JustGetThere

Psychedelic Adventures | Some call it the 3rd eye or the mind's eye, the pineal gland was the last endocrine gland to have it's functions discovered as it is located deep at the center of the brain, almost hidden away like it were a secret from which comes the word secretion, which is what the pineal gland does. It secretes the hormone melatonin which affects our wake / sleep patterns, photoperiodic (seasonal / circadian) functions and also activates the dormant codons in our DNA often referred to as 'Junk DNA'. Melatonin affects our biorhythms and the aging process ...

The Pineal Gland is found to have piezoelectric calcite crystals which act like transmitters or recievers to channel light or information coming through in waves from the centre of the galaxy or any other resonating transdimensional entities. What may seem as an unusual tickling sensation at the frontal lobe is simply the activation of the Ajna Chakra or the Pineal Gland. We are evolving into multi-sensory entities, beginning to see beyond the limiting 5 senses and awakening our 6th sense, the all seeing mind's eye!

Psychedelic Adventures | Rick Strassman was permitted to embark on the first human research with psychedelic, hallucinogenic, or entheogenic substances in the 1990s in the United States after 20 years' intermission in the field. In the intermission period it has only been legally possible to research on animals.

Strassman's studies investigated the effects of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a powerful entheogen, or psychedelic, that he theorizes is a substance produced by the human brain in the pineal gland and an active ingredient in the Ayahuasca brew. Ayahuasca is any of the various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from the Banisteriopsis spp. vine, native to the Amazon Rainforest (which is also called ayahuasca). The resulting drinks are pharmacologically complex and used for shamanic, folk-medicinal, and religious purposes. Occidental ethno-biologists have noted a variety of 200-300 plants used in the different brews made by the Ayahuasceras. It is an open question whether Ayahuasca should be noted as one particular shamanic medicinal brew, or that it should be noted as an entire medicinal tradition alongside, for instance, Ayurveda or Tibetan Medicine.

During the project's five years, he administered approximately 400 doses of DMT to 60 human volunteers. This research took place at the University of New Mexico's School of Medicine in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he was tenured Associate Professor of Psychiatry. Strassman has conjectured that when a person is approaching death, the pineal gland releases DMT, accounting for much of the imagery reported by survivors of near-death experiences.

Strassman wrote about the research program in his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule. A documentary movie based on this book is currently in production.
______

Dr. Rick Strassman writes ...

Cottonwood Research Foundation ( http://cottonwoodresearch.org/ )

The Cottonwood Research Foundation, Inc.
PO Box 1100, Taos, New Mexico, 87571

cottonwood@cottonwoodresearch.org

Rick Strassman MD, President
Steve Barker PhD, Vice-President
Andrew Stone, Treasurer


Dear Friends:

Consciousness is a subject of increasing scientific inquiry in the West. One particular aspect of this research involves how psychoactive medicines affect consciousness. We at the Cottonwood Research Foundation will begin to address some of the most perplexing mysteries of the human mind with the aid of plant-based psychoactive compounds. For example, What are the varieties of human consciousness, and their genetic, biochemical and physiological bases? What are the medical, social, and spiritual implications of these different states, and how can we best apply these states towards healing, creativity, and greater wisdom?

For thousands of years, historical and indigenous cultures have used plant medicines to reliably induce extraordinarily compelling non-ordinary and mystical states of consciousness. Western science has only begun to tap the vast resources of traditional knowledge regarding these plants and their effects. By bringing to bear multiple scientific, anthropological, and spiritual perspectives, we will pursue several important goals: 1) develop a more thorough understanding of these plants? psychological and physical healing properties; 2) explore the states they elicit, in order to gain a deeper and broader understanding of the range of human consciousness; 3) determine how plant-based psychoactive medicines affect consciousness; and 4) clarify the role these compounds, found in our own bodies, play in dreams, mystical and near-death states, creativity, and mental illness.

The work I performed during the early-1990's at the University of New Mexico with DMT, a naturally occurring psychoactive, was the first new clinical research with these compounds in the US in two decades. Our founding of Cottonwood is intended to help revitalize the lagging pace of American research with this and other classical psychoactive compounds since my studies were interrupted in 1995.

We have already started our first research project. Our vice-president Dr. Steven Barker at Louisiana State University is developing a new ultra-sensitive method of measuring naturally occurring DMT and related compounds in the body. By doing so, we will be able to compare normal levels with those found in naturally occurring highly altered states and clinical conditions. We also held our inaugural fund-raiser in Taos, in which Beatriz Labate, a noted Brazilian anthropologist, presented her field research concerning the burgeoning Brazilian ayahuasca religions movement.

Our most enduring legacy will be the establishment of a thriving, independent research center in northern New Mexico structured in the manner of an institute of higher learning, with treatment, education, and research departments and activities. This campus will include living and dining accommodations, research, laboratory, and information technology facilities, a greenhouse, library, and classrooms. Integral to our vision is a vigorous exchange program with indigenous healers and teachers, which will inform our development of new models for the study and application of plant-based psychoactive medicines.

We invite you to help us build a strong foundation for a new model of consciousness studies in the West. It is only with your support and involvement that we can make this dream a reality.

We welcome any and all contributions, monetary or in-kind. All donations are tax deductible, as Cottonwood is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. ( http://cottonwoodresearch.org/Donate.html )

With warm regards,

Rick Strassman MD
President and Co-Founder
____

By Linda Geddes

New Scientist | A new way of using the genetic code has been created, allowing proteins to be made with properties that have never been seen in the natural world. The breakthrough could eventually lead to the creation of new or "improved" life forms incorporating these new materials into their tissue.

In all existing life forms, the four "letters" of the genetic code, called nucleotides, are read in triplets, so that every three nucleotides encode a single amino acid.

Not any more. Jason Chin at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues have now redesigned the cell's machinery so that it reads the genetic code in quadruplets.

In the genetic code that life has used up to now, there are 64 possible triplet combinations of the four nucleotide letters; these genetic "words" are called codons. Each codon either codes for an amino acid or tells the cell to stop making a protein chain. Now Chin's team have created 256 blank four-letter codons that can be assigned to amino acids that don't even exist yet.

Fundamental redesign

To achieve this, the team had to redesign three pieces of the cellular machinery that make proteins.

But they didn't stop there. The team went on to prove their new genetic code works by assigning two "unnatural" amino acids to their quadruplet codons, and incorporated them into a protein chain.

"It's the beginning of a parallel genetic code," says Chin.

Stronger bonds

What's more, they've shown that these amino acids can react with each other to form a different kind of chemical bond to those which usually hold proteins together in their three-dimensional shape.

