Bionic Bug Podcast

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 23. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on September 30, 2018. Just a quick intro today before we get to Bionic Bug. I spent the last few days visiting Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I met with a number of scientists and experts to talk about nanotechnology, synthetic biology, additive manufacturing, and artificial intelligence. I also had the opportunity to visit the National Ignition Facility. The facility contains the world’s largest laser. The laser focuses its energy on a spherical target consisting of hydrogen smaller than a pea to compress the fuel and induce fusion. The target is heated to more than 100 million degrees Celsius—hotter than the center of the sun. Scientists then measure different outputs of the experiment and use this to support research on fusion and ensure the effectiveness of our nuclear stockpile. Each use of the laser is called a shot. We got to see inside the control room and the target chamber. The United States stopped testing nuclear weapons in 1992. As a result, we have not developed any new weapons designs. To ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent without full-scale testing, the Department of Energy operates the Stockpile Stewardship Program. This facility is critical to that effort since it can create the conditions that are relevant to understanding the operation of modern nuclear weapons. The experiments run at the facility support the simulations used to ensure the ongoing effectiveness of our arsenal. You can take a virtual tour of the facility online. I’ll include the YouTube video in my show notes. This past week, I didn’t get a chance to read tech headlines because like the majority of people in our nation, I was focused on news related to the Supreme Court nomination. First and foremost, I stand with survivors of sexual assault. Second, I expect those who seek leadership positions in this country should be held to a higher standard. Third, I believe that the impartiality of the Supreme Court must be protected to ensure the future of our democracy. I did not feel the testimony of the current nominee reflected a temperament or impartiality suitable for the highest court in the land. Let’s turn to Bionic Bug. Last week, Lara searched the violin shop owned by Fiddler and found some interesting clues, including directions to a company called Beautific Creations. Let’s find out what happens next. The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 22. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on September 23, 2018. Next week, I’m heading to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to present my research on emerging technologies and weapons of mass destruction. This is the famous nuclear weapons laboratory where the hydrogen bomb was first developed. The bomb has also been referred as the “superbomb”. Today, we call them thermonuclear weapons. How are they different from the first nuclear weapons? The first atomic bombs were fission weapons in that they leveraged the energy released when atoms of U-235 split into two smaller parts. Thermonuclear weapons exploit the energy released when two atoms fuse into one, called nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion uses lighter elements (tritium, deuterium or lithium deuteride) than uranium. This way, we can get much greater yield from much less material. The catch is that you can’t produce nuclear fusion on its own. You need a fission bomb to compress the material and produce fusion. For all of you Star Trek fans out there, I’ll be getting a tour of the National Ignition Facility, home to a giant laser. This is the facility where scientists are studying nuclear fusion for the purpose of generating electricity. The NIF was used as the set for the starship Enterprise's warp core in the 2013 movie Star Trek Into Darkness. I look forward to reporting on my trip, hopefully next week. Let’s talk tech: Two weeks ago, I spoke at an event called “Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction: From Threat Detection and Disruption to Response Operations” hosted by Noblis. My panel was on the future of countering WMD. It surprised me that we spent most of our panel talking about big data and the implications of our digital actions. To be fair, we were talking about the revolution in biotechnology that promises to transform society, business and government. But we were also talking about a growing threat—the collection of data by companies and even more troubling, by potential adversaries. I’ll include the video in the show notes if you’re interested in watching. My first headline for today is an old one. “China’s Bid to be a DNA Superpower,” by David Cyranoski in Nature magazine in June 2016. China is buying up gene sequencing companies and collecting genomic data in a bid to be a DNA superpower. Already in 2016, it had more than half the world’s capacity to decode DNA. You may find this troubling, but companies in the U.S. are outsourcing the sequencing of American’s DNA overseas, in many instances, to China.That means that China has access to our genetic data. Now, you’re probably wondering why China is gobbling up all of this genetic data. In a word, precision medicine. This refers to the idea that someday soon, we’ll be looking at our DNA profile when we visit the doctor to identify the potential sources of disease and ailments and using that information to tailor medical treatments to your genetic make-up. There are other more ominous ways this information can be used, and hence the growing concern. This data grab by China is part of a broader strategy. If you’re interested in reading more about how China is preparing for the new era of digitization, both in life and on the battlefield, I encourage you to read “Applying America’s Superpowers: How the U.S. Should Respond to China’s Informatization Strategy” in War on the Rocks by Charles Rybeck, Lanny Cornwell and Philip Sagan published on September 10. That leads me to my final headline for this week: “China Is Rolling Out A Mandatory Program That Puts Tracking Chips In Every Car” published on June 14, 2018 in futurism.com “Starting next year, China will require all newly registered cars to be equipped with highly trackable RFID tags.” What are RFID tags?

