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Introduction There is a long track record of concern around man-made cascading chain reactions that could quickly expand out of control, causing a cataclysm. In 1942, for example, in the midst of the Manhattan Project, before Trinity, the first fission explosion test, physicists Teller and Oppenheimer expressed concern that the bomb they were building might ignite Earth's atmosphere, in a cataclysmic fusion chain reaction, that could destroy the planet. (Horgan, 2015). Novelist Kurt Vonnegut's 1963 novel, Cat's Cradle, with its point of departure in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, posited a crystalline structure of solid water, 'ice nine', stable at room temperature (Vonnegut, 1961). Introduction of just one ice nine seed molecule anywhere on Earth would lead to a crystalline replication chain reaction that would remove liquid water from the entire planet, destroying in the process all life on Earth. (Rovner, 2017). In 2008, in the run up to the inauguration of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), beneath Geneva, lawsuits were filed as far away as Hawaii, seeking to block the particle smasher, over concerns that this most highly targeted of endeavors, which aims particle beams along extraordinarily narrow geometries, might set off unintended reactions, spawning black holes, which might then swallow the entire Earth. (Muir, 2008). Each of these theses involved a hypothetical cascading process that might spread exponentially, out of control, leading to wide-spread destruction. While CERN's LHC is operating today, without apparent black hole production, and Earth's atmosphere has not ignited during fission or fusion explosions, and ice nine has not yet seized up Earth's waterways, there is one domain today which has been proven ripe for uncontrolled spread of destructive change; the internet, and all its connected computers. WannaCry spread to 300,000 computers in 9 hours in May 2017, a spread that was attenuated only by the confluence of two unlikely and fortuitous developments; 1) inclusion of an apparently unintentional kill switch in the 'Franken-attack' package, and 2) discovery and activation of that kill switch, by a UK researcher. 1.1 Mechanisms of collateral damage in cyber attacks1 This paper posits that there are two mechanisms in particular, by which cyber-attacks systematically escape the, targeted detonation space, leading to collateral damage. These each have a parallel with respect to convention weapons systems, yet in both cases the scope for collateral damage as a ratio to intended (targeted) damage inherently substantially higher in cyber space. These mechanisms are illustrated here using the widely known Stuxnet, WannaCry, CCIeaner, and NotPetya cyber incidents. These mechanisms are: ■ 1) Loss of confidentiality in weapons design, illustrated with Stuxnet, a highly-targeted attack, and WannaCry, an opportunistic campaign. ■ 2) Loss of integrity in targeting, illustrated using NotPetya, and CCIeaner, targeted attacks. 1.2 Loss of confidentiality in weapons design Digital design's attractiveness arises primarily out of its natural facility for design reuse. Digital signals are n. fundamentally more efficient than analog schemes, evidenced for example by the lower bandwidth required f analog television, vs. digital. This 'cut and paste' re-usability aspect comes into play with many beneficial outcomes, such as speedy application development. However the same dynamic means that sophisticated malware, developed by well-funded teams of cyber warriors serving national governments, even those of allies is easily repurposed for unintended use, by adversaries large and small. Note that while cyber-attacks will in the first instance target computers and networks, the capacity to injure or kill humans is immense. The compute disabled or repurposed may be those that control air traffic, electric grids, dams, electric cars, food and watt supplies, and other necessities of civilian life. I Stuxnet, delivered by USB key to the air-gapped Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz in 2009, narrowly targeted SCADA industrial control systems built by Siemens. Its creators crafted sophisticated targeting systems to 'insure? that Stuxnet would only damage its intended target, the centrifuge cascades deployed at Natanz, and wou‘ leave other SCADA installations unaffected. (Mueller). The Iranian President at the time, Ahmadinejad, was photographed at Natanz in 2008, and these photos, which were published on his website, showed a monitor in the background with coded information concerning the unique layout of the centrifuge cascades in that location. This information was coded into Stuxnet, aiming to limit Stuxnet's damage to that one unique site, and forestall damage anywhere else. Stuxnet was a pioneer in several aspects; it utilized four 0-day exploits, rootkits, and stolen digital certificates. It auto-updated following deployment, and it invoked deep knowledge of the Siemens equipment it was targeting. (Mueller). Stuxnet