This week in What were they thinking … ? (#023)

This week has been busy for medicine/ public health. The communist bloc is competing for who can create the first successful GMO babies with CRISPR as the tool of choice. The UK has decided that girls and homosexual men are not the only ones who would benefit from the HPV vaccines. Meanwhile Australia has used machine learning to develop a better influenza vaccine.

These and other topics from this week are described at:

00:10 Snapping turtles survive under ice without oxygen

03:11 New skull fragments found in Europe may shift the time for migration out of Africa.

05:09 Russia may authorize the first “official” GMO babies

07:29 The UK authorizes HPV vaccine for boys

09:19 IV vitamins; the new health fad

13:58 Australia develops first AI designed vaccine

15:47 Astronomers are trying to make ploonets a thing

16:27 Hayabusa II is returning to earth with samples of Ryugu

16:58 20% of cities could be in an unknown environment on earth

18:43 Indian farmers plant GMO crops as an act of civil disobedience

21:35 Scientist want GMO cows to reduce global warming

23:37 Oklahoma couple confuses involved in confusing arrest

Relevant links:

Snapping Turtle Beneath the Ice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlW9TV6gB_A

Developmental plasticity of cardiac anoxia-tolerance in juvenile common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina)
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.1072

Apidima Cave fossils provide earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in Eurasia
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1376-z

Washington Post: Cave Skulls
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/07/10/enigmatic-skull-suggests-our-human-species-reached-europe-years-ago/?utm_term=.6a044706a479

Five Couples Agree to CRISPR Their Babies to Avoid Deafness
https://futurism.com/five-couples-crispr-babies-avoid-deafness

Call to extend HPV vaccine to boys as cancer rates soar
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/31/hpv-vaccine-boys-cancer-rates

HPV vaccine could prevent over 100,000 cancers
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hpv-vaccine-could-prevent-over-100-000-cancers

NHS HPV vaccine
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/hpv-human-papillomavirus-vaccine/

HPV vaccine for boys raises hope of eradicating cervical cancer
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/08/hpv-jab-boys-raises-hope-eradicating-cervical-cancer/

Do vitamin drips really work? The evidence says ‘no’, so save your money and eat real food
https://theconversation.com/do-vitamin-drips-really-work-the-evidence-says-no-so-save-your-money-and-eat-real-food-116823

Australian researchers just released the world's first AI-developed vaccine and it could prevent another horror flu season
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australian-researchers-just-released-the-worlds-first-ai-developed-vaccine-and-it-could-prevent-another-horror-flu-season-2019-7#qyIfLb8YA8EJwGTd.99

Ploonets: formation, evolution, and detectability of tidally detached exomoons
https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.11400

A Japanese spacecraft has landed on an asteroid after blasting it with a bullet. The mission will bring back rock samples to Earth.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/japan-lands-spacecraft-on-ryugu-asteroid-2019-7?r=US&IR=T

Understanding climate change from a global analysis of city analogue
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0217592

Indian farmers plant GMO seeds in civil disobedience ‘satyagraha’ protest
https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2019/06/indian-farmers-plant-gmo-seeds-civil-disobedience-satyagraha-protest/

We could breed climate-friendly cows that belch less methane
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2208449-we-could-breed-climate-friendly-cows-that-belch-less-methane/

COUPLE ARRESTED FOR DRIVING STOLEN CAR FILLED WITH URANIUM, A RATTLESNAKE AND WHISKEY: 'THERE'S QUITE A FEW UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
https://www.newsweek.com/uranium-rattlesnake-whiskey-arrest-oklahoma-unanswered-questions-1448695