The world is basically [food secure, except Africa](http://blog.givewell.org/2009/03/16/can-the-green-revolution-be-repeated-in-africa).

Things [aren't improving the way people hope](http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/additional/Easterly-paper).

The Gates Foundation [can't spend their way out of this problem the traditional way](http://blog.givewell.org/2009/10/29/gates-foundation-on-agriculture-funding-where-are-the-facts/).

What's to be done?

Reading up on the GiveWell Open Philanthropy Project's investigation of science policy lead me to look up CRISPR which is given as the example of a very high potential basic science research area.

In context, Givewell appears to be interested in the potential for Gene drive. I am not sure if I am using the term in a grammatically correct way.

Austin Burt, an evolutionary geneticist at Imperial College London,^[5] first outlined the possibility of building gene drives based on natural "selfish" homing endonuclease genes.^[4]Researchers had already shown that these “selfish” genes could spread rapidly through successive generations. Burt suggested that gene drives might be used to prevent a mosquito population from transmitting the malaria parasite or crash a mosquito population. Gene drives based on homing endonucleases have been demonstrated in the laboratory in transgenic populations of mosquitoes^[6] and fruit flies.^[7][8] These enzymes could be used to drive alterations through wild populations.^[1]

I would be suprised if I am the first community member to ponder whether we could just go ahead and exterminate mosquito's to control their populations. Google research I conducted ages ago indicated that doing so resulted in no effective improvement in desired outcomes over the long term. I vaguely remember several examples cited, none of which were Gene Driving, which I have only just heard of. I concluded, at the time, that controlling mosquito populations wasn't the way to go, and instead people should proactively protect themselves.

In 2015, study in Panama reported that such mosquitoes were effective in reducing populations of dengue fever-carrying Aedes aegypti. Over a six month period approximately 4.2 million males were released, yielding a 93-percent population reduction. The female is the disease carrier. The population declined because the larvae of GM males and wild females fail to thrive. Two control areas did not experience population declines. The A. aegypti were not replaced by other species such as the aggressive A. albopictus. In 2014, nine people died and 5,026 were infected, and in 2013 eight deaths and 4,481 infected, while in March 2015 a baby became the year's first victim of the disease.^[9]

It's apparent that research is emerging for the efficacy of Gene Driving. In conducting research for this discussion post, I found most webpages in top google results were from groups and individuals concerned about genetically modified mosquitos being released. I am interested in know if that's the case for anyone else, since my results may be biased by google targeting results based on my past proclivity for using google-searching to confirm suspicions about things I already had.

It appears that the company responsible for the mosquitos is called Oxitec. I have no conflict of interest to disclose in relation to them (though I was hoping to find one, but they're not a publicly listed company!). They appear to be supplying trials in the US and Australia. Though, I haven't looked to see if they're involved in any trials in developing countries. It stuns me that I was not aware of them, given multiple lines of interest that could have brought me to them.

My general disposition towards synthetic biology has been overwhelming suspicious and censorial in the recent past. My views were influenced by the caution I've ported from fears of unfriendly AI. I wanted to share this story of Gene Driving because it is heartwarming and has made me feel better about the future of both existential risk and effective giving. 

Edit: Synthetic biology for fun and profit! Any biohackers around? I just discovered the [registry of standard biological parts](http://parts.igem.org/Main_Page?title=Main_Page), the [biobrick assembly kit](https://www.neb.com/products/e0546-biobrick-assembly-kit) and [genome compiler](http://www.genomecompiler.com/?_ga=1.251739919.769837041.1438856618). I'm having the biggest nerdgasms I can recall. Who wants to chlorinate the mosquito gene pool with me?

Synthetic biology for good: So who's gonna do the protocol design for the tsetse fly gene drive? Whose gonna model the disease?

How much would it cost? [Here's an esteimate](http://lesswrong.com/lw/mld/genosets/cnys). Seems like an easy investment decision in public wellbeing.

Here's the NYTimes story: Hackers With Apparent Investment Banking Background Target Biotech

You should be able to download a copy of the report from the FireEye website here. Alternatively, you can request a free copy of the FireEye report here by pretending to be a company (for example, entering "no company" in the "company" field). There may be a time delay in between requesting and receiving the report.

Luckily for all of us, just because the hackers, referred to as FIN4, had financial motivations (getting "inside information about impending market catalysts") did not mean that they attempted to maximize their financial gain. If they had, this could would have been on the front page instead of in the technology section, and the headline could have been "Terrorists Hired Hackers to Manufacture Synthetic Disease," or alternately "Hacker Group Threatens to Release Synthetic Plague if Demands Not Met."

I sincerely hope that, if artificial gene synthesis devices were not kept air-gapped before, that they will be now. If hackers were able to compromise the email accounts of researchers and scientists (listed separately in the report for some reason), and artificial gene synthesis devices took requests from authorized users by internet, then these hackers could have ordered genes synthesized.

The paper is called DNA methylation age and human tissues and cell types and it's from Genome Biology. Here is a Nature article based on the paper.

I have submitted this to LW because of its relevance to the measurement of aging and, hence, to life extension. Here is a bit from the Nature piece:

"Ageing is a major health problem, and interestingly there are really no objective measures of aging, other than a verified birth date," says Darryl Shibata, a pathologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "Studies like this one provide important new efforts to increase the rigour of human aging studies."

