on the complex idea.

“It involves taking input and having it factored to change the output, change the world, and making some decisions and reasoning” Miikkulainen said, “It’s pretty much learning based because it’s so hard to write any other systems that would handle vision and language.”

AI is beginning to break the gap between the abilities of machines and humans.

Sophia, a robot made by Hanson Robotics, speaks at the AI for GOOD Global Summit. (© ITU/R.Farrell)

recommends only certain kinds of jobs for males and others for females, and so it perpetuates stereotypes and biases,” Miikkulainen said. “If you’re not careful, AI can do that, and that’s not what we want. It’s an unintended, not a doomsday scenario, but certainly not a good way of applying it, and we have to be cognizant of those facts.” Due to AI performing tasks in a way humans can’t visualize or understand the process, it can be hard to ensure the AI is doing exactly what humans want.

“ If you’re not careful, AI can do that, and that’s not what we want”

— Risto Miikkulainen

In such a massive — but new — industry, new technologies are being

This shrinking gap between humans and machines could be dangerous if there aren’t safeguards set in specific programs. “For instance, a job recommendation system that Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/9

Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. James C. McConville. speaks at the National Defender Investigator Associationsponsored Army Science & Technology Symposium and Showcase, Aug. 21 on the future of Artificial Intelligence in the Army.

(U.S. Army photo by David Vergun).

Google’s Self-Driving car around Google’s campus in Palo Alto. (Photo

by Roman Bohed)

developed that could have a significant effect on society and technological advancements.

One of these technologies is autonomous driving. The mostwell known company that has cars with this technology is Tesla. In theory AI could be used to complete any task however current AI is often being used for businesses or industries.

Hangar Technology, based in Austin, Texas, is using AI to autonomously fly drones and collect visual data, but then also using AI to process this data. “Flying drones in a way that captures data for these companies that want to do these inspections is actually really difficult for human beings to do”, Jim McAndrew, the Co-Founder and CTO of Hangar Technology, explains. This revolutionary technology is transforming how 10/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

“I do have a fear that there will be an arms race similar to the nuclear arms race” - Jim McAndrew

visual data is collected for large companies or corporations.

It’s not just companies that might use this technology.

“The government may be more interested in deploying this technology for inspecting critical infrastructure or even doing things like border inspections so that they can avoid building billions of dollars of walls,” McAndrew said.

With the incredible power of artificial intelligence, a common topic of debate is the ethics or morality regarding AI. One common fear among most people is the weaponizing of it.

cost. Opposers to this argument often make the claim that new jobs in AI will then open up, but if AI becomes more intelligent than humans then the AI itself would maintain and upgrade current existing machines.

Autonomous Robots in a military warehouse improve efficiency. (U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Grovert Fuentes-Contreras)

“I do have a fear that there will be an arms race similar to the nuclear arms race,” McAndrew explains. “Countries like the United States and China and Russia essentially try to become the first ones to develop the AI as a strategic advantage over the other one.” This weaponizing could potentially create something much more dangerous than even nuclear missiles. With this, is the fear of not being able to control what these weaponized artificial intelligence do.

“It’s a theoretical possibility. It’s

Google’s Captcha Service (Graphic From Google)

very unlikely because what we build in, are mechanisms that just barely do what we want and what we can envision,” Miikkulainen explains.

There are different ways to look at this. McAndrew said, “If it eventually comes about and it is smarter than humans, there is really a level of unpredictability to it.” The likeliness of this occurrence could always be debated, but for now it’s not a realistic issue to focus on. A more reasonable — but still speculative — issue is the idea of the world being completely automated.

A 2017 report by McKinsey Global Institute writes that automation could cause up to 73 million jobs to be lost by 2030, but new economic growth could actually outweigh these job losses. The idea of automation causing everyone to lose their job is completely speculative, but an alarming and possibly worrying outcome.

With the sheer power of artificial intelligence, the future of the world can and will be shaped by it.

It’s important to understand how AI can be used to benefit humanity and make the world a better place, but also acknowledge the danger of AI to be used as a tool for warfare or greed. AI could be what ruins humanity through war, or unemployment or it could make the world flourish and allow for more time spent in creativity and the arts. No machine can choose this fate. It’s up to the people.