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 20. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on September 16, 2018. I’m excited to note that we’re at the half way point for this podcast. Bionic Bug has only 43 chapters, and so we’ll have 22 more episodes. But never fear, I’m already working on the concept for my next podcast. You’ll hear about it first. In other personal news, I’ve started writing Book 3 in the Lara Kingsley Series. It’s called Genomic Clone. In this story, Lara tackles a missing persons case. If you’re enjoying the show, please leave a review on iTunes. You can also support my time and costs of producing in show for only a few dollars a month, please go to www.patreon.com/natashabajema- p a t r e o n / natashabajema Let’s talk tech: My first headline for this week is “Plant Wearables and Airdropped Sensors Could Sow Big Data Seeds” published on September 10 at spectrum.ieee.org. Most of you have heard about the Internet of Things. This is a trend of making electronic devices smart and connecting them to the Internet. It is the sensors that make them smart and allow them to collect data on their internal workings or the external environment and make that data available online to human users. Over the past few years, sensors have become very small and very cheap. Lately, we’ve been putting sensors in everything. Researchers in Saudi Arabia are looking at dropping smart tags from drones onto plants below to monitor crops and report on plant conditions. “Researchers created a plant-wearable sensor—made from polymer and thin gold metal film—that has the flexibility to attach in any position on a plant. They tested this stretchable strain sensor on both barley and lucky bamboo plants during trial periods of several hours or days to show that they could detect even the most minute growth changes. “Second, the team created a 3D-printedtemperature and humidity sensor that can be dropped from drones in large numbers.” This is part of a trend in agriculture in which technology is providing farmers with more information on the status of their crops. Farmers are also increasingly using drones to monitor their crops. DJI, a Chinese drone manufacturing currently controls about 70% of the off-the-shelf drone market. These drones collect data, but are also updated by DJI through various patches. Does DJI collect the data from these drones? How could agricultural data be potentially used against us? In wartime, to take out our nation’s crops. Just some “food” for thought. We are entering an era where everything generates digital information and everything is connected to the Internet. Who has access to this data? What can they do with it? Are we thinking through the implications of data generation? My next headline is related “Big Data And us: Are we All Being Given a Reputation Score?”published on August 25. The Chinese government is currently mulling a social credit system for their entire population. The score would be based on “every action that you do on a daily basis, such as what you buy, how timely you are repaying your loans, where you travel, where you work, who you are friends with, where and how much your socialize etc., will add up to your rating. If you are found guilty of not paying off debt, not paying bills on time, have a complaint filed against you, are found guilty of even a petty crime or other such offenses or maybe having friends who have low credit ratings, will have a negative impact on your rating.” Perhaps all of us who don’t live in China can breathe easily for a moment. Or perhaps not. Every day from the time we get up, we are creating a digital trail. This data can be used to generate a reputation score or online profile that has real effects. It probably doesn’t surprise you that Facebook assigns a reputation score to its users.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 20. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on September 9, 2018. No personal updates today since I just recorded an episode yesterday. Let’s jump right in to the tech news.My first headline is “Researchers to Release Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes in Africa for First Time” published in Scientific American on September 5. Up to 10,000 bugs could be deployed. Okay, you all know how I feel about bugs, right? Let’s delve into the article. What’s happening here? "The government of Burkina Faso granted scientists permission to release genetically engineered mosquitoes. This is part of broad efforts to use bioengineering to eliminate malaria in the region." "This will be the first time that any genetically engineered animal is released into the wild in Africa." "Genetically engineered mosquitoes have already been released in places likeBrazil andthe Cayman Islands, though animals with gene drives have never been released in the wild." "Teams in three African countries—Burkina Faso, Mali, and Uganda—are building the groundwork to eventually let loose “gene drive” mosquitoes, which