employed multiple modes of self-replication, leveraging vulnerabilities ranging from* autorun.inf, to MS10-161 print spooler which allowed Stuxnet to 'print' itself to files on target machines. The, command and control servers were named with football (soccer) related machine names, and corresponded' using encrypted data streams. These servers were eventually rendered impotent by 'friendly' security, researchers, who first detected and sought to analyze and defeat Stuxnet. Stuxnet had a built in kill switch, triggered by a run date subsequent to June 24, 2012, an apparent attempt by its authors to limit collateral damage, on the theory that by this date the campaign's targeted operational objectives would have been achieved, or defeated. Stuxnet concealed its presence and activity using rootkits, and by manipulating reports and records produced by the target systems. The authors appeared to intend for it to run stealthily and for an extended period, slowly causing centrifuge failure that might be misinterpreted as normal hardware lifecycle malfunction. (Mueller). Stuxnet was effective; it is estimated that approximately 1000 centrifuges were destroyed, about 11% of the population installed at Natanz. (Mueller). And, while it replicated to thousands of machines worldwide, it was effective in that timeframe in detonating only in the target setting; only at Natanz, only on machines controlling Siemens Step7 SCADA PLCs, in the unique Natanz cascade arrangement, running certain OS versions. Stuxnet was perhaps the most highly targeted and carefully constrained cyber-attack yet seen; it employed extensive target-verification procedures. In fact, Stuxnet appears to have been designed to comply with most norms of international law and rules of war. Yet, it did not die at Natanz, nor did it die on June 24th, 2012. Stuxnet spread to over 100,000 computers in far flung locations, in the timeframe of original dissemination. Of more concern however, is the subsequent transfer of its techniques, knowledge, code, and design attributes, to myriad other cyber-attack teams. One illustration of this, is that the most commonly generally exploited vulnerability in 2016, 6 years downstream, was CVE2010-2568, one of the original Stuxnet vectors, patched in 2010 (Cimpanu, 2017). Such 'leakage' can also occur with conventional military hardware. For example, unexploded ordinance, such as a cruise missile, can be dissected and reverse engineered by adversary forces. However, it is much more likely to happen with a digital payload, where replication is easy and there is no natural rate of erosion leading to eventual neutralization. In addition, the export control regimens, such as ITAR and EAR, in place are effective for the parts supply chain for conventional weapons procurement and production. In contrast, the export of digital weaponry is an inherent product of its purposeful use, such as with Stuxnet, and in addition can occur through theft and dissemination, as was the case with EternalBlue, in WannaCry and NotPetya. WannaCry spread extremely rapidly in part due to its inclusion of the EternalBlue exploit, widely attributed to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). EternalBlue was leaked by the Shadow Brokers hacker group in April 2017, shortly before the WannaCry campaign the following month. EternalBlue was also utilized in NotPetya in late June, 2017. EternalBlue exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft's Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, CVE-2017-0144 (ref Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures catalog). EternalBlue allows for execution of arbitrary code remotely on a target machine. WannaCry's collateral impact was enormous, for example causing the National Health Service in UK to redirect ambulances away from impacted hospitals. Rule 56 of the Tallinn Manual, produced by NATO's CCD COE to define rules of cyberwarfare including protection of civilians, prohibits targeting of hospitals and other services necessary for sustenance of civilian life (Artese, 2015). The NSA had 'stockpiled' this and other zero day exploits, however did eventually notify Microsoft once it realized its vault of exploits had been compromised. Microsoft released a patch for EternalBlue in March, 2017, and associated security bulletin MS17-010. Only in-support versions of Windows received patches at that time. Microsoft notably skipped a patch cycle the month before, in February 2017. On May 12th 2017, WannaCry was released, and its enormous spread in the first few hours prompted Microsoft to release emergency patches, even for unsupported OSs including Windows XP and Windows Vista. The current vulnerability ecosystem is certain to produce bad outcomes: ■ Unlike traditional manufactured products, SW producers have established a paradigm of shipping flawed product, with the aim to patch it later. This difference is illustrated by vastly different outcomes for General Motors, for example, sued and fined for its ignition switch flaw, vs. Microsoft, neither sued nor fined for