glowend shares a report: In a controversial first, a team of researchers have been creating embryos that are part human and part monkey, reports the Spanish daily El Pais. According to the newspaper, the Spanish-born biologist Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, who operates a lab at the Salk Institute in California, has been working with monkey researchers in China to perform the disturbing research. Their objective is to create "human-animal chimeras," in this case monkey embryos to which human cells are added. The idea behind the research is to fashion animals that possess organs, like a kidney or liver, made up entirely of human cells. Such animals could be used as sources of organs for transplantation. The technique for making chimeras involves injecting human embryonic stem cells into a days-old embryo of another species. The hope is that the human cells will grow along with the embryo, adding to it. Izpisua Belmonte tried making human-animal chimeras previously by adding human cells to pig embryos, but the human cells didn't take hold effectively. Because monkeys are genetically closer to humans, it's possible that the new experiments could now succeed. To give the human cells a better chance of taking hold, scientists also use gene-editing technology to disable the formation of certain types of cells in the animal embryos.

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Amid an ongoing heat wave, new data show the Greenland ice sheet is in the middle of its biggest melt season in recorded history. It's the latest worrying signal climate change is accelerating far beyond the worst fears of even climate scientists. From a report: The record-setting heat wave that sweltered northern Europe last week has moved north over the critically vulnerable Greenland ice sheet, triggering temperatures this week that are as much as 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal. Weather models indicate Tuesday's temperature may have surpassed 75 degrees Fahrenheit in some regions of Greenland, and a weather balloon launched near the capital Nuuk measured all-time record warmth just above the surface. That heat wave is still intensifying, and is expected to peak on Thursday with the biggest single-day melt ever recorded in Greenland. On August 1 alone, more than 12 billion tons of water will permanently melt away from the ice sheet and find its way down to the ocean, irreversibly raising sea levels globally. [...] Even just a few decades ago, an event like this would have been unthinkable. Now, island-wide meltdown days like this are becoming increasingly routine. The ongoing melt event is the second time in seven years that virtually the entire ice sheet simultaneously experienced at least some melt. The last was in July 2012, where 97% of the ice sheet simultaneously melted. In the 1980s, wintertime snows in Greenland roughly balanced summertime melt from the ice sheet, and the conventional wisdom among scientists was that it might take thousands of years for the ice to completely melt under pressure from global warming. That's all changed now. With a decade or two of hindsight, scientists now believe Greenland passed an important tipping point around 2003, and since then its melt rate has more than quadrupled.

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Unidentified short-range projectiles fired from North Korea's eastern coast early Friday, South Korea's military said.

Unidentified short-range projectiles fired from North Korea's eastern coast early Friday, South Korea's military said.

New research shows our galaxy, the Milky Way, is twisted and warped - not flat as previously thought.

The Federal Trade Commission is examining Facebook's acquisitions as part of its antitrust investigation into the social-media giant -- to determine if they were part of a campaign to snap up potential rivals before they could become a threat [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], WSJ reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The company's acquisition practices are a central component of the FTC probe, the people said. Facebook disclosed the FTC's antitrust investigation in its earnings announcement last week, but provided few details. FTC investigators are looking for evidence on whether Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg purchased startup technology firms to keep them from challenging Facebook's empire, the people said. The FTC has begun reaching out to people who founded companies that Facebook purchased, some of the people said.

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The Federal Trade Commission is examining Facebook's acquisitions as part of its antitrust investigation into the social-media giant -- to determine if they were part of a campaign to snap up potential rivals before they could become a threat [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], WSJ reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The company's acquisition practices are a central component of the FTC probe, the people said. Facebook disclosed the FTC's antitrust investigation in its earnings announcement last week, but provided few details. FTC investigators are looking for evidence on whether Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg purchased startup technology firms to keep them from challenging Facebook's empire, the people said. The FTC has begun reaching out to people who founded companies that Facebook purchased, some of the people said.

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Sudanese doctors' committee said several others wounded at Omdurman rally on the day power-sharing negotiations resumed.

Boris Johnson has been touring the UK as a 'no-deal' exit looms, to reassure those worried about divorce with the EU.

Boris Johnson has been touring the UK as a 'no-deal' exit looms, to reassure those worried about divorce with the EU.

