//////////////////SHYNESS
This diagnosis was frequently irresponsible, and it also had human costs. After being prescribed Paxil or Zoloft for their shyness and public-speaking anxiety, a disturbingly large number of children, studies found, began to contemplate suicide and to suffer a host of other chronic side effects. This class of antidepressants, known as S.S.R.I.’s, had never been tested on children. Belatedly, the Food and Drug Administration agreed to require a “black box” warning on the drug label, cautioning doctors and parents that the drugs may be linked to suicide risk in young people.
You might think the specter of children on suicide watch from taking remedies for shyness would end any impulse to overprescribe them. Yet the tendency to use potent drugs to treat run-of-the-mill behaviors persists, and several psychiatrists have already started to challenge the F.D.A. warning on the dubious argument that fewer prescriptions are the reason we’re seeing a spike in suicides among teenagers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/opinion/21lane.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
//////////////////
/////////////////////
Sunday, 30 September 2007
OOB E
///////////////multi-sensory conflict is a key mechanism underlying out-of-body experiences
////////////////
Saturday, 29 September 2007
Insist on yourself; never imitate.-rw emerson
////////////////Insist on yourself; never imitate.~Ralph Waldo Emerson~
//////////////The wealth of UK households has been given a dramatic boost by rising house prices, says the Halifax bank.
It calculates that total net personal wealth more than doubled between 1996 and 2006, to £6.336 trillion.
More than half that rise is due to higher house prices which pushed up the value of peoples' homes, after mortgage debt, to £2.7 trillion.
While house prices rose by 216% in that time, the lender says mortgage debt rose more slowly, by just 163%.
bbc
//////////////////UFTOE-INNOCENT BYSTANDER=IBS=TRR/TAPCHIDU6
////////////////ALIMA-ALIMW=AT LEAST I M ALVE/WLL
/////////////////Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, is Asia's longest serving leader, having first taken office in 1978-maldives
/////////////////ANAP=AS NORMAL AS POSSIBLE
////////////////THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER/ WORSE
////////////////////MEA CULPA=MY FAULT
/////////////////hyper realist sculpture
http://paintalicious.org/2007/09/14/ron-mueck-hyper-realist-sculptor/
//////////////////EMERGENT CHAOS
//////////////////
//////////////The wealth of UK households has been given a dramatic boost by rising house prices, says the Halifax bank.
It calculates that total net personal wealth more than doubled between 1996 and 2006, to £6.336 trillion.
More than half that rise is due to higher house prices which pushed up the value of peoples' homes, after mortgage debt, to £2.7 trillion.
While house prices rose by 216% in that time, the lender says mortgage debt rose more slowly, by just 163%.
bbc
//////////////////UFTOE-INNOCENT BYSTANDER=IBS=TRR/TAPCHIDU6
////////////////ALIMA-ALIMW=AT LEAST I M ALVE/WLL
/////////////////Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, is Asia's longest serving leader, having first taken office in 1978-maldives
/////////////////ANAP=AS NORMAL AS POSSIBLE
////////////////THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER/ WORSE
////////////////////MEA CULPA=MY FAULT
/////////////////hyper realist sculpture
http://paintalicious.org/2007/09/14/ron-mueck-hyper-realist-sculptor/
//////////////////EMERGENT CHAOS
//////////////////
Friday, 28 September 2007
ROT
///////////////// rule of thumb within the transportation industry says for every minute a lane of traffic is blocked by an incident, four minutes of congestion is created
////////////////LIZ UAYLOR-NUMBER 9 HSBND
/////////////NUKE POOR
///////////////NOISE AT TEN
//////////////Chapter III: The Yoga of ActionIII.26. NA BUDDHIBHEDAM JANAYED AJNAANAAM KARMASANGINAAM;JOSHAYET SARVA KARMAANI VIDWAAN YUKTAH SAMAACHARAN.(Krishna speaking to Arjuna)'Let no wise man unsettle the minds of ignorant people whoare attached to action; he should engage them in all actions,himself fulfilling them with devotion.'III.27. PRAKRITEH KRIYAMAANAANI GUNAIH KARMAANI SARVASHAH;AHAMKAARAVIMOODHAATMAA KARTAAHAM ITI MANYATE.'All actions are wrought in all cases by the qualities ofNature only. He whose mind is deluded by egoism thinks:"I am the doer".'COMMENTARY: Prakriti or Nature is that state in which thethree Gunas exist in a state of equilibrium. When this equilibriumis disturbed, creation begins and the body, senses and mind areformed. The man who is deluded by egoism identifies the Self withthe body, mind, the life-force and the senses, and ascribes to theSelf all the attributes of the body and the senses. In reality theGunas of nature perform all actions.