its Kerberos implementation vulnerable to Mimikatz's harvest of plain text passwords from memory, and the subsequent loss of many billions of dollars via IP exfiltration. The financial incentive is for SW vendors to ship now, then test and patch later. ■ These flaws are then researched and stockpiled by well financed cyber warfare teams working for the ~ dozen nation-states with active cyber warfare programs. While the intention may be defensive, the weaponized outputs of this research eventually, either through use and dissemination (such as with Stuxnet), or through theft (such as with WannaCry), will be available for use by other actors, on unintended target populations. U.S. taxpayer, firms and individuals, that finance NSA, were among the victims of WannaCry, for example. Many Russian organizations became victims of NotPetya. ■ A functioning market has developed for zero-days, which can be bought and sold freely. This creates a financial incentive for sophisticated actors to attack and breach the repositories of NSA and other researchers and weaponizers of vulnerabilities. Other niches have been created, such as for dissemination portals such as Wikileaks. ■ Vendors such as Microsoft, Apple and others have financial incentives to move older products out of support, ending the flow of patches to the legitimate user base. However, the continuing flow of patches for newer products, that often have a shared code base with older versions, provides a steady stream of information to cyber-warfare teams on what those unpatched vulnerabilities in the older products are. ■ Finally, users, individuals and organizations, are slow and sloppy in applying patches, even when available. The EternalBlue patch had been out for two months prior to the launch of WannaCry, for example. The most frequently invoked vulnerability of 2016, was patched in 2010, following its use in Stuxnet. Windows XP, of support since 2014, is still the third most populous OS on the planet (as of Sept. 2017). The recent Equifax breach of 143 million individuals' financial information, arose from an Apache Struts vulnerability that has been zero day, and patched, months earlier. These demonstrate clearly that the paradigm of patching as product quality assurance protocol is not functioning well, across the internet at large. This ecosystem, if unchanged, insures the continuation of the trend towards ever larger breaches, based on even more powerful hacking tools, in the hands of ever more varied and malicious groups. 1.3 Inherent loss of integrity in targeting, illustrated using NotPetya, and CCIeaner, widely believed to be targeted attacks Methods of target verification in digital attacks are inherently incomplete and usually ineffective. / NotPetya, launched on June 27, 2017, hit banks, airports, power utilities, and others, heavily in Ukraine, Russia» and parts of Western Europe (Bosspm, 2017). Losses were extensive, for example shipping company MaersK reported a loss of up to $UD300M as a consequence of the attack in their third fiscal quarter. FedEx's TNT unit was severely disrupted and reported a material financial impact. NotPetya was initially thought to be related to a prior attack, 'Petya', however on deeper inspection it was learned that this attack was not what it first appeared to be. First reports of NotPetya appeared at about 6:00 AM ET on June 27th, referencing power utilities with systems down. At 8:00 AM ET Symantec tweeted that Petya code was responsible, and that EternalBlue was being utilized. At 10:00 AM Kaspersky Labs tweeted that the latest ransomworm was in fact 'Not Petya', and they named it accordingly. By this time, according to Kaspersky, 2,000 organizations had been infected with the 'ransomware'. Later analyses concluded that the ransomware motive was a deception, that ransom collection was not an aim of the exploit. There were reports of victims that had paid a ransom without receiving a decryption key. NotPetya used multiple exploits, and invoked Mimikatz, the plaintext credential harvesting tool. By noon ET on June 27th, the Ukrainian Police had confirmed that MeDoc, tax software widely used in Ukraine, was an infection vector for 'patient zero'. A similar SW update vector was employed with CCIeaner. Subsequent analyses have concluded that NotPetya was a targeted attack, intended to harm Ukrainian companies. The association with MeDocs served as a target verification method. After all, who but a Ukrainian company would utilize Ukrainian tax preparation software? It turned out that companies from all over the world were connected in one fashion or another, to networks containing MeDocs, and with conduits for contagion that wrapped all the way back to the likely sources' own neighborhood. Digital missiles can boomerang. Australian companies, for example, had Ukraine subsidiaries, and so had to file Ukrainian taxes. Ukrainian companies had customers, and so had established site-to-site VPNs with organizations around the globe. EternalBlue is able to traverse LANs and WANs, and did so on June 27th. Target verification