Burger King will start selling its meatless Whopper across the United States on August 8, the biggest rollout for Impossible's plant-based product. From a report: The burger chain has been selling the Impossible Whopper, featuring a meatless patty made by Impossible Foods, in a few markets in the United States since April. It first tested the product in St. Louis before announcing in May that it would offer the Impossible Whopper nationally this year. Interest in plant-based protein has surged as many people try to reduce their meat intake for health or environmental reasons. US retail sales of plant-based foods have grown 11% in the past year, according to a July report from trade group Plant Based Foods Association and the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that supports plant-based businesses. The Impossible Whopper has been performing well, Chris Finazzo, Burger King's president for the Americas, told CNN Business.

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Burger King will start selling its meatless Whopper across the United States on August 8, the biggest rollout for Impossible's plant-based product. From a report: The burger chain has been selling the Impossible Whopper, featuring a meatless patty made by Impossible Foods, in a few markets in the United States since April. It first tested the product in St. Louis before announcing in May that it would offer the Impossible Whopper nationally this year. Interest in plant-based protein has surged as many people try to reduce their meat intake for health or environmental reasons. US retail sales of plant-based foods have grown 11% in the past year, according to a July report from trade group Plant Based Foods Association and the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that supports plant-based businesses. The Impossible Whopper has been performing well, Chris Finazzo, Burger King's president for the Americas, told CNN Business.

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After multiple books and films about his decision to leak the biggest cache of top-secret documents in history, whistleblower Edward Snowden is set to tell his side of the story in a memoir, Permanent Record. From a report: Out on 17 September, the book will be published in more than 20 countries and will detail how and why the former CIA agent and NSA contractor decided to reveal the US government's plans for mass surveillance around the world and in the US -- which included monitoring phone calls, text messages and emails. UK publisher Macmillan said the book would see him "bringing the reader along as he helps to create this system of mass surveillance, and then experiences the crisis of conscience that led him to try to bring it down." Snowden's story has been already been tackled on film and in books. He was portrayed by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the Oliver Stone film Snowden, which was adapted from Guardian journalist Luke Harding's book The Snowden Files. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, the source to whom he leaked his explosive story, recounted in his memoir No Place to Hide how he went to Hong Kong in 2013 to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have evidence of government spying. Snowden was also the subject of the 2014 documentary Citizenfour, directed by Laura Poitras, and the 2016 play Wild, a fictionalised take on his story.

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After multiple books and films about his decision to leak the biggest cache of top-secret documents in history, whistleblower Edward Snowden is set to tell his side of the story in a memoir, Permanent Record. From a report: Out on 17 September, the book will be published in more than 20 countries and will detail how and why the former CIA agent and NSA contractor decided to reveal the US government's plans for mass surveillance around the world and in the US -- which included monitoring phone calls, text messages and emails. UK publisher Macmillan said the book would see him "bringing the reader along as he helps to create this system of mass surveillance, and then experiences the crisis of conscience that led him to try to bring it down." Snowden's story has been already been tackled on film and in books. He was portrayed by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the Oliver Stone film Snowden, which was adapted from Guardian journalist Luke Harding's book The Snowden Files. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, the source to whom he leaked his explosive story, recounted in his memoir No Place to Hide how he went to Hong Kong in 2013 to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have evidence of government spying. Snowden was also the subject of the 2014 documentary Citizenfour, directed by Laura Poitras, and the 2016 play Wild, a fictionalised take on his story.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After multiple books and films about his decision to leak the biggest cache of top-secret documents in history, whistleblower Edward Snowden is set to tell his side of the story in a memoir, Permanent Record. From a report: Out on 17 September, the book will be published in more than 20 countries and will detail how and why the former CIA agent and NSA contractor decided to reveal the US government's plans for mass surveillance around the world and in the US -- which included monitoring phone calls, text messages and emails. UK publisher Macmillan said the book would see him "bringing the reader along as he helps to create this system of mass surveillance, and then experiences the crisis of conscience that led him to try to bring it down." Snowden's story has been already been tackled on film and in books. He was portrayed by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the Oliver Stone film Snowden, which was adapted from Guardian journalist Luke Harding's book The Snowden Files. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, the source to whom he leaked his explosive story, recounted in his memoir No Place to Hide how he went to Hong Kong in 2013 to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have evidence of government spying. Snowden was also the subject of the 2014 documentary Citizenfour, directed by Laura Poitras, and the 2016 play Wild, a fictionalised take on his story.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.