I have been thinking about the situation in the Middle East and also the rise of oil prices, peak oil, and the problem of a world economy based on energy scarcity rather than abundance. There is, I believe, a way to solve the problems in the Middle East, and the energy problems facing the world, at the same time. But it requires thinking “outside the box.”

Middle Eastern nations must take the lead in freeing the world from dependence on their oil. This is not only their best strategy for the future of their nations and their people, but also it is what will ultimately be best for the region and the whole world.

It is inevitable that someone is going to invent a new technology that frees the world from dependence on fossil fuels. When that happens all oil empires will suddenly collapse. Far-sighted, visionary leaders in oil-producing nations must ensure that their nations are in position to lead the coming non-fossil-fuel energy revolution. This is the wisdom of “cannibalize yourself before someone else does.”

Middle Eastern nations should invest more heavily than any other nations in inventing and supplying new alternative energy technologies. For example: hydrogen, solar, biofuels, zero point energy, magnetic power, and the many new emerging alternatives to fossil fuels. This is a huge opportunity for the Middle East not only for economic reasons, but also because it may just be the key to bringing about long-term sustainable peace in the region.

There is a finite supply of oil in the Middle East — the game will and must eventually end. Are Middle Eastern nations thinking far enough ahead about this or not? There is a tremendous opportunity for them if they can take the initiative on this front and there is an equally tremendous risk if they do not. If they do not have a major stake in whatever comes after fossil fuels, they will be left with nothing when whatever is next inevitably happens (which might be very soon).

Any Middle Eastern leader who is not thinking very seriously about this issue right now is selling their people short. I sincerely advise them to make this a major focus going forward. Not only will this help them to improve quality of life for their people now and in the future, but it is the best way to help bring about world peace. The Middle East has the potential to lead a huge and lucrative global energy Renaissance. All it takes is vision and courage to push the frontier and to think outside of the box.

If Middle Eastern nations annually invested hundreds of billions of dollars into research and development of alternative fuels and alternative energy technologies, they could definitely capture and lead the market in post-fossil-fuel energy technologies. They could provide energy itself to the global grid, as well as technologies for utilizing or generating non-fossil-fuel energy such as new kinds of engines or components, generators, batteries, fuel cells, and more.

By doing this, they could achieve two important goals: Their land would no longer be strategically important to other nations and so the foreign military presence in the region would diminish and eventually leave altogether, and secondly, they could ensure a tremendous long-term revenue stream for their nations (via patents, manufacturing, and supply of products). The Middle East could become a world center of excellence in alternative energy. This is really the future of the Middle East. They must sell abundance, not scarcity. They must lead the world in this.

Middle Eastern nations have another huge asset besides what is under the ground — it is what is above the ground — the sun and space itself. They have a lot of open space and a lot of sunlight annually. It is the perfect place to create enormous solar collection farms, and wind farms.  It would also be an ideal location to position rectennas for receiving space-based solar power (via microwave transmission). These are just the near-term opportunities. Longer-term, the Middle Eastern nations should and can develop specialized R&D labs, university programs, and major global corporations to develop, license and sell green energy, and alternative energy technologies to the rest of the world.

There are of course other very difficult political and social issues to resolve — for example the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the rise of Islamic radicalism, corruption, human rights, terrorism, etc. But I believe that the best way to make really positive progress towards resolving these problems is to focus on improving the level of education, economic prosperity and stability, self-esteem, and long-term opportunity in the region.

If the oil issue wasn’t there complicating all of the other problems in the region, it would change the game radically for everyone and might open up a range of new potential solutions that today are not even possible to consider.

My personal belief is that terrorism and war are obsolete and never solve problems. Violence begets violence and that will never lead to peace or prosperity in the Middle East. The solution is economic prosperity, education, human rights, and freedom. With regard to Israel, I believe that peaceful co-existence between Israel and other Middle-Eastern powers can and must be achieved, but that this will be
easier to achieve once the oil issue is off the table. Why? Because once the oil issue is off the table, much of the funding for terrorism will vanish. Similarly much of the foreign interest in a strong military presence in the region will also vanish. This will
significantly de-escalate and de-militarize the conflict for both sides, thus making it more likely that a peaceful, lasting solution can be found.

Ultimately, for a long-term peace in the Middle East to take place, moderates on all sides need to be driving the process. But moderates lead only when civilizations are prosperous and safe — when their people feel they have a good enough quality of life and future that they don’t want to risk losing that. A major step in this direction is to improve the economic situation for lower and middle-class citizens of Middle Eastern countries. People who have happy families, good incomes, and bright futures generally do not want to fight wars or become suicide bombers. Instead of pouring money into terrorism, counter-terrorism, military might, secret weapons, etc, money should be poured into creating and building more opportunity and prosperity for everyday citizens of the Arab world.

Fossil fuels are the real enemy of peace and prosperity worldwide: they are finite, dwindling, and controlled only by a minority as well as outside influences. This must change if peace and prosperity for the Middle East is truly important. In fact, there is a much great opportunity in renewable energy and alternative energy than fossil fuels. We must shift our world from one that is based on control of finite resources, to one that is based on distribution and use of abundant and/or renewable resources. This is the really the best path for the Middle East, and the rest of the world.

Whenever a scientist says something like, don’t worry our new experiment could never get out of the lab, or don’t worry the miniature black hole we are going to generate couldn’t possibly swallow up the entire planet, I tend to get a little worried. The problem is that just about every time a scientist has said something is patently absurd, totally impossible or could never ever happen, it usually turns out that in fact it isn’t as impossible as they thought. Now here’s a new article about scientists creating new artificial lifeforms, based on new genetic building blocks — and once again there’s one of those statements. I’m guessing that this means that in about 10 years some synthetic life form is going to be found to have done the impossible and escaped from the lab — perhaps into our food supply, or maybe into our environment. Don’t get me wrong — I’m in favor of this kind of research into new frontiers. I just don’t think anyone can guarantee it won’t escape from the lab.

