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<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Photo taken by Darlene DeVita in Boston, MA. Media file by Rocky Acosta.</span></p><p class="caption">Shiva Ayyadurai claims that GMOs are unsafe, but he's short on evidence.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Shiva Ayyadurai claims genetically modified foods may be harmful to our health, and he's willing to bet on it.</p><p>The MIT-educated scientist recently <a href="http://patch.com/new-jersey/livingston/livingston-hs-grad-challenges-monsanto-10-million-if-you-can-prove-me-wrong-0">told Patch</a> he would bet a $10 million building he owns that the agritech giant Monsanto can't disprove the findings of a recent <a href="http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=57871#.Vbfui3hbv6Q">study</a> of his that claims that genetically modified (GMO) soybeans contain harmful levels of a chemical called formaldehyde.</p><p>(Ayyadurai also claims he invented email, which <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5888702/corruption-lies-and-death-threats-the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email">is probably false</a>.)</p><p>We asked Jeff Wolt, a professor of agronomy and toxicology at Iowa State University, what he made of these claims. (Disclosure: Wolt worked for 15 years with the agritech company Dow Agrosciences.)</p><p>According to Wolt, Ayyadurai's statements are fishy for multiple reasons, including the fact that his study findings are based on what he calls "sketchy evidence."</p><h2>Computational models are not evidence</h2><p>Ayyadurai bases his claims on systems biology, a computational model that looks at biology as a whole, rather than individual components. While that's a good tool, it's merely what Wolt calls a "hypothesis generator." In other words, you need follow-up studies to verify or refute the claims.</p><p>"He's put forward some very sketchy evidence to stimulate conversation," Wolt said.</p><p>Plus, there's a bigger problem: All plants (and bacteria and animals) make formaldehyde - a <a href="http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/content/profiles/formaldehyde.pdf">known carcinogen</a> at high enough levels - but the chemical is usually detoxified from them naturally. Even if studies found that the GMO soy that Ayyadurai talks about contained formaldehyde, the levels would need to be compared to those found in soybeans in the wild.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Food safety</h2><p>Ayyadurai also claimed that GMO foods are not regulated enough to be considered safe, pointing to the FDA's policy of "<a href="http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/Biotechnology/ucm096095.htm">substantial equivalence</a>," which says that GMOs are equivalent to non-GMO foods that have been conventionally bred over longer time scales.</p><p>According to Wolt, this statement reveals more about Ayyadurai's lack of knowledge about food safety than about food safety itself.</p><p>In fact, said Wolt, substantial equivalence is merely the first step of a longer process, and simply establishes a baseline for safety. It's then followed by toxicity and allergenicity studies, in the form of either experiments or evidence from the scientific literature.</p><p>There's been a lot of research of GMO foods over the years, and the <a href="http://www.who.int/foodsafety/areas_work/food-technology/faq-genetically-modified-food/en/">World Health Organization</a> says that these foods are no less safe than conventionally grown foods.</p><p>Still, there's no definitive test for whether <em>any</em> food is 100% safe, said Wolt. "Food safety, at the end of the day, is a judgment we allow experts to make on our behalf."</p><p>Ayyadurai and Monsanto could not immediately be reached for comment.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-nye-science-guy-one-fact-mind-blowing-2015-10">Bill Nye: This scientific fact blows my mind</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Y2N2h0cTr1H5N1vOZ6i-53luwbgDLIc6" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

