The First Genetically Modified Humans Could Exist Within…

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Humans who have had their DNA genetically modified could exist within two years after a private biotech company announced plans to start the first trials into a ground-breaking new technique.

Editas Medicine, which is based in the US, said it plans to become the first lab in the world to ‘genetically edit’ the DNA of patients suffering from a genetic condition – in this case the blinding disorder ‘leber congenital amaurosis’.

The disorder prevents normal function of the retina; the light-sensitive layer of cells at the back of the eye. It appears at birth or in the first months of life and eventually sufferers can go completely blind.

The rare inherited disease is caused by defects in a gene which instructs the creation of a protein that is essential to vision.

But scientists at Editas Medicine in the US believe they can fix the mutated DNA using the ground-breaking gene-editing technology Crispr. (Read more from “The First Genetically Modified Humans Could Exist Within…” HERE)

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Thanksgiving Turkeys Cost More Than Ever After Bird Flu Wipeout

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To make sure all 15 of the Busch’s Fresh Food Market stores had enough turkeys over 22 pounds (10 kilograms) to sell for Thanksgiving this month, meat buyer John Taormina began ordering in January. He didn’t end up with a single one of the big birds, which last year accounted for more than a third of what the Michigan company sold for the holiday.

After the worst-ever U.S. outbreak of avian influenza destroyed almost 8 million turkeys earlier this year, there are fewer of them, and those that remain are smaller than normal. That’s boosting wholesale costs for grocers to a record, and consumer prices are the highest ever for this time of year. Americans will eat about 49 million turkeys for Thanksgiving holiday meals on Nov. 26, or roughly one of every five that will be consumed all year.

“The larger-sized birds will be difficult to get this year,” Taormina said, adding that the biggest available at his upscale stores will be 20 pounds to 22 pounds, which is big enough to feed about 15 people. Turkey is “center-of-the-plate for this holiday, so typically families get together and they’re looking for the bigger-sized” birds, he said.

Some turkey farmers haven’t recovered from a six-month outbreak that ended in June, and many were forced to sell birds earlier than normal and at smaller sizes, said Russ Whitman, vice president at commodity researcher Urner Barry in Bayville, New Jersey. Production fell to a five-year low, and the September weight decline for turkeys was the biggest for that month in four decades, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.

Wholesale, fresh turkey hens surged 18 percent from a year earlier to a record $1.5993 a pound as of Nov. 6, and frozen turkeys were up 5.6 percent at $1.309 a pound, after touching an all-time high of $1.385 a week earlier, USDA data show. The agency estimates birds at slaughter weighed 29.7 pounds in September, down 2.8 percent from a year earlier and the biggest decline for that month since 1973. (Read more from “Thanksgiving Turkeys Cost More Than Ever After Bird Flu Wipeout” HERE)

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This TV Tracks Your Watching Habits

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When choosing a smart television, buyers are often presented with a variety of features. One they may not be aware of: that TV could be watching you.

Vizio Smart TVs, one of the most popular manufacturers, can track your viewing tendencies and report them to advertisers, as reported by ProPublica.

The feature, “Smart Interactivity,” is already turned on as a default setting for millions of people who have purchased the device. Viewers are able to turn off the setting, that is, if they know it even exists.

“Non-personal identifiable information may be shared with select partners… to permit these companies to make, for example, better-informed decisions regarding content production, programming and advertising,” Vizio said in a statement.

Vizio seems to be taking a new approach by tracking viewers by default, while competitors like San Jose-based Samsung or LG Electronics leave it to customers to turn the setting on. Vizio’s sharing with advertisers also reportedly lets them target devices like your phone, which other companies do not. (Read more from “This TV Tracks Your Watching Habits” HERE)

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Violent Shaking Along the Ring of Fire Continues a Progression of Disasters That Began in September

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Have you noticed that seismic activity along the Ring of Fire appears to be dramatically increasing? According to Volcano Discovery, 39 volcanoes around the world have recently erupted, and 32 of them are associated with the Ring of Fire. This includes Mt. Popocatepetl which sits only about 50 miles away from Mexico City’s 18 million inhabitants. If you are not familiar with the Ring of Fire, it is an area roughly shaped like a horseshoe that runs along the outer perimeter of the Pacific Ocean. Approximately 90 percent of all earthquakes and approximately 75 percent of all volcanic eruptions occur along the Ring of Fire. Just within the last 24 hours, we have witnessed a 4.4, a 5.4 and a 5.7 earthquake in Alaska, a 6.8 earthquake in Chile and 20 earthquakes in Indonesia of at least magnitude 4.3. And as you will see below, this violent shaking along the Ring of Fire seems to continue a progression of major disasters that began back during the month of September.

For whatever reason, our planet suddenly seems to be waking up. Unfortunately, the west coast of the United States is one of the areas where this is being felt the most. The little city of San Ramon, California is about 45 miles east of San Francisco, and over the past several weeks it has experienced a record-breaking 583 earthquakes…

A total of 583 small earthquakes have shaken San Ramon, California, in the last three weeks or so – more than five times the record set 12 years ago, according to the latest US Geological Survey updates.

