A notorious al Qaeda magazine is encouraging lone-wolf terrorist attacks on U.S. economic leaders, including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett.
The list in Inspire magazine also included industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch, internet entrepreneur Larry Ellison, and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. A prominent economist was also on the list but asked that his name be withheld. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke was named, though not Janet Yellen, who succeeded him.
Also pictured was Jim Walton, one of the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, although he was misidentified in the caption as his late father, Sam Walton. Several other names on the list were misspelled.
The slickly produced magazine article begins with a photo illustration showing blood-spattered pictures of several of the leaders next to a dripping gun. Its stated goal is to derail the “revival of the America Economy.”
The article says the “economic personalities” and “wealthy entrepreneurs” can get off the list by withdrawing their money from U.S. banks, investing their wealth outside American soil, and denouncing support for Israel.
You would think that Bill Gates, the ever-so-friendly richest man in the world, wouldn’t be afraid of much.
But as he recently told Ezra Klein at Vox, he does have some major fears for humanity.
“I rate the chance of a nuclear war within my lifetime as being fairly low,” says Gates. “I rate the chance of a widespread epidemic, far worse than Ebola, in my lifetime, as well over 50%.”
Gates is 59 years old.
So that means an outbreak of sorts is possibly coming in the next few decades.
It’s especially terrifying, Gates says, given the way we reacted to the last epidemic: The Ebola outbreak of last year showed how unready the world is for dealing with infectious disease.
The last widespread killer epidemic was the Spanish Flu. Between 1918 and 1919, it killed between 20 million and 40 million people worldwide — more than World War I.
What’s even more frightening, Gates says, is that we don’t even know where the Spanish Flu came from — it was just called the “Spanish Flu” because the press in Spain were the first to report on it.
In many ways, we’re even more vulnerable to an infectious catastrophe today. Gates tells Vox that according to his modeling, 50 times more people cross borders today than they did back in 1918.
Because of that and other factors, Gates estimates that the next Spanish flu-like epidemic could kill 33 million humans in 250 days. That number of people would be about equal to the population of Canada.
“We’ve created, in terms of spread, the most dangerous environment that we’ve ever had in the history of mankind,” Gates tells Vox.
Malnutrition is a problem across large swaths of the globe, but it’s a difficult problem to solve. It’s not only a matter of people getting enough to eat; they need to have the right combination of food as well. People in developing countries often subside on a very limited diet, which can lead to life-threatening vitamin deficiencies. Surprisingly, a genetically modified (GM) super-banana backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation might be a key weapon in the fight against malnutrition. Yeah, it’s not as sexy as the Gates-backed condoms.
So what makes it “super?” This banana is absolutely chock full of beta-carotene, which the body uses to produce vitamin A. That may not sound like a food with the potential to make an impact on malnutrition, but vitamin A deficiency is a huge problem in the developing world. World health experts estimate 650,000-700,000 children die annually from a lack of vitamin A in their diets. A further 300,000 avoid death only to lose their eyesight. By tweaking a few genes, scientists have created a banana that could prevent such things.
Beta-carotene itself is a large hydrocarbon molecule that has a deep orange color. If you’ve ever wondered why carrots, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes are orange, it’s because of all the beta-carotene they contain. Some species of bananas also produce higher levels of beta-carotene, but they aren’t the ones cultivated for human consumption. It’s these other bananas that Queensland University of Technology scientists used as the source of genetic material to create the super-banana.
Vaccines aren’t dangerous, according to Bill Gates. It’s the belief that they can cause autism that poses a serious threat to the health of children.
The 58-year-old billionaire philanthropist spoke to “AMERICA with Jorge Ramos” in an interview that will air on Tuesday.
“Nothing has saved more lives than vaccines, and nothing has been more disproven than any link between vaccines and negative things like autism,” Gates told Ramos.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation released its annual letter on Tuesday, with Gates outlining his vision for eradicating the world’s worst poverty in the next 20 years.
Global health initiatives and vaccines are a major part of achieving that goal. The foundation website says that “vaccines are among the most cost-effective investments in global health, saving about 2.5 million lives each year.”
Gates spoke with Ramos about his foundation’s investment in research to create a thinner, stronger condom. The foundation awarded more than $1 million in grants toward the goal in November.
“The common analogy is that wearing a condom is like taking a shower with a raincoat on,” Dr. Papa Salif Sow, a senior program officer on the HIV team at the Gates Foundation told The New Republic at the time of the announcement. “A redesigned condom that overcomes inconvenience, fumbling, or perceived loss of pleasure would be a powerful weapon in the fight against poverty.”
Ramos asked Gates why he decided to experiment with improving condoms.
“In general, if women want to have contraception, we think it should be available to them,” Gates said on Tuesday. “So whatever new ideas there are to make it more convenient, less side effects…we’re a big funder of innovation in that area, as well.”
Two scientists at Hampton Creek, working on the artificial egg
A radical ‘artificial egg’ backed by Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel and Bill Gates goes on sale in US supermarkets for the first time today.
Made from plants, it can replace eggs in everything from cakes to mayonnaise – without a chicken ever coming close to the production process.
The team today started selling their ‘plant egg’, called Beyond Eggs, in Whole Foods in California – and say it could soon be available in supermarkets worldwide.
‘We want to take animals out of the equation,’ said Josh Tetrick, the firm’s founder. ‘The food industry is begging for innovation, especially where animals are involved – it is a broken industry.’
‘Even better than the real thing’
MailOnline was able to try two of Hampton Creek’s products – its mayonnaise, and cookies made using its baking product.
The results were surprising, if a little anticlimactic. Both tasted exactly as you would expect – and are indistinguishable from products made with real egg.
The chocolate chip cookies we tried were excellent – crumbly, moist and with a feel in the mouth identical to a normal cookie. Crucially, they also look identical to a normal cookie – despite containing no egg.
Hampton Creek’s ‘Beyond Egg’ mayonnaise was also extremely similar to ‘normal’ mayo – and after trying it out on a few friends, some even preferred to to normal mayonnaise.
Tetrick’s idea was to find a mix of easy-to-grow plants that, when mixed together in the right way, replicate the taste, nutritional values and cooking properties of an egg.
This, he believes will allow the firm to produce its substitute for mass market foods – and to allow developing worlds to grow their own versions with added nutrients.
‘Eggs are functionally incredible, they do everything from hold oil and water in mayo to making the muffin rise and holding scrambled eggs together,’ he said ‘I started to think what if we can find plants that can do this. We have about 12 plants pre-selected, including a pea already widely grown in Canada. There’s also a bean in South Asia that is incredible in scrambled eggs.’
The firm is already in talks with major food manufacturers around the world – including several in the UK, to replace eggs in supermarket products with their alternative.
So far, he says the team has perfected an egg substitute for mayonnaise, and one for cakes.
‘We can make really good mayonnaise, we’ve done taste tests against market leaders, and beaten them consistently. In the world of cookies, we’ve trialled our products with everyone from Bill Gates to Tony Blair, both of whom couldn’t taste the difference.
‘Bill Gates became an advisor to the company, and has been one of its most vocal supporters in the Silicon Valley world where Hampton Creek is based. – dailymail.co.uk
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