[LINK] "Is resurrecting Neandertals unethical?"

The question asked by GNXP's Razib Khan is straight-forward and increasingly non-science fictional.

An interview with paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer:

This raises one more question: Could we ever clone these extinct people?

Science is moving on so fast. The first bit of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA was recovered in 1997. No one then could have believed that 10 years later we might have most of the genome. And a few years after that, we’d have whole Denisovan and Neanderthal genomes available. So no one would have thought cloning was a possibility. Now, at least theoretically, if someone had enough money, and I’d say stupidity, to do it, you could cut and paste those Denisovan mutations into a modern human genome, and then implant that into an egg and then grow a Denisovan.

I think it would be completely unethical to do anything like that, but unfortunately someone with enough money, and vanity and arrogance, might attempt it one day. These creatures lived in the past in their own environments, in their own social groups. Bringing isolated individuals back, for our own curiosity or arrogant purposes, would be completely wrong.

Broadly speaking, the idea of bringing the Neandertals--species or sub-species or population group or whatever--back does appeal to me. It's mainly that I agree the sentiment of a commenter who would appreciate it if our species was resurrected by a successor after our extinction once the successor's technology had advanced to the minimum level necessary, therefore with the Neanderthals ... This, of course, does not begin to effectively tackle the many and profound ethical issues associated with such a project.

Thoughts?

[PHOTO] Boarding at 42nd Street, New York City

The 42nd street at 8th Avenue, apparently connected to the Port Authority, was the first subway station I'd entered in New York City (up for more than 24 hours, holding my suitcase in my chafing hands, trying to find good photos).

[URBAN NOTE] "New shooting 24 hours after Scarborough gunfight becomes Toronto’s 29th homicide"

The narrative of growing gun violence in Toronto is popular.

Less than 24 hours after a shooting in Scarborough killed two people and left 23 others injured, a 42-year-old man was shot dead in Toronto’s west end Tuesday night.

Clayton Wright of Mississauga was shot at about 9:40 p.m. at a soccer field in the Jane-Eglinton area, on Emmett Avenue.

Officers performed CPR on Wright at the scene but he succumbed to his injuries in hospital.

Wright is Toronto’s 29th homicide victim of the year. Police have not released a possible motive for the shooting.

Police say some witnesses are cooperating with their investigation, however, others were spotted leaving before police arrived at the crime scene. There was also a report of a white SUV leaving the scene.

Police said Tuesday that there was a strong indication of gang involvement in the Scarborough shooting and warned of possible retaliation over the incident.

The latest incident could place even more pressure on Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who yesterday stuck by claims that Toronto was “safest city in the world.”

While visiting the scene of the shooting Tuesday morning, Mr. Ford urged Torontonians to “move on.”

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• 80 Beats has more about the newly-sanctioned use of anti-retroviral drug Truvada to prevent HIV infection. Apparently it's quite effective--75% efficacy in heterosexual couples which use it consistently, 90% among homosexual couples which do the same.


• Centauri Dreams considers how the next generation of space telescopes will be able to pick up the signature of water oceans on distant worlds.


• Eastern Approaches notes the exceptionally controversial (and possibly doomed) plan by the Czech government to compensate religious organizations for property expropriated under Communism.


• Geocurrents notes the substantial evidence of influence of Finnic groups on the culture of the Eastern Slavs--Russians particularly, but also Ukrainians and Belarusians.


• Language Hat remarks on a religious song of the Ainu making use of nonsense words.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money wonders why people who watch China's development of an aircraft carrier aren't paying attention to the much larger and longer-established naval aviation programs--including aircraft carriers--of India.


• Registan's Nathan Hamm comments on how Uzbekistan's departure from a Russian-led security alliance signals Russian weakness in its immediate neighbourhood.


• Could elements like lithium be manufactured by black holes? Supernova Condensate speculates.


• Towleroad reports on the shameful decision of the Boy Scouts of America to continue keep non-heterosexuals out of its ranks.

[LINK] "Gay marriage gone wrong"

The Economist's China-focused Analects blog has a post examining attitudes in modern China towards homosexuality. A major concern for non-heterosexuals in China, it seems, is the desire of parents for their children to become parents, encouraging many Chinese non-heterosexuals--men especially, though lesbians also feature in this article--to enter into marriages of convenience.