As the world becomes more and more automated, peoples’ jobs will be replaced by machines that can do their job faster and for a lower

Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/11

AI and Machine Learning

By Diego Little

$15.7 Trillion Contributed to World Economy from AI Market

$127 Billion

Value of Autonomous vehicle market driven by AI 8% DonÕ t Know about it 15% have colleagues who have worked with it

49% have read or heard about it

28% have worked with it

Respondents who have experience with AI and Machine Learning

Googles AI has beaten top Go players in the world with a number of possible games equal to

Go

12/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

10^1023

Uses for AI and Neuroevolution Autonomous Driving

Autonomous Robots

Image Recognition

Cyber Security

Ethics in AI 50%

of respondents in a survey said itÕsvery important that AI is guided by human values

34%

of respondents in a survey said itÕsvery important that companies are required to hire ethecists to advise them on major decisions in computer software Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/13

Genes, Genes, Nothing but Genes

By Eleanor Johnson

These are mouse embryos from Dr. Shawlot’s lab in the 2-cell stage to approximately the 8-16-cell stage. This over a course of about 2.5 days. This image is courtesy of Dr. Shawlot.

14/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

O

ver the past 50 years, humans have managed to do what no other species has done before: control the specific traits of living organisms. The popularity of this science has steadily increased as technology has become more cost effective, easy to use, and readily available. While the possible benefits of this study are overwhelming, the sheer number of ethics and moral values that are questioned by outsiders of this practice may be enough to delay beneficial discoveries.

The history of this study goes all the way back to the research conducted

by Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. On a boat filled with specimens and research bobbing up and down, traveling the coast of the Galapagos Islands, he observed the subtle changes in species found on separate areas of the islands. He explained these observations with the theory of evolution.

This theory was polarizing, eye opening, and the origin of the highly advanced science known now as genetics. His initial theory eventually led to the discovery of DNA, chromosomes, genes, and the parts they play in organisms.

Throughout the ages, new, innovative technologies have been created and used to observe the effect that specific genomes have on phenotypes and

2

1 z

1) This is one of Dr. Shawlot’s transgenic mouse pups. This photo is courtesy of Dr. William Shawlot.

2) These embryos show the first sign of successful in vitro fertilization, after co-injection of a genecorrecting enzyme and sperm from a donor with a genetic mutation known to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. (courtesy of OHSU)

4) These are mice from Dr. Gray’s lab that aid in the research of genetics. (courtesy of www.rsg1lab. com) 5) This photo represents the storage of mouse embryos in liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees Celsius to archive and preserve special transgenic mouse lines for future study. (courtesy of Dr. William Shawlot)

3

4 5 Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/15

the development of organisms.

Creatures that have been created in the past 50 years include: goats that produce spider silk, transgenic mice and zebrafish, clones of various animals, and the modification of human embryos. Dr. Ryan Gray, assistant professor at the Dell Medical School in Austin, Texas, lists Zinc Finger Nuclei, TALENs, and CRISPR as some of the most influential technologies that have been used to create a few of these organisms.

Dr. Gray explained Zinc Finger Nuclei as expensive, complex and revolutionary. They allowed the user to imprecisely edit the region of focus in the strand of DNA. They also allowed researchers to study embryos in vitro by observing what specific chromosomes carry out what functions.

“In the last couple of years, there’s a new technique called CRISPR. It’s an acronym for Clustered

the 3 billion base pairs. The RNA will then attach to the strand and attract an enzyme called Cas9 that will cut the section of DNA. At that point, the cell will either attempt to repair the damaged section, which generally induces a mutation, or a piece of DNA can be inserted into the cut section. This technology has been revolutionary for scientists and allows for even more labs to be able to research this science.

CRISPR has made the modifications of human embryos a possibility.

Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy at the Oregon Health and Science University led the first experiment where human embryos were modified in the U.S. Mitalipov explains that in the experiment, the team was attempting to remove a genetic disease from a fertilized embryo. None of the embryos were implanted, nor were they ever intended to be in a uterus, and all of them were terminated after the study had ended.

Now we have all these new tools and these possibilities and — of course — this feeling that you can help even one family — help even one child. That’s so overwhelming.

Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases, also known as TALENs, were then created.

According to horizondiscovery.com, TALENs are engineered enzymes that have the ability to modify specific strands of DNA when they are composed of a particular sequence of amino acids.

“For about a year, TALENs were the hottest thing ever. Because, you know, now you had reduced the cost, you still had to have some skills at the bench to do it. It wasn’t intuitive necessarily, but people were making progress,” Gray said.

TALENs were easier to use and more cost effective. Therefore, smaller 16/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

labs could afford to use them.

TALENs allowed a widespread ability to modify organisms and conduct research on what specific genes do. They were revolutionary for the study, but Gray claimed that they are a “sad story,” because CRISPR came out about a year after.