The normal kind of bonds – disulphide bonds – can be broken by changes in heat and acidity, causing proteins to lose their 3D structure. This, for instance, is why egg whites change colour and texture when cooked: as the albumen in the whites loses its structure, its physical appearance is transformed.

But the bonds created between Chin's new amino acids are stronger – and so could allow proteins to work in a much wider range of environments. This could help make drugs that can be taken orally without being destroyed by the acids in the digestive tract, for instance.

But that's just the beginning. In the longer term it might be possible to create cells that produce entirely new polymers, such as plastic-like materials. Organisms made of these cells could incorporate the stronger polymers and become stronger or more adaptable as a result.

"It's a very impressive advance that opens up new theoretical horizons in synthetic biology," says genomics pioneer Craig Venter, who heads his own institute in Rockville, Maryland, and is currently trying to create a synthetic organism from scratch.

By Katie Drummond

Wired | The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”

Of course, Darpa’s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work — so they’ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create “tamper proof” cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, “similar to a serial number on a handgun.” And if that doesn’t work, don’t worry. In case Darpa’s plan somehow goes horribly awry, they’re also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch:

Develop strategies to create a synthetic organism “self-destruct” option to be implemented upon nefarious removal of organism.

The project comes as Darpa also plans to throw $20 million into a new synthetic biology program, and $7.5 million into “increasing by several decades the speed with which we sequence, analyze and functionally edit cellular genomes.”

Of course, Darpa’s up against some vexing, fundamental laws of nature — not to mention bioethics — as they embark on the lab beast program. First, they might want to rethink the idea of evolution as a random series of events, says NYU biology professor David Fitch. “Evolution by selection is nota random process at all, and is actually a hugely efficient design algorithm used extensively in computation and engineering,” he e-mails Danger Room.

Even if Darpa manages to overcome the inherent intelligence of evolutionary processes, overcoming inevitable death can be tricky. Just ask all the other research teams who’ve made stabs at it, trying everything from cell starvation to hormone treatments. Gene therapy, where artificial genes are inserted into an organism to boost cell life, are the latest and greatest in life-extension science, but they’ve only been proven to extend lifespan by 20 percent in rats.

But suppose gene therapy makes major strides, and Darpa does manage to get the evolutionary science right. They’ll also have a major ethical hurdle to jump. Synthetic biology researchers are already facing the same questions, as a 2009 summary from the Synthetic Biology Project reports:

The concern that humans might be overreaching when we create organisms that never before existed can be a safety concern, but it also returns us to disagreements about what is our proper role in the natural world (a debate largely about non-physical harms or harms to well-being).

Even expert molecular geneticists don’t know what to make of the project. Either that, or they’re scared Darpa might sic a bio-bot on them. “I would love to comment, but unfortunately Darpa has installed a kill switch in me,” one unnamed expert tells Danger Room.

Dr. Mercola

Mercola | You have had a long-standing deal with biology: whatever choices you make during your life might ruin your short-term memory or make you gain weight t or could hasten death, but they won't change your genes — your actual DNA.

The answer lies beyond both nature and nurture. Bygren's data — along with those of many other scientists working separately over the past 20 years — have given birth to a new science called epigenetics.

At its most basic, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation.

These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic "marks" that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.

But the potential is staggering. For decades, we have stumbled around massive Darwinian roadblocks. DNA, we thought, was an ironclad code that we and our children and their children had to live by. Now we can imagine a world in which we can tinker with DNA, bend it to our will.

It will take geneticists and ethicists many years to work out all the implications, but be assured: the age of epigenetics has arrived.

Epigenetics is probably the most important biological discovery since DNA. And it is turning the biological sciences upside down.

Now that we realize our fate is not sealed at the twining of our double helix, we avail ourselves to a whole new world of possibilities. There are things we can do to change our genetics, and therefore our health.

But beware -- these changes can be good or bad. It works both ways.

You can improve your genetics or you can damage it.

In fact, you ARE changing your genetics daily and perhaps even hourly from the foods you eat, the air you breathe, and even by the thoughts you think.

You are the "caretaker" of your genetic roadmap.

The problem is, once you understand that there’s something controlling your genes -- that they don’t control themselves but are controlled by epigenetic coding that tells them to be expressed or not expressed -- which is completely controlled by your environment and lifestyle -- it just blows everything out of the water!

For many years we were secure in our beliefs that, no matter what we did to damage ourselves in terms of poor lifestyle choices, it only affected us. Our children would be born with a genetic clean slate.

But now we are learning that this is not true, and epigenetic changes can be passed down for many generations. Each of us has far greater responsibility than we ever imagined!

In the words of Dawson Church, author of The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention:

"It’s not what we don’t know that hurts us--it’s what we think we know that isn’t true that hurts us."

Your Genetics Are Malleable -- Like Clay

Epigenetic "malleability" helps to explain why identical twins become distinct as they age.

Why does one identical twin develop cancer and the other remain healthy when they have identical DNA? Why does one twin become obese and another remain lean?

As you age, your genome does not change but your epigenome changes dramatically, especially during critical periods of life, such as adolescence. It is influenced by physical and emotional stresses -- how you respond to everything that happens in your environment, from climate change to childhood abuse.

The secret is in the methyl groups that overlie the DNA molecule, which is the realm of the epigenome.

When a gene is turned off epigenetically, the DNA has usually been "methylated." When methyl groups adhere to a segment of DNA, they inhibit the gene’s response. Methylation-gone-wrong is now suspected in autism, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.

You do not manifest disease merely by a defective gene, but by your epigenome. In other words, whether or not you develop disease is determined by how your genome is being directed to express itself. There are also "master genes" that can switch on and off clusters of other genes.

Scientists have discovered it is easier to make epigenetic changes than to fix damaged genes. Your epigenome is easier to mess up -- but it’s also easier to fix.

That’s good news -- you aren’t doomed by bad genes!

Epigenetic therapy, which is essentially the curing of disease by epigenetic manipulation, involves changing the instructions to your cells -- reactivating desirable genes and deactivating undesirable ones. This emerging field, now in its infancy, may represent the future of medicine.

Mind Over Matter

Just as your epigenome controls the expression of disease -- your mind controls your epigenome.

Therefore, your mind controls your healing.

The science of epigenetics is now beginning to explain things like placebo effect and spontaneous healing, which lacked a scientific basis until now.

Epigenetics literally means "above the genes." And what is above the genes?

Your mind!

One of the scientists on the forefront of mind-body biology is Bruce Lipton. Thanks to Dr. Lipton and other leading voices, the power of your mind is finally gaining the attention it deserves.