FABTGON-JBN-JABOG-GXE-LEX MESS
///////////////////ART IN LIFE
////////////////MOLIN MARMA MUCHHAYE=HOOVERING THE MARRIAGE
//////////////////Why do people persist in believing things that have been proved to be untrue? Social psychologist Carol Tavris, author of Anger and The Mismeasure of Woman, joins fellow social psychologist Elliot Aronson to answer this question in Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): How We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts (Harcourt, 2007). The authors use cognitive dissonance theory to analyze issues and disputes in the worlds of politics, medical science, psychiatry, the criminal justice system and personal relationships. The theory can't explain everything, Tavris says, but it can shed light on a surprising number of issues.
//////////////////So a key conclusion according to the current view of string theory and inflationary theory is the fundamental nature of the universe is random. Although the universe seems to be remarkably the uniform everywhere as far as we can see, our leading theories currently suggest that the conditions we observe are actually very rare and unlikely phenomena in the universe entire. And I wonder what Einstein would have thought about that. I wonder if he would have found that idea that is, a theory of this type, to be acceptable. My own point of view is that we have to change one or both of these two key components of our understanding of the universe. We either have to dramatically revise them, or we have to overhaul them entirely, replace them with something that combines to make a powerful theory that really does explain, in a powerful way, why the universe is the way that it is.
///////////////////Nature Books for Kids
One Well: The Story of Water on EarthBy Rochelle Strauss/Illustrated by Rosemary WoodsKids Can Press, 32 pages, $17.95 (ages 8 and up) The earth’s surface is nearly 70 percent water, so why do we need to conserve what we use? Rochelle Strauss tells us the answer in this elegant introduction to the world’s most vital natural resource. All water is part of one global well, and the living things that rely on it are interconnected; indeed, writes Strauss, “the water you drank today may have rained down on the Amazon rainforest five years ago.” Rosemary Woods’s rainbow-bold acrylic illustrations underscore the varied ways water sustains life. A savanna where zebras romp melds into a pond filled with flamingos, and an orchard dotted with red fruit blends with a beach where seals play. On another page a girl waters a lush garden while a farmer tends to a row of plump lettuce. One Well also highlights a glaring disparity: “While the amount of water on Earth is always the same, the distribution of water across the world isn’t . . . nearly one-fifth of the world’s population does not have access to enough water.” The author’s water factoids and water-saving tips are apt to quench any reader’s thirst.
One Well: The Story of Water on EarthBy Rochelle Strauss/Illustrated by Rosemary WoodsKids Can Press, 32 pages, $17.95 (ages 8 and up) The earth’s surface is nearly 70 percent water, so why do we need to conserve what we use? Rochelle Strauss tells us the answer in this elegant introduction to the world’s most vital natural resource. All water is part of one global well, and the living things that rely on it are interconnected; indeed, writes Strauss, “the water you drank today may have rained down on the Amazon rainforest five years ago.” Rosemary Woods’s rainbow-bold acrylic illustrations underscore the varied ways water sustains life. A savanna where zebras romp melds into a pond filled with flamingos, and an orchard dotted with red fruit blends with a beach where seals play. On another page a girl waters a lush garden while a farmer tends to a row of plump lettuce. One Well also highlights a glaring disparity: “While the amount of water on Earth is always the same, the distribution of water across the world isn’t . . . nearly one-fifth of the world’s population does not have access to enough water.” The author’s water factoids and water-saving tips are apt to quench any reader’s thirst.
//////////////////
BLS
BOTTOM LINE SECRETS
RED WINE
Red wine contains resveratrol, a chemical compound that blocks the activation of the COX-2 enzyme, one of the main substances responsible for pain and inflammation. Resveratrol may be more effective than aspirin at relieving pain from osteoarthritis and other inflammatory conditions.
Other beverages made from grapes, such as white wine and grape juice, contain some resveratrol, but not as much as red wine.