— Shoukhrat Mitalipov Regularly Intersperse Specific Palindromic Repeats, but because nobody can remember that, they just call it CRISPR,” said Dr. William Shawlot, the Director of the Mouse Genetic Engineering Facility at the University of Texas at Austin.

CRISPR was the discovery that made many of the recent advancements possible.

Shawlot explains that CRISPR uses a piece of guide RNA, created by the researchers, that navigates the DNA of the organism that is being studied. Then, the RNA will find its complementary sequence among

Although many precautions were taken during this experiment to ensure that it was ethical and there would be no possibility of a genetically modified child as a result of this, many concerns were raised. There are so many possibilities on the horizon if genetic modification is practiced in humans — one of which

1 2

3 being the eradication of genetic diseases — but there are also many possibilities for misuse.

The misuse of genetic modification has made several appearances in dystopian stories in the media. Many are frightened of the possibility that if human modification starts, there will be no limits. They feel that a “Gattaca”like situation may arise where there is discrimination based on the genes a person possesses.

Mitalipov defends this research by saying, “Now we have all these new tools and these possibilities and — of course — this feeling that you can help even one family — help even one child. That’s so overwhelming.” He also adds that the people opposed to this study most likely do not suffer or know someone who is suffering from a

1) Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, May 13, 2013. (courtesy of OHSU) 2) This is Dr. Ryan Gray in his lab. He conducts research on specific mutations in genes that cause scoliosis.

3) This shows the injection of DNA into the male pronucleus of a single cell-stage mouse embryo.

This photo is courtesy of the International Society for Transgenic Technology and Johannes Wilbertz.

genetic disease. In addition to that, many do not know that that there are ethics committees at each university that review experiments and proposals to make sure that there are no ulterior motives behind the research.

Genetic modification of organisms does not only apply to that specific field of biology. Many facilities are using modified organisms to observe the correlation between specific diseases and certain mutations in genes. For example, Gray’s lab is conducting research on scoliosis. The lab takes zebrafish, who have very similar genes compared to those of humans, and induces specific mutation in their genes that have been found in human patients.

Another example of the use of genetic modification outside of the

research field of genetics can be found in Shawlot’s lab. A researcher for Parkinson’s disease medications contacted his facility and requested transgenic mice that he could test medicine on. This is common in the medical world because when scientists have prospective medications, they do not want to go directly to human trials.

The prospects of this study are numerous and the possible outcomes of utilizing this technology on humans are both frightening and exhilarating. There are still a lot of discoveries that can be made in this fields, and as Mitalipov said, “I think it will be important for younger generations to go sign up and help us develop further, because right now, I think it’s a pretty new issue of biology and medicine.”

Genetics Through the Ages

Where did the study of genetics come from? How have the techniques of the study improved and evolved over time?

What advancements can we expect to see in the future of this science? All of these questions will be answered in the following timeline.

By Eleanor Johnson

1859

Charles Darwin discovers and writes about his theory of Natural Selection.

This is one of the first discoveries that lead to the study of genetics.

1955

Aurthur Komberg and his colleagues discovered an enzyme that would be used for DNA sequencing in the future.

1865

Gregor Mendel performed experiments on peas that lead him to discover that genes remain distinct as they are passed down, which supported Charles Darwin’s previous theory.

1869

1902

Fredrick Miescher Archibald Garrod observes and diagnoses one of is the first person to isolate DNA. He the first diseases that is called it attributed to a genetic “nuclein.” mutation.

18/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

1952

1911

Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students discover the link between chromosomes and genetic lineage through fruit flies.

Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase show that a virus’ DNA must enter a cell in order to infect it. This proved that genes are composed of DNA.

1978

1975

A new, rapid method of DNA sequencing was invented.

1973

The first animal gene was cloned by taking a frog gene and implaniting it into an E.Coli cell.

1972

Scientists took DNA from one organism and transferred it to another organism of a separate species for the first time.

1966

Marshall Nirenberg and his colleagues discover the amino acids that compose DNA.

1996

Mice become vital to the study of human biology and DNA because their genes are about 85% identical to those of homosapians.

2005

The discovery of CRISP, which will eventually make genome editing much easier.

The first In Vitro Fertilization procedure, which was the stepping stone into modern modification practices, was successfully completed.

1981

The first transgenic mice and fruit flies were created. They were--and still are--very useful to scientists in researching genetics.

1982

The first recombinant DNA drug, insulin, was sold and commercially utilized.

