Gattaca style genetic testing is based on the 1997 film Gattaca, where prenatal genetic testing is done on nearly everybody to determine their genetic traits, future health conditions, heart strength and numerous other factors that follow the child throughout their life and directly affect their employment options.
Today, although that level of detail is not yet achieved, there are still plenty of prenatal, before birth, and other forms of genetic testing that can identify future health disorders, birth defects and other health related characteristics. One of which is Carrier Screening. This is a gene test that is done on couples who are planning on having children and can help to identify health conditions such as cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, Canavan, and sickle cell anemia that could be passed from the parents to their children. Although these tests are not foolproof, the test results can give a false sense of security, or a false positive that could lead to problems for the child in the future such as employment and insurance options. Furthermore, there is a large controversy on whether children who are given a high risk of contracting some of these diseases should be aborted or kept, and this has lead to issues between couples, civil rights activists and families alike. Finding out that your child could have a 70% risk of a life threatening or a lifespan of medical issues can be a very difficult ethical decision to make for the parents who would have to care for the child. Another form of genetic screening that is much more prevalent in testing for specific disorders is Job specific screening. One of the entrepreneurs of this form of screening is NASA when testing possible astronaut candidates for their viability in space travel. More specifically, NASA noticed that certain astronauts were more affected with two enzyme deficiencies lead to vision issues that only manifest themselves during low gravity space travel, and now deny those affected by these entry to space. A more general, yet still common reason to be tested is for jobs that could possibly lead to medical issues for their employees who are exposed to chemicals and toxins that the average Joe would not otherwise ever come into contact with. These tests not only span genetic testing, but also can include psychological tests and urine samples that help employers to filter out applicants that would otherwise be a perfect fit for the position. Understandably, employers use these tests to reduce the risks of an employee’s susceptibility to many of the toxic and carcinogenic effects of the workplace. These currently are found in more than fifty different genetic disorders that can only be found through expensive and thorough gene testing prior to the applicants hire. An example of these hazards would be people with the sickle cell trait that are at increased risk of sickle cell anemia if exposed to excess carbon monoxide or cyanide, or those with the thalassemia gene are extremely prone to health issues if exposed to lead or benzine. SOURCE SOURCE
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2/24/2017 1 Comment The very real fake newsStill surrounding a very hot topic that has been circulating for a while now is the advent of fake news. This topic resides upon that people are spreading fake news articles or blaming and shaming journalists for not telling the story as it really is. There has been very much heated debate regarding this fake news coming from many credible and not so credible news sources such as FOX, CNN, NYTs and the like, and even getting many an outrage on twitter from the President himself Donald Trump.
Fake news itself is only the output of a fear and how technology has given the people the ability to spread it as easy on many social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and even other non social sites such as Reddit. This article explains some very concerning technology coming out of universities as we speak. What makes this technology so scary, since it is not directly targeted towards helping to create fake news, but it allows one to be able to manipulate in real time the facial expressions of a video stream by simple use of a computer and a webcam. In the article they give a very good demonstration video of how they were able to record over a live youtube video of Donald Trump and Putin while overlaying their own facial expressions on the side. This in of itself is scary in that it means people can fake facial expressions and upload them as the real thing, with close to minimal effort. Furthermore, it becomes even scarier when they mention that along with this new technology, they have been able to simply upload a ten to twenty minute audio clip of said people and be able to create life like, non-robotic voice lines from it. This in conjunction with the video streaming overlay, can mean that simply with an old video clip of anyone, you can not only fake their voice, expressions and then send it off as fake news. This causes a large level of concern for me in that there will definitely be people who use this for their own agenda, yet at the same time we cannot disallow this kind of technology development as it would be intellectual censorship. The future is coming very quickly. Most may have seen the popular sci-fi movie Gattaca, which depicts a time in the not so distant future where health agencies can view and accurately perceive a new born's or any person's genetic background. The plot of this film led to many of insurance and health discrimination just due to probable issues that were detected in the genome.