would contain a mutation that would significantly and quickly reduce the mosquito population." What are gene drives? We’ve been tinkering with genetics for thousands of years. Think about the examples of livestock breeding or dog breeding. A gene drive is a technique that promotes the inheritance of a particular gene to increase its prevalence in the population. During normal reproduction, two versions of a gene has a 50 percent chance of being inherited by a particular offspring Gene drives circumvent these traditional rules and greatly increase the odds that the desired gene will be passed on to offspring In other words, gene drives could alter the traits of entire populations of organisms. My first thought was “what could possibly go wrong?” Mosquitoes are bad. And malaria is a leading killer of human populations in developing countries. Then I thought about what Michael Crichton’s Dr. Ian Malcolm would say. A few quotes come to mind: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.” “If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh, well, there it is.” “Gene Editing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)” John Oliver did a stint about gene editing on July 1, which is hilarious and offers some good info about CRISPR and gene drives. It also features (makes fun of) my recent podcast guest, Dr. Josiah Zayner, who has expressed his amusement at making it onto John Oliver’s show. My favorite part is when Dr. George Church, a famous geneticist, is asked if it would be possible to create a unicorn. I think I nearly fell of my chair, laughing at the look on his face and his answer. It’s definitely worth a watch. My second headline is “Russia, US Are In a Military Exoskeleton Race” published on August 30 by Patrick Tucker at Defense One. This caught my attention primarily because the plot in Project Gecko revolves around a military battle suit race between the U.S. and China. For years, the U.S. SOCOM has been developing TALOS, the next generation battle suit. The suit will integrate many emerging technologies, but also include an exoskeleton which will improve soldiers’ strength, agility and endurance. Russia is developing its own suit called the Ratnik-3 and has already tested a prototype. The limiting factor in the advancement of both suits appears to be current battery technologies. Let’s turn to Bionic Bug. Last week, Lara had a strange meeting with John Fiddler,

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 19. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on September 8, 2018. First off, thank you so much for your patience while I was on vacation for the past week and a half. As a gesture of my gratitude, I’m releasing two episodes this weekend. Yes, TWO episodes. I took my dogs on a road trip. We spent two nights in a cabin at a state park in Western Maryland where there is no Internet and zero cell coverage. In case of an emergency, there’s an actual phone booth on the park grounds for coin-operated calls. #blastfromthepast. We enjoyed the quiet, did some hiking, played in streams, and looked for bears. I also finished the edits on my second novel, Project Gecko. From there, I went on to Michigan where I’m originally from to visit friends and family. I had a great time moving my friend’s kid into the dorms of my alma mater, Calvin College. On the fiction front, I’ve decided to release Bionic Bug, the first book in my series as a paperback on Amazon sometime in October. It’s already available as an ebook on https://www.kobo.com/ebook/bionic-bug. I’ll release Project Gecko as an ebook on Kobo in October as well. If you’re enjoying the show, please leave a review on iTunes. You can also support my time and costs of producing in show for only a few dollars a month, please go to www.patreon.com/natashabajema. Let’s talk tech: My first headline for this week is an overlap between fiction and technology. “Why Science Fiction is the Most Important Genre” published in Wired today. Yuval Noah Harari, author of the best-selling books Sapiens and Homo Dues believes that science fiction is the most important fiction genre because “it shapes the understanding of the public on things like artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which are likely to change our lives and society more than anything else in the coming decades.” He thinks that too much of science fiction focuses on outlandish scenarios and authors should grapple with realistic issues to raise public awareness. I read this article with great interest, in part, because this summer I underwent a personal revelation about my fiction. I’ve talked about attending the ThrillerFest in July and about pitching my mystery series to agents. My biggest takeaway from my pitches is that the agents viewed me as a science fiction author. It caught me off-guard. I thought Star Wars and Star Trek were science fiction. I began digging and bought a course on science fiction from the Great Course series. I’m halfway through and my