1983

PCR (polymerase chain reaction) is used to efficiently copy segments of DNA, which made genetics easier to research.

1996

The first mammalian clone, Dolly the Sheep, was created.

2013

The first time that CRISPR was used for genome editing.

The Future

Scientists have speculated that in the near future many genetic diseases in biotic organisms--including humans--will be limited in their number. Many professionals also believe that the idea of designer babies, which is a term that was coined from a science fiction novel written in the 20th century where humans that were modified for superficial reasons, will not become an issue. However, the question still stands: Where should the moral line be drawn? Though we cannot not be certain what exact advancements will be made in the future, we can expect to see genetic modification become more available to the general masses as time passes, for better or for worse.

2017

Shoukhrat Mitalipov led the first attempt at modifying a human embryo in the United States by utilizing Clustered Regularly Intersperse Specific Palindromic Repeats, more commomly known as CRISPR, to remove a genetic mutation.

Sources: • genome.gov • broadinstitute.org • dolly.roslin.ed.ac.uk • technologyreview.com • ivf-worldwide.com

Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/19

o ell

T

he video game industry has seemingly boomed out of nowhere, bringing with it numerous jobs and opportunities. However, these are not the only things these games have created. Video games have brought with them multi million dollar industries and companies, and huge numbers of fans to support them. These industries and companies are highly successful and have been crafted in hundreds of different ways, although certain industries or companies are stranger than others. Two companies and an industry will be explored; Discovering how they sprung up and how successful they are. These three companies and industry are Rooster Teeth, Twitch, and the development industry in general.

Rooster Teeth is in both the video game industry and the television and video industry.

It has grown from a small creative outlet and hobby for a few friends into an industry responsible for many popular creations. The company is known for its let’s-play videos as well as feature films and television shows, but it has other content such as campaigns for Dungeons and Dragons. It was created by six men in 2003; Geoff Ramsey, Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Gus Sorola, Jason Saldaña and Joel Heyman.

five job he had, so this was his method of doing so. Most people would say that it seems to have served its purpose, as Rooster Teeth was so successful that he quit his job at the previously mentioned tech support call center to work at Rooster Teeth full-time.

Rooster Teeth has grown immensely from the small creative outlet it started as to a hugely successful company that has taken in 400 talented people to help grow the dream. All of the success Rooster Teeth has encountered was a complete surprise to Ramsey, as he never in his wildest dreams would have thought that his little project with friends would have turned into his career. Ramsey said Rooster Teeth will continue to grow, as there is merely too much talent involved for it to go nowhere.

While Rooster Teeth has video content in addition to other media outlets, Twitch focuses solely on video content. Companies like Twitch are a major part of of the industries involving video games, as this is where one finds most of the videos on their desired video game, the others being on different platforms. The videos Twitch produces give people a nice break from their work and allows them to relax. All their videos are nicely organized which seems to make it simple to find your kind of video to watch.

“Rooster Teeth is like a second child to me. It has been my life’s work. It’s my passion, it’s my career, it is all-encompassing, and it is the driving force of my life.”

Geoff Ramsey said, “Rooster Teeth is like a second child to me. It has been my life’s work. It’s my passion, it’s my career, it is all-encompassing, and it is the driving force of my life.” It has come from a small, part-time creative outlet into a full-time job and company. Had Rooster Teeth not blown up as it did, he would be working as the vice president of a tech support call center, a much more boring nine-to-five job.

He first had the idea for Rooster Teeth long before it actually existed. He had been looking for a creative outlet and a way to break up the mundane, nine-to-

— Geoff Ramsey

20/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

B rus Cy

The Ultimate Creators

By

Video Games

Bill Young is the head of strategic partnerships and sponsorships, which means he helps consumer brands reach consumers of their products through the Twitch platform and through through events. Twitch is widely seen as a competitor to YouTube, as they are both video platforms. According to Mr. Young, “Twitch is a live streaming platform specifically. We don’t do anything of any significance in regard to pre-recorded content. It does exist on our website, but the vast majority of our viewership is for live content,” YouTube contains both pre-recorded and live con-

tent, although there is much more pre-recorded content on YouTube than there is on Twitch. Twitch is extremely popular, as there are 2,000,000 channels on Twitch and millions more people watch each of them. While watching live content on Twitch, one can chat with thousands of other people watching the video as well, creating a nice atmosphere where people can discuss their thoughts about the topic at hand, and also communicate with the person in the process of creating the content, giving encouragement or poking fun of failure.

