This should be REALLY USEFUL - for gene therapy and stem cell therapy.

One of the big problems with such therapies is how to deliver the modified genes or regulators to the target cells, without converting them to something that would be rejected or otherwise have unintended markers or modifications.

One approach is to deliver genes or regulatory chemicals via a modified virius or using viral capsid proteins to construct an "injector". (A family of methods for turning harvested somatic cells into toti/pluri/multi/unipotent stem cells consists of inserting four regulatory proteins - by inserting about four GENES THAT CODE FOR THEM via a modified virus.)

Now here we have a a method, already used by the body, to transport RNA signalling snippets and other factors from one cell into another, by a sending cell creating virus-like carrier particles that destination cells readily accept and absorb.

THAT looks like an IDEAL basis for building a carrier for regulatory factors to switch cell modes on and off, or to tote new genetic material into a target cell for incorporation, to correct genetic errors or supply lost genes:

  1) Make fake exosomes carrying the message you want to deliver.
  2) Inject them into the tissue you want to affect.
  3) Rewrite the state or code of the target cells.
  4) Cure disease (or otherwise augment the patient's health).
  5) PROFIT!

Viruses by definition contain genetic code from outside the host organism.

On the other hand, just as some organelles (i.e. mitochondria, chloroplasts) are apparently the remnant of a microbial infection or ancient symbiosis that became integrated, there are several cellular mechanisms that are apparently remnants of an ancient retrovirus infection, where the bulk of the viral genome was lost but one of its mechanisms was retained and adapted to perform some useful new function.

I'd be willing to bet this is another example of such an

No, you'd have to be inbred with the cancer 'donor' to not reject their cancer as readily as you'd reject an organ transplant from them.

Not necessarily.

These things aren't carrying the full-blown genome. They're carrying little bits of it - like regulatory switches (or something that functions like that). They ought to be able, occasionally, to covert another person's cells JUST FINE without also marking them as any more foreign than an equivalent cancer naturally arising in that person.

Way too many people don't realize that our current economic and political system would not survive if critical thinking skills became commonplace.

Possibly. Although the same can be said of every other economic and political system as well. Which is a bit of a problem. People are messy. And each person has his/her own priorities and beliefs and weirdness.

We are destroying our own planet in the name of making 0.01% wealthy, and most of us, most of the time, are perfectly content to participate in the process in any way that pays decently and offers "interesting" work.

Just because someone exercises critical thinking does not mean that that person will come to the same conclusions that you have. They probably aren't starting with the same objectives as you.

Which is why companies DO NOT WANT real critical thinking skills.

They want people who think like they do and who come to the same conclusions that they do based upon the same information that they have.

Let's all share! What do _you_ do with all those left over high-energy electrons you've always got lying around?

And even without the law it seems fairly simple.

You do not INTENTIONALLY break equipment that you do not own. You do not do that. No matter how you feel about that equipment. Particularly when the person who now owns said equipment has no idea that there is a problem.

And I'd be wary of any company that could not understand that.

Non-lethal weapons would allow protestors to protest without getting killed.

Protestors should be able to protest WITHOUT the police using either lethal or non-lethal weapons against them.

The important thing here is to take away the governments ability to kill.

Except that you are not doing that.

You are providing the police with pain-compliance (aka "torture") devices.

And as can be seen in many news reports, once the police/government has them, they will use them. And that use will not be INSTEAD of more lethal options. They will be used when the victims do not IMMEDIATELY follow the orders of the police. Even if those orders are illegal to begin with.

Those weapons will be treated as a "force multiplier". Not as a preferred option over lethal force.

Who needs social networks online?

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