Your mind has the power to create or cure disease because your thoughts affect the expression of your genes. Today’s "New Biology" is overlapping with consciousness science and quantum physics, and it’s showing us that we have masterful control over our own lives.

Energy Medicine and Genetics Converge

You are a being of energy, and as such, you have an electromagnetic component to every biological process. Every thought or feeling produces a complex shift in the biochemical make-up of your organs.

According to Blair Justice, PhD, author of Who Gets Sick, genes account for only 35 percent of longevity while diet, exercise, stress and other environmental factors are the major reasons people live longer.

Dawson Church cites the following impressive statistics in his book, The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention:

* Heart surgery patients who have a strong social support network and spiritual practice have a mortality rate 1/7th of those who do not.

* Studies show that meditating for just 30 minutes per day can boost your mood as much as antidepressants.

* Older people with positive attitudes have a 23 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 55 percent lower risk from all other causes.

Clearly, your beliefs, thoughts, and intentions have a much stronger affect on your life than your genes do.

Mysteries of Meridian Tapping Technique Finally Revealed?

Energy psychology techniques such as Meridian Tapping Technique (MTT) and acupuncture are powerful therapies that work with your body’s own electromagnetic system to produce healing. I have been a huge fan of MTT for many years.

Epigenetics helps explain why MTT works so well.

MTT has a direct affect on your genes through your body’s energy field, on a cellular level. By altering the signals to your energy meridians, you can directly influence your cells by affecting their genetic expression. In his book, The Genie in Your Genes, Church provides a very compelling and convincing model for how energy medicine works.

Would you be interested in a technique that allows you to positively impact your genes all by yourself, in 40 seconds or less?

That would be MTT.

If your genes are so mutable that they can change from moment to moment in response to your thoughts and feelings, then anything you can do to create a positive feeling state can profoundly, and immediately, improve your health.

Has science finally discovered the link between your body’s energy field (aka, prana or qi) and disease?

Perhaps!

In order to answer that question, more research is certainly needed into the connections between thought, quantum physics, energy, consciousness theory, and healing.

This area is one of the hottest topics in science today.

Last year, the National Institutes of Health announced it would invest $190 million to accelerate epigenetic research. The list of illnesses to be studied in the resulting grants reveals the scope of this emerging field: cancer, Alzheimer's disease, autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, asthma, kidney disease, glaucoma, muscular dystrophy and more.


Mind Your Thoughts

Since genetics is now intimately linked to mind and consciousness, the key to healing ultimately lies in controlling your beliefs and emotions.

Bottom line: mind your thoughts!

We’ve always taught our children the importance of controlling their behavior. But maybe it’s time to focus more on teaching them how to control what they think and feel, since beliefs and emotions are what trigger the expression of specific DNA.

Behavior will naturally follow.

Even more importantly, what you think and feel may affect the DNA of your children, your grandchildren, and their children.

I can’t say it better than Dawson Church:

"The code imprinted in our DNA, the one thing we thought was for certain, is just waiting for direction by us to change, creating a civilization that brings health, happiness, and vibrancy in ways in which the current medical establishment only dreams of."

Massachusetts Institute of Technology | A new model of the way the THz waves interact with DNA explains how the damage is done and why evidence has been so hard to gather.

Great things are expected of terahertz waves, the radiation that fills the slot in the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and the infrared. Terahertz waves pass through non-conducting materials such as clothes , paper, wood and brick and so cameras sensitive to them can peer inside envelopes, into living rooms and “frisk” people at distance.

The way terahertz waves are absorbed and emitted can also be used to determine the chemical composition of a material. And even though they don’t travel far inside the body, there is great hope that the waves can be used to spot tumours near the surface of the skin.

With all that potential, it’s no wonder that research on terahertz waves has exploded in the last ten years or so.

But what of the health effects of terahertz waves? At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss any notion that they can be damaging. Terahertz photons are not energetic enough to break chemical bonds or ionise atoms or molecules, the chief reasons why higher energy photons such as x-rays and UV rays are so bad for us. But could there be another mechanism at work?

Read full article

MARTIN BARTLETT

KVUE News | The Texas Department of State Health services has about four months to destroy blood samples taken and stored without permission from millions of babies.

State law allows the department to collect those blood samples for routine disease testing, but the state’s been hanging on to millions of blood samples since the testing began in 2002.

Dad Michael Neff says blood samples taken from his two daughters should have been destroyed.

He fears the state might have used those blood samples in research projects or sold them to insurance companies.

“I don’t think my kid’s DNA should be out there, and if it is it should be mine and their mother’s decision,” Neff said.

The Department of State Health Services now agrees with Neff’s position.

They’ve settled a lawsuit filed by the Texas Civil Rights Project over the samples which the state was keeping without getting permission from parents.

Read full article

Associated Press

Yahoo News | Those baby-faced people now have another reason to be smug: a new Danish study says looking young apparently means a longer life.

Research published online Monday in the British medical journal BMJ suggests that people who look younger than their years also live longer.

In 2001, Danish researchers conducted physical and cognitive tests on more than 1,800 pairs of twins over aged 70, as well as taking photos of their faces. Three groups of people who didn't know the twins' real ages guessed how old they were. The researchers then tracked how long the twins survived over 7 years.

The experts found that people who looked younger than their actual age were far more likely to survive, even after they adjusted for other factors like gender and environment. The bigger the difference in perceived age within any twin pair, the more likely it was that the older-looking twin died first.

They also found a possible biological explanation: people who looked younger also tended to have longer telomeres, a key DNA component that is linked to aging. People with shorter telomeres are thought to age faster. In the Danish study, the more fresh-faced people had longer telomeres.

The authors said that perceived age, which is widely used by doctors as a general indicator of a patient's health, is a good biomarker of aging that predicts survival among people over age 70.

By Tom Whitehead

Telegraph | Police forces in England and Wales have taken the profiles of 5.5 million people, meaning the proportion of the population on the system has passed a tenth for the first time.

Overall, when profiles taken in Scotland and Northern Ireland are included, almost six million people have now been stored on what is the largest DNA database in the world.

The landmark came as a poll showed eight in 10 people believe a Big Brother state in the UK has eroded freedoms and that the Government cannot be trusted with personal information.

Last week, ministers were forced in to a last minute climb-down over plans to hold on to the DNA of innocent people for 12 years when it dropped plans to include the proposal in an amendment to legislation currently passing through Parliament.

Home Office figures show a total of 5,910,172 profiles are on the national DNA database.