mind is already blown. I didn’t realize that George Orwell, Ray Bradbury and Margaret Atwood are considered science fiction authors. My mystery series takes place ten years in the future. I’ve called it speculative because I’m describing a world that currently does not yet exist. This summer, I realized that the driving force behind my series is about public awareness. We’re currently facing an unprecedented number of technological changes on the near-term horizon. Things are changing at exponential speed. It fascinates me, but also terrifies me. I’m writing the Lara Kingsley Series to help readers start thinking about the changes on the horizon and their societal implications. The revelation that I am a science fiction writer has led me to lean further into what it means to write in this genre. It has also to the birth of a new idea, which I refer to as my super-secret project for now. I’m currently developing plans for a sci-fi dystopian trilogy. If you check out my show notes, you’ll see a collage image I created to capture my initial thinking. My second headline for today is “Defense Department pledges billions toward artificial intelligence research” published in the Washington Post on September 7. This is great news.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 18. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on August 19, 2018. First off, I have a brief personal update. I got my manuscript back from my editor for Project Gecko and am working through edits. I expect it will be available as an ebook on Kobo in September. Stay tuned. Let’s talk tech: One emerging technology topic that fascinates me is the use of nanotechnology and synthetic biology to create new materials that do amazing things. In many ways, the science fiction of D.C. Comics superheros and Marvel’s Avengers is becoming science reality. This is a theme that I address in Project Gecko where the Pentagon is seeking to leverage the capabilities offered by these new materials for its Next Generation Battle Suit. The first two headlines for this week are about spider silk. Yes, the same stuff Spiderman uses to swing from building to building. “Move over, Spider-Man! Spider silk can be used to build armor and repair nerves” on July 28 at digital trends.com “Scientists Just Created Silkworms That Spin Super-Strong Spider Silk” on August 8 at sciencealert.com What is spider silk? It is a protein produced by spiders to create their webs and draglines. Textiles made from spider silk are lighter and tougher than Kevlar, also extremely flexible but do not melt like nylon. Spider silk an be used for body armor, sutures, skin grafts.Scientists think spider silk could even be used to battle cancer and other amazing medical purposes. Scientists have been interested in producing spider silk since the 1700s. Researchers first cloned a spider silk gene in 1990 How to make it? Spiders produce a tiny amount of silk for their own needs and production is difficult to scale up both due to volume and unique characteristics of spiders. They are territorial and don’t get along well with other spiders and eat each other if they get really pissed off. For this reason, scientists have been looking for other organisms to produce the silk. They’ve tried bacteria, yeast, plants, silk worms and even goats. How does that work? The U.S. Army funded research at Utah State University to produce spider silk in goat’s milk. This addresses the problem that spiders produce tiny amounts and are difficult to scale up. By splicing genes from orb-weaving spiders and inserting them into goats, the goats produce the protein in their milk A single goat produces about an ounce of protein per milking session, yielding several thousand yards of spider silk thread The milk proteins are separated, purified, freeze-dried and converted into powder form. The powder is then spun into a fiber to make textiles. Unfortunately, the proteins are often shorter and simpler than the spiders' own The goal is to synthesize the toughest of spiders' seven types of silks: the dragline that spiders hang from, which incorporates several kinds of silk proteins Scientists have recently produced a super strong spider silk using silkworms What are silkworms? A silkworm is a caterpillar of the silkworm moth that produces silk when they spin their cocoons to transition from a caterpillar to moth. This is the same silk used to make textiles. A team of scientists edited the silkworm genes so that it produces the silk of the golden orb weaver spider instead. The great thing about silkworms is that they’re peaceful unlike spiders. Another benefit is that the silk produced does not require further processing. There are already a few commercial products available made from spider silk, but they’re expensive. Spider silk shoe by Adidas North Face Moon Parka costs $1,000 “Salt-infused graphene creates an infrared cloaking device” on August 3 at arstechnica.com When scientists were finally able to see at the nanoscale in...