A scientist just bet $10 million on a flimsy claim that GMOs are unsafe

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Chris Pizzello</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Gawker will settle the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that forced the company into bankruptcy, <a href="https://nickdenton.org/a-hard-peace-e161e19bfaf#.60kqj5u06">according to founder Nick Denton.</a></p><p>The settlement is for $31 million, <a href="https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/793847560565772288">according Forbes' Ryan Mac</a>, who cites court documents. The original judgment against Gawker was for $140 million.</p><p>Three stories, including the one about the Hulk Hogan sex tape that sparked the lawsuit, will be removed from the internet, Denton wrote in a blog post.</p><p>"<span>As the most unpalatable part of the deal, three true stories - about Hulk Hogan, the claim by Shiva Ayyadurai that he invented email and the feud between the founders of Tinder - are being removed from the web," Denton wrote.</span></p><p>Here is Denton's full blog post:</p><p id="462b" style="padding-left: 30px;">After four years of litigation funded by a billionaire with a grudge going back even further, a settlement has been reached. The saga is over.</p><p id="f68f" style="padding-left: 30px;">As the most unpalatable part of the deal, three true stories - about Hulk Hogan, the claim by Shiva Ayyadurai that he invented email and the feud between the founders of Tinder - are being removed from the web.</p><p id="85ae" style="padding-left: 30px;">Yes, we were confident the appeals court would reduce or eliminate the runaway Florida judgment against Gawker, the writer of the Hogan story and myself personally. And we expected to prevail in those other two lawsuits by clients of Charles Harder, the lawyer backed by Peter Thiel.</p><p id="1373" style="padding-left: 30px;">But all-out legal war with Thiel would have cost too much, and hurt too many people, and there was no end in sight. The Valley billionaire, famously relentless, had committed publicly to support Hulk Hogan beyond the appeal and "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/opinion/peter-thiel-the-online-privacy-debate-wont-end-with-gawker.html" target="_blank" data-href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/opinion/peter-thiel-the-online-privacy-debate-wont-end-with-gawker.html">until his final victory</a>." Gawker's nemesis was not going away.</p><p id="7c80" style="padding-left: 30px;">For Thiel, an investor in Facebook and Palantir, the cost of this exercise is less than 1% of his net worth and a little additional notoriety. The other protagonists - including Hulk Hogan and A.J. Daulerio, the author of the Gawker story about him - had much more at stake. That motivated a settlement that allows us all to move on, and focus on activities more productive than endless litigation. Life is short, for most of us.</p><p id="b593" style="padding-left: 30px;">I will continue to work on <a href="mailto:nick.denton@gmail.com" target="_blank" data-href="mailto:nick.denton@gmail.com">topic forums</a>, still convinced that the internet can bring people together in shared understanding <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/nick-denton-problem-with-media.html" target="_blank" data-href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/nick-denton-problem-with-media.html">rather than just triggering conflict between them</a>. Hulk Hogan's retirement will be comfortable.</p><p id="993e" style="padding-left: 30px;">Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Deadspin, Jezebel, Kotaku and Jalopnik - now under the ownership of Univision - can entertain and inform their readers with fewer distractions. The jobs of all journalists and other staff have been preserved by the sale of the business to the Hispanic <keyword id="6354777" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Media">media</keyword> giant. And this settlement will allow staff equity holders to recoup the salary or bonus they gave up. Now, I hope A.J. Daulerio's talents as an editor and writer can once again be appreciated. The shadow over Sam Biddle and John Cook, two other former Gawker journalists targeted by lawsuits, has been removed. I am sure they, and others, will continue to shed light on the new power.</p><p id="d03b" style="padding-left: 30px;">It's a shame the Hogan trial took place without the motives of the plaintiff's backer being known. If there is a lasting legacy from this experience, it should be a new awareness of the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiels-legal-smackdown-1465163232" target="_blank" data-href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiels-legal-smackdown-1465163232">danger of dark money in litigation finance</a>. And that's surely in the spirit of <a href="https://nickdenton.org/how-things-work-23bef8ae5614#.rg7xt35fk" target="_blank" data-href="https://nickdenton.org/how-things-work-23bef8ae5614#.rg7xt35fk">the transparency Gawker was founded to promote.</a> As for Peter Thiel himself, he is now for a wider group of people to contemplate.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/infected-honey-bees-in-the-us-are-dying-2016-10">Scientists have discovered why American honey bees are turning into zombies</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Q0c3AzeDoFdIxrXSBTCcR8lfdcuwyQPu" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Gawker settles with Hulk Hogan: 'The saga is over'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">Mark Davis/Getty</p><p class="caption">TV star <keyword id="11812" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Fran-Drescher">Fran Drescher</keyword> debuted her new controversial boyfriend this week ata film premiere in Los Angeles.</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p class="p1">"The Nanny" star Fran Drescher, 56, is <keyword id="6367193" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dating">dating</keyword> 49-year-old Shiva Ayyadurai - the man who reportedly <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5888702/corruption-lies-and-death-threats-the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email" target="_blank">falsely claims</a> he invented <keyword id="29411" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="email">email</keyword>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Ayyadurai developed a full-scale emulation of a mail system he called "EMAIL" as a high school student in 1978 and copyrighted it in 1982, reports <a href="http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/fran-drescher-steps-out-with-new-boyfriend-shiva-ayyadurai-email-inventor-of-email-picture-20131610" target="_blank">Us Weekly</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">While he may have copyrighted the term, Gizmodo explains <span>Ayyadurai was far from inventing the technology we call "Email" today.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">AP/PRNewsFoto/The International Center for Integrative Systems</p><p class="caption">Shiva Ayyadurai claims he invented Email, but many argue his claims are false.</p></div><p></p></div></span></p>
<p class="p1">In a lengthy post last year titled <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5888702/corruption-lies-and-death-threats-the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email"><span class="s1">"</span>Corruption, Lies, and Death Threats: The Crazy Story of the Man Who Pretended to Invent Email,<span class="s1">"</span></a> Gizmodo writes:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Shiva Ayyadurai didn't invent email-he created "EMAIL," an electronic mail system implemented at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark, New Jersey. It's doubtful he realized it as a little teen, but laying claim to the name of a product that's the generic term for a universal technology gives you acres of weasel room. But creating a type of airplane named AIRPLANE doesn't make you Wilbur Wright.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The actual pioneers of email were breaking new ground more than a decade before Ayyadurai concocted his dental memo system. Electronic mail predates Ayyadurai's ability to spell, let alone code. </p>
<p>Interestingly, Gizmodo points out that <span>Ayyadurai "</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">also owns dozens of immodest domains to that point - </span><a href="http://www.inventorofemail.com/" target="_blank" data-ls-seen="1">InventorOfEmail.com</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">,</span><a href="http://dremail.com/" target="_blank" data-ls-seen="1">DrEmail.com</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">, </span><a href="http://emailinventor.com/" target="_blank" data-ls-seen="1">EmailInventor.com</a> <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">- you get the point. No? Well Ayyadura has literally 100 more sites (103 in total) dedicated to making sure you do."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Today, the MIT alum currently </span><a href="http://vashiva.com/va-shiva-biography/" target="_hplink">teaches at his alma mater</a><span>, heading a course called Systems Visualization in MIT's Department of Comparative Media Studies. </span></span></p>
<p>But apparently Drescher, 56, doesn't care whether her boyfriend invented email or not <span>- </span>she's just happy to have a younger man. (<span>Ayyadurai is 49.)</span></p>
<p><span>"[I've] got a lot of energy and a lot of contemporary taste in music or whatever, so I have more in common with guys who are younger," she told </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/fran-drescher-on-dating-y_n_2207608.html" target="_blank">HuffPost Live</a><span>. "I'm trying to keep it within ten years now. Definitely younger."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The actress and "email inventor" debuted their romance at the "Bridegroom" premiere Tuesday night in Los Angeles:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">UsWeekly</p></div><p></p></div><br /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></p>

