Unbelievable

Over the past week, I’ve watched the 8-part Netflix series, Unbelievable. It’s a truly harrowing account of a serial rapist, and how one of his victims was not only disbelieved, but pressured by the police to recant her story — something to keep in mind when people try to argue that women lie and make false accusations. After seeing it, I learned that it’s based on a true story, and is remarkably faithful to that account, and has been validated by the victim, Marie. If you read that, you can skip the show, and you’ll just miss some excellent performances.

There is one thing in the written account that I didn’t see in the series.

Marie left the state, got a commercial driver’s license and took a job as a long-haul trucker. She married, and in October she and her husband had their second child. She asked that her current location not be disclosed.

Good. If you read her story or watch the series, though, I warn you: the happy ending does not salvage the horrible process.

Now I’m making housecalls

I got a call from campus Medical Services today — they’ve been invaded by spiders lately, and were wondering if they should be concerned. So I scurried over, because I’m wondering what exciting kind of spider they’ve found…although also I predicted exactly what it would be, and I was right.

They had a squashed specimen, and it was Agelenopsis, a grass spider, just like the one captured here in the science building the other day. I told them they were perfectly safe, these aren’t going to bite anyone, and they aren’t at all venomous to humans, but I guess they need to keep on smacking them, since they are a medical clinic and it wouldn’t do to have spiders everywhere. The problem is that this time of year the males are horny, and they’re wandering everywhere looking for mates. Also, they had an exterminator come by yesterday and spray all the vegetation outside, so all the nearby females are probably dead and they’re getting desperate.

I also checked out ceilings and corners, and I’m sorry to say our medical services office is stunningly pristine, with no cobwebs anywhere. Darn.

There’s a reason they call software ‘viruses’

Also acutely relevant to the problem I just described is this article by Bruce Schneier, who explains how the problems of computer and software security are very similar to those in biological engineering.

Programmers write software through trial and error. Because computer systems are so complex and there is no real theory of software, programmers repeatedly test the code they write until it works properly. This makes sense, because both the cost of getting it wrong and the ease of trying again is so low. There are even jokes about this: a programmer would diagnose a car crash by putting another car in the same situation and seeing if it happens again.

Even finished code still has problems. Again due to the complexity of modern software systems, “works properly” doesn’t mean that it’s perfectly correct. Modern software is full of bugs — thousands of software flaws — that occasionally affect performance or security. That’s why any piece of software you use is regularly updated; the developers are still fixing bugs, even after the software is released.

Bioengineering will be largely the same: writing biological code will have these same reliability properties. Unfortunately, the software solution of making lots of mistakes and fixing them as you go doesn’t work in biology.

In nature, a similar type of trial and error is handled by “the survival of the fittest” and occurs slowly over many generations. But human-generated code from scratch doesn’t have that kind of correction mechanism. Inadvertent or intentional release of these newly coded “programs” may result in pathogens of expanded host range (just think swine flu) or organisms that wreck delicate ecological balances.

We can’t release “gene patches” to correct errors introduced when tinkering with genomes! I can imagine that someday being an issue — by analogy, going in for dialysis is kind of like a routine software management problem. But no one likes having to do dialysis, it’s a symptom of an underlying problem that is just being patched superficially, not fixed, and modifying genomes can introduce new concerns. I wonder how often software updates create new problems that weren’t present in previous versions? 100%?

I don’t think we think enough about the potential for disaster in genetic engineering, because we are enthusiastic about the potential for great good. We need a balance. It would be helpful for those most optimistic about gene modification to have more consideration for the dangers by, for instance, talking to software security experts.

Opportunities for mischief and malfeasance often occur when expertise is siloed, fields intersect only at the margins, and when the gathered knowledge of small, expert groups doesn’t make its way into the larger body of practitioners who have important contributions to make.

Good starts have been made by biologists, security agencies, and governance experts. But these efforts have tended to be siloed, in either the biological and digital spheres of influence, classified and solely within the military, or exchanged only among a very small set of investigators.

What we need is more opportunities for integration between the two disciplines. We need to share information and experiences, classified and unclassified. We have tools among our digital and biological communities to identify and mitigate biological risks, and those to write and deploy secure computer systems.

I’m optimistic about the future of genetic engineering, but I still cringe when I see some ‘bio-hacker’ inject themselves with some home-brewed cocktail of gene fragments that they think will improve their genome, but is more likely to do nothing or make them sick. I get the same feeling when I see someone stick a flash drive into the USB port of some random public terminal. I hope they’re going to practice good data hygiene and quarantine that widget before they put it in their work computer! (They probably won’t.)

Life, could you stop finding a way already?

It was a cunning plan. All these mosquitos are carrying terrible diseases like dengue fever and Zika, so what if we fired back and gave the mosquitos terrible genetic diseases that decimated their populations? That would serve them right and also reduce their affliction of human populations.

Scientists made it so. They genetically modified swarms of mosquitos to carry a lethal gene, called the OX513A strain, and released them into the Brazilian wilderness to breed with, and taint the precious germ plasm of the native mosquitos.