Note: The discrepancy in spelling ("ageing" vs. "aging") is in the original.

The FHI's mini advent calendar: counting down through the big five existential risks. The second one is a new, exciting risk: synthetic biology.

Synthetic biology
Current understanding: medium-low
Most worrying aspect: hackers experimenting with our basic biology
Synthetic biology covers many inter-related fields, all concerned with the construction and control of new biological systems. This area has already attracted the attention of bio-hackers, experimenting with DNA and other biological systems to perform novel tasks – and gaining kudos for exotic accomplishments. The biosphere is filled with many organisms accomplishing specific tasks; combining these and controlling them could allow the construction of extremely deadly bioweapons, targeted very narrowly (at all those possessing a certain gene, for instance). Virulent virus with long incubation periods could be constructed, or common human bacteria could be hacked to perform a variety of roles in the body. And humans are not the only potential targets: whole swaths of the ecosystem could be taken down, either to gain commercial or economic advantages, for terrorist purposes, or simply by accident.

Moreover, the medical miracles promised by synthetic biology are not easily separated from the danger: the targeted control needed to, for instance, kill cancer cells, could also be used to target brain cells or the immune system. This would not be so frightening if the field implemented safety measures commensurate with the risks; but synthetic biology has been extremely lax in its precautions and culturally resistant to regulations.

I am trying to establish what (if anything) makes human beings superior to other organisms.

I have a hypothesis that, the only thing at which human beings are "superior" to other organisms is that we can transfer information without a loss to other human beings.

This difference may already be well established. I couldn't find a good read on this, so I wanted to ask your opinion.

Many organisms seem to have superior capabilities than human beings; strength, speed, agility, vision, hearing, regeneration etc. And even high IQ (at least on a hardware level on dolphins etc) may not be unique to humankind.

So, my first suspect, high IQ alone does not seem to be a differentiator of our species. (It does not even seem to be predictor of success within the species)

Then I remember the famous experiment of hosing down of gorillas trying to reach bananas. (To which I can't find the original citation) Shortly;

- Some gorillas are hosed with cold water when they try to reach bananas.

- Then they learn to stop trying to eat these bananas.

- The gorillas are replaced with other gorillas one by one.

- The old gorillas prevent new comers from reaching the banana even though they are not hosed anymore.

- When all of the gorillas are replaced, they still stop each other from reaching the banana.

It seems like the information is partially transferred. They can't transfer the cause. But human beings can transfer the cause. So, are human beings the only species that can transfer information without a loss?

The primary assumption I made is that, human beings can transfer infomation without loss. This turns out to be the major discussion topic. Is lossless information transfer is even possible? There seems to be opposition against this idea also.

For example, isn't this a lossless transfer to the reader;

"The sunlight seems yellow to human beings who are at this point on earth when earth is positioned like this with respect to sun"

By the way, by information, I don't mean the representation of it but the information itself. (i.e. Digitizing, wording or syntax for short does not matter)

If lossless transfer wasn't possible, it looks like we couldn't advance (at least) technology at all (like the gorilla example) Or there may be countermeasures to this loss too. (Like various people attacking one problem over and over again independently and finding a combined solution of the problem at an acceptable level)

To sum up, are the following true assertations?

- Information can be transferred within a species without loss.

- Human beings are the only species that can transfer information without loss.

- Capability to transfer information without loss is what makes human beings superior to other organisms.

p.s. For this is my first discussion post, please don't beat this too hard :)

p.p.s. Distinguished does not mean superior.

I recently read (in Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale) about the Alu sequence, and went on to read about transposons generally.  Having as I do a rather broad definition of life, I concluded that Alu (and others like it) are lifeforms in their own right, although parasitic ones.  I found the potential ethical implications somewhat staggering, especially given the need to shut up and multiply those implications by the rather large number of transposon instances in a typical multicellular organism.

I have written out my thoughts on the subject, at http://jttlov.no-ip.org/writings/alulife.htm.  I don't claim to have a well-worked out position, just a series of ideas and questions I feel to be worthy of discussion.

ETA: I have started editing the article based on the discussion below.  For reference with the existing discussion, I have preserved a copy of the original article as well, linked from the current version.

A recent post about the Fermi paradox left me wondering about relative difficulties of getting into space, though I don't think it affects those specific arguments.

People establishing a presence in space is difficult but at least plausible-- I'm talking about biological people as we are now, and being able to live and reproduce indefinitely without returning to Earth.

It would be easier if we were less massive, or our planet was less massive, or if we were more radiation resistant. It would be harder if these qualities were reversed, or if we needed a much denser atmosphere.There might come a point where it just isn't feasible for a species to get itself off its planet.

Is there any reasonable speculation about where we are likely to be on the ease-of-getting-into-space spectrum?

This looks like an interesting, but a bit strange, old story. A bit similar to parts of an earlier posted essay by Gromov. However that may be, the Princeton IAS invited the author and so I'd like to know about how his concepts are intended to become implemented and applied: http://vbm-ehr.pagesperso-orange.fr/ChEh/articles/Baas%20paper.pdf