appears to have been ineffective, considering that TNT Express in Europe, Cadbury factories in Tasmania and Victoria, and law offices 12,975 km away from Ukraine, were among the hosts of 16,000 computers in 64 countries affected. CCIeaner, some analysts have concluded, was a targeted Advanced Persistent Threat campaign, targeting South Korea. The campaign was a sophisticated, multilayered attack that leveraged a popular freeware program, CCIeaner, which ironically was designed to assist with keeping unwanted applications off machines, whose vendor had become compromised. The update to V5.33 carried malicious code to an estimated 2,000,000 computers across the globe. Attackers seem to have made a mistake in the attack list for CCIeaner, with a target company noted as ".sk", apparently believing ".sk" to be the designation for South Korea. However, the domain .sk actually belongs to The Slovak Republic, so it appears the 'targeted' attack was off in this instance by some 8,231 km (Google Maps). No purely kinetic weapon, bullet, missile, or bomb, is yet able to produce direct victims at physical offsets measured in the thousands of kms, as CCIeaner has done. Protocols exist for use of kinetic and cyber weapons, to insure that targets are chosen and campaigns waged with an eye towards minimizing collateral damage to non-combatants. For example, art.57(3) (Rule 56 of Tallinn Manual; NATO CCD COE) requires that targets should be selected that will create the minimum danger to civilian lives and objects. (Artese, 2015). Even when cyber campaigns are designed with such protocols in mind, such as appears to have been the case with Stuxnet, we've seen that damage escapes the planned field of battle quickly, and by quite a 'distance'. In most cases less care is taken, such as we've seen with WannaCry, NotPetya, and CCIeaner, and the epidemic spread is faster and wider. Novelist Stephen King's Dark Tower image of 'too many shaky hands holding lighters near too many fuses' is an apt metaphor. Our highly interconnected network, of in excess of 10 В [Billion] highly vulnerable computers and devices, the internet, is the 'ice nine' cataclysm venue of our time, in terms rapid, exponentially growing, uncontrolled spread of damage, intended and unintended. 2. Discussion and conclusions The first codified international treaty aimed at protection of sick and wounded in warfare, the 1864 Geneva Convention, was inspired by the need to protect hospitals from attack during hostilities. It is ironic therefore to witness the severe impact of WannaCry on NHS (UK National Health Service) hospitals. Since the establishment of the Red Cross, and the Geneva and Hague Conventions, (LOAC, or Laws of Armed Conflict), humanity has managed, at least, to avoid cataclysmic self-destruction with weapons categories including conventional, chemical, biological, and nuclear. Treaties have been at least somewhat effective in controlling the militarization of space, and the proliferation of nuclear weaponry, and other weapons of mass destruction. With the advent of a potent new weapons category, cyber, we find ourselves without analogous arrangements, no 'Cyber Red Cross' to protect innocents during outbreaks. No Geneva or Hague conventions to regulate behavior or use of such weaponry. Conventional, chemical, and even nuclear weapons, could be used stealthily, however would be difficult to use anonymously. That is, it might be possible to introduce such weapons in to a venue undetected, however attribution after use is likely to be reliable, and by the nature of the measurement systems we have at our disposal. Physical measuring systems, those that measure distances, locations, and trajectories, and analytical tools, those that analyze chemical compounds and isotopes, and are well developed and difficult to circumvent. Forensic tools and techniques used in cyber-attacks undertaken on the battlefield called the 'internet', on the other hand, are less developed and easier to manipulate. Internet protocols are by design largely geo-location neutral, and Boolean forensics techniques can be obfuscated to a greater extent than those based on physical measurements. Therefore cyber-attackers may at least believe there is a significant possibility they may not be reliably identified. The LOAC, in particular Geneva Convention IV, defines civilians and specifies protections afforded to them 'on the battlefield'. The concept of civilian, or non-combatant, however, is not well defined in cyber warfare. Further, the battlefield itself is ill-defined, and by the nature of computer networking as deployed on the WWW, is certainly not localized. This combination of characteristics; anonymity on an exponentially growing network, lack of restraints, widespread vulnerabilities, military grade tools disseminated widely, and ease and simplicity of attack, raises the specter of a perfect storm; widespread damage to organizations, enterprises, individuals, and critical infrastructure, on which we are becoming increasingly dependent for maintenance of civilian life and health.