A new finding has discovered that the human genome may be highly networked. That is, genes do not operate in isolation, but rather they are networked together in a far more complex ecosystem than previously thought. It may be impossible to separate one gene from another in fact. This throws into question not only our understanding of genetics and the human genome, but also the whole genomics industry, which relies heavily on the idea that genes and drugs based on them can be patented:

The principle that gave rise to the biotech industry promised
benefits that were equally compelling. Known as the Central Dogma of
molecular biology, it stated that each gene in living organisms, from
humans to bacteria, carries the information needed to construct one
protein.

The scientists who invented recombinant DNA in 1973 built their
innovation on this mechanistic, "one gene, one protein" principle.

Because donor genes could be associated with specific functions,
with discrete properties and clear boundaries, scientists then believed
that a gene from any organism could fit neatly and predictably into a
larger design – one that products and companies could be built around,
and that could be protected by intellectual-property laws.

This presumption, now disputed, is what one molecular biologist calls "the industrial gene."

"The industrial gene is one that can be defined, owned, tracked,
proven acceptably safe, proven to have uniform effect, sold and
recalled," said Jack Heinemann, a professor of molecular biology in the
School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury in New
Zealand and director of its Center for Integrated Research in Biosafety.

In the United States, the Patent and Trademark Office allows genes
to be patented on the basis of this uniform effect or function. In
fact, it defines a gene in these terms, as an ordered sequence of DNA
"that encodes a specific functional product."

In 2005, a study showed that more than 4,000 human genes had already
been patented in the United States alone. And this is but a small
fraction of the total number of patented plant, animal and microbial
genes.

In the context of the consortium’s findings, this definition now
raises some fundamental questions about the defensibility of those
patents.

If genes are only one component of how a genome functions, for
example, will infringement claims be subject to dispute when another
crucial component of the network is claimed by someone else?

Might owners of gene patents also find themselves liable for
unintended collateral damage caused by the network effects of the genes
they own?

And, just as important, will these not-yet-understood components of
gene function tarnish the appeal of the market for biotech investors,
who prefer their intellectual property claims to be unambiguous and
indisputable?

While no one has yet challenged the legal basis for gene patents,
the biotech industry itself has long since acknowledged the science
behind the question.

"The genome is enormously complex, and the only thing we can say
about it with certainty is how much more we have left to learn," wrote
Barbara Caulfield, executive vice president and general counsel at the
biotech pioneer Affymetrix, in a 2002 article on Law.com called "Why We
Hate Gene Patents."

"We’re learning that many diseases are caused not by the action of
single genes, but by the interplay among multiple genes," Caulfield
said. She noted that just before she wrote her article, "scientists
announced that they had decoded the genetic structures of one of the
most virulent forms of malaria and that it may involve interactions
among as many as 500 genes."

Even more important than patent laws are safety issues raised by the
consortium’s findings. Evidence of a networked genome shatters the
scientific basis for virtually every official risk assessment of
today’s commercial biotech products, from genetically engineered crops
to pharmaceuticals.

Read the rest here

From an interesting article in Nature:

One of the most fundamental patterns of scientific
discovery is the revolution in thought that accompanies a new body of
data. Satellite-based astronomy has, during the past decade, overthrown
our most cherished ideas of cosmology, especially those relating to the
size, dynamics and composition of the Universe.

Similarly,
the convergence of fresh theoretical ideas in evolution and the coming
avalanche of genomic data will profoundly alter our understanding of
the biosphere — and is likely to lead to revision of concepts such as
species, organism and evolution. Here we explain why we foresee such a
dramatic transformation, and why we believe the molecular reductionism
that dominated twentieth-century biology will be superseded by an
interdisciplinary approach that embraces collective phenomena.

The place to start is horizontal gene transfer (HGT),
the non-genealogical transfer of genetic material from one organism to
another — such as from one bacterium to another or from viruses to
bacteria. Among microbes, HGT is pervasive and powerful — for example,
in accelerating the spread of antibiotic resistance. Owing to HGT, it
is not a good approximation to regard microbes as organisms dominated
by individual characteristics. In fact, their communications by genetic
or quorum-sensing channels indicate that microbial behaviour must be
understood as predominantly cooperative.

In the
wild, microbes form communities, invade biochemical niches and partake
in biogeochemical cycles. The available studies strongly indicate that
microbes absorb and discard genes as needed, in response to their
environment. Rather than discrete genomes, we see a continuum of
genomic possibilities, which casts doubt on the validity of the concept
of a ‘species’ when extended into the microbial realm. The uselessness
of the species concept is inherent in the recent forays into
metagenomics — the study of genomes recovered from natural samples as
opposed to clonal cultures. For example, studies of the spatial
distribution of rhodopsin genes in marine microbes suggest such genes
are ‘cosmopolitan’, wandering among bacteria (or archaea) as
environmental pressures dictate.

Equally exciting is
the realization that viruses have a fundamental role in the biosphere,
in both immediate and long-term evolutionary senses. Recent work
suggests that viruses are an important repository and memory of a
community’s genetic information, contributing to the system’s
evolutionary dynamics and stability. This is hinted at, for example, by
prophage induction, in which viruses latent in cells can become
activated by environmental influences. The ensuing destruction of the
cell and viral replication is a potent mechanism for the dispersal of
host and viral genes.