Of those, some 5,532,847 were stored by police forces in England and Wales – the equivalent of more than one in 10 of the population of the two home nations of 54,440,000.

It comes as the row over keeping the profiles of innocents on the database deepens.

The Home Office had proposed a 12 year limit for retaining DNA profiles of those not convicted of offences after a blanket policy to hold on to them indefinitely was ruled unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights.

However, the new policy, contained in an amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill, was dropped last week at the final moment in the face of growing criticism.

A new Bill containing a further set of proposals will now be included in the Queen's Speech next month.

The move represented an about-turn by the Home Office and campaigners hope it will lead to a significant watering down of the proposals.

Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, demanded that his details be erased after no charges were brought against him following his arrest over Whitehall leaks last year.

It also emerged last week that the number of crimes solved with a DNA match has fallen by a fifth despite more than a million new profiles having been added over the past two years.

James Brokenshire, the shadow home office minister, said: "The Government has been obsessed with growing the DNA database for the sake of it regardless of guilt or innocence.

"Despite being told that their approach is unlawful they have been dragging their feet about doing anything about it. Just how many more DNA profiles of the innocent have to be added before the Government is prepared to act?”

A Home Office spokesman said: "The DNA database is a vital crime fighting tool, identifying 390,000 crimes with DNA matches between April 1998 and September 2008 and providing the police with a lead on the possible identity of the offender. Last year a total of 17,614 crimes, including 83 homicides and 184 rapes, were detected in which a DNA match was available.

"We have now completed a public consultation on proposals to ensure the right people are on the database as well as considering when people should come off. Those proposals were grounded in the research and allowed us to respond to the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights both swiftly and effectively.”

A separate poll for campaign group Big Brother Watch found 79 per cent of the public believe freedoms are being eroded by a Big Brother state while 86 per cent said the Government cannot be trusted to keep personal data safe.

Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, said: “We are the victims of ever more intrusive policies, pushing more and more into the details of our lives.

“The Government doesn’t seem to care that Big Brother Britain has been rejected by the vast majority of people who live here.

“They continue to pursue expensive and invasive surveillance methods that serve only to create criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens.”

Physician, author and research scientist Dr. Bruce Lipton discusses the processes by which cells receive information to prove that genes and DNA do not control our biology; that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts. Dr. Lipton's profoundly hopeful synthesis of the latest and best research in cell biology and quantum physics shows that our bodies can be changed as we retrain our thinking.

A cell biologist by training, Lipton taught Cell Biology at the University of Wisconsins School of Medicine, and later performed pioneering studies at Stanford Universitys School of Medicine. He is the author of "The Biology of Belief."

For more information, visit:
http://www.brucelipton.com

By Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet | Man who both approved and covered-up government slaughter of 76 people, including 20 children, will lead move to establish international model of law enforcement

UN and Interpol officials will meet today to discuss the formation of a “global police force” that would enjoy access to a worldwide database of DNA, biometric and fingerprint records. The effort will be spearheaded by a man known as “The Enforcer” who helped federal authorities both conduct and cover up the murderous Waco siege which killed 76 people in 1993.

“Interpol and the United Nations are poised to become partners in fighting crime by jointly grooming a global police force that would be deployed as peacekeepers among rogue nations riven by war and organized crime, officials from both organizations say,” reports the New York Times.

The emergence of a global police force is of course something that people like Alex Jones have been warning about for well over a decade. The global police force, just like the world army, is a key centerpiece of the march towards a dictatorial global government.

Those who were once called paranoid conspiracy theorists for claiming that the plan all along has been to centralize law enforcement into a global body run by the world government under the auspices of the UN and Interpol have been proven right once again.

For a taste of what Americans who aren’t so favorable to taking orders from foreigners on home soil can expect, consider the fact that the secretary general of Interpol, and one of the men at the forefront of setting up the global police force, is none other than Ronald K. Noble.

Noble, who is known as “The Enforcer,” has been instrumental in working with Chinese authorities to provide policing in the Communist country for major national events. However, his most notorious role was in ordering and then, in his position as Undersecretary for Enforcement of the United States Department of the Treasury, whitewashing the actions of the BATF following the federal government’s murderous siege on the Branch Davidian compound at Waco which killed 76 people including more than 20 children and two pregnant women in April 1993.

As Carol Moore writes, “Noble had approved the decision to go ahead with the raid,” and therefore, “had little interest in issuing a report that either would challenge significantly the BATF’s investigation or modus operandi or would admit these led to crimes against the Davidians.”

Noble ignored in his report more than a dozen eyewitness reports, along with photographic and video evidence, of a BATF helicopter firebombing the Waco church during the siege. He also ignored David Koresh’s July 1992 invitation to the BATF to inspect the Waco compound, which if it had gone ahead could have prevented the siege and the murder of 76 innocent people altogether.

“During the hearing, Friend-of-Bill Webster Hubbell denied repeatedly that he and Clinton had discussed the Waco situation informally, and improperly. However, an Associated Press article claimed Hubbell had revealed he was giving Clinton updates on Waco. And House staffers discovered a memorandum in which then-Treasury official Ron Noble asserted Hubbell would take the matter up with Clinton if the Treasury Department’s review did not downplay BATF errors. Clearly, Noble condones covering up government crimes against citizens,” writes Moore.

Noble was picked directly for the position of secretary general at Interpol by fellow Waco siege accomplice, former Attorney General Janet Reno.

During his September 2005 secretary general re-election acceptance speech in Berlin, Noble attributed Interpol’s ‘rebirth’ to the events of 9/11, saying that the terrorist attacks allowed the organization to go from being treated as largely irrelevant to setting it on the path to becoming an international police force.

Noble told the New York Times that one of the main roles of the global cops would be to stop people to check their identities against a global database.

“The police will be trained and equipped differently with resources,” Mr. Noble said. “When they stop someone, they will be consulting global databases to determine who they are stopping.”

As we previously reported, Interpol is setting up a huge biometric facial scan database of international travelers so they can cross-check everyone against a database of terror suspects, international criminals and fugitives. The database will hold the records of every citizen who has ever traveled in and out of the virtually every country in the world, representing intelligence agency style bulk interception of information.

According to the NY Times report, Interpol agents would be given special electronic passports that would allow them to speedily cross international borders.

“With the meeting of justice ministers on Monday, which coincides with a general assembly of Interpol police members, the group is expected to debate the global police issue and to craft a declaration that would lead to an action plan for international police peacekeeping within 12 months,” reports the Times.

