{"id":74153,"date":"2017-12-04T17:22:35","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T01:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/us-military-agency-invests-100m-in-genetic-extinction-technologies"},"modified":"2017-12-07T10:00:28","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T18:00:28","slug":"us-military-agency-invests-100m-in-genetic-extinction-technologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/us-military-agency-invests-100m-in-genetic-extinction-technologies","title":{"rendered":"US military agency invests $100m in genetic extinction technologies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/us-military-agency-invests-100m-in-genetic-extinction-technologies.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2018UN diplomats confirmed that the new email release would worsen the \u201cbad name\u201d of gene drives in some circles. \u201cMany countries [will] have concerns when this technology comes from DARPA, a US military science agency,\u201d one said.\u2018.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Cutting-edge gene editing tools such as <a href=\"https:\/\/ghr.nlm.nih.gov\/primer\/genomicresearch\/genomeediting\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" class=\"\">Crispr-Cas9<\/a> work by using a synthetic ribonucleic acid (RNA) to cut into DNA strands and then insert, alter or remove targeted traits. These might, for example, distort the sex-ratio of mosquitoes to effectively wipe out malarial populations.<\/p>\n<p>Some UN experts, though, worry about unintended consequences. One told the Guardian: \u201cYou may be able to remove viruses or the entire mosquito population, but that may also have downstream ecological effects on species that depend on them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy main worry,\u201d he added, \u201cis that we do something irreversible to the environment, despite our good intentions, before we fully appreciate the way that this technology will work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2017\/dec\/04\/us-military-agency-invests-100m-in-genetic-extinction-technologies?CMP=share_btn_fb\">https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2017\/dec\/04\/us-military-...are_btn_fb<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018UN diplomats confirmed that the new email release would worsen the \u201cbad name\u201d of gene drives in some circles. \u201cMany countries [will] have concerns when this technology comes from DARPA, a US military science agency,\u201d one said.\u2018. Cutting-edge gene editing tools such as Crispr-Cas9 work by using a synthetic ribonucleic acid (RNA) to cut into [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,12,412,9,1901],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-existential-risks","category-genetics","category-military","category-sex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74217,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74153\/revisions\/74217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}