Now biomimicry is catching on in the cybersecurity field, as engineers seek to protect data and thwart cybercrime using defense mechanisms found in nature.

Bornean moths, for instance, protect themselves from birds by creating leaf tents. Using a similar principle, “data masking” shields sensitive personal information from unauthorized viewers by replacing it with phony data.

It has been five years since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Alice Corp. v CLS Bank International. Alice established a two-part test to determine if a software patent was unpatentable under US Patent Law (35 USC Section 101) for claiming ineligible subject matter. Under this two-part test, a courtmust first consider whether the patent claims are directed to a patent ineligible concept such as an abstract idea, and if so, the court should consider whether the claim’s other elements transform the claim into a patent eligible concept. Applying this two-part test, the Alice decision held that known ideas are abstract, and reciting the use of a conventional computer in the claims to implement the known idea does not make the claim patentable subject matter. Alice has greatly impacted the litigation of software patents. Alice also gave defendants a new and highly successful defensethat could be asserted early in litigation. In turn, patentees have had to take this new defense into account in their litigation strategy, and companies have questioned the value of software patents. After five years and hundreds of court decisions applying Alice, litigation of software patents has changed dramatically. Below are five lessons learned from software patent litigation after Alice.

With one person estimated to be dying of hunger every four seconds, 238 local and international non-governmental organisations are calling on leaders gathering at the 77th UN General Assembly to take decisive action to end the spiralling global hunger crisis. Organisations from 75 countries have signed an open letter expressing outrage at skyrocketing hunger levels and recommendations for action. A staggering 345 million people are now experiencing acute hunger, a number that has more than doubled since 2019. Despite promises from world leaders to never allow famine again in the 21st century, famine is once more imminent in Somalia. Around the world, 50 million people are on the brink of starvation in 45 countries. Mohanna Ahmed Ali Eljabaly from the Yemen Family Care Association, one of the letter’s signatories, said: "It is abysmal that with all the technology in agriculture and harvesting techniques today we are still talking about famine in the 21st century. This is not about one country or one continent and hunger never only has one cause. This is about the injustice of the whole of humanity. It is extremely difficult to see people suffering while others sharing the same planet have plenty of food. We must not wait a moment longer to focus both on providing immediate lifesaving food and longer-term support so people can take charge of their futures and provide for themselves and their families."

Food insecurity in the global south has the propensity to metastasize into even more dangerous instability. When people lack accessible and affordable food, their desperation for nutrition intensifies sociopolitical tensions, which leads to violence and popular unrest. When nations disintegrate under these forces, they leave power vacuums for malicious actors and terrorist elements to exploit, just as they did during the aftermath of Arab Spring. Drastically climbing bread prices first catalyzed popular uprisings against governments in Libya, Egypt, and Syria and led to partial or total state collapse. In Syria, ISIS then proliferated in the subsequent vacuum and the nation also became a door for Russian influence into the Middle East. The clear lesson here is the power food exerts over stability and therefore security. Unfortunately, climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of food challenges. Unseasonal temperature and precipitation fluctuations, rising sea levels, droughts, and extreme weather events can kill crops in a multiplicity of ways. This is already triggering food security issues. Up until the 1990s Syria was relatively fertile. However, a series of irregular multi-year droughts turned Syrian agricultural land to desert from 2006 to 2010. Crop yields plummeted and 85% of livestock died, forcing Syria to rely on imported grain. When another climate change induced drought hit Russia in 2010, its government halted all grain exports. International prices soared, triggering the bread riots that grew into the Arab Spring. As climate change continues the prevalence of food scarcity events will rise in conjunction.

Reproductive health researcher Professor Shanna Swan says male sperm counts decreased by 59 per cent from 1973 to 2011 and the rate is still increasing. Her new book, Count Down, asks if our fertility crisis – largely put down to hormone-disrupting chemicals – puts humanity “on the brink of extinction”.

If that wasn’t enough, lawyer and activist Erin Brockovich says these toxic chemicals are shrinking penis size and testicular volume.

Growing the Bioeconomy Over Next Decade Crucial to Combatting Climate Change

The most recent consensus report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Global Warming of 1.5° should serve as a wakeup call to humanity. According to the October 8 report, the world has only 12 years to dramatically shift economies from their utter reliance on fossil fuels to be able to meet net zero emissions by 2050. These targets are required if we are to keep global temperatures at or below 1.5°C, a threshold that the IPCC finds will invoke conditions that will make large swaths of the globe uninhabitable, causing massive destabilization among society.

