GM hens help build 'frozen aviary' in Edinburgh

Genetically-modified hens that can lay eggs from different poultry breeds are helping scientists set up a "frozen aviary" to conserve rare birds.

The aviary acts like a seed bank for poultry, storing primordial stem cells that produce eggs destined to hatch male or female offspring.

The Edinburgh University team have collected more than 500 samples from 25 different breeds.

The cells are held in a freezer at -150C and will be viable for decades.

The researchers at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute want to preserve rare poultry breeds that may be resistant to infections such as bird flu or have desirable traits such as high meat quality.

The first step was to create the GM hens capable of laying eggs from multiple different rare breeds, which include the colourfully-named "rumpless game", "Scots dumpy", "Sicilian buttercup", and "Old English pheasant fowl".-read more

british ss during world war two

G Rim collection of death masks of Victorian crooks - including a notorious serial killer - found in shed

M acabre collection of death masks of Victorian crooks is up for sale.

The grim hoarde was discovered in an outbuilding of a rural home during a routine valuation by a shocked auctioneer .

Two of the dead heads have been identified as Benjamin Courvoisier, a London serial killer 50 years before Jack the Ripper , and coachman Daniel Good, who mutilated his pregnant mistress.

And one of them was even once covered in lipstick and rouge as the owner’s young daughter had unwittingly decided to practice doing her make-up on a dead convicted criminal.

In total, nine heads were discovered in the shed of a property near Penrith, Cumbria. They have now sold for almost £40,000 at auction.-READ MORE

what to do for a stroke

EU Parliament Committee Votes To Give Robots Rights (And A Kill Switch)

Foreseeing a rapidly approaching age of autonomous artificial intelligence, a European Parliament committee has voted to legally bestow electronic personhood to robots. The status includes a detailed list of rights, responsibilities, regulations, and a “kill switch.”The committee voted by 17 votes to two, with two abstentions, to approve a draft report written by Luxembourg MEP Mady Delvaux, who believes “robots, bots, androids and other manifestations of artificial intelligence” will spawn a new industrial revolution. She wants to establish a European Agency to develop rules for how to govern AI behavior. Specifically, Delvaux writes about how increased levels of autonomy in robot entities will make usual manufacturing liability laws insufficient. It will become necessary, the report states, to be able to hold robots and their manufacturers legally responsible for their acts.

Sounding at times like a governmental whisper of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, the report states, “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”

The rules will also affect AI developers, who, according to the report, will have to engineer robots in such a way that they can be controlled. This includes a “kill switch,” a mechanism by which rogue robots can be terminated or shut down -read more

world war two vampire squadron

Stump of tree that Braveheart William Wallace was tied to found at Lidl branch

A tree that Scotland’s Braveheart freedom fighter William Wallace is said to have been chained to by English soldiers has been found behind a Lidl store.

For nearly a year, experts have been examining two chunks of oak in order to find out if they really came from the same tree named in a local legend.

The chunks were found at the site of the former Gourock Ropeworks, Inverclyde, and from a tree thought to have stood in the grounds of the Holy Family Church.

According to local legend, Wallace was chained to the tree in 1305 after his capture by the English before being transferred to London, where he was hanged, drawn and quartered.

The segments of tree were examined by tree specialist Dr Coralie Mills - one of just three -read more