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In Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, the [Supreme Court]… ruled that “a naturally occurring segment” of DNA ”” genetic material that has been isolated from human chromosomes ”” cannot be patented because it is simply a product of nature. For policy wonks, the case was a David-and-Goliath fight, one of the most important patent cases in a decade, with an outcome sure to affect the $100 billion biotechnology industry, no matter how it was decided.

But while the Supreme Court’s ruling has been welcomed enthusiastically by many, the Myriad case has been only a modest victory for the advocates of genetic-data sharing. Indeed, none of the underlying tensions have truly been resolved: we still need to find a way for the biotech industry to keep a competitive advantage without endangering the welfare of patients and slowing medication innovation.

In reality, gene patents were only one part of the problem. A more vexing, and still pressing, issue is how companies withhold genetic data as a trade secret.

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The myth of perfectly secure communication is dying.

Since the revelations of widespread intelligence-agency eavesdropping on the digital communications of millions of people in the United States and around the world, governments and technology companies have been under immense pressure to explain exactly how pervasive the monitoring has become. Users of e-mail and social networks provided by the likes of Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have found themselves asking whether there are any means of keeping their data totally secure.

The short answer, it seems, is that there isn’t. And new revelations suggest that even the BlackBerry, touted by Research In Motion Ltd. as the most secure form of wireless communication in the market, could not clock the prying eyes of government.

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In his first news conference since Friday’s election, Mr Rouhani described as “unfair” sanctions imposed on his country. He also said Tehran would not suspend uranium enrichment activities.

The West suspects Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons. Iran says its programme is entirely peaceful.

The UK said it hoped Mr Rouhani would act on his pledge to resolve the issue.

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Watch our conversation with Michael Kessler of Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs about perspectives of religious and ethical traditions on the government’s massive collection of electronic data and its vast surveillance effort.

You may find the link here for the video.

Almost immediately after the Supreme Court ruled that human genes could not be patented, several laboratories announced they, too, would begin offering genetic testing for breast cancer risk, making it likely that that test and others could become more affordable and more widely available.

The ruling in effect ends a nearly two-decade monopoly by Myriad Genetics, the company at the center of the case.

“It levels the playing field; we can all go out and compete,” said Sherri Bale, managing director of GeneDx, a testing company, which plans to offer a test for breast cancer risk. “This is going to make a lot more genetic tests available, especially for rare diseases.”

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Google says it has uncovered a vast Iranian spy campaign that had been targeting tens of thousands of Iranian citizens over the past three weeks.

“These campaigns, which originate from within Iran, represent a significant jump in the overall volume of phishing activity in the region,” the company said in a blog post. “The timing and targeting of the campaigns suggest that the attacks are politically motivated in connection with the Iranian presidential election on Friday.”

The company said that thousands of its users inside Iran had been the targets of a sophisticated email phishing campaign in which attackers sent users a link that, when clicked, sent them to a fake Google sign-in page where the attackers could steal login credentials.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/security-it/google-uncovers-iranian-spy-campaign-20130614-2o7rh.html#ixzz2W8gG8bct

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The US Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that human genes and the information they contain cannot be patented by medical researchers, a holding that is expected to make it easier to engage in genetic research and cheaper for medical patients to obtain genetic testing.

The unanimous decision came in a case involving patents protecting genes with certain genetic mutations that scientists say can signal a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancer in women.

The genetic testing issue has been in the news recently with the disclosure that actress Angelina Jolie consented to a double mastectomy after undergoing a genetic test from the same company involved in the Supreme Court case that showed she had a high risk of ovarian and breast cancer.

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I’d suggest three ways to look at this issue through the lens of faith:

Government has a legitimate purpose and authority, but dividing citizens from one another should never be part of it. We should demand safeguards to prevent PRISM and similar programs from being used for repressive purposes. At a minimum, this ought to include full disclosure of the government’s purpose and methods here. (Lest you think this is a hypothetical concern, remember that the FBI has surveilled groups such as the American Friends Service Committee as recently as 2006.)

Surveillance comes about as part of the government’s promise to keep us safe and secure. But only God can provide ultimate security””not invulnerability to threat but God’s transformative support and presence amid our vulnerability. We follow the one who went to his death rather than depend on armed revolution to accomplish his goals. We should be relentless in questioning the government’s claims about what we need to be protected from and how.

Our connections to others make us human.

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Dan Selec, whose son was diagnosed with autism, had a big idea: to train and then hire autistic students to work with technology. In 2008 he founded his nonprofit, the nonPareil Institute, which teaches software skills to those with autism and then hires many of them. Now, these workers are increasingly finding themselves in demand for the skills they’ve learned.