Fran Drescher Is Dating The Guy Who Says He Invented Email

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Microsoft</span></p><p class="caption">Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Good morning! Here's the tech news you need to know to end your week.</p><p><strong>1. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-holographic-lenovo-dell-acer-2017-1">Microsoft's crazy hologram goggles are finally coming to stores.</a></strong> They're being made by manufacturers like HP and Dell.</p><p><strong>2. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/evernote-shuts-office-in-seoul-south-korea-2017-1">Evernote has closed another office as it tries to centralise its operations.</a></strong> The note-taking app company has closed its office in Seoul, South Korea.</p><p><strong>3. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/california-bill-self-driving-violators-uber-punishable-fine-2017-1">California is preparing a law that would hit rogue self-driving car makers with huge fines.</a></strong> It comes after Uber refused to get a license for its vehicles.</p><p><strong>4. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-samsung-electronics-says-fourth-quarter-operating-profit-likely-up-50-percent-year-on-year-2017-1">Samsung expects its Q4 profit to increase 50% year-on-year.</a></strong> That's despite the Galaxy Note 7 exploding phone fiasco.</p><p><strong>5. <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/05/tim-cook-irish-tax-committee/">Apple CEO Tim Cook has been accused of being "disrespectful" to the Irish people after refusing to appear before a tax probe committee.</a></strong> 9to5Mac reports that Irish politicians have criticised the exec over the decision.</p><p><strong>6. <a href="http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/01/shiva-ayyadurai-files-defamation-lawsuit-against-techdirt.html">Shiva Ayyadurai, who claims to have invented email, is suing another news site.</a></strong> New York Magazine reports that he is suing Techdirt over articles like "Actual Creators Of Email Not At All Happy The Fake Creator Of Email Got Paid For His Bogus Claim."</p><p><strong>7. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-nissan-cars-partnership-peggy-johnson-interview-2017-1">Microsoft exec Peggy Johnson explained to us why Nissan is betting big on Microsoft's car strategy.</a></strong> The company launched the Connected Vehicle Platform on Thursday.</p><p><strong>8. <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/heres-520-hours-of-trump-interviews-so-you-can-fact-check-the-president">The Internet Archive is launching an dedicated archive of old Donald Trump media appearances.</a></strong> Motherboard reports it contains more than 520 hours of footage.</p><p><strong>9. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/05/dji-acquires-hasselblad-the-iconic-swedish-camera-company/">Drone company DJI has taken a majority stake in iconic Swedish camera company Hasselblad.</a> </strong>TechCrunch reports DJI first bought a minority stake in 2016.</p><p><strong>10. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-insurance-employees-replaced-ibm-watson-2017-1">A Japanese insurance firm replaced 30 workers with IBM's artificial intelligence technology.</a></strong> Fukoku Life Insurance thinks it will increase productivity by 30%.</p>     <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/plastic-surgery-double-eyelid-south-korea-explained-2016-12">Why Korean parents are paying for their kids to get plastic surgery</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="N3anZreDpn-2nQvRx1Ucqnt93GqH8mTZ" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "shiva ayyadurai" and got 4 results

A scientist just bet $10 million on a flimsy claim that GMOs are unsafe

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Fran Drescher Is Dating The Guy Who Says He Invented Email

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