Blog 10 Malaria Cure Advancement

A strain of baker’s yeast capable of producing malaria drugs on an industrial scale has been successfully engineered by the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi. The company has already begun cooking up the microbes and plans to generate 70 million doses this of the drug this year.  Malaria is a disease that sickens millions of people each year, killing at least 650,000 people a year, mostly children. This has become strain that was created has become the first synthetic biology project that has been scaled up to industrial manufacturing. While there has been a previous yeast created that is capable of producing the artemisinic acid needed to make the drug but the yield has been dramatically improved from 1.6 grams per liter to 25 grams per liter. This improvement came from the discovery of three key enzymes in the sweet wormwood, which naturally produces artemisinin, being introduced to the yeast.  Because the drug is primarily plant derived its cost can vary between $350 to 41200 per kilogram of the active ingredient because the botanical supply is inconsistent. The synthetic process can run year round and takes 3 months vs. 15 months for the plant-based methods. Sanofi aims to produce 60 tons of the material next year which is equal to 120 million courses of treatment and have pledged to sell it non-profit.

Being able to mass produce a cure for malaria will greatly improve the overall health and death rate in the areas that are affected by the deadly disease. The cure will cost less because of a greater supply and people will be able to live their lives knowing that if they are to get the infected with malaria that death is no longer the most common option. With the advances in technology, hopefully we will see an eradication of malaria.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/513441/microbes-can-mass-produce-malaria-drug/#comments

                

Blog 8 Smart Bracelet

In response to the kidnapping and murder of Chechen rights worker, Natalia Estemirova in 2009 and after a few years of work, an all-new smart bracelet has been invented to enhance the safety of rights workers in foreign countries. Built with cell phone technology, the bracelet is designed to be triggered either manually by the wearer, or automatically if removed forcefully.  Warnings are sent out through twitter and Facebook with the information of the owner and where they were at when they were attacked. It also sends out a signal to other nearby workers so that they are able to take immediate action to help the person in danger. Civil Rights Defenders are pushing for people to sign up as monitors of the bracelets of individual rights workers through social media, in hopes that global involvement will help in deterring attacks on aid workers. 55 of these new high techy bracelets will be distributed by the end of 2014.

I believe that these bracelets will be of good use and may become very popular over the next decade or so. There are millions, if not billions, of people who get on Facebook or Twitter regularly, so sending out a broadcast of a person’s last whereabouts before their abductions should deter a crook from committing such act. Also, there are probably thousands of people who would like to be aid workers in other, less safe, countries, but won’t do it in fear for their lives. The new smart bracelets will give them a better sense of security and may inspire more people to enter this field of work.

 

Terry Johnson

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22038012

Blog 7 - China's Genetic Research

        Scientists at BGI Shenzen in China are performing genetic research in attempt to make more intelligent offspring. They have collected DNA samples from the 2000 of the world's smartest people and are using it to identify the alleles that determine human intelligence. Whenever they are able to figure this out, it will be possible for each generations to potentially I.Q. to increase from 5 to 15 points. This does not mean that they are creating or adding new genes. They use the mothers eggs and the fathers sperm and test multiple embryos to determine which one will be the smartest once it grows into a human being. The child produced would the same as if the couple produced it naturally. The researchers are mostly interested in people of Chinese and European descent. They recruit people to participate in the project through word of mouth. A few of the items required that were mentioned in the article were your complete CV, publications you've produced, standardized-test scores, and where you went to college. Apparently we have the technology to do the same in the western world, but it is against many peoples values, who bring up the idea that it would interfere with the work of God. It is a culture difference that puts us behind the Chinese on this topic.
I do not agree with BGI Shenzen's research.  It will make for a world that is too competitive and once people become too smart we wont have anyone willing to do the physical labor such as farming. Another issue with this is that it will contribute to the rich staying rich and the poor staying poor because, even though this is not stated in the article, I know that it has to cost a lot of money for a couple to have this type of research done for them. Only the rich will be able to afford this, therefor there children will grow up to be smarter then the people who cant afford this and will be able to compete a lot more efficeintly for better jobs.


http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a-massive-genetic-engineering-program

Mobile Revolution Buffets Taiwan PC Rivals

         According to a recent article done on two computer making companies in Taiwan, Acer and Asustek, PC sales have declined greatly witht the introduction of smartphones and tablets. The PC makers such as Acer, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard made most of thier income by focusing on markettig and cutting costs by using the same designs and softwares in thier PC's not giving the consumer much variety to choose from. With smartphones and tablets now comming into the market consumers are now looking for something better than just another notebook at a cheaper price. They are interested in traits such as mobility, the look and feel of the decive and what content it will allow them to have access to, because of this Acer has fallin behind in the industry and in profits because they were using most of thier income focusing on marketing and distribution while outsourcing design and production. On the other hand, Asustek's chairman, Jonney Shih has already prepared his company for the mobile revolution that he forseen as far back as 10 years ago. With the decreasing size in computer chips and computer architecture he figured that sooner or later the "phone computer" would come into existence. Using his knowledge of this he, pushed his company in a different direction than his opposition, Acer, by encouraging employees to be creative and build products that will enchance the consumers experience with the product. Although Asustek's idea of trying new things and seeing how it will work in the market doens't always go well the found some success with the Eee Pad MeMO 370T. This model of a tablet caught the attention of Google who decided to buy it and later released it under the google brand named the Nexus 7. The success that Asustek has seen with this partnership with google in the tablet market has inspired their rival Acer to act accordingly. Acer released the Aspire S7 which became the first in-house designed product from them in over 10 years.
       
  This is a great example of competiton in the free market economy. With companies competing against one another for consumer support it will drive them to constantly come up with better products and will keep the price somewhat reasonable. Competition in the technology market compells providers to be persistant in advancing thier products because consumers all always looking for the latest, fastest, and sleekest technology that the can get thier hands on.



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/technology/mobile-revolution-buffets-taiwan-pc-rivals.html?pagewanted=all

Technology

I am choosing to focus my current events on technology because it is interesting to me how technologically advanced our country and many others have became and are becoming. In this day and time we rely heavily on technology. It will be interesting to learn how people in other counrties around the world use technology in thier everyday lifes.