Free Republic

Two Pennsylvania Democrats want to erase biological sex from birth certificates to enable people to more easily shift their “gender identity” without facing “bureaucratic roadblocks.” State Reps. Benjamin Sanchez and Joe Webster have proposed a bill that would remove the biological reality of sex from birth certificates — a move they say would “eliminate yet another form of discrimination people endure when there is an error in that category.” “As the times change, so does the need to assess our antiquated practices and procedures. Precedent already exists for amending what is required on birth certificate documents. For example, birth certificates...

The Danish government has announced that Greenlandic families will no longer be required to undergo the ‘forældrekompetenceundersøgelse’ (FKU), a parental competency test used to determine whether parents are deemed fit to raise their children. While the test is reportedly easy to pass, it poses significant challenges for Greenlanders who are not fluent in Danish and includes cultural biases. Children can be removed from their parents if they fail the test. The test assesses parents on various aspects of their lives, including how they react to certain situations, their self-perception, whether they have any physical or mental health issues, their outlook...

George Orwell’s “1984” is perhaps one of the most-referenced books of the modern age. Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” is considered a masterclass in social prescience. Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson’s “Lord of the World” has been hailed as prophetic by the late Pope Benedict XVI. Even C.S. Lewis’s “That Hideous Strength” is fast becoming a staple in the discourse of Christian conservatives. What do all these works have in common? Yes, they were all penned by British authors within the first two-thirds of the 20th century. But as far as their content, these works share three key characteristics: each centers...

Robots are here — and they’re ready to teach your children and grandchildren. Miko is an artificial intelligence-powered robot that was designed specifically to take kids' learning to a new level. The company's SVP of growth, San Francisco-based Ritvik Sharma, told Fox News Digital in an interview that the personal robot aims to elevate education.

The Skiles mummy was found in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of South Texas. Up to 150 mummified bodies have been found in the area, but one adult male from around 1,200 years ago attracted particular attention for study due to how well-preserved his naturally mummified remains were. As well as having a full head of hair – rarely found in the other mummified remains – he had "a very large desiccated fecal mass, which encompasses the majority of what would have been the gastrointestinal tract", according to the authors of one study.Given the size of the backup, the fecal matter...

Germany’s top professional association on sexuality and partnership, Pro Familia, is lobbying the government to force daycare centers to implement “body exploration rooms” and “sexual games” for young children.The issue was first reported by news outlet BILD who revealed that parents were sent an e-mail from an Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) daycare center in the Hanover region which presented a list of ten rules explaining how children in the “body exploration room” would be encouraged to “pet and examine” themselves and other children.“All children, especially preschoolers, are aware of the places in the facility where nudity and body exploration can take place,”...

Fourteen major American cities are part of a globalist climate organization known as the “C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group,” which has an “ambitious target” by the year 2030 of “0 kg [of] meat consumption,” “0 kg [of] dairy consumption,” “3 new clothing items per person per year,” “0 private vehicles” owned, and “1 short-haul return flight (less than 1500 km) every 3 years per person.” C40’s dystopian goals can be found in its “The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World” report, which was published in 2019 and reportedly reemphasized in 2023. The organization is headed and largely funded...

A team of researchers in the United States and United Kingdom say they have created the world’s first synthetic human embryo-like structures from stem cells, bypassing the need for eggs and sperm. These embryo-like structures are at the very earliest stages of human development: They don’t have a beating heart or a brain, for example. But scientists say they could one day help advance the understanding of genetic diseases or the causes of miscarriages. The research raises critical legal and ethical questions, and many countries, including the US, don’t have laws governing the creation or treatment of synthetic embryos. The...

What if technology could eliminate the need for anyone to go through pregnancy and childbirth to have a baby? This article is an installment of Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by subscribing here. It takes nine months for a fertilized egg to develop into a roughly 7-pound baby, and during that time, the person carrying the baby gets to feel the miracle of life growing inside them. They can also expect to experience a slew of unpleasant side effects, from nausea and vomiting...

In late 2021, Elon Musk tweeted his fears about the end of humanity. “We should be much more worried about population collapse….If there aren’t enough people for Earth, then there definitely won’t be enough for Mars,” he opined. Musk’s statements brought the world’s falling birthrate to the forefront of social consciousness. For nearly a century, fertility rates have been decreasing globally. The result is what scientists are describing as a “worldwide infertility crisis.” But there’s a solution looming on the horizon — artificial wombs. In 2017, scientists created a “BioBag” that functioned as an artificial womb, and they used it...