The danger of having a global police force conducting law enforcement on U.S. soil under the control of Interpol and the UN is self-evident. Global cops who do not have to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution have no obligation to follow it. Operating outside of the realms of the U.S. legal system, global cops will have carte blanche to snatch, grab and intern citizens without recourse. A highly centralized system of policing guarantees hardly any liability whatsoever and therefore encourages rampant illegality and police brutality.

With many experts predicting a Soviet-style collapse of the United States within the next few years, the prospect of U.N. peacekeepers and Interpol global cops ordering Americans around is a harrowing possibility.

The fact that this move is all being spearheaded by a man known as “The Enforcer” who was instrumental in ordering the killing of 76 innocent people at Waco, including 20 children, and then covering it up, should send shock waves through the liberty movement and lead to intense scrutiny on Noble’s position at Interpol and his agenda to head up a global police force.

"I always tell my students that there is no science fiction anymore. All the science fiction I read in high school, we're doing," Paul Root Wolpe, Center for Ethics at Emory University in Atlanta

Greg 'No Verichip Inside' Nikolettos

We The People Will Not Be Chipped | We have moved past science fiction, in fact if one is following technology trends, Moore’s Law states the long-term trend in the history of computing hardware advances should double every two years, months are not accurate. Moore’s law has gone on a hefty dose of steroids and donned Superman's flying cape as technology is no longer merely evolving, but being smashed to smithereens with the previous impossible being achieved on a consistent and daily basis. Computer designers are now moving beyond silicon chips to using DNA chips ... a move from geologic roots to biologic roots, making the computer a closer representation of man.

The fields that are experiencing ground shaking advance: nano-technology, biometric data capture, Genome sequencing, DNA, and Biochips set a world stage that makes for a scenario that is indeed frightening. As we move into a world where our civil liberties have been eroded and our human rights diminished to fight the invisible morphing ‘enemies’, technology has been given a reprieve to march forward unrestricted. and without regard as to the impact on our lives. What has happened to our right to privacy which is violated when states interferes with, to penalise

or prohibit actions which essentially only concern the individual? Scholars point out that these rights are underwritten by common and universal law. Hang on a second.. the Dept of Homeland Security is about to make a chess move on the World Trestle Board. Dept of Homeland security moves Queen XB to Q4! Wow what a move! To quote the DHS lexicon.. People who believe in common law are a rightwing extremist movement who reject the notion of U.S. citizenship. They claim to follow only what they believe to be God's law or common law, and the original 10 amendments (Bill of Rights) to the U.S. Constitution. “Horror of horrors, these terrorists must be stopped, Al-Qaeda has infiltrated and possessed the US Citizens!

Does it matter that human microchipping is a violation of at least nineteen of the United Nations - Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Well it seems that Wall Street does not answer to the moral and ethic construct... That’s for the birds.

With new laws being rushed into congress and parliaments around the world, movements like: “We The People Will Not Be Chipped” are termed 'neo luddites' and ‘technophobic’ by the front men of universities who are nothing more than talking puppet heads promoting elite's agenda. Department of Homeland Security has labeled movements that don't embrace technology with a hug, embrace and a cup of tea, as anti-technology extremist ‘terrorists’. So let us put this into perspective, is the government mandating the people roll up their arms and get microchipped? Maybe not right now, but we need to look at the legislation and what is being proposed by world governments so one can prepare and put a stop on what is the last frontier of human tracking.

The premise that if an advance of technology is achieved that it should be embraced by the general populace, is a ridiculous and illogical premise… but let's remember these university talking heads who have many letters after their names are much smarter than you. Let's gloss over the fact their seed funding can be traced to banking empires, titanic multinational companies, government intelligent agencies, elite families and of course the lovely military industrial complex, but none dare call it a conspiracy. If you did call it a conspiracy the Department of Homeland Security has already moved its Queen to a checkmate attacking position on the World Trestle Board… labeling anyone who receives their news from alternative sources as rightwing extremists. According to the DHS, all media outlets that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets are a threat to the state. So unless you are Rupert Murdoch and watch Fox news as your major news feed, you are a terrorist? If you are capable of critical thinking and dissect the information feed, you are a terrorist?

Most people would be aware that a human implantable microchip exists namely the IBM seed funded Verichip but let's gloss over that for a minute and let’s talk about brain scanning. But before we do, let’s use the new speak term for it. fMRI, namely Functional MRI. Functional! Ah don't you feel better now? It's functional! It’s not MRI only. fMRI images are used to determined which parts of the brain "light up" when a function such as speech or recognition is performed?

fMRI has marched forward without the majority of the public being unaware that Neuromarketing is already a new field of marketing that studies consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli harvested from technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure changes in activity in parts of the brain, and electroencephalography (EEG) to measure activity in specific regional spectra of the brain response.

Once again the analogy that fMRI is not a threat to society is promoted by the 'benefit approach. Companies will have to spend less on marketing and advertisements if they can read my mind. Better products will be released, the world will have less wastage and cutting edge advances will be made due to less wasteful spending in getting a product to market. World peace will be embraced, Alzheimer's cured, hunger worldwide will be eradicated, the honey bees’ population will begin increasing again, and I will finally have a purple and yellow polka dot iPod.

Key to fMRI, is RFID and sensor technology that is being heavily researched and promoted once again by the infamous Nazi war criminals, IBM. When IBM Germany formed its philosophical and technological alliance with Nazi Germany, census and registration took on a new mission. IBM Germany invented the racial census-listing not just religious affiliation, but bloodline going back generations. This was the Nazi lust for data. Not just to count the Jews-but to identify them. This data collection then aided the extermination of the Jews and other non compliant races. IBM has never been brought to justice for these atrocities but rather stands tall today as the world's largest information company, promoting their vision of a controlled world, with their "Smarter Planet' mantra. Using their IBM Ubiquitous Computing Lab Sensor and Actuator Solutions/RFID Solution Center in South Korea as the test bed market. Advances in sensor technology coupled with fMRI, to measure changes in one's physiological state (heart-rate, respiratory rate, galvanic skin response) so as to learn why consumers make the decisions they do and what part of the brain is telling them to do it.

Sounds like mind reading doesn't it? No! No! No! Its not! According to Tom Mitchell from Carnegie Mellon University, "Functional MRI Scanning is not mind reading, its thought identification". If you believe thought identification is not mind reading; I have London Bridge for sale on eBay with no minimum bid. Of course it’s mind reading, and of course it will serve no benefit to you. The only benefit will translate itself in the heavy shackles on your freedom and free will. How much more personal can it get than mapping and reading your mind? Note Tom Mitchell, the talking head is once again fronting a well heeled university seed funded from the steel empire of Freemason, Andrew Carnegie. It's self evident, Tom Mitchell is a liar and twisting semantics to serve his masters goals, but that's how this new world operates. These talking heads will sell out their fellow man for a piece of the devils pie, but passionately lick the boots of the masters who bark the orders down the chain of command.