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 17. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on August 18, 2018. Last weekend, I attended the Writer’s Policy Academy in Green Bay Wisconsin. I experienced two days of interactive and educational hands-on experience led by police detectives and officers. It was amazing. There were so many cool courses, I didn’t know what to choose from. We got to see several demonstrations including the Green Bay firefighters putting out a real fire in the burn house and a dive team searching for a baby dummy in the river. I’ll include pictures in the show notes. I kicked things off on Day 1 with a three-hour course called Murder, Death and Mayhem. In this class, I learned about homicide in the U.S. Did you know that the U.S. has a very low homicide rate per capita compared to other countries? Death by firearms accounts for about 72% of all homicides in the U.S. In the afternoon of Day 1, I participated in the Pursuit Immobilization Technique, a high intensity class where we got to pursue a suspect in a vehicle chase and immobilize the suspect’s car. Turns out after 10 years of driving in D.C., I was a natural. I was able to make contact with the other car without flinching and pulled off one of the best maneuvers of the day. You can see the video in my show notes. My final class of Day 1 was called Shoot, Don’t Shoot Firearms Simulator, another high intensity class. This was an eye-opening session where we played the role of police officers and had to decide within the fraction of second whether or not to use deadly force. Again, I was a natural. My scenario involved taking a pit stop at a liquor store and coming face to face with a man wearing a ski mask and holding a paper bag and a gun. He was just coming out of the store and a bit stunned to run into me and my partner. I yelled at him to drop his gun and put his hands in the air several times. He didn’t respond. As soon as his gun hand twitched, I took him out with three rounds to the chest. All those hours of playing Call of Duty really paid off. On Day 2, I took a class on K9 dogs and their handlers and got to meet a retired handler and his German Shepherd. It was fascinating to hear his stories. The biggest takeaway is how effective dogs are compared to guns in getting suspects to surrender. But because they cost so much money to train, it’s difficult to convince the public they’re worth it. In the afternoon, on Day 2, I took a SWAT: Dynamic Door Entry/Breaching class where we learned the various methods of gaining entry and searching the premises for bad guys. I had the opportunity to try on a SWAT vest. It weighed 50 pounds without the pistol and ammo. There’s a picture in the show note. I’m posting it hoping not to hear any more wise-ass comments about my trigger finger. The fake gun is heavy and it was easier to hold that way. I also attempted to breach a door with a ram. Much harder than you think. My first day back at work after returning, my arms and hands were sore from the experience. Now that was a first. I closed out my experience with class on Behavioral Clues at Crime Scenes taught by a Forensics Psychologist. Wow, that was fascinating. We learned how to stage crime scenes. My biggest takeaway was that most criminals are pretty dumb. I’m recording another episode tomorrow to cover tech headlines. I won’t be recording again until September since I’m going on my last vacation of the summer. Let’s turn to Bionic Bug. Last week, Lara moved in with Maggie while she waited for repairs to her townhouse from the fire. She learns about the plague and watches the video footage captured from the beetle on the night of Sully’s death. She gets another message from her stalker. Let’s find out what happens next. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not refl...

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 16. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on August 5, 2018. First off, I have a personal update. Next weekend, I’m headed to the Writer’s Policy Academy in Green Bay Wisconsin. I’ll be participating in two days of an interactive and educational hands-on experience led by police detectives and officers and designed for writers to enhance their understanding of all aspects of law enforcement, firefighting, EMS, and forensics. I’m currently signed up for hands-on sessions on high-speed pursuits, a car set ablaze and door entry/breaching among other things. Stay tuned for my read out in a few weeks. Let’s talk tech news. It’s been an “exciting” week for emerging technologies and their potential risks. 3D printing made the headlines across the country this week, even making it onto the daily show with Trevor Noah. In truth, this is a threat that has been building for more than six years that has largely remained off the public’s radar. This week, a legal battle broke out with 19 states pitted against the State Department and Defense Distributed. In 2012, Cody Wilson, a second year law student at the University of Texas, and his friends got together and named themselves “Defense Distributed” and launched the “Wiki Weapon Project.” The idea was to create a gun that anyone could easily make at home. They used a crowdfunding website to raise funds to develop a 3D printed plastic gun that can be printed by a low-cost, open source 3D printer known as the RepRap. The group successfully produced a plastic gun capable of firing a .22 caliber bullet in 2013. The gun is called “The Liberator”. Cody Wilson and his friends uploaded the blueprint online. The design has two metal components the firing pin and a small piece of steel. The steel part is designed to make the gun detectable with a metal detector. The U.S. Undetectable Firearms Act prohibits weapons that don't set off a metal detector. The design was downloaded 100,000 times in just two days before the State Department stepped in, demanding the removal of the blueprint from the website under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which governs the export of munitions. Wilson took down the blueprint, but it soon became available on disreputable file-sharing websites such as The Pirates Bay and on the Dark Web. Since this development, many more gun designs have been made available online. So why now? In 2015, Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed filed a law suit against the State Department, claiming his First Amendment rights were being infringed. The State Department settled with Wilson last month, allowing Defense Distributed to release the designs online for downloading. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Seattle granted a temporary restraining order to stop the posting of blueprints that would have legally allowed Americans to make 3D-printed guns in their own homes. Let’s unpack the issues. These guns are called “ghost guns” because they have no serial numbers, untraceable, undetectable They are homemade. Anyone with access to the Internet can download the blueprint and then print the parts using a cheap 3D printer. These guns are not entirely undetectable. “The TSA Has Found 3D-Printed Guns at Airport Checkpoints 4 Times Since 2016” The designs include a small metal part that can be detected by metal detectors. It remains illegal to develop guns that cannot be detected. I’m not sure if I understand why everyone is freaking out about this new development. We already have a gun accessibility problem in this country. Practically anyone can get access to weapons in the U.S., even semi-automatic weapons, including criminals. Plastic guns are not nearly as effective and run the risk of exploding after multiple shots.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 15. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on July 29, 2018. This week, I’m going to skip straight to reading from Bionic Bug since chapter 15 is a long one. Last week, Lara and Vik found Sully’s journal on the burner cell phone. They were going through the different entries when a fire broke out. Let’s find out what happens next. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Bionic Bug podcast! You’re listening to episode 14. This is your host Natasha Bajema, fiction author, futurist, and national security expert. I’m recording this episode on July 22, 2018. First off, an update on my fiction. On this podcast, you’re listening to Bionic Book, which is Book One of the Lara Kingsley Series. As you know, Book Two Project Gecko is currently with my editor. But you don’t know that I’ve started the outline for Book Three Genomic Data, which will carry on a theme in the series about DNA and genomic data. Even more exciting, I came up with the title and draft cover for Book Four this week. It will be called Black Box and will involve artificial intelligence and machine learning. I’ll provide a sneak preview of the cover in the show notes, so make sure you check it out! “Potential DNA damage from CRISPR has been ‘seriously underestimated,’ study finds” on July 16, 2018 at statnews.com A sobering article about a new gene editing technique that promises to transform the field of synthetic biology, cure diseases, correct genetic errors and produce new products that improve human life. CRISPR is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat. It refers to a gene editing technique that emerged in 2012 that allows researchers to quickly and cheaply change the DNA of nearly any organism. The technique uses the Cas9 enzyme and an RNA molecule matching the target DNA sequence identified for editing. The RNA guides Cas9 to the correct target sequence in the genome where it cuts the DNA. After the cut, the DNA is repaired, causing the gene sequence to be disrupted or modified. A recent study suggests that making such cuts in DNA could cause more havoc than previously thought. The study identified DNA damage including deletions of thousands of DNA bases, including at spots far from the edit. Some of the deletions can silence genes that should be active and activate genes that should be silent, including cancer-causing genes. Geneticist Allan Bradley of England’s Wellcome Sanger Institute, who led the study, warns of DNA chaos as a result of using CRISPR. This reminds me of Michael Crichton’s Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park warning us about playing god with nature. Since I just revealed the title of my fourth novel in the Lara Kingsley series, it’s only fitting that I shift gears to look at Artificial Intelligence. “Microsoft calls for regulation of facial recognition, saying it’s too risky to leave to tech industry alone” on July 13 in the Washington Post Think about this for a second. A major corporation is calling for government regulation on the use of artificial intelligence for facial recognition. I think we should pay attention. China has been using facial recognition technology to crack down on crime where there is an estimated 170 million CCTV cameras. In April 2018, a man was arrested for economic crimes while attending a concert.He was identified by cameras equipped with facial recognition technology at the venue’s entrance and arrested while in the crowd. In February 2018, the Chinese police introduced new sunglasses equipped with facial recognition technology to identify criminals. Sound like big brother in George Orwell’s 1984? In Project Gecko, I introduce this type of glasses. Detective Sanchez participates in a pilot program to see how they might be used at the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. Microsoft thinks this type of technology should have the technology to greater public scrutiny and oversight. Amazon is selling its facial recognition technology to law enforcement. This is happening under our noses. I think it’s time to take a look at these technologies. This leads to my final headline. “How Artificial Intelligence Will Reshape the Global Order” on July 10 in Foreign Affairs After the Cold War, scholars pronounced the end of history with the triumph of the liberal de...