On Friday, a German molecular biologist by trade unveiled a new concept for the world’s first artificial womb facility, EctoLife, which could incubate up to 30,000 babies a year. “My new concept will be unveiled early December, something that I have been working on for a while,” said Hashem Al-Ghaili in November. “The new concept relies on over 50 years of groundbreaking scientific research.”

Two journalists surface today with two different aspects to the same big picture story. First, Julie Kelly notes the DOJ is using social media chat messages as evidence in court against J6 detainees: “DOJ and Big Tech are working seamlessly to excavate private messages and info from deleted accounts to use as incriminating evidence for J6ers.” (link) Second, Miranda Devine is writing in the New York Post about Facebook spying on private messages to identify people who questioned the outcome of the 2020 election (link) This ‘surveillance system‘ has been of great interest to CTH for several years, in part...

Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of my Administration to coordinate a whole-of-government approach to advance biotechnology and biomanufacturing towards innovative solutions in health, climate change, energy, food security, agriculture, supply chain resilience, and national and economic security. Central to this policy and its outcomes are principles of equity, ethics, safety, and security that enable access to technologies, processes, and products in a manner that benefits all Americans and the global community and that maintains United States technological leadership and economic competitiveness. Biotechnology harnesses the power of biology to create new services and products, which provide opportunities to grow...

In a report this week from the science journal SciTechDaily, we learn of a scientific breakthrough that it clearly intended to be exciting and startling, but potentially worrisome as well. Scientists at the University of Cambridge have created a series of “model embryos” that include a functioning brain, a beating heart, and the foundation for all of the other bodily organs you would expect. But unlike previous generations of these sorts of experiments, they did not use any eggs or sperm. The entire embryo was crafted from stem cells that were “trained” to begin forming the organs. The future potential...

cientifically, it’s called ectogenesis, a term coined by J.B.S. Haldane in 1924. A hugely influential science popularizer, Haldane did for his generation what Carl Sagan did later in the century. He got people thinking and talking about the implications of science and technology on our civilization, and did not shy away from inventing new words in order to do so. Describing ectogenesis as pregnancy occurring in an artificial environment, from fertilization to birth, Haldane predicted that by 2074 this would account for more than 70 percent of human births. His prediction may yet be on target. In discussing the idea...

Russian National Defense Control Center head Mikhail Mizintsev warned on Thursday, during a briefing, that Ukraine continues to store its ammunition and weapons in residential spaces, as well as in "educational institutions and other social infrastructure for military purposes." Mizintsev underlined that while the Ukrainian military is doing this, proper evacuation of civilians from the aforementioned spaces is not being carried out.Furthermore, Mizintsev noted that on the territory of Donetsk People's Republic, the militants of nationalist battalions are "systematically firing at the positions of the Russian army" so as to provoke the latter to "return fire."

A pill that could stop men from cheating could "potentially" soon be in the pipeline, following a new study by scientists. The study, published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, found that men with “hypersexual disorder” have “significantly higher” levels of oxytocin in their system. Oxytocin — often referred to as the “love hormone” — is produced by both men and women and helps fuel positive emotions, like other hormones such as dopamine and serotonin. It's also responsible for increasing levels of relaxation and trust. However, the study - which examined 64 men with hypersexual disorder,...

A “synthetic womb” is what is lately on the agenda of tech billionaires around the globe as they seek out a ways to set aside natural birth entirely. A look into a mind of these individuals do reveal quite curious stances.Possibility of replacing natural birth with synthetic wombs is a matter of discussion among several prominent tech entrepreneurs arguing that such technology would remove the “burden” of pregnancy and allow women to work more. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s fellow tech leaders came up with one solution for declining birth rates, after Muskwarned on Tuesday that society “should be...

Are we there yet? Yes, we are. A look at Aldous Huxley's Brave New World: Revisited (1958). This man was a visionary.

By Jeffrey Dastin and Paresh Dave (Reuters) -Google research manager Samy Bengio on Tuesday said he is resigning, according to an internal email seen by Reuters, in a blow to the Alphabet Inc unit after the firings of his colleagues who questioned paper review and diversity practices. Though at least two Google engineers had earlier resigned in protest of the dismissal of artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Timnit Gebru, Bengio is the highest-profile yet to depart. Google and Bengio did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Bloomberg earlier reported the news. A distinguished scientist at Google, Bengio spent about 14...