Watch the whole wonderful video report.

News of two expansive U.S. surveillance programs has sparked a national discussion on security versus privacy and civil liberties. The issue is splitting American citizens and even politicians who normally find themselves on the same side.

Two Republicans in South Carolina’s congressional delegation are already sharply divided.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the programs “very helpful for us when it comes to national security.”

U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford’s reaction was almost exactly the opposite. He said the data mining is “out of control” and has “no regard for constitutional rights.”

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The leaks by Edward Snowden reveal a vulnerability in U.S. intelligence since 9/11, triggered by a surge of information collected on people around the world and the proliferation of private government contractors to store, sift and manage it.

Mr. Snowden and other private employees with permission to plug directly into National Security Agency systems have unprecedented access to highly sensitive information””the result of years of pressure to break down the walls dividing U.S. intelligence agencies and share information that might expose the next terror plot.

Thousands of workers employed by government contractors sit side by side with federal workers and hold security clearances that provide access to intelligence databases. The result is a system so enmeshed that government and contract workers are often indistinguishable.

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“”˜The world is undergoing a massive transition, particularly in terms of power, demographics, climate, urbanisation and technology. In this context, the opportunities are huge; but so are the uncertainties and challenges to the well-being of citizens”, concludes the ”˜Global Trends 2030 ”“ Citizens in an Interconnected and Polycentric World’ report of the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS).

The ”˜Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds’ of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) comes to a similar conclusion that we are living through a transformative period that is “equal to if not greater than the aftermath of the political and economic revolutions of the late 18th century”. This transition point is similar to 1815, 1919, 1945, and 1989.

But what do these reports say to the global Christian community, and especially evangelicals? Are there issues for which we need to get better prepared? Are there areas where we can actually influence trends and therefore the future of the world[?]

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The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations ”“ the NSA.

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The NSA and FBI are tapping into the servers of nine U.S. Internet firms, extracting audio, video, photos, e-mails and documents that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

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Education is forever balancing and rebalancing uniformity and creativity. Basic competence has to be mastered. But innovative thinking must be encouraged. Read the canon of great literature, but don’t be afraid to demolish conventional wisdom. Students and their parents seek out the best school and best teachers, hoping for the best education. But students can flourish at middling colleges and with average teachers if their reading is inspiring, their lab work intriguing, their thinking encouraged.

When you read Laura Pappano’s cover story on the huge stir being caused by Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs, pronounced “mooks”), you may at first think that there’s nothing new under the sun. Correspondence courses, after all, began in the 19th century. Over the decades, educational institutions have experimented with teaching via radio, television, closed-circuit video, and the Internet. And each new distance-learning technology has prompted predictions of the demise of ivy-clad campuses, the loss of mentoring by belovedly quirky profs, and the end of fond memories of college life. Fifteen years ago, a reporter from The Boston Globe marveled at how 1990s cutting-edge technology ”“ “a two-way PictureTel compressed-video system linked by high-speed phone lines” ”“ was connecting a classroom on Martha’s Vineyard with a university on the Massachusetts mainland. As one university official told him (well, actually, told me): “What is better in terms of quality ”“ a dull, boring, standard lecture, or a penetrating lecture by a great teacher, backed up with all the best video props…?”

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The United States has entered a new phase in the war against al Qaeda and its allies, drawing down from its large-scale combat operations in Afghanistan and moving to more targeted counterterrorism operations where military attack drones will play a major role.

However, the U.S. bishops are now warning increased U.S. dependence on military attack drones for “targeted killings” pose serious moral questions that President Barack Obama, Congress and the U.S. public must consider.

Bishop Richard Pates, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, wrote a May 17 letter to the White House stating that the military use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or “drones” in certain cases appeared to “violate the law of war, international human-rights law and moral norms.”

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Originally dedicated to making 787 Dreamliners, the North Charleston operation is now poised to grow in size and scope of work.

The latest boost came Friday when Boeing announced that it is establishing new centers for commercial aircraft engineering design and propulsion in South Carolina. It’s another indication of Boeing’s long-term plans in North Charleston and its intentions to diversify beyond its commercial aircraft stronghold in Washington state.

The local engineering center will be one of three, with the others in Washington and California. In March, Boeing announced that it would take a similar approach to information technology, establishing “centers of excellence” in North Charleston, the Seattle area and St. Louis.