Servings: No more than two glasses daily for men, and no more than one glass for women. Alternative source of antioxidants for nondrinkers: Two or more cups of tea daily. Both green and black teas contain epigallocatechin-3 gallate (EGCG), a chemical that blocks the COX-2 enzyme.
/////////////////BERRIES
Virtually all fruits contain significant amounts of antioxidants, which prevent free radical molecules from damaging cell membranes and causing inflammation. Berries -- particularly blueberries, cranberries and blackberries -- are among the most powerful analgesic fruits because they're high in anthocyanins, some of the most effective antioxidants. One-half cup of blueberries, for example, has more antioxidant power than five servings of green peas or broccoli.
Servings: One-half cup of berries daily, fresh or frozen.
Bonus: Berries are very high in the antioxidant vitamin C, a nutrient that builds and protects joint cartilage.
////////////////////WHOLE GRAINS AND BEANS
These are among the best sources of B vitamins -- especially important for people who eat a lot of processed foods, which are usually deficient in these nutrients. Studies suggest that vitamins B-1 (thiamin), B-6 (pyridoxine) and B-12 (cyanocobalamin) may reduce inflammation.
Other B vitamins, such as B-3 (niacin), also reduce inflammation and may increase natural steroid levels and reduce the risk of osteoarthritis.
Servings: At least one-half cup of whole grains and/or beans daily. Good choices:Brown rice, lentils, chickpeas, black beans and kidney beans.
Bonus: Grains and beans are high in fiber. High-fiber foods promote weight loss by increasing a sense of fullness and maintaining optimal blood sugar levels.
/////////////////Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, has said that high-energy light bulbs will begin to be phased out from next year, as part of the Government's practical commitment to reducing carbon emissions.
/////////////////Another measure of the threat to many relatively unknown languages, Dr. Harrison said, is that 83 languages with “global” influence are spoken and written by 80 percent of the world population. Most of the others face extinction at a rate, the researchers said, that exceeds that of birds, mammals, fish and plants
//////////////////LANGUAGE AS WINDOW INTO HUMAN NATURE
/////////////////
RED WINE
Red wine contains resveratrol, a chemical compound that blocks the activation of the COX-2 enzyme, one of the main substances responsible for pain and inflammation. Resveratrol may be more effective than aspirin at relieving pain from osteoarthritis and other inflammatory conditions.
Other beverages made from grapes, such as white wine and grape juice, contain some resveratrol, but not as much as red wine.
Servings: No more than two glasses daily for men, and no more than one glass for women. Alternative source of antioxidants for nondrinkers: Two or more cups of tea daily. Both green and black teas contain epigallocatechin-3 gallate (EGCG), a chemical that blocks the COX-2 enzyme.
/////////////////BERRIES
Virtually all fruits contain significant amounts of antioxidants, which prevent free radical molecules from damaging cell membranes and causing inflammation. Berries -- particularly blueberries, cranberries and blackberries -- are among the most powerful analgesic fruits because they're high in anthocyanins, some of the most effective antioxidants. One-half cup of blueberries, for example, has more antioxidant power than five servings of green peas or broccoli.
Servings: One-half cup of berries daily, fresh or frozen.
Bonus: Berries are very high in the antioxidant vitamin C, a nutrient that builds and protects joint cartilage.
////////////////////WHOLE GRAINS AND BEANS
These are among the best sources of B vitamins -- especially important for people who eat a lot of processed foods, which are usually deficient in these nutrients. Studies suggest that vitamins B-1 (thiamin), B-6 (pyridoxine) and B-12 (cyanocobalamin) may reduce inflammation.
Other B vitamins, such as B-3 (niacin), also reduce inflammation and may increase natural steroid levels and reduce the risk of osteoarthritis.
Servings: At least one-half cup of whole grains and/or beans daily. Good choices:Brown rice, lentils, chickpeas, black beans and kidney beans.
Bonus: Grains and beans are high in fiber. High-fiber foods promote weight loss by increasing a sense of fullness and maintaining optimal blood sugar levels.
/////////////////Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, has said that high-energy light bulbs will begin to be phased out from next year, as part of the Government's practical commitment to reducing carbon emissions.