Advancements in biotechnology are making it possible for us to combat global challenges with biology at their core – like COVID-19 and biodiversity loss – as well as providing solutions to more diverse issues – like supply chain breakdowns and chemical pollution.

But sharing biological data is complicated, and for the bioeconomy to reach its full potential, we need to improve how biological data is accessed and how benefits are shared. Public and private sectors, civil society, and academia must work together to find a scalable and ethical solution.

The makers of the world’s first phase two AI generated drug said the UAE can be at the heart of a new era in the fight against disease.

The drug discovery process, traditionally known for its complexity and lengthy timelines, is undergoing a significant transformation with the rise of artificial intelligence.

The Supreme Court's Mayo/Alice framework for patent eligibility has now had time to show its effect. Few would argue that its effect has been anything but highly disruptive and destructive in a negative way so far as new technology development and commercialization are concerned. As an example, the Licensing Executives Society, a leading association for intellectual property, technology, and business development professionals, submitted comments this year to Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Andre Iancu. In their statement, like many others in similar tune, they highlight recent Supreme Court precedent relating to patent eligibility and acknowledged that the existing framework for assessing eligibility has proven unduly difficult to implement in a consistent manner and has produced much uncertainty. They go on to state that this uncertainty has made it difficult for inventors, businesses and other stakeholders to predict what constitutes patent eligible subject matter, and to plan and invest accordingly.

Moreover, an interesting study from earlier this year focused on the fundamental question of whether the Supreme Court's new patent eligibility legal framework as outlined in Mayo/Myriad/Alice actually impacted decisions to invest in new technology development and commercialization. 197 Based on a survey of 475 venture capital and private equity investors to study the impact of the Court's eligibility cases on their firms' decisions to invest in companies developing technology, this study found that investors overwhelmingly believe patent eligibility is an important consideration when their firms decide whether to invest in companies developing technology, with 74% of investors agreeing that it is a key reason to invest or not to invest and 14% disagreeing. These results are in tune with the notion that patents are an absolutely integral part of capital investment decisions being made to develop newly emerging innovative technologies.

Regarding science, artificial intelligence has already led to the discovery of clean energy, aerospace technology, and various advancements in electronics. The Department of Energy has been searching for ways to help expand the use of artificial intelligence to lead to the acceleration of discoveries.

This leads to the suggestion that artificial intelligence can further our understanding and accelerate innovation. As you continue reading below, we’ll discuss how AI accelerates innovation.

3. Myriad Did Not Have as Profound an Impact on Research as Was Speculated

The impetus for the plaintiffs to bring suit in Myriad was partially due to concerns over the effect gene patents had on research related to patented genes.216 The plaintiffs’ contention, among other things, was that gene patents like those held by Myriad limited academic investigation into the underlying patented material.217 Several studies after Myriad have analyzed the problem of what effect gene patents had on research.

Fossil resources such as coal, oil, and gas have led to the rapid growth of industrial operations, transportation, and agriculture. Nevertheless, fossil resources are the primary source of direct carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, hence contributing greatly to the climate crisis1,2. Although humanity is aware of the risks of using fossil fuels as resources, still about two-thirds of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions derive from combusting coal, oil, and gas to gain energy2. And notably, of all carbon-based materials, 47% of the annual production is fossil-based3. The way we currently produce and utilize materials severely affects our planet and leads to serious environmental issues. Thus, our mission is clear: We need to achieve rapid decarbonization across all sectors and thrive for cleaner production cycles of fuels, chemicals, food, and feed.

Industrial biotechnology represents one promising technology that can save energy and significantly reduce CO2 emissions when based on sustainable and renewable resources. Microbial conversion of organic substrates allows the production of biofuels and high- and low-value chemicals4,5,6 and thus, replaces fossil feedstocks as raw materials. Among prospective industrial production cells mainly bacteria and yeasts are being proposed as chassis cells for upcoming synthetic biology applications as they can use various feedstocks from a wide range of sources. The so-called first-generation feedstocks, which mostly consist of sugar and starch, are derived directly from agricultural output7,8. Second-generation feedstocks are leftovers from the processing of agricultural raw materials, such as glycerol produced during the generation of biodiesel or lignocellulosic sugars generated from straw or maize stover8,9. Notably, these materials are still made from agricultural products and compete with those that are used to make food, animal feed, and plant fibers. Additionally, the lack of available land questions the sustainability of first-generation feedstocks at one point. According to FAO statistics10, about one-third of the arable land (38% of the world’s land area) is cultivated while the remaining two-thirds include meadows and pastures for livestock. As the population grows, so does the need for agricultural land. The transition of arable regions to non-agricultural lands, intensive use of pesticides, shorter fallow seasons, and climate change further reduce the amount of land suitable for agriculture11.