Can it get any more ridiculous than fMRI? Of course it can and of course it will, as the transhumanists have a lot to say on this matter. Transhumanism among many other things offers mortal man the promise of immortality, of superhuman and even magical abilities! Wow! We can all become an immortal Harry Potter; "bring it on" says the mob. Transhumanism was first coined by Aldous Huxley's brother, Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, the evolutionary biologist and First Director-General of UNESCO. If your levels of trust don't plummet after that, you have not researched eugenics, or the Huxley family. The Father of Transhumanism a eugenicist? Huxley was a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society and was Vice-President (1937-1944) and President (1959-1962) who favoured removing undesirable variants from the human gene pool. The modern day Transhumanism movement is a sugar coated arsenic pill, delivering the same deadly dose of eugenics. People who ridicule our position have still to produce the evidence that the military industrial complex will produce 'brain chips' on mass for the people to 'outthink' their fellow man. The military industrial complex will never, ever strengthen the general populace, and to entertain that concept is nothing more than a Transhumanistic Renaissance filled wet dream. Verichip though is manufactured by Raytheon the fifth largest defense contractor, and it's been clearly evident how Verichip has taken their product to market if you have viewed our short film 'Operation Lie and Deceive - Verichip Style’. Trust is earned as they say, and we let the body of evidence testify to Verichip's ethics and moral code.

Nick Bostrom a pioneer in the Transhumanism field has quoted Transhumanism to be "a loosely defined movement that has developed gradually over the past two decades. It takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the opportunities for enhancing the human condition and the human organism opened up by the advancement of technology”

Transhumanists promote concepts such as scanning the human brain to UPLOAD it to the mainframe, which translates to duplicating and transferring your life history, your personality, your memory, your quirks and essentially what makes you, you into a digital ‘reality’. Apart from uploading your 'conciseness' into the mainframe, the transhumanists believe that people will want to upload themselves into non biological humans. I for one will not be one of them.

How is it proposed that we can scan the brain? Using nano bots of course that will be injected into your bloodstream and then travel to the brain undertaking the scan and relaying the data back for the upload to occur. Which insurance company will underwrite the brain uploads? Which company will undertake the firewall code? Which company will rewrite the minds that are hacked? Will the human bodies be housed in vats or exterminated after the upload? What company in the IT world will be trusted with the Verification and Validation of this enormous project? Most people are happy with their Windows Vista programs running without crashing, yet we are being told to trust the IT coders with something as serious as uploading of the human mind? Please give me a break and please go bid on my London Bridge listing on eBay right now.

The transhumanists never answer the tough questions, simply because they can't at this timeline with the technology not being in place. So rather, they focus on the sugar and spice, fluff and cloud, generalised chunked up approach using predictive programming techniques to have their hive mind cyborg agenda embraced by the younger generation. Rest assured, if you are assimilated into the hive via upload it’s to become a drone, not an individual who is unique, autonomous and separate from the collective. It is about control and total control. Most of the transhumanists who are around today are living in fear they might not see the singularity being achieved so will most likely cryonically suspend themselves so as to be 'reborn' into the techno rapture of the Posthuman,H+ world. Even though the transhumanists generally ridicule people who have a faith based religion, their belief system reeks of the same faith based constructs they snootily mock. Nick Bostrom has speculated that we are already living in a 'simulation' which sounds like another religious based construct to me, a belief in a 'coding architect' similar to the Matrix Movie. Others have postulated that if our world is simulated then the "host world" is governed by a different set of physical laws. Hmmm sounds like another leap of faith to me, yet I'm the crazy one according to them.

The transhumanists state intelligent life could become extinct, with widening social inequalities and enormous harm being caused to society in the pursuit of Strong AI and the Singularity, but let's overlook humanity as some nerd wants to increase his human sensory modalities by introducing sonar capacity to mimic a fruit bat! Yes you Captain Cyborg Fruit Bat! Ian Warwick the poster child of I Cyborg ranted and called for an urgent government debate on the microchipping issue, and proposed ministers should consider implants for all children. The Cyborg Fruit Bat was reported to police, social services in the UK for fabricating half truths and fear mongering parents to have their children microchipped to prevent them being kidnapped. What a poor representative for their movement , perhaps he should be fired and a new cyborg employed as the front man?

How will this H+, hive agenda be achieved? Hollywood of course will release a flurry of movies as evidenced by Bruce Willis’ new release, The Surrogates encouraging people to plug their consciousness into a machine and living life through a virtual 'surrogate'. The dumbed down mob will watch the propaganda, and the acceptance of this movement will become the new hip thing, with people twittering about their new augmented reality display glasses, getting excited about emoting over the internet using IPV6 through the use of sensors, discussing how their genome was fully sequenced by Google's 23andme.com, embracing ambient environments that set mood music as they drink a great drop of red wine and clutching feverishly to their bible, H+ magazine.

We on the other hand who are capable of critical thinking won't be programmed by this new code regurgitated by the system, clinging to what makes a human real. Our individuality, our uniqueness, our autonomy, our independent thought and our free will.

None of these unique attributes will exist in the hive mind so its time to make a choice. Choose to be assimilated into the cyborg hive agenda, or choose to live free as the unique individual you are.

In closing , Aldous Huxley famous quote springs to mind , '...anybody who has watched the behavior of rats with electrodes placed in different centers must come away from this experience with the most extraordinary doubts about what on earth is in store for us if this is got a hold of by a dictator'

The prosecution rests your honor.

Related: The Age of Transitions (Documentary)

Immortality only 20 years away says scientist

The ultimate hack: reverse engineering the human brain

Neuroengineering to challenge what it means to be human

Artificial brain '10 years away'

___

References

1.There is no science fiction . www.geardiary.com/2009/06/29/there-is-no-science-fiction/

2.Huxley, Julian.1957. "Transhumanism," In New Bottles for New Wine.

London: Chatto & Windus

3.http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/transhumanist.pdf

4.Made real by Intel® innovation - www.intel.com/technology/mooreslaw/

5.Do Australians have a legal right to privacy?

www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/RN/2004-05/05rn37.pdf

6.Bostrom, N. (2002). "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction

Scenarios and Related Hazards." Journal of Evolution and Technology

http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html

7.Dept of Homeland Security - Domestic Extremism Lexicon

.http://www.legitgov.org/hsra_domestic_extremism_lexicon_260309.pdf

8.Bostrom, N. (2002). Transhumanist Ethics

http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/transhumanist.pdf

9.We The People Will Not Be Chipped - One Mainframe to Rule Them All : IBM

and Verichip - the human microchipping agenda

10. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

11.NeuroMarketing . www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/

12. IBM - Seoul, Korea-Ubiquitous Computing Lab Sensor and Actuator

Solutions/RFID Solution Center.