“It’s the swarm with the largest number of total earthquakes in San Ramon,” said USGS scientist David Schwartz, who is more concerned about the size of quakes than he is the total number of them. Still, the number tops the previous record set in 2003, when 120 earthquakes hit over 31 days, with the largest clocking in at a magnitude of 4.2.

Could this be a prelude to a major seismic event in California?

We shall see what happens.

Meanwhile, records are being shattered in the middle part of the country as well.

For instance, the state of Oklahoma has already set a brand new yearly record for earthquakes…

The state recorded its 587th earthquake of 3.0 magnitude or higher early this week, breaking the previous record of 585. That record was set for all of 2014, meaning that Oklahoma has now had more 3.0 magnitude or higher earthquakes so far in 2015 than it did in all of 2014. So far this year, E&E News reports, Oklahoma’s averaged 2.5 quakes each day, a rate that, if it continues, means the state could see more than 912 earthquakes by the end of this year.

Oklahoma has also experienced 21 4.0 magnitude or greater earthquakes so far this year — an increase over last year, which saw 14.

And just over this past weekend there was a very disturbing series of earthquakes in the state…

Starting with a magnitude-4.1 temblor at 5:11 a.m. close to the Oklahoma-Kansas border, the region experienced a series of six earthquakes within a 75-minute period Saturday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on its website.

The largest earthquake Saturday morning was the 4.1, which had an epicenter nine miles northwest of Medford, Okla., 59 miles southwest of Wichita.

That was followed by five more quakes near Medford with magnitudes of 2.5, 2.8, 2.5, 3.1 and 2.9 – the last of which came at 6:24 a.m.

A seventh earthquake – this one a magnitude-4.2 temblor – was recorded at 12:29 p.m., 10 miles north-northwest of Medford.

So why aren’t more Americans alarmed that these records are being broken?

We are seeing things that we have never seen before, and I believe that it will soon get even worse.

And this dramatic increase in seismic activity that we are now seeing appears to fit into a larger pattern of major disasters that we have been witnessing over the past couple of months.

As we approached the end of the summer, all of a sudden massive wildfires erupted all across the western third of the country. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, the only time in U.S. history when wildfires had burned more acres by the end of October was during the record-setting year of 2006.

In 2015, a lot of these wildfires have really been threatening highly populated areas. I know, because at one point a major fire came within about 10 miles of my own house. Since the beginning of August, Barack Obama has made an astounding 25 disaster declarations related to fires, and by the end of September the horrible fires that were threatening key areas of the state of California were making headlines all over the world.

Then as we got to the very end of the month of September, a new kind of disaster began to take center stage. As I wrote about just recently, the storm that would later became known as Hurricane Joaquin developed into a tropical depression on September 28th.

Even though that hurricane never made landfall in the United States, moisture from that storm caused a tremendous amount of chaos along the east coast.

The governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, said that it was the most rain that some areas of her state had witnessed “in a thousand years”, and it is being projected that the economic damage that was done by all of the flooding “will probably be in the billions of dollars”.

Shortly after the flooding in South Carolina, a massive storm dumped an enormous amount of rain on southern California. Because that area had been experiencing severe drought for so long, all of that rain caused tremendous flooding and massive mudslides. Rivers of mud literally several feet thick completely stopped traffic along many major roads across the region. If you got caught in those rivers of mud, you were lucky to get out with your life. In fact, authorities pulled one dead man out of a vehicle that got completely buried by mud several days after the storms had passed. It took them that long to finally get to him.

The middle of the country was not spared either. Hurricane Patricia ended up being one of the strongest hurricanes ever measured, and the remnants of that storm dumped an incredible amount of rain on the state of Texas. There was so much flooding that a train was literally knocked off the tracks by the water. And about a week after that there was more flooding in the state that caused at least six deaths.

Overall, it has really been a bad couple of months for major disasters, and this sequence of events seems to have begun during the month of September. (For more from the author of “Violent Shaking Along the Ring of Fire Continues a Progression of Disasters That Began in September” please click HERE)

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DHS Is Getting a Wearable Radiation Detector

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The easiest way to detect nuclear material is typically when it’s already too late. By the time seismographs, infrasound sensors, and radiation readers pick up on a blast, it’s already happened. Catching a nuclear weapon before it goes off is a lot trickier, which might be why the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking at some rather unconventional ideas. The latest: a small, wearable radiation detector. Think of it like a FitBit, only instead of telling its user about calories burned, it lets them know if they’re close to any nuclear weapons.

Huban Gowadia, Director of the DHS’s Domestic Nuclear Detection office, last Thursday blogged that the Department has awarded a multimillion dollar contract to develop such a device. The DHS is calling it the “Human Portable Tripwire.” She writes:

The award is for small, wearable radiation detector devices that passively monitor the environment and alert the user when nuclear or other radioactive material is present. Known as the Human Portable Tripwire (HPT), this device has the capability to identify the source of radiation and allow personnel to take appropriate action. The technology can also locate the source of the detected radiation and includes communication features that allow the user to easily seek additional technical assistance from experts if needed. These devices are a critical tool for personnel who operate in the maritime environment, at land and sea ports of entry, and within the United States.