In an attempt to control the mosquito-borne diseases yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika fevers, a strain of transgenically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes containing a dominant lethal gene has been developed by a commercial company, Oxitec Ltd. If lethality is complete, releasing this strain should only reduce population size and not affect the genetics of the target populations. Approximately 450 thousand males of this strain were released each week for 27 months in Jacobina, Bahia, Brazil.

Wow. That’s almost 50 million genetically diseased male mosquitos. I hope the scientists said, “Fly, my pretties!” when they dispatched them on their devious mission.

It worked for a while. Mosquito numbers dropped. But then…

Genetic sampling from the target population six, 12, and 27–30 months after releases commenced provides clear evidence that portions of the transgenic strain genome have been incorporated into the target population. Evidently, rare viable hybrid offspring between the release strain and the Jacobina population are sufficiently robust to be able to reproduce in nature.

Uh-oh. Is anyone surprised?

Our data clearly show that release of the OX513A has led to significant transfer of its genome (introgression) into the natural Jacobina population of Ae. aegypti. The degree of introgression is not trivial. Depending on sample and criterion used to define unambiguous introgression, from about 10% to 60% of all individuals have some OX513A genome

They don’t know what effects these other genes will have on the mosquitos.

It is not known what impacts introgression from a transgenic strain of Ae. aegypti has on traits of importance to disease control and transmission. We tested OX513A and Jacobina before releases for infection rates by one strain each of the dengue and Zika viruses and found no significant differences. However, this is for just one strain of each virus under laboratory conditions; under field conditions for other viruses the effects may be different. Also, introgression may introduce other relevant genes such as for insecticide resistance. The release strain, OX513A, was derived from a laboratory strain originally from Cuba, then outcrossed to a Mexican population. The three populations forming the tri-hybrid population now in Jacobina (Cuba/Mexico/Brazil) are genetically quite distinct, very likely resulting in a more robust population than the pre-release population due to hybrid vigor.

Before their experiment, there was one known population of Ae. aegypti around Jacobina, and they understood the genetic properties of those animals and could predict the salutary effect of introducing their lethal gene there. Unfortunately for their clever plan, the mosquito vector used to introduce that gene also had all those other mosquito genes, which have also been introduced into the region, and now they have become three genetically distinct mosquito populations, and their response to the ‘lethal’ gene has become complex and unpredictable. Yikes. Unintended consequences are entirely predictable, not in detail, of course, but the general chaos is.

You know what else is predictable? This.

Oxitec, the company responsible for developing the GM mosquito strain discussed in this article, has contacted New Atlas claiming that the report cited in this article contains “false, speculative and unsubstantiated claims and statements about Oxitec’s mosquito technology.” Oxitec says it is currently working with the journal publishers, Nature Research, to remove or update the article, which now carries a disclaimer.

Clearly, it is the scientists who exposed this problem, not the corporation that released transgenic mosquitos, that have Meddled with the Primal Forces of Nature.

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal — that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immune, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone!

Let’s be clear here. The scientists behind OX513A haven’t created a monster, the humans of Jacobina don’t have to flee for their lives, they haven’t done something that creates immediate medical issues. No, what they’ve done is increased the genetic diversity of the mosquito population and made the problem of controlling them more complex for future management.

Benjamin R. Evans, Panayiota Kotsakiozi, Andre Luis Costa-da-Silva, Rafaella Sayuri Ioshino, Luiza Garziera, Michele C. Pedrosa, Aldo Malavasi, Jair F. Virginio, Margareth L. Capurro & Jeffrey R. Powell (2019) Scientific Reportsvolume 9, Article number: 13047.

I am disappointed in Marv

Marv hadn’t heard of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire until now.

There is something deeply wrong with American education when one of the most important labor tragedies in our history isn’t taught any more. Should we also let him know about the Haymarket riot, the Colorado labor wars, the Imperial Valley lettuce strike? That it was routine to call out the national guard to beat workers into submission? I suppose we’re going to have to roll back the tape to Peterloo, or earlier.

Do listen to the video, though. Elizabeth Warren does explain it all…and also explains how corporate interests have spent a lot of money to bury their shameful history. That’s one thing the bad guys have always had, more money than the people they’re exploiting.

But that’s all in the past, right? It’s not as if millionaires and billionaires are buying our government today, right?

To influence the court’s composition, Whitehouse said, a combined $34 million in “dark money” went toward both blocking President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland and confirming President Donald Trump’s two Supreme Court picks, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

In a follow-up to the legal brief, Whitehouse in a Sept. 6 Washington Post op-ed described the money as follows:

“One unnamed donor gave $17 million to the (Leonard) Leo-affiliated Judicial Crisis Network to block the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland and to support Gorsuch; then a donor — perhaps the same one — gave another $17 million to prop up Kavanaugh.”

It sure would be nice to elect a president and congress who opposed corruption, rather than welcoming it, as Moscow Mitch and Trump have done.

The Gideons are on campus again

I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, it’s heartwarming to see all the students spurning the offer of a testament. They’re very polite about it — this is Minnesota, after all — but watching the students wave them away or say “No, thank you” is pleasant.