Of course, neither Twitch, nor Rooster Teeth would be nearly as popular without the video games themselves, and those only come about because of video game designers and developers. The developing industry has expanded greatly, along with all the other video game industries out there, from its small roots to the huge industry that most of the world knows of. From arcade games to consoles to computers, the industry has encompassed almost all technology invented. There is nary a platform that someone hasn’t created video games for. The developers who make these games go through hard work so one can enjoy their time off work.

Developing is a tough job at times, but it can also be relatively easy. Much of the developing process depends on the platform that the game is being created for.

Certain game development programs do not work on certain platforms, and certain development programs are easier or harder to work with than others.

According to Matteo Marsala, a game developer, one of the more user-friendly development platforms is Unreal Engine 4, as the companies who make them can devote a lot of time, effort and money into making their development platforms easy to use and user-friendly as well.

On the other side of the spectrum for Marsala and other game developers, virtual reality is one of the harder and less user-friendly platforms to develop for. “The hardware is still in its infancy; there’s a steep learning curve with hardware setup and configuration, the hardware is still pretty inaccessible to most gamers, and as a developer, it becomes pretty tedious to put on and take off your HMD multiple times throughout the day while developing and testing a piece of code or content,” Marsala said.

Overall, the video game industries have been extremely successful, and will most likely continue to be so. They started small, but will end large, as is the same with humans. Also like humans, they will continue to change over time and get more and more advanced as the years pass. Video games will not die for a long time coming, and when they do, it is because humanity has discovered an even better pastime to occupy their lives.

1) This is a model of keyboard with progamable lights.

1

2 2) This is a gaming keyboard with multicolored lights. They are highly sought after.

Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/21

These are two of many devices that can be used for playing video games

22/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

This is a game controller for an android television.

All images are from Pixabay.com.

Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/23

One Upped!

60%

Video Game Platform Popularity 55%

50

40 35.3%

30

31%

20

10 PC 24/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

Mobile

PS4

By Cyrus Bello

C

28% 24%

11% VR https://www.businessinsider.com https://www.statista.com

Xbox 1

AR AR Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/25

GMOs Tomorrow

By Soren Colfax The CAS9 protein can splice DNA, which is a key part of the modern gene editing procedure. (Courtasy of John Liebler)

T

he world population climbs to higher and higher numbers.

Climate change poses a larger and larger threat on society.

Billions around the world struggle to put food on the table. While the world seems to fall into a darker and darker state, there is one technology that is more promising than it may seem—genetic engineering.

Sixty five percent of all Americans have a negative impression of GMOs, according to ABC news, but their doubt may be misplaced.

GMOs often are seen as the opposite of organic foods and are associated with money-grubbing corporations who have no interest in the quality of their goods. While these corporations are problematic, the GMOs are not at fault. What corporations’ interest in GMOs shows is that they are much more efficient than traditional farming, and in today’s world, efficiency is exactly what is needed.

26/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

In grocery stores, companies proudly market their items as “non-GMO,” spreading the idea that GMOs are something to readily avoid. In the majority of cases, a product without “non-GMO” printed on the packaging is in fact genetically engineered. Despite this being a benefit for the seller and the consumer, companies are well aware that the cultural construct around antagonizing genetic engineering is powerful. Clarence Chan, a professor of microbiology at the University of Texas, says “I think just the term ‘Genetic Modification’ scares a lot of people.” The cultivated fear is the primary reason for such disgust and aversion to GMOs. Similarly, food companies tend to advertise their foods for being “all-natural.” This may seem great, but all that means is that the product is the original, antiquated, comfortable version. What is new and improved is also regarded as

more dangerous and unpredictable.

Time is perceived as a better test than science. The truth is, nothing done in today’s society is “natural,” and our lifestyles are becoming less and less similar to what our bodies evolved to do.

The genes of all domesticated plants and animals are vastly different to their genes before human intervention. Through selective breeding, humans have influenced the genetic information of these organisms to benefit ourselves for more than 10,000 years. Genetic modification is more precise and quicker than selective breeding, but both cause the same outcomes and are done for the same purposes.

One possibility of genetically modified foods is editing them so they produce more vitamins, antioxidants and other nutrients. This could be done in the near future, and would be extremely useful for

“For a place that’s starving, if GMOs can give you more corn, you take it.”

- Chan countries struggling to feed their populations.

These ideas open doors to similar applications of genetic engineering including preventing ecosystem collapse by engineering existing organisms to be more resilient against invasive species.