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/solutions/sensors/centers/#j

13.Mazumdar, Pauline 1992. Eugenics, human genetics and human failings: the

Eugenics Society, its sources and its critics in Britain. Routledge, London.

14.Wearable Computing - MIT. http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/

15. Captain Cyborg is a Media Tart - The Register

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/09/11/captain_cyborg_is_a_media/

15.Kid-chipper Cap Cyborg reported to police, social services - The Register

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/09/06/kidchipper_cap_cyborg_reported/

16. Aldous Huxley: The Ultimate Revolution « P U L S E

pulsemedia.org/2009/02/02/aldous-huxley-the-ultimate-revolution/

17. Edwin Black - IBM and the Holocaust. www.ibmandtheholocaust.com

Jeremy A. Kaplan

Fox News | Imagine a world where medicine is guaranteed not to cause adverse reactions because it's designed for an individual's DNA.

Imagine a diet tailored to the precise speed of a person's metabolism. Using a little microelectronics, a little physics, and no small dose of biology, IBM has brought that futuristic world a little bit closer.

The DNA Transistor is a project from IBM Research that aims to advance personalized medicine, by making it simpler (and much cheaper) to read an individual's unique DNA sequence — the special combination of proteins that makes you unlike anyone else.

The technology isn't finished yet, but its potential is tantalizin enough that IBM wanted to share it with the world. And the company claims researchers are making progress.

Essentially a bar code reader for genes, the DNA Transistor is part technique and part device. It consists of a 3-nanometer wide hole, known as a nanopore, in a silicon microchip. A sensor in the pore can read DNA and determine its unique makeup.

The challenge scientists face is controlling the rate at which a strand moves through that nanopore: A DNA molecule needs to spend enough time in it for the sequencing to work. By cycling voltages to the transistor's poles, IBM aims to move the DNA through the nanopore at a consistent rate one nucleotide (molecule of DNA) at a time.

The company's researchers are currently investigating various housings for the pore as well, honing the multilayer (metal and dielectric) nano-structures to move samples through more evenly.

“The technologies that make reading DNA fast, cheap and widely available have the potential to revolutionize bio-medical research and herald an era of personalized medicine,” said IBM research scientist Gustavo Stolovitzky. “Ultimately, it could improve the quality of medical care by identifying patients who will gain the greatest benefit from a particular medicine and those who are most at risk of adverse reaction.”

By Andrew Pollack

NY Times | Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

Dr. Frumkin is a founder of Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv that has developed a test to distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones that it hopes to sell to forensics laboratories.

The planting of fabricated DNA evidence at a crime scene is only one implication of the findings. A potential invasion of personal privacy is another.

Using some of the same techniques, it may be possible to scavenge anyone’s DNA from a discarded drinking cup or cigarette butt and turn it into a saliva sample that could be submitted to a genetic testing company that measures ancestry or the risk of getting various diseases. Celebrities might have to fear “genetic paparazzi,” said Gail H. Javitt of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Tania Simoncelli, science adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union, said the findings were worrisome.

“DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,” she said. “We’re creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology.”

John M. Butler, leader of the human identity testing project at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said he was “impressed at how well they were able to fabricate the fake DNA profiles.” However, he added, “I think your average criminal wouldn’t be able to do something like that.”

The scientists fabricated DNA samples two ways. One required a real, if tiny, DNA sample, perhaps from a strand of hair or drinking cup. They amplified the tiny sample into a large quantity of DNA using a standard technique called whole genome amplification.

Of course, a drinking cup or piece of hair might itself be left at a crime scene to frame someone, but blood or saliva may be more believable.

The authors of the paper took blood from a woman and centrifuged it to remove the white cells, which contain DNA. To the remaining red cells they added DNA that had been amplified from a man’s hair.

Since red cells do not contain DNA, all of the genetic material in the blood sample was from the man. The authors sent it to a leading American forensics laboratory, which analyzed it as if it were a normal sample of a man’s blood.

The other technique relied on DNA profiles, stored in law enforcement databases as a series of numbers and letters corresponding to variations at 13 spots in a person’s genome.

From a pooled sample of many people’s DNA, the scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. To prepare a DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the proper snippets together. They said that a library of 425 different DNA snippets would be enough to cover every conceivable profile.

Nucleix’s test to tell if a sample has been fabricated relies on the fact that amplified DNA — which would be used in either deception — is not methylated, meaning it lacks certain molecules that are attached to the DNA at specific points, usually to inactivate genes.

By Clare Baldwin

Reuters | International Business Machines Corp is looking to the building blocks of our bodies -- DNA -- to be the structure of next-generation microchips.

As chipmakers compete to develop ever-smaller chips at cheaper prices, designers are struggling to cut costs.

Artificial DNA nanostructures, or "DNA origami" may provide a cheap framework on which to build tiny microchips, according to a paper published on Sunday in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Microchips are used in computers, cell phones and other electronic devices.

"This is the first demonstration of using biological molecules to help with processing in the semiconductor industry," IBM research manager Spike Narayan said in an interview with Reuters.

"Basically, this is telling us that biological structures like DNA actually offer some very reproducible, repetitive kinds of patterns that we can actually leverage in semiconductor processes," he said.

The research was a joint undertaking by scientists at IBM's Almaden Research Center and the California Institute of Technology.

Right now, the tinier the chip, the more expensive the equipment. Narayan said that if the DNA origami process scales to production-level, manufacturers could trade hundreds of millions of dollars in complex tools for less than a million dollars of polymers, DNA solutions, and heating implements.

"The savings across many fronts could add up significantly," he said.

But the new processes are at least 10 years out. Narayan said that while the DNA origami could allow chipmakers to build frameworks that are far smaller than possible with conventional tools, the technique still needs years of experimentation and testing.

A National Academies workshop examined the evidence of epigenetic effects and considered whether the thousands of chemicals in use today should be tested for them. Some pollutants and chemicals don't kill cells or mutate DNA. Instead, they may be more subtle, mutating genes or turning them on at the wrong time, which can lead to diseases that are passed on for generations. Asthma in New York City children exposed to traffic exhaust is an example, experts say.