/////////////////Another measure of the threat to many relatively unknown languages, Dr. Harrison said, is that 83 languages with “global” influence are spoken and written by 80 percent of the world population. Most of the others face extinction at a rate, the researchers said, that exceeds that of birds, mammals, fish and plants
//////////////////LANGUAGE AS WINDOW INTO HUMAN NATURE
/////////////////
Thursday, 27 September 2007
GALACTIC INTERACTIONS-KNOPP
////////////Yes, questions remain! That's part of what's exciting about it. But the overall picture of the Big Bang is supported now by a wealth of observations, models, theory, and comparison between the three. As I noted in my classic post "Big Bang" is a terrible name for a great theory, we don't really know anything about the moment of "Bang" itself... hence the name of the theory not being so great. But the overall picture of a homogeneous and isotropic (on large scales) Universe that has expanded from an extremely hot and dense state is what all of the data point to.
///////////////As a general rule of thumb, given the choice of quality, price or speed of delivery, you can pick any two of the three. More Rules of Thumb
RULES OF THUMB
/////////////////A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment. - Willis Player
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child. - HL Mencken
///////////////////2L IMMIGRANTS EACH YEAR INTO UK
////////////////// COALITION OF THE WILLING
////////////////////'It was one of the loneliest flights of his life'
/////////////////
///////////////As a general rule of thumb, given the choice of quality, price or speed of delivery, you can pick any two of the three. More Rules of Thumb
RULES OF THUMB
/////////////////A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment. - Willis Player
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child. - HL Mencken
///////////////////2L IMMIGRANTS EACH YEAR INTO UK
////////////////// COALITION OF THE WILLING
////////////////////'It was one of the loneliest flights of his life'
/////////////////
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
Remember the bad-
//////////////The way things are now may seem better in the light of bad memories. Don't forget the bad things that have happened, the contrast may encourage gratefulness.
//////////////
//////////////
When in doubt, look intelligent.-Keillor
/////////////////Omega-3 fatty acids will help prevent cardiovascular disease. Fatty fish is the best dietary source of omega-3 fatty acids, though plants such as flax contain omega-3 fatty acids. Studies suggest that 0.5 to 1.8 grams of fish oil per day is an effective amount.
///////////REMEMBER THE PORTFOLIO DIET
////////////////Track your development over time
One of the biggest benefits of a blog is the ability to track your thoughts chronologically. As I look through the archives of PickTheBrain, I can follow my stream of thoughts over the past several months. This reminds me to get back to goals that deserve more attention and to evaluate my progress.
A blog makes it easy to store ideas and articles with personal commentary. Although bookmarking services work great for saving articles, I tend to accumulate so many bookmarks that I rarely, if ever, go back to them. A blog is a more navigable and substantial way to track your most important ideas and bookmark articles that you really want to revisit.
PICK THE BRAIN
//////////////////UNIVERSE TODAY
Black holes are already plenty bizarre. Imagine all the mass of several suns compressed down into an object of potentially infinitely small size. But what if you could find an object that's even stranger: a theoretical "naked singularity"; a black hole spinning so quickly that it lacks an event horizon. A point in space where the density is infinite, yet still visible from the outside.Here's the current thinking on black holes. They're formed when a large star collapses in on itself, lacking the outward pressure to counteract the inward pull of gravity. Once the object reaches a certain size its pull becomes so great that nothing, not even light can escape. The black hole surrounds itself in a shroud of darkness called the event horizon. Any object or radiation that passes through this event horizon is inevitably sucked down into the black hole. And that's why they're thought to be black.
//////////////
///////////REMEMBER THE PORTFOLIO DIET
////////////////Track your development over time
One of the biggest benefits of a blog is the ability to track your thoughts chronologically. As I look through the archives of PickTheBrain, I can follow my stream of thoughts over the past several months. This reminds me to get back to goals that deserve more attention and to evaluate my progress.
A blog makes it easy to store ideas and articles with personal commentary. Although bookmarking services work great for saving articles, I tend to accumulate so many bookmarks that I rarely, if ever, go back to them. A blog is a more navigable and substantial way to track your most important ideas and bookmark articles that you really want to revisit.