(Read more from “DHS Is Getting a Wearable Radiation Detector” HERE)

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Jack the Ripper’s Real Identity Was Poet Francis Thompson, Teacher Claims

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England’s most notorious serial killer may have been renowned poet Francis Thompson, according to one teacher who claims to have cracked the century-old murder mystery.

Thompson penned poetry by day and butchered prostitutes by night under the guise of legendary murderer Jack the Ripper, Australian teacher Richard Patterson claims.

The 45-year-old educator says research from an exhaustive 20-year study shows the artist is the legendary culprit behind the grisly 1888 slays of five London prostitutes during a 10-week killing spree.

Thompson, from Preston, Lancashire, had surgical experience and hinted at his double life in some of his poems in which he talked about killing people, Patterson told the Mirror.

He “kept a dissecting knife under his coat, and he was taught a rare surgical procedure that was found in the mutilations of more than one of the Ripper victims,” the researcher said. (Read more from “Jack the Ripper’s Real Identity Was Poet Francis Thompson, Teacher Claims” HERE)

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This Is the Final Sign of World War III on the Precipice

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“A mysterious bright light in the sky has sent Californians into panic,” reports the BBC. “Videos posted online show a bright flare rising high, before a wide, bright blue flash emerges in a cone shape. Many videos continue to track the light for several minutes.”

Last night, Californians immediately leapt to social media to propose their theories of the phenomenon, ranging from a nuclear missile attack to meteors. “Law agencies and news media in San Diego were flooded with calls about 6 p.m. from people reporting everything from a flare to a comet to a nuclear bomb in the western sky,” reports the San Diego Union Tribune . . .

The “official” explanation of this event — and remember that “official” explanations are almost always cover stories — is that the U.S. Navy launched a test missile just because they “routinely” test missiles.

Obviously, the official cover story is pure bunk. So what’s the real story behind this? It all has to do with China and the covert war that’s already underway between China, the US and Russia. . .

Last night’s test launch of the Trident missile over Orange County was staged near a high population area for a tactical reason: To have as many witnesses (and videos) as possible, sending a very visible warning message to China that says, “We can destroy you if you don’t back off.” (Read more from “This Is the Final Sign of World War III on the Precipice” HERE)

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The FCC Says It Can’t Force Google and Facebook to Stop Tracking Their Users

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The Federal Communications Commission said Friday that it will not seek to impose a requirement on Google, Facebook and other Internet companies that would make it harder for them to track consumers’ online activities.

The announcement is a blow to privacy advocates who had petitioned the agency for stronger Internet privacy rules. But it’s a win for many Silicon Valley companies whose business models rely on monetizing Internet users’ personal data.

It’s also the latest move in an ongoing battle to defend the agency’s new net neutrality rules, which opponents warned would result in the regulation of popular Web sites and online services. By rejecting the petition, the FCC likely hopes to defuse that argument. The rules, which took effect this summer, allow the FCC to regulate only providers of Internet access, not individual Web sites, said a senior agency official.

Consumer Watchdog, an activist group, petitioned the FCC in June to support a technology that would allow consumers to signal to Web sites that they did not want to be tracked. By clicking a button in their browser settings, users would have been able to send a “do not track” message to Web site operators when they surfed the Internet.

Some Web sites have committed to honoring those requests voluntarily, but many do not. If it had succeeded, the petition could have made Do Not Track a U.S. standard. (Read more from “The FCC Says It Can’t Force Google and Facebook to Stop Tracking Their Users” HERE)

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Nearly 600 Earthquakes Within Three Weeks in California

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A total of 583 small earthquakes have shaken San Ramon, California, in the last three weeks or so – more than five times the record set 12 years ago, according to the latest US Geological Survey updates.

“It’s the swarm with the largest number of total earthquakes in San Ramon,” said USGS scientist David Schwartz, who is more concerned about the size of quakes than he is the total number of them. Still, the number tops the previous record set in 2003, when 120 earthquakes hit over 31 days, with the largest clocking in at a magnitude of 4.2.

The largest magnitude earthquake in the current swarm, which began on Oct. 13, is a magnitude 3.6. (Read more from “Nearly 600 Earthquakes Within Three Weeks in California” HERE)

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Woman Randomly Bursts Into Flames on Park Bench in Germany

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A woman was left fighting for her life after apparently bursting into flames on a park bench in Germany.

According to the Flensburger Tagesblatt and The Local, fire and smoke emerged from the woman, who is believed to be in her 40s and originally from Mauritius, as she sat on a bench in Flensburg, northern Germany.

She has reportedly been left severely burned, despite the best efforts of a passer-by who tried to beating out the blaze with his jacket.

Witnesses at the scene told local media the woman “did not say anything” as the flames engulfed her.

She was taken to hospital and has since been transferred to a specialist burns unit in Lübeck, where she is said to be in a critical condition. (Read more from “Woman Randomly Bursts Into Flames on Park Bench in Germany” HERE)

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