By Bette Hileman

Environmental Health News | Each of us starts life with a particular set of genes, 20,000 to 25,000 of them. Now scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence that pollutants and chemicals might be altering those genes—not by muting them, but by sending subtle signals that silence them or switch them on at the wrong times.

Last week, several dozen researchers and experts convened by the National Academies tackled this complicated topic, called epigenetics, at a two-day workshop in Washington, D.C. They discussed new findings that suggest chemicals in our environment and in our food can alter genes, leaving people vulnerable to a variety of diseases and disorders, including diabetes, asthma, cancer and obesity. They also considered whether regulatory agencies and industry should start testing the thousands of chemicals in use today for these effects.

“There is little doubt these epigenetic effects are important. The next question is how we test for effects," said William H. Farland, professor of environmental and radiological health sciences at Colorado State University. "We don’t need to abandon current approaches to chemical testing. When testing chemicals in animals, we may just need to add some new endpoints."

Exposure to gene-altering substances, particularly in the womb and shortly after birth, “can lead to increased susceptibility to disease,” said Linda S. Birnbaum, who was named director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and of the National Toxicology Program in December. “The susceptibility persists long after the exposure is gone, even decades later. Glands, organs, and systems can be permanently altered.”

Animal studies indicate that some environmental chemicals cause epigenetic changes that trigger breast and prostate cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and learning disabilities, she said. And some new human studies are now adding to the evidence.

“There is a huge potential impact from these exposures, partly because the changes may be inherited across generations. You may be affected by what your mother and grandmother were exposed to during pregnancy,” Birnbaum said.

What a pregnant mother eats and the chemicals she is exposed to can affect her offspring without causing mutations in the DNA, the experts said. Instead, such exposures can disrupt the way that genes behave, according to both animal and human studies. These changes, in turn, can be passed on to the next generations.

Some environmental chemicals enable methyl groups (carbon atoms with three hydrogen atoms attached) to attack genes, which turns them off or mutes them, at a time when they should be turned on. When genes are turned off, they can’t direct the manufacture of proteins that are essential for proper cell function. Chemicals also can uncoil parts of the chromosome, causing genes to be expressed, or turned on, at inappropriate times.

An example is asthmatic children. Wan-Yee Tang, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati, found that children in New York City exposed in the womb to high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), common air pollutants from traffic, were much more likely to have asthma than those who were not exposed. By studying cord blood, she found that a particular gene (ACSL3) was methylated in the asthmatic children and unmethylated in the unexposed children, and concluded that the abnormal methylation patterns probably caused the asthma.

The finding could in part explain why worldwide asthma rates have skyrocketed in much of the world, reaching epidemic proportions among children. In the boroughs of New York City with the worst air pollution, about 25 percent of children are asthmatic.

Epigenetic changes also have been observed in children conceived with assisted reproductive technologies, said Richard Meehan of the Medical Research Council in Scotland.

One of the disorders that occurs at a higher rate in these children is Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, which is characterized by abdominal wall defects and a higher risk of certain childhood cancers. The culture medium where fertilized eggs are grown for several days before implantation probably causes the syndrome, he said. It appears that all the different media used for the eggs might be problematic because they contain chemicals that stimulate the addition of methyl groups to the cells.

The scientists at the workshop said it’s important to understand epigenetics not only to figure out which chemicals might endanger public health, but to find new ways to prevent or treat diseases.

Scientists are just now beginning to figure out normal methylation patterns in the genome so they can learn what is abnormal, said Karl T. Kelsey, professor of community heath and pathology at Brown University in Rhode Island. As a result of this new understanding, epigenetic therapies have been developed for some types of cancers, and some have been successful in clinical trials, he said. Unlike traditional cancer drugs, which kill cells, the new drugs simply change how the cells act.

Research with rats shows that gene-altering chemicals can change animals’ brains—in some cases, in a beneficial way.

Moshe Szyf, a pharmacology and therapeutics professor at McGill University Medical School in Montreal, found that rats that received healthy doses of maternal licking as pups grew up to be calmer than pups who had inattentive mothers. The maternal grooming brought about a chemical change in the part of the pup’s brain that produces stress hormones, he said.

The rats reared by attentive mothers had different levels of corticoid gene expression and lower levels of stress hormones than those reared by inattentive mothers. Szyf found he could cure the stressed rats by injecting a chemical called TSA into their brains, which reversed the inappropriate methylation caused by inattentive mothering.

This understanding of epigenetics may lead to new medications for treating human problems. By using approaches similar to those used in the rat study, Szyf is hoping to find drugs that will help alleviate human psychiatric conditions.

Szyf also studied the preserved brains of suicide victims and of people who died suddenly from causes other than suicide. He found that certain genes in the suicide victims were methylated, or turned off. In contrast, those same genes were not methylated in the victims who died by other means. Abnormal methylation patterns could cause depression in some people, he said.

Some compounds, such as nickel, chromium and arsenic, are well-known carcinogens—not because they are toxic to cells but because of their epigenetic effect, said Max Costa, a New York University professor of environmental medicine and pharmacology. They increase DNA methylation, which results in gene silencing and cell transformation and leads to cancer, he explained.

Researchers at the meeting spent a great deal of time discussing whether and how to test chemicals for their ability to cause epigenetic changes.

Most researchers there agreed that compounds need to be tested for epigenetic effects. But practical testing of the 80,000 or so chemicals in commerce would require rapid screens that would prioritize the compounds into high, medium, and low-risk groups. Those at high risk for epigenetic effects could then be subjected to more definitive and expensive tests.

John M. Greally, associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, pointed out that no single test is ideal for detecting epigenetic effects.

“All of the assays have drawbacks,” he said. For example, one assay requires immediate sample processing so it cannot be used on stored samples.

Nevertheless, many researchers said that testing chemicals for epigenetic changes can begin soon.

“The fact that we don’t know a great deal about this area doesn’t mean it’s daunting,” said George Daston, research fellow at Procter & Gamble. “We just need to build on what we have. Microassays already show how chemical exposures change the gene expression in certain parts of the genome. The fact that we don’t know a lot doesn’t mean we can’t start testing quickly.”

Birnbaum, who formerly was head of experimental toxicology at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said regulators and industry don’t have to start from square one.

“We’re already marching down this road,” said Birnbaum. “The National Toxicology Program is already talking about including some epigenetic studies in the program.”

The most important public health issue that arises from epigenetics, Birnbaum told Environmental Health News, is that the current environment may not be the crucial factor to consider when examining what causes diseases.

“Asking heart attack victims what they ate this year or last may be far less important than what they were exposed to in the womb and shortly after birth,” she said.