That time is coming and as modern technology gets better to guess and find relationships between certain genes and illnesses or disabilities later in life, people may start to experience the same effects that those did in the film Gattaca. In fact, since these advancements have been coming much sooner than anticipated, yet not just at the times were flying cars and casual space travel is the norm as in Gattaca, many human rights groups have been fighting and even passing laws to protect the citizen's right to their own genetic privacy and discrimination, article. In fact, as mentioned in the article an organization called UNESCO or better known as Universal Declaration of Human Genome and Human Rights, passed a law that states 'No one shall be subjected to discrimination based on genetic characteristics that is intended to infringe or has the effect of infringing on human rights.' This is a very important statement as it does not out right ban genetic study or examination of a person's genome, it only states that what findings have been found cannot be used to damage your basic human rights. This is a good thing I feel as it does not infringe on the advancement of the study of the human genome, yet it allows those who are studied and those others to reap the benefits of it. In fact, I am experiencing the exact same genome study now at Stanford Medical Center. Here I was offered to participate in a research study that attempts to match any common genome in my DNA and match it with others around the county who are suffering from the same condition and might share the same DNA sequences. I feel that this is an exceptional study that not only touches on the future of Gattaca, but also is being done for the greater good. That is, as long as it is only to be used for the greater good. As of this time, any samples that they take from me are all anonymous, I am simply a number associated with a blood sample and an illness, but once they find a connection between a common gene mistype and the illness then what may come of that I we will not know until them. This I feel is the scary portion of this new advanced medical research technology, that even though now it may seem that they are working for the greater good, which I have no doubt they are, what happens next during these discoveries are yet to be determined. I can see how insurance companies might take the film Gattaca as a guideline rather than a warning, and could be using this data to discriminate against certain people in the future simply because they pose a more possible threat to their company in the form of health bills. 2/8/2017 1 Comment Twitter, TRump, and CensorshipThere has been a lot of talk recently about the Trump Administration and their censorship of their agencies. This has caused an outcry regarding those same agencies creating 'alt accounts' on twitter to speak out about everything they otherwise could not. article
There is a lot going on here, and I think the main concern here is not only the climate change denial by the government, but the the censorship applied to these agencies that prevents them from speaking out on the climate change issues. What makes this such a prevalent and well known topic is that it is on twitter. Twitter being an easily accessible and global platform allows for this to be seen by quite literally everyone in the world. The ethics perspective behind this current issue is also something to be looked at. Since this is mainly focused on President Trump's perspective on negating any views that go against his own, there is an argument to be made weather he is in his right to deny these agencies their right to communicate with the public without his permission. I am sure that President Trump thinks that he is securing the nation's defenses by not allowing 'hate speech' regarding the climate change topic, but at the same time I feel that he is very wrong. Because he started the so-called fight, it has started an internal fight with the agencies and those who support them to help them speak out. I think that this itself is causing more trouble than what was initially apparent. In fact, anything regarding climate change prior to this was considered peaceful and scientific. Continuing, there is an ethical issue to point out regarding President Trump withholding information from the public that directly affects their lives. Climate change information is a necessary fact that many people use to make decisions in their lives such as what car to buy, putting solar panels on their house, etc. Besides the censorship issues that are obviously prevalent in this topic, there is a whole other side where the agencies are technically having their identity stolen. Having a twitter account these days is almost synonymous to having an online index of your quotes, what you say and when you say it. When an alt account pops up and mimics that identity, many people will take what they say word for word and directly associate it with the main accounts. Although the alt accounts may feel that they are doing a necessary good, they may be causing just as much harm as they are good. 2/2/2017 2 Comments Skypes, Skittles, and GoogleA recent article posted to our class iLearn page regarding internet trolls using aliases for their online hate slang caught my eye www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/10/03/internet-trolls-replace-racist-slurs-with-online-codewords-to-av/. I find this both interesting and hilarious. Firstly, I can call this hilarious because I do browse this website mentioned 4chan on occasion, and really only when my usual entertainment on Reddit is getting old, and I was there witnessing this thread about creating aliases emerge. I am not saying or admitting to have participating in the trolling, as I do not particularly like to do that sort of thing, I mostly find my entertainment in watching it all unfold. On another note, I do find that this level of ingenuity to be very interesting, as these internet trolls decided not only to use other words to represent their inappropriate slang, but they chose to use names of popular companies such as Skype and Google. Names that represent the very companies trying to fight against these internet trolls. What this tells me and I think that most would agree, is that no one can defeat internet trolls, or trolls in general. There will always be a way for people to get around and find loopholes in the system per se, so that they can still do what they want and not be caught.
1/25/2017 2 Comments Bridges and QuizesFor my first ever blog post, I will be speaking my mind regarding the topics of the good in bridges and also about an article I have read about unethical programming.
An interesting question was asked by our professor "Name something that is intrinsically good", in other words, what by nature is just plain good? After thinking extensively about the topic, and going through many ideas ranging from cats to crayolas, I ended up deciding that bridges are, in my eyes, intrinsically good. I say this because no bridge is built without a purpose, or without adding some sort of utility to the area. A bridge does exactly what it was meant to do, to close the gap across a previously difficult ravine or crossing. This in of itself can only add good to its surroundings. Bridges also come in all shapes and sizes, from freeway overpasses allowing two roads to glide by each other without much of a hiccup, to a handicap ramp allowing those who would otherwise unable to cross the difficult terrain we call stairs. The existence of bridges is intrinsically good, and to its polar opposite the term "burning the bridge" is meant to be used to signify a bad event that caused two previously united beings from being connected. Lastly, in a more literal sense, burning actual bridges that cross rivers, ravines, and other dangerous alleys is literally done to disconnect one area from others. Another very interesting topic, not so related to bridges, is a theoretical last line of defense. An article that I was given to read by our professor speaks about a programmer and his story about a time he was told to make an ad, disguised as a website targeting teenagers. At first it may not seem that bad, and to me while reading it didn't either. There are plenty of websites that seemingly only exist to promote a single product or family of products. Cereal boxes are some of the most known for this, telling kids to visit their site to play games surrounding the idea of Captain Crunch or Fruity Loops. These in of themselves do not seem bad, and actually offer some sort of utility to the children visiting them, they get to play games, albeit usually poorly designed. In the case of the programmer asked to make a similar website, the product in the spotlight was a drug that the company held stakes for. Furthermore, the website contained a quiz that was meant to help 'diagnose' the user and recommend a drug for them. This although seems fine and dandy, but the quiz requirements, no matter what the user answered the questions with, were to recommend the same drug every time, all the time. This I feel is wrong, especially since the website posed itself as an info site, with a hidden agenda. Finally, what I think is proof that this site worked extremely well, and for the wrong reasons is that the programmer was later informed that there was in fact a girl who had fallen for the site and the quiz, taken the drug and ended up passing away not too long after. Ref: Article /t |
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