Herewith, the things I read today that made me go "hmm."
Well, gosh. How can I say no? It pretty much always seems like a good idea to fear killer robots.
The piece is an interview with Peter Singer, the author of a new book on military technology called Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. Apparently we should indeed fear the killer robots, or at least be wary of them.
But outright terror seems like an appropriate response to me.
Health Populi reports increased consumer spending on wine and vitamins. The piece suggests that this is a good thing, because it means people are concerned with their health (red wine has that resveratrol, after all).
This may be so, but I have to wonder, are people buying wine because it's healthy, or because they need some comfort in these trying times? Perhaps we should ask if people are buying good wine.
On reflection, I guess if people were just looking to get drunk, cheap vodka is more economical, so yeah, I'll go with the positive spin.
And Genetics and Health points out a company called MyRedHairGene that (for a mere $119, or $214 for two) promises to test your DNA for genes associated with red hair. There are apparently several variations on a gene called MC1R that will do: a handy piece of trivia for whenever this comes up in conversation.
This is all well and good, but I already know I have a gene variation associated with red hair, so what I'm really interested in is ensuring that this gene triumphs over any other, lesser genes that might try to interfere with my hypothetical offspring's head.
Can you make my gene invincible, MyRedHairGene? 'Cause that would get my attention.
Failing that, can you somehow make sure that my offspring's other parent, should he also be a carrier, passes on the proper MC1R variant and not some other shade? Do you offer a way to select for hair color?
Yes, it's true: I'm making light of genetic testing of embryos. For the record, I do not support embryo selection based on MC1R genes, should you ever happen to be in the position of choosing from among several embryos. (Although, all else being equal, if you have to base the decision on something...)
I did learn some interesting tidbits from the MyRedHairGene site, which offers a user-friendly primer on hair color genetics. I'm not taking it very seriously, but I'm curious what sort of response it will get (or has gotten; it's not clear from the site how long it's been in operation).
It claims to have been founded in response to "steady requests" from people wanting to find out if they or their children are carriers, so perhaps there's a real market for this.
Well, I'm all for information! Especially about something as important as red hair. So red on, brave company!
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