Category: biological
Kurzweil AI
Bacteria within you — which outnumber your own cells about 100 times — may be affecting both your cravings and moods to get you to eat what they want, and may be driving you toward obesity.
That’s the conclusion of an article published this week in the journal BioEssays by researchers from UC San Francisco, Arizona State University and University of New Mexico from a review of the recent scientific literature.
By Zak Cheney-Rice — News.Mic
The news: Russian cosmonauts have discovered something remarkable clinging to the outside of the International Space Station: living organisms.
The microscopic creatures appeared during a space walk intended to clean the vessel’s surface, and were allegedly identified — incredibly — as a type of sea plankton. This is big: According to Sploid, Russian scientists are both “shocked by [the] discovery and can’t really explain how [it] is possible.”
“Results of the experiment are absolutely unique,” Russian ISS Orbital Mission Chief Vladimir Solovyev told the ITAR-TASS News Agency. “This should be studied further.”
Written By: David J. Hill — Singularity Hub
While computers scientists find new ways to supercharge computers, a team of plant scientists have demonstrated that they can supercharge a plant.
Hoping to speed up plant photosynthesis, researchers from the US and UK have successfully upgraded a carbon-fixing enzyme vital to photosynthesis in a tobacco plant with two enzymes from cyanobacteria, which function at a faster rate. If photosynthesis can be performed more efficiently, plants would grow larger and crops could have higher yields, possibly as high as 60% according to computer models.
“This is the first time that a plant has been created through genetic engineering to fix all of its carbon by a cyanobacterial enzyme,” said Cornell Professor Maureen Hanson, a co-author of the study, in the release. She added, “It is an important first step in creating plants with more efficient photosynthesis.”
The Exponential Nature of Ebola
Otto E. Rossler
Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Tubingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 8, 72076 Tubingen, Germany
Inscribed on the UN Building:
Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul;
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain;
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you cannot retain.
(Saadi, 1210–1292)
Abstract
A survey of the epidemiology of Ebola and the logically necessary responses is offered.
(October 23, 2014)
Ebola is of interest to mathematicians, of all things. Medical epidemiology is basically a mathematical discipline. The exponential growth curve of the number of victims – published on en.wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa#mediaviewer/File:Evolution_of_the_2014_Ebola_outbreak_in_semiLog_plot..png ) – exhibits a visible doubling every three weeks over six months time by now, with an incredible inexorability of the mathematical trend displayed. It represents an unprecedented medical record. It shows that the amazingly constant 3 weeks long incubation period, with subsequent likely death (50 percent) and with on average two newly infected persons, is something like a law of nature. It is a “phenomenon” in the sense of the
exact sciences.
The perfection in which this behavior is observable in an ordinary if poor population is unprecedented. The contagiousness of the disease is extraordinary. And because of the 3 weeks long latency in the mom-infectious incubation period, the upcoming fate is hidden from the infected persons. They are healthy and nothing prevents them from leading a normal life. On the last two days before becoming bed-ridden on the 21st day, say, they carry the disease further.
When they are not at home – in town, say, or at their work place – they propagate the disease, and they do so at home thereafter as long as being cared for. Such a disease – once it has surpassed
an initial threshold of a minimum number of cases – is pre-programmed to spread and conquer.
Preventive immunization is hoped to be available, on an at first small and then grander scale, after a time gap of several months. It would be great if the race could be won earlier. This would stop the spreading if most everyone gets the protective shot. A curative – or at least preventive-acting – serum is also in preparation. And plasma can be collected from survivors who must be paid for this. (See the splendid review talk hiven most recently by the discoverer and name-giver of Ebola,Peter Piot: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/videos/view/415 ). But these measures can help stop the spreading only after long further months have passed. After a 4-months delay, for
example (or roughly 18 weeks), the disease will – if no other measures are taken – have passed through six doubling periods of three weeks and hence have killed 64 times the current number of
about 5.000, which means about 300.000. And if the grand-scale vaccination or therapy takes twice as long in coming (8 months), it is 64 times more casualties again or 20 million deaths. If the
delay is 12 months (one year), it is again 64 times that number or one billion.
Therefore, relying on therapy or vaccination is like relying on a straw right now. What is it that can be done in the meantime? Flying-in nurses and doctors? No: Locomotion control is the only other causal measure that can be taken. It will not reduce the ongoing course of the infection in the sealed-off areas but it will, after reducing the population there to about one half in the worst case, stop the disease. This is a very sad prospect.