On the other hand, I walked past three small groups of Gideons this morning, and they glance at me and look away, and never offer. How can they tell? Is it the lines of debauchery and degeneracy on my face that scream “Godless!” when they look at me? Do they really have a hot-line to God, who whispers to them “Never mind” when I walk by? Do I have Resting Atheist Face?

I hear that can be corrected with surgery now. I just need a blissed-out, dull-witted look stitched onto my face, I guess.

First, furry Nazis, then we conquer the world!

Milo Yiannopoulos is really getting desperate. He’s looking for an audience, any audience, that will pay attention to him, and he has battened on a peculiar one: right wing furries. What I’ve known of the furry community is that they’re extraordinarily tolerant — these are people who belong to a ridiculed minority, and their reaction has been openness and acceptance. Apparently, there is an even tiny minority of alt-right people within this small minority of fans of furry culture, and Milo wants to make himself king of this tiny sliver.

He announced that he would be attending a furry con.

Yiannopoulos posted an email screenshot to one of the few platforms he has left—his Telegram messaging channel—on Saturday and claimed he registered for Midwest FurFest, a convention “to celebrate the furry fandom” hosted in the suburbs on Chicago this December. “Furries,” as they’re often called, are groups of people who have interest in animal personas with human characteristics; people who participate in the subculture often present themselves as non-human characters via art and costumes.

Yiannopoulos also claimed on Telegram that he had submitted a form to suggest he host a panel called “The Politics of Fur.” He asked his followers who plan to attend Midwest FurFest to message him to arrange “dinner, drinks, photos or anything else.”

I suppose it’s possible that he’s long yearned to be a snow leopard, but more likely he just wants to take advantage of a few people — that’s always been his modus operandi as a professional scammer. Unfortunately for him, conference organizers saw right through him and rejected his application. I don’t think there are many niches left where everyone doesn’t know exactly what kind of hateful slimeball he is.

He has now announced that he is going anyway, despite not being registered. I don’t know what he’s planning to do…get drunk in the bar and dance around in the lobby, mocking the attendees? That is his art, after all. I don’t think it will win him a beachhead in the furry community.

He does have an impressive ego. It must make it hard to cope with his irrelevance.

rms resigns

For such a notoriously self-proclaimed rational guy, Richard Stallman doesn’t know how to write a proper resignation letter. His makes no sense.

A renowned MIT computer scientist resigned Monday amid outrage over his remarks describing a victim of financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein as seeming “entirely willing” and posts to his personal blog advocating for the legalization of pedophilia and child pornography.

In a post on his personal site, Richard Stallman, a visiting scientist at MIT and well known open source software developer, was unapologetic: “To the MIT community, I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at MIT. I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations.”

Every critic of Stallman misunderstood and mischaracterized him. He’s the victim here, according to rms.

OK, let’s grant him that. Let’s assume everyone got everything all wrong, and is falsely abusing the poor man. Then why resign? Does he think the stories and quotes (errm, “misquotes”, I guess) will end? Does his resignation resolve anything? If he were being harassed to the point that he could no longer do his work, that would be one thing; but he doesn’t say that. He’s getting some vague “pressure” due to “misunderstandings and mischaracterizations”.

Here’s what I think is going on. He’s dug himself into a deep hole with his record of saying stupid things, and he doesn’t see a way out, because ultimately he still thinks he was totally right about everything, and trying to defend himself would involve making more stupid statements. There aren’t any misunderstandings, we all understand perfectly well what he was saying, we just think he’s wrong. And he’s sort of aware that trying to change our mind about that would require reaffirming many of his previous stances, yet he’s a smart guy who knows the wind is blowing in a new direction, so he’s just going to get more dissent.

He’s dug this hole, so now he’s going to just sit in it and tell everyone they’re poopyheads who don’t understand him. That’s fine. Go right ahead. I think rms has found the right position for himself at last.

In case you’re wondering what repulsive things he said that warranted the scorn levied at him, here’s a recap.

Last week, Motherboard published the full email thread in which Stallman wrote that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims in his campaign of trafficking were “entirely willing.” Stallman also argued about the definition of “rape” and whether the term applies to the victims.

When someone else in the email thread pointed out that victim Virginia Giuffre, who was 17 when she was forced to have sex with AI pioneer Marvin Minsky, Stallman said “it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”

Never, ever be that guy who nitpicks about whether rape might be acceptable depending on how many birthdays a woman has had.

The grass spiders are invading the science building now

At last, I’m useful! I was called to a colleague’s office because a big ol’ spider was squatting on their papers, staring at them, so I was summoned to capture the beast. I wasn’t too useful, though, since it fled under the desk and we couldn’t find it again. But later a brave student, Sophie, encountered it and scooped it up, and here it is. It’s Agelenopsis, a grass spider, perfectly harmless, but good sized for its species.

I will remind everyone that we’re hiring an ecologist, and one of the bonuses of working here is that I’ll be at your beck and call to handle any office spiders. Or if I fail, we have many bold strong students who are not at all intimidated by monstrous creatures.

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