The clock is ticking, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Climate change is a daunting global challenge that knows no boundaries and respects no borders. It demands innovative solutions that transcend the conventional and the mundane. One step to a solution is to harness biotechnology to aid in combating climate change.

The potential of biotechnology, where many of today’s new technologies and products first get off the ground, to address this colossal issue is nothing short of extraordinary, touching upon five critical aspects – those same five areas which formed the basis for the Burjeel Holdings Oxford Saïd Climate Change Challenge:

To be able to make an impact on the carbon balance and mitigate the atmospheric CO2 levels, two important questions need to be addressed: (i) Which products can we produce from C1 substrates that significantly reduce the carbon footprint, and (ii) which production cycles need to be implemented to realize a C1-based bioeconomy for the future? In the following sections, we give an overview of C1-assimilation pathways that are exploited and compare their thermodynamic efficiencies as well as their energy demand in the form of ATP and NAD(P)H. Further, we provide an opinion on how C1 substrates can be implemented for energy, material, and food production in the future.

C1-assimilation pathways

. [MSDI-JE-wk1]

BALI, Indonesia, July 7, 2022 – At the G20 Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture underscored the importance of agricultural research and development in tackling the challenges of global food security and climate change and called on G20 members to support the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate. USDA’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young, led the U.S. delegation to the meeting, where agricultural science leaders from around the world convened to discuss global challenges facing agriculture and to align both national and global research and development priorities. Meeting participants did not reach consensus on the communique due to the absence of language condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In explaining the U.S. position, Jacobs-Young, USDA’s Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics serving under the Biden-Harris Administration, condemned Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine as “an affront to the principles we seek to affirm and our efforts to advance international science, technology and innovation for development. In response to Putin’s aggression, the U.S. government has taken measures to limit bilateral science and technology research cooperation with the Russian government.” Jacobs-Young also emphasized the significant role global leaders play in ensuring sufficient investment in agricultural research and innovation for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Nowadays, many people are aware that a collapse of global civilization is possible – as the UN warned in its 2022 Global Risks report. They are asking: when will this collapse begin? How will we know it has started? Will there be enough forewarning to save ourselves?

There is no easy answer to such questions as collapse depends on many variables, especially on how effectively and fast nations and governments respond worldwide. At present, it is fair to say, they are completely unprepared. There is no global plan of action. There is not even a set of viable national plans of action to save us.

Agricultural biotechnology can be an important tool for addressing the causes and consequences of climate change and for achieving important societal goals such as reduced poverty, improved global food security, and reduced environmental impacts from agriculture. That’s why agricultural biotechnology is part of USDA’s toolkit for a healthy planet and sustainable future.

Causes and impacts of climate change

4.0 Application of biotechnology for sustainable agriculture

The continuing increase in the world’s population, coupled with the limitations in the supply of natural resources, loss of usable lands, climate change, and widespread degradation of the environment, presents a significant challenge to agricultural scientists today. Biotechnology will provide alternative methods to current approaches to improve the environment and agricultural system [24]. Biotechnology can reduce fertilizer and pesticide application in the current agricultural production system. Reduced application of inorganic pesticides and fertilizers can improve soil, air, and water quality. Biotechnology can be an effective strategic approach to developing different high-yielding and stress-tolerant crop varieties [25].

The Western diet—packed full of industrially grown processed meats, saturated fats, salt, corn-derived fructose syrup, refined grains, washed down with large volumes of alcohol—is taking over the world. Low on fruit and vegetables, this is both cheap and heavily marketed as aspirational, the diet of the middle classes, and viewed as a symbol of success and wealth. With its origins in the Industrial Revolution, the Western diet is associated with obesity, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases.

The goal, then, is to shift away from this toxic diet toward richer, more varied diets that reduce risk of these diseases, and reduce the risk of destabilizing the planet. These changes must also be accompanied by fairer distribution that makes healthy food affordable and accessible to those living in urban food deserts and other underserved regions.