However, this prospect is too optimistic still. For it presupposes that the closed-off areas are provided with water and food as “catastrophe zones.” At the time being, this is perhaps still
feasible. But it will soon exhaust planet-wide capacities. This is a war going on. A war that is waged for once not by reluctant human beings but by a soulless parasite.
Obviously, it is not volunteering doctors and nurses that are needed as a causal measure, but water and food supply chains in motorized units, sure to reach even the remotest areas of the declared “closed zones.”
The “epidemiological approach” just sketched looks rather soulless: Is really the provision of basic needs more important than treatment? It indeed is much more causal – sadly. It is tragic to
see that neglecting this support strategy is much more deadly than the withdrawal of all therapeutic volunteers could be since they are “a drop on a hot stone” by comparison.
But is this not terrible? It is tragic. It is even more tragic since the disease itself is so uniquely cruel. It demands that healthy persons keep away from victims unless provided with an expensive protective gear (or unless being survivors). Therefore, the latter gear needs to be provided in very large numbers soon to be distributed in the closed-off zones immediately to prevent the death rate inside from becoming maximal.
A caretaker with a feeling heart coined the word “dying twice” for Ebola. The first time because you get abandoned – no one can come close to you, touch you, serve you. You are made a leper. Your mother must not hug you or come close any more (remember, even the dying Jesus had his mother at his side). Then you die once more in agony.
We come to a conclusion. Should the rational medical information given above be made public? The answer is: of course. But is this not another catastrophic news about Ebola? It surely is. This is the
first time in history that a war against nature needs to be waged. The greatest heroes are the vaccination developers. The next guild is the drug developers. The third league is the first league in terms of importance: The administrators who close down whole areas to be no longer left by anyone living there. On the same level are the providers of water and food for the closed-down areas. Their
mission is preventing death on a mega-scale. Until the eventually millions of sera and immunization kits needed are available, the twice weekly water and food squadrons are the life-saving troup.
They have the most important job as the green angels.
Volunteers are needed for this large-scale operation. And nations are needed to send-in the needed subsistence supplies soon, subito, immediately. For every three weeks’ delay causes a doubling in the
size of the effort needed, or perhaps even a quadrupling since the area to be served quadruples. For the infected areas cannot be closed before the support system is in place! These volunteers are
the life-saving angels – not the doctors, not the nurses. The latter are needed, too, but their humanitarian activities are in vain without the causal hygiene measure of closed areas supported
from the outside.
A new type of volunteer – the water-and-food squad – needs to be founded immediately. Any objections from my readers? Does anyone see a glimmer of hope beyond the above proposed desperate measures?
Acknowledgments
I thank Klaus Dietz for a discussion. For J.O.R.
Gaia Vince — BBC Future
In Ancient Greek mythology, the Earth Goddess Gaia had nine titan sons, who attempted to control not just the Earth, but the entire Universe. I’d like to introduce another. It’s a new creature who emerged only in recent decades. But it’s a creature who is already as influential over life on the planet as the phytoplankton or forests that regulate global temperature, the weather and the air we breathe.
That new creature is us, or more precisely, what humanity is becoming. The entirety of our species, Homo sapiens, is evolving into a superorganism; I’ll call this new life force Homo omnis, or ‘Homni’.
Elizabeth Gibney — Nature
Physicists have found hints that the asymmetry of life — the fact that most biochemical molecules are ‘left-handed’ or ‘right-handed’ — could have been caused by electrons from nuclear decay in the early days of evolution. In an experiment that took 13 years to perfect1, the researchers have found that these electrons tend to destroy certain organic molecules slightly more often than they destroy their mirror images.
Many organic molecules, including glucose and most biological amino acids, are ‘chiral’. This means that they are different than their mirror-image molecules, just like a left and a right glove are. Moreover, in such cases life tends to consistently use one of the possible versions — for example, the DNA double helix in its standard form always twists like a right-handed screw. But the reason for this preference has long remained a mystery.
Western Canada’s most futurist-oriented longevity organization, the Lifespan Society of British Columbia, has organized a first-class life extension conference, which will take place later this fall in the heart of downtown Vancouver. The Longevity and Genetics Conference 2014 offers a full-day of expert presentations, made accessible to a general audience, with keynote on the latest developments in biorejuvination by Aubrey de Grey of SENS Research Foundation. The conference will be interactive, with a panel session for audience questions, and VIP options for further interaction with speakers.