With climate change placing a rising threat against society, genetic engineering may be the answer. If plants are engineered with genes like those of the American chestnut tree, with especially large amounts of CO2 consumed and oxygen produced, the ozone layer could eventually be repaired from its current state, and the end of the effects of humans’ irresponsible actions may be seen before the next century.

Another large-scale world issue that could be helped by use of GMOs is overpopulation. “By 2050, upward of 10 billion people are expected to be living on our planet and if we cannot feed that many people, you can bet that war, death and famine are sure to result,” said Austin, Texas gardener and food journalist Joe Urbach. With more usage of GMOs in developing countries, this could increase their yields and income, improve their health, and assist in bringing them out of poverty. In turn, they would have fewer children, and overpopulation could be slowed.

more attention to long term issues, even though that is difficult to do with shorter terms. If governments recognize GMOs as an asset for the future, investments could be made that would build the foundation for solutions for both the problems of today and tomorrow.

Another possibility is to engineer plants that could be modified to have far fewer rotting enzymes in order to be preserved over extended periods of time. These could go into grocery stores to extend shelf life drastically, and prevent millions of tons of food to going to waste. A more ambitious use of rotting-free plants could be using them in space travel so that dense calories could be packed and preserved. In all countries, but developing ones especially, entire spoil-free harvests could save vast amounts of energy and money for the people who need them the most.

“Animals must eat only organically grown feed, without animal byproducts, and can’t be treated with synthetic hormones or antibiotics,” said Urbach. Antibiotic resistance has often been caused by the overuse of antibiotics on livestock. When antibiotics were first invented, they were a miracle drug and saved millions of lives. However, every passing year, the number of deaths due to antibiotic resistant bacteria has been steadily rising.

A solution to this issue comes once again from genetic engineering. A genetically modified bacteriophage, a type of virus, was recently engineered to pinpoint and target specific bacteria. It was injected directly into the heart of a man who had lost all other hope due to the antibiotic resistant bacteria that had multiplied inside his heart. After a few weeks, the man had fully recovered

from a disease that would have otherwise killed him. Since this can be done with humans, it will certainly be achievable with animals as well, which will decrease antibiotic death rates, fear, and overuse greatly.

In 2015, a brilliant new genetic engineering method was developed which goes by the acronym CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats. This technology revolutionized genetic engineering, slashing costs, time, and required equipment by an enormous amount. It has the potential to fulfill all previously discussed uses of GMOs, and at the rate that progress is being made, these ideas will likely go from the drawing board to the news in the near future. “I think that CRISPR is the next big thing, traditional GMOs will not last much longer,” Eric Hequet, professor of sustainable agriculture and the chair of the Department of Plant and Soil Science at Texas Tech University, said. Despite the media’s focus toward typically non-scientific news, CRISPR truly is and will be the next big thing.

With all the problems faced and the new tools created to fight them, it truly is an amazing time to be alive.

While distrust clouds the potential of GMOs, the future is fully in the hands of the youth. It is a responsibility to do everything possible to solve the problems of the present and build the foundation of the future, and taking on a kindlier perspective of GMOs in agriculture might just be the answer.

A scientist performs a procedural step in the genetic engineering process. (Photo by Drew Hays)

Governments truly need to pay Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/27

Another possibility is to engineer plants that could be modified to have far fewer rotting enzymes in order to be preserved over extended periods of time. These could go into grocery stores to extend shelf life drastically, and prevent millions of tons of food to going to waste. A more ambitious use of rotting-free plants could be using them in space travel so that dense calories could be packed and preserved. In all countries, but developing ones especially, entire spoil-free harvests could save vast amounts of energy and money for the people who need them the most.

“Animals must eat only organically grown feed, without animal byproducts, and can’t be treated with synthetic hormones or antibiotics,” said Urbach. Antibiotic resistance has often been caused by the overuse of antibiotics on livestock.

When antibiotics were first invented, they were a miracle drug and saved millions of lives. However, every passing year, the number of deaths due to antibiotic resistant bacteria has been steadily rising.

A solution to this issue comes once again from genetic engineering.

A genetically modified bacteriophage, a type of virus, was recently engineered to pinpoint and target specific bacteria. It was injected directly into the heart of a man who had lost all other hope due to the antibiotic resistant bacteria that had multiplied inside his heart. After a few weeks, the man had fully recovered from a disease that would have otherwise killed him. Since this can be done with humans, it will certainly be achievable with animals as well, which will decrease antibiotic death rates, fear, and overuse greatly.