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Companies from Silicon Valley to Detroit to Germany are developing cars that park, steer and even drive themselves. Now the federal agency for traffic safety has said it wants to come along for the ride.

On Thursday, the Transportation Department made its first formal policy statement on autonomous vehicles. In a nonbinding recommendation to the states, it said that driverless cars should not yet be allowed, except for testing. But it said that semiautonomous features, like cars that keep themselves centered in lanes and adjust their speed based on the location of the car ahead, could save lives.

The statement, from the department’s highway safety agency, comes as companies, led by Google, have made significant technological strides in making cars that drive themselves, but still face daunting legal, regulatory and cultural hurdles before the cars are widely available to drivers. It is the latest example of the tension between technological innovation and regulation, which move at very different speeds.

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“The city,” says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, “is humanity’s greatest invention.”

Not everybody agrees with Glaeser’s glowing assessment, but judging by recent population trends, most do. Every day 180,000 people move into cities, and in 2011, for the first time in world history, the majority of the world’s population became urban. It’s estimated that in 2050, 86.2 percent of the population of developed countries will reside in cities. As magnets for talent, engines of innovation, and centers of culture, cities have eclipsed the nation-state as the primary sculptors of modern life.

Following tightly on the heels of urbanologists like Edward Glaeser, Richard Florida, and Joel Kotkin, evangelicals have recognized a golden opportunity. Two new books””Stephen T. Um and Justin Buzzard’s Why Cities Matter: To God, the Culture, and the Church (Crossway) and Jon M. Dennis’s Christ and City: Why the Greatest Need of the City Is the Greatest News of All (Crossway)””herald both the unprecedented importance and unmistakable biblical significance of the city. But only Why Cities Matter strikes the right balance between social analysis and ministry focus, encouraging readers not just to live in the city but also to engage its people and culture with the gospel.

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Paying for a taxi ride using your mobile phone is easier in Nairobi than it is in New York, thanks to Kenya’s world-leading mobile-money system, M-PESA. Launched in 2007 by Safaricom, the country’s largest mobile-network operator, it is now used by over 17m Kenyans, equivalent to more than two-thirds of the adult population; around 25% of the country’s gross national product flows through it. M-PESA lets people transfer cash using their phones, and is by far the most successful scheme of its type on earth. Why does Kenya lead the world in mobile money?

M-PESA was originally designed as a system to allow microfinance-loan repayments to be made by phone, reducing the costs associated with handling cash and thus making possible lower interest rates. But after pilot testing it was broadened to become a general money-transfer scheme. Once you have signed up, you pay money into the system by handing cash to one of Safaricom’s 40,000 agents (typically in a corner shop selling airtime), who credits the money to your M-PESA account. You withdraw money by visiting another agent, who checks that you have sufficient funds before debiting your account and handing over the cash. You can also transfer money to others using a menu on your phone. Cash can thus be sent one place to another more quickly, safely and easily than taking bundles of in person, or asking others to carry it for you. This is particularly useful in a country where many workers in cities send money back home to their families in rural villages. Electronic transfers save people time, freeing them to do other, more productive things instead.

Dozens of mobile-money systems have been launched, so why has Kenya’s been the most successful?

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The Department of Veterans Affairs has partnered with the internet-based genealogy research firm Ancestry.com to bring burial records from historic national cemetery ledgers into the digital age. The effort will make the collection””predominantly of Civil War interments””accessible to researchers and Ancestry.com subscribers undertaking historical and genealogical research.

“We are excited to be able to share this wealth of primary documentation,” said VA’s Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs Steve L. Muro. “With the help of Ancestry.com, we have opened the doors to thousands of service members’ histories through the information contained in these burial ledgers….”

Ancestry.com has assembled the digitized and indexed NCA burial ledgers with those at NARA into a new collection, “U.S. Burial Registers, Military Posts and National Cemeteries, 1862-1960.” The burial records contain information such as name, rank, company/regiment, date of death, age at death, date of burial and grave number. A large number of Civil War soldiers were buried where they fell in battle or in temporary cemeteries, and sometimes that information, along with religious affiliation, can be found in the ledgers.

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Even before rogue abortionist Kermit Gosnell was convicted in Philadelphia May 13 of delivering and then killing late-term infants, abortion opponents were convinced they had a case that could reshape an abortion debate that has remained static over the years.

After the verdict, they were even more confident.

“Dr. Gosnell is only the front man; and the real trial has only just begun. The defendant is the abortion license in America,” Robert P. George, a Princeton law professor and leading conservative activist, wrote after a jury convicted Gosnell of three counts of first-degree murder for snipping the spines of babies after botched abortions.