Zhen Ai used a conventional method to uncover the truth about her husband’s “business trips”. She logged on to his computer. But what Ms Zhen, who was three months pregnant at the time, found was beyond her imaginings. She saw photos of her husband in some of China’s most exotic settings—Tibet, Hangzhou and Yunnan province—with another man. The pictures of them together in bed were particularly devastating.

Ms Zhen, who is now 30 years old and prefers to use a pseudonym, is one of an estimated 16m straight women who are married to gay men in China. Zhang Beichuan, a scholar, estimates that more than 70% of gay men marry straight women. Using census data from 2011, Mr Zhang estimates that somewhere between 2-5% of Chinese men over the age of 15 are gay, or between 11m and 29m. The women who marry them are known as tongqi, which might be translated as “homo-wife”, using “homo-” for same.

Tolerance is on the rise in major cities. Shanghai had its fourth Pride festival in June. Earlier this month the national ministry of health announced that lesbians will be permitted to donate blood.

Yet intolerance still prevails. Homosexuality was only removed from the health ministry’s list of mental illnesses in 2001. In rural regions, the belief that homosexuality is a treatable disease is still widespread.

It did not occur to Ms Zhen that her husband could be gay, though there were signs. She recalls inadvertently resting her hand on his arm during a movie date. “I felt him flinch, but he endured it”, she says. Though confused by his lack of intimacy, she found his considerate nature to be endearing. She hoped the passion would grow after he proposed. What followed instead was an icy marriage, frequent business trips and a perfunctory sex life.

[. . .]

It is especially difficult for Chinese men to come out to their families. Traditional beliefs about the importance of maintaining bloodlines permeate society, which regards homosexuality as unfilial. Yang Shaogang, a Shanghai-based lawyer who specialises in tongqi cases, counselled five women last year after they contracted HIV from their husbands. The only way to prevent this sort of tragedy from befalling such women, he says, is calling for more tolerance so gay men won’t feel forced to enter marriage in the first place.

In recent years some have found a solution, of sorts. Chinagayles.com, a website with some 153,000 members, helps gay men meet lesbian women for matrimonial purposes. Individuals upload personal details, such as monthly income, hobbies and Zodiac signs. Some seek cohabitation without sexual contact. Others want children.

[LINK] "Homosexuality Explained to My Mother"

Towleroad linked to an English translation of an essay by out Moroccan writer Abdellah Taïa, "Homosexuality Explained to My Mother". In it, Taïa places him coming out in the context of the breakdown of Moroccan traditions generally, a necessary pain.

I know I am scandalous. To you. And to those around you: neighbors, colleagues, friends, mothers-in-law... I know to what degree I'm involuntarily causing you harm, giving you worry. I expose myself by signing my real first name and my real last name. And I expose you along with me. I drag you along on this adventure, which is just the beginning for me and for people like me: To exist, finally! To come out of the shadows, head held high! To tell the truth, my truth! To be: Abdellah. To be: Taïa. To be both. Alone. Yet not alone at the same time.

Beyond my homosexuality, which I proudly claim, I know that what surprises and scares you is that I elude you: I am the same, thin as I've always been, with the same eternal baby face; yet I am no longer the same. You no longer recognize me, and you tell yourselves: "Where does he get those bizarre ideas? Where does he get the nerve? We didn't raise him like that... And not only does he talk about sexuality publicly—no, no, that's not enough for him—he also talks of homosexuality, politics, freedom... Who does he take himself for?"

I come from Morocco. I know Morocco. To succeed, even to exist, is about having money and crushing others with money. Since I was born, in 1973, in Rabat, this has always been the Moroccan ideal, the model to follow. Like you, I was born poor, and I grew up poor in Salé. Even today I remain, in certain ways, poor. I refuse this sterile Moroccan ideal. This platitude. It does not suit me. I step around it. The Moroccan model, in my own small way, I've reinvented it. I've filled it with new content, with meaning, with courage, and with doubt... That's what truly shocks you: I've turned out different, something you didn't see coming. A monster. When before, by your side, I had always been so agreeable, studious, and well-behaved.

You must ask yourselves the same questions every day: What did we do to him? What did we do to him to deserve this scandal? You must certainly hate me now, curse me. To you I am without doubt no longer a good Muslim. You must also be worried about me: I take risks in exposing myself like this in books and newspapers.

Taïa appeared on this blog last time in connection with an article he wrote about his many challenges as a child whose sexual orientation was all too evident in a world determined to predate upon him.

The essay and the interview with Taïa--the latter linked to be Towleroad--are both excellent reading.