In 2015, a brilliant new genetic engineering method was developed which goes by the acronym CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced 28/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

A tomato is injected by a mysterious fluid by a gloved hand, a perfect example of Anti-GMO propaganda, and a misrepresentation of the creation of GMOs. (Courtesy of Pond5)

Palindromic Repeats. This technology revolutionized genetic engineering, slashing costs, time, and required equipment by an enormous amount. It has the potential to fulfill all previously discussed uses of GMOs, and at the rate that progress is being made, these ideas will likely go from the drawing board to the news in the near future. “I think that CRISPR is the next big thing, traditional GMOs will not last much longer,” Eric Hequet, professor of sustainable agriculture and the chair of the Department of Plant and Soil Science at Texas Tech University, said. Despite the media’s focus toward typically non-scientific news, CRISPR truly is and will be the next big thing.

With all the problems faced and the new tools created to fight them, it truly is an amazing time to be alive.

While distrust clouds the potential of GMOs, the future is fully in the hands of the youth. It is a responsibility to do everything possible to

solve the problems of the present and build the foundation of the future, and taking on a kindlier perspective of GMOs in agriculture might just be the answer.

DNA in a stylized version of its root form. (Courtesy of Storyblocks)

Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/29

GMO

GMOs have a bad reputation with the general public, and the the opinions and experiences of LASA students below provides more information on the backgrounds that causes these opinions.

Perception

98%

The vast majority Avoidance

of students knew what a GMO was before taking the survey

“Does your family avoid buying GMOs?”

of students’ GMO concerns had to do with GMOs being “unhealthy” and “unethical.”

Avoid - 39%

Very good - 5% Good - 9% Bad - 13%

Opinion

Do not avoid - 61%

Knowledge More than 4 years - 43%

Very bad - 18%

“What do you think of GMOs overall?”

No opinion/Mixed - 55% “For how long have you known what a GMO is?”

Less than 4 years - 57%

Sources The internet - 19% Other - 21%

“Who originally told you about GMOs?”

Since the first genetically modified food was released in American supermarkets in 1994, widespread fear and skepticism of GMOs has arisen.

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Parents - 38%

Teacher - 22%

95%

of students classified GMOs as less than “very good”

Across the World In 1990, the ringspot virus had infected nearly all of Hawaii’s papayas, but a GM papaya saved that industry and export from catastrophic collapse.

In 2017, led by Nigeria, some African nations have started opening their doors to GM crops in order to combat hunger.

Eggplant crops in Bangladesh have long been almost entirely destroyed by pests, and pesticide was expensive and damaging, but farmers were saved by the introduction of a GM eggplant.

Twenty six countries have banned GMOs since their introduction in 1994.

1994

2000 Algeria bans GMOs

2006 Madagascar bans GMOs

Mexico bans GMOs

2012 The majority of European countries ban GMOs

2018 Russia bans GMOs

Sources:

1. Walden Bello and Foreign Policy in Focus, The Nation 2. Steven Cerier, Genetic Literacy Project 3. Mark Lynas, Cornell Chronicle

Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/31

Do Not Be Alarmed How prosthetics are getting closer to something out of a sci-fi movie

By: Genevieve Bentz

T

here are many handless or legless characters in shows and movies throughout the world. Characters like Hiccup and Luke Skywalker are both missing one of their appendages, yet function well.

However, despite the fact that both Star Wars and How to Train Your Dragon are works of fiction, there are real people who wake up everyday to face the same difficulty of a missing an arm or leg.

Adapting to a prosthesis can be a long and difficult process. While prosthetics have come a long way in recent years, they also have a long way to go.

prosthetic leg nowadays would be practically the same as having a flesh and bone leg and while they wouldn’t be wrong on all fronts, they would have some things to learn.

For example,

“They’ll have a prosthetic component that they’ll actually attach directly to the bone”

Luckily for those people missing an appendage, advancements are being made in the prosthetics field everyday. The work that has been done to help those that are missing limbs will help to further improve the comfort and usage of those prosthetics.

To someone with both of their legs, it might appear that having a 32/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

-Dr Neptune take a look at below the knee amputations. When cooled, materials tend to contract and when heated they tend to expand.

This is called thermal contraction and expansion and the same principles apply to human legs.

When the wearer of a below the knee prosthetic gets cold, their leg contracts. This causes the prosthetic to piston, or go up and down on their leg.

In order to combat this pistoning, researchers are working on a few solutions. One would be creating smart sockets that adapt to the user’s leg shape throughout the day. So when a prosthetic leg wearer’s leg heats up from the friction of walking and expands, the prosthetic will adjust to accommodate the slightly larger leg, or when the wearer’s leg contracts due to cold, the prosthetic will adjust accordingly.