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Victoria’s Christ Church Cathedral may soon step up its security system after the May 11 theft of at least $10,000 worth of historical artifacts, some dating back to the 17th century.

Officials think a thief or thieves likely hid themselves in the cathedral before its customary closing at 5:30 p.m.

The missing items include antique coins, gold and silver chalices, a communion plate and a long-handled mote spoon with a sieved bowl, used before the era of teabags to strain loose leaves from freshly brewed tea.

“It’s hard to say what the items are worth exactly, but the historical value for us and the faith dimension are far more than we can put a price on,” says the Very Rev. Dr. Logan McMenamie, rector of the cathedral and dean of Columbia.

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It is a striking idea that one of the keys to good health may turn out to involve managing our internal fermentation. Having recently learned to manage several external fermentations ”” of bread and kimchi and beer ”” I know a little about the vagaries of that process. You depend on the microbes, and you do your best to align their interests with yours, mainly by feeding them the kinds of things they like to eat ”” good “substrate.” But absolute control of the process is too much to hope for. It’s a lot more like gardening than governing.

The successful gardener has always known you don’t need to master the science of the soil, which is yet another hotbed of microbial fermentation, in order to nourish and nurture it. You just need to know what it likes to eat ”” basically, organic matter ”” and how, in a general way, to align your interests with the interests of the microbes and the plants. The gardener also discovers that, when pathogens or pests appear, chemical interventions “work,” that is, solve the immediate problem, but at a cost to the long-term health of the soil and the whole garden. The drive for absolute control leads to unanticipated forms of disorder.

This, it seems to me, is pretty much where we stand today with respect to our microbiomes ”” our teeming, quasi-wilderness. We don’t know a lot, but we probably know enough to begin taking better care of it. We have a pretty good idea of what it likes to eat, and what strong chemicals do to it. We know all we need to know, in other words, to begin, with modesty, to tend the unruly garden within.

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A Philadelphia abortion doctor convicted of killing three babies who were born alive in his grimy clinic agreed Tuesday to give up his right to an appeal and faces life in prison but will be spared a death sentence.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the deaths of the babies who were delivered alive and killed with scissors.

In a case that became a flashpoint in the nation’s abortion debate, former clinic employees testified that Gosnell routinely performed illegal abortions past Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit, that he delivered babies who were still moving, whimpering or breathing, and that he and his assistants dispatched the newborns by “snipping” their spines, as he referred to it.

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Google is set to introduce a subscription music feature to compete against fast-growing new streaming services like Spotify, according to several people briefed on its plans.

Google is planning to introduce the new service on Wednesday at Google I/O, the company’s annual conference for software developers. The subscription feature will be connected to Play, Google’s online media hub, complementing its download store and “locker” feature, which lets people store their digital entertainment collections in the cloud, according to these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity before Google’s official announcement.

News of the announcement first appeared on The Verge. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

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“We are very excited to expand our relationship with Google and Charleston Digital Corridor to offer residents and visitors several hotspots to connect to the Internet,” said Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley. “Having this Wi-Fi network makes life easier for people doing business here and helps our tourists find the attractions they want to visit. And in the case of the trekker, get a sneak peek of the places before you visit. It’s all done at no cost to the taxpayer.”

A Google community grant to the Charleston Digital Corridor supports the Wi-Fi network, and the project uses no public funds. The Charleston Digital Corridor Foundation is responsible for maintaining the network.

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We are becoming a society in which “choice” and self-defined identities trump once-common values and traditional beliefs. But contrary to the rhetoric of its defenders, this shift is not a simple advance for freedom. The privileging of “choice” above all else in fact requires re-engineering the human person and society as a whole, and this will inevitably involve a great deal of coercion.

Wesley J. SmithThis shift, if it didn’t begin with Roe v. Wade, could be said to have been dramatically accelerated by it. Despite continuing opposition by over 50 percent of the American people, abortion is now universally available, in some places through the ninth month. Two states have legalized assisted suicide for the terminally ill””once strictly prohibited by the Hippocratic Oath. Now, some doctors actively collaborate in lethally overdosing their patients.

Advocacy for legalizing “after birth” abortion””e.g., infanticide””as a natural extension of the abortion right is growing more prominent, and not just among acolytes of Princeton’s Peter Singer. A Florida Planned Parenthood representative, opposing a bill that would require medical treatment for an infant who survives abortion, said the choice to care for the child should be a private one made between a mother and her doctor.

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