Who will be there? In addition to Aubrey de Grey, there are four other speakers confirmed thus far: Dr. Angela Brooks-Wilson, Head of Cancer Genetics at the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at the BC Cancer Agency, Dr. S. Jay Olshansky, Board of Directors of the American Federation of Aging Research, and co-author of The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging, Dr. Clinton Mielke, former Mayo Clinic researcher and founder of the quantified self platform “infino.me”, and lastly, one of futurism’s most experienced and dedicated radical longevity advocates, Benjamin Best, who is currently Director of Research Oversight at the Life Extension Foundation. This conference is a multi-disciplinary event, engaging several points of interest and relevance in the longevity space, from the cellular, genetic science of aging, to the latest epidemiological and even demographic research. You can also expect discussion on personalized medicine and quantified self technologies, as well as big picture, sociological and philosophical, longevity-specific topics.
All around, the 2014 Longevity and Genetics conference, set to take place Saturday November 15, has a lot to offer, as does the host city of Vancouver. A recent study has indicated that a majority of Canadians, 59%, are in favor of life extension technology, with 47% expecting that science and technology will enable living until 120 by 2050. The Lifespan Society of British Columbia is keeping that momentum and enthusiasm alive and growing, and I’m glad they have organized such a high-calliber event. Tickets are currently still available. Learn more about the event and purchase tickets here.
What follows is my position piece for London’s FutureFest 2013, the website for which no longer exists.
Medicine is a very ancient practice. In fact, it is so ancient that it may have become obsolete. Medicine aims to restore the mind and body to their natural state relative to an individual’s stage in the life cycle. The idea has been to live as well as possible but also die well when the time came. The sense of what is ‘natural’ was tied to statistically normal ways of living in particular cultures. Past conceptions of health dictated future medical practice. In this respect, medical practitioners may have been wise but they certainly were not progressive.
However, this began to change in the mid-19th century when the great medical experimenter, Claude Bernard, began to champion the idea that medicine should be about the indefinite delaying, if not outright overcoming, of death. Bernard saw organisms as perpetual motion machines in an endless struggle to bring order to an environment that always threatens to consume them. That ‘order’ consists in sustaining the conditions needed to maintain an organism’s indefinite existence. Toward this end, Bernard enthusiastically used animals as living laboratories for testing his various hypotheses.
Historians identify Bernard’s sensibility with the advent of ‘modern medicine’, an increasingly high-tech and aspirational enterprise, dedicated to extending the full panoply of human capacities indefinitely. On this view, scientific training trumps practitioner experience, radically invasive and reconstructive procedures become the norm, and death on a physician’s watch is taken to be the ultimate failure. Humanity 2.0 takes this way of thinking to the next level, which involves the abolition of medicine itself. But what exactly would that mean – and what would replace it?
The short answer is bioengineering, the leading edge of which is ‘synthetic biology’. The molecular revolution in the life sciences, which began in earnest with the discovery of DNA’s function in 1953, came about when scientists trained in physics and chemistry entered biology. What is sometimes called ‘genomic medicine’ now promises to bring an engineer’s eye to improving the human condition without presuming any limits to what might count as optimal performance. In that case, ‘standards’ do not refer to some natural norm of health, but to features of an organism’s design that enable its parts to be ‘interoperable’ in service of its life processes.
In this brave new ‘post-medical’ world, there is always room for improvement and, in that sense, everyone may be seen as ‘underperforming’ if not outright disabled. The prospect suggests a series of questions for both the individual and society: (1) Which dimensions of the human condition are worth extending – and how far should we go? (2) Can we afford to allow everyone a free choice in the matter, given the likely skew of the risky decisions that people might take? (3) How shall these improvements be implemented? While bioengineering is popularly associated with nano-interventions inside the body, of course similarly targeted interventions can be made outside the body, or indeed many bodies, to produce ‘smart habitats’ that channel and reinforce desirable emergent traits and behaviours that may even leave long-term genetic traces.
However these questions are answered, it is clear that people will be encouraged, if not legally required, to learn more about how their minds and bodies work. At the same time, there will no longer be any pressure to place one’s fate in the hands of a physician, who instead will function as a paid consultant on a need-to-know and take-it-or-leave-it basis. People will take greater responsibility for the regular maintenance and upgrading of their minds and bodies – and society will learn to tolerate the diversity of human conditions that will result from this newfound sense of autonomy.