A second solution to this pistoning problem that they’re working on is called Osseointegration. “They’ll have a prosthetic component that they’ll actually attach directly to the bone,” said Dr. Rick Neptune, head of the mechanical engineering department at the University of Texas. In

Wooden Drawing Hand Photo courtesy of pexels.com Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/33

attaching the prosthetic to the bone of the wearer, it will act like an extension of the leg and eliminate pistoning as there won’t be a socket to piston in.

Another issue lower limb prosthetic wearers face is the lack of flexibility in their prosthetic foot. “Imagine if you have this rigid prosthetic foot,” Dr Neptune said, “This whole thing is really stiff and so if you step on something as small as just a little tiny pebble, you can imagine how far it perturbes your balance.”

He explained that in the near future they will begin work on a foot with sensors that can recognize when it has started to walk on an uneven surface and modulate the stiffness in order to maintain balance.

short for Dean Kamen – the inventor/ innovator of the device. “Luke,” as in Luke Skywalker and the prosthetic arm(s)/limbs shown in Star Wars movies,” Paul Lanciault, the lab chief for orthotics and prosthetics at the veterans affairs said.

If we lived in the past, a person fitted with a prosthetic hand could open and close the hand by moving their arm or wrist. While this could be of assistance, and is better than not having a hand, it could only assist the wearer in completing the most basic of tasks.

Nowadays, when a person has a below the elbow amputation, most of the nerves that used to control the hand are still present. To help patients with prosthetics, doctors can put sensors on these nerves that will pick up the electrical signals they send out when a person tries to move their hand and utilize those signals to move their new hand accordingly.

“the skin feels like you’re touching the missing hand so then when you touch that skin whether it’s on the chest or On the the arm or where ever other hand, you put it, the skin feels like in “Star you’re touching Wars: the missing The Empire hand.”

Strikes Back,” when -Dr Kuiken Luke loses his hand he gets a prosthetic one that looks exactly like the one he lost, though it’s shown to be robotic during the movie. While prosthetic hands do not entirely function or look like a real hand, they are on the right path to getting there.

Some recent steps forward in the prosthetic hand field include the creation of prosthetic hands that are brain controlled. “Another recent advancement was the creation of a highly functional arm prosthesis.

This prosthesis is often referred to as the DEKA arm or ‘Luke’ arm. DEKA –

This solution is great when the nerves that control the hand still remain, but what is to be done for people with above the elbow amputations? Dr Todd Kuiken of Northwestern University is working on an answer to that question.

“What we found is if we reinnervate the skin over where we implant the nerves the skin gets innervated by hands nerves and so then when you touch that skin whether it’s on the chest or the arm or where ever you put it, the skin feels like you’re

touching the missing hand,” Kuiken said.

This means that they have found that by using the existing branches of the hand nerves that remain, they can do a similar thing to what below the elbow amputees can do. They reroute, or reinnervate, the nerves that remain to the person’s pectoral muscles and the pectoral muscles amplify the signals sent out by remaining the nerves.

What this looks like is when a person attempts to move their missing hand, instead of the hand moving, the person’s pectoral muscles contract. It’s those contractions and signals that can be detected by sensors and move a prosthetic hand in whatever way the person wishes.

In studying reinnervation, Kuiken and his team made a fascinating discovery. They found that putting pressure on various parts of the reinnervated pectoral muscles caused the person to have feeling in their missing hand. “When you touch that skin whether it’s on the chest or the arm or where ever you put it, the skin feels like you’re touching the missing hand,” Kuiken said.

While getting used to life without an arm, leg or hand, is difficult, the emotional trauma of losing a limb takes a much heavier tole on a person’s well-being. “People actually do quite well with one arm. You can be completely independent, you know, take care of yourself, drive, do all that stuff. But, the emotional burden can sometimes dominate into severe depression and anxiety,” Kuiken said. “So you just deal with it.

That’s what doctors do. We deal with it.”

Woman Holding A Prosthetic Foot Photo Courtesy of Rick Neptune Nerves Photo courtesy of pixabay.com Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/35

Armed

1 2

4 3

5

36/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

Reinn

With

ervation

Todd Kuiken, TedTalks https://www.thelancet.com https://diagramchartspedia.com

Fall 2018/Future Fluxuations/37

“ The Science of Today is the -Edward Teller

38/Future Fluxuations/Fall 2018

“

Technology of Tomorrow