PICK THE BRAIN
//////////////////UNIVERSE TODAY
Black holes are already plenty bizarre. Imagine all the mass of several suns compressed down into an object of potentially infinitely small size. But what if you could find an object that's even stranger: a theoretical "naked singularity"; a black hole spinning so quickly that it lacks an event horizon. A point in space where the density is infinite, yet still visible from the outside.Here's the current thinking on black holes. They're formed when a large star collapses in on itself, lacking the outward pressure to counteract the inward pull of gravity. Once the object reaches a certain size its pull becomes so great that nothing, not even light can escape. The black hole surrounds itself in a shroud of darkness called the event horizon. Any object or radiation that passes through this event horizon is inevitably sucked down into the black hole. And that's why they're thought to be black.
//////////////
He that lives on hope will die fasting.American proverb
//////////////////Hope is the poor man's bread.-- George Herbert
/////////////////
Having a son not only shortens a mother’s life but affects the chances of younger siblings raising children – research
AB PATRIKA///////////Having a son not only shortens a mother’s life but affects the chances of younger siblings raising children – research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences finds. http://www.royalsocac.uk/news.asp?id=7118
/////////////Acupuncture works better than anything modern medicine has devised for the treatment of back pain, according to German researchers writing in Archives of Internal Medicine.http://www.royalsocac.uk/news.asp?id=7089
//////////////KOLKATA FLOODED-ABPATRIKA-PIC
/////////////////YOGINDER SHARMA=HERO WITH A GOBECHARA FACE
///////////////Mukesh Ambani's net worth has soared past 50 billion dollars, making him the first Indian and only the fourth person in the world to have a wealth higher than this amount. The RIL chief is now believed to be next only to software czar Bill Gates of the US, Mexican business baron Carlos Slim Helu and Warren Buffett, regarded as the world's greatest investor. Based on the closing share prices of various group companies such as RIL, Reliance Petroleum, IPCL and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure, Mukesh Ambani is estimated to hold shares worth 50.1 billion dollars (about Rs 2,00,000 crore) through promoter holdings in these companies.
/////////////////////FT=
India is currently the most significant part of the world with a half-hourly time zone – five hours behind Greenwich. This has a curious advantage for British journalists there worrying about deadlines, because you can get GMT by the simple trick of turning your watch upside down (trust me, it works). Nepal and the Chatham Islands actually have quarter-hour zones, which is really confusing.
OK, I’m not just fascinated; I’m obsessed. I adore those June evenings in the English countryside when it’s still not quite dark at 11pm. I have seen the December twilight in Hammerfest, the world’s most northerly town: it comes, gorgeously, in mid-morning with a violet sky merging into the pristine snowfield then – boom – a 22-hour darkness closes in before lunch. I have basked in Nairobi at the spring solstice with the sun straight overhead like a gazillion-watt lightbulb.
OK, I’m not just fascinated; I’m obsessed. I adore those June evenings in the English countryside when it’s still not quite dark at 11pm. I have seen the December twilight in Hammerfest, the world’s most northerly town: it comes, gorgeously, in mid-morning with a violet sky merging into the pristine snowfield then – boom – a 22-hour darkness closes in before lunch. I have basked in Nairobi at the spring solstice with the sun straight overhead like a gazillion-watt lightbulb.
///////////////////IHT=
Where do moral rules come from? From reason, some philosophers say. From God, say believers. Seldom considered is a source now being advocated by some biologists, that of evolution.
At first glance, natural selection and the survival of the fittest may seem to reward only the most selfish values. But for animals that live in groups, selfishness must be strictly curbed or there will be no advantage to social living. Could the behaviors evolved by social animals to make societies work be the foundation from which human morality evolved?
In a series of recent articles and a book, "The Happiness Hypothesis," Dr. Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist at the University of Virginia, has been constructing a broad evolutionary view of morality that traces its connections both to religion and to politics.
At first glance, natural selection and the survival of the fittest may seem to reward only the most selfish values. But for animals that live in groups, selfishness must be strictly curbed or there will be no advantage to social living. Could the behaviors evolved by social animals to make societies work be the foundation from which human morality evolved?
In a series of recent articles and a book, "The Happiness Hypothesis," Dr. Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist at the University of Virginia, has been constructing a broad evolutionary view of morality that traces its connections both to religion and to politics.
////////////////////ALMOND=A cup of almond decreases total carbohydrate intake in a given day.2. The fiber structure in almond prevents some fat from being absorbed.3. Almonds can reduce blood sugar level which often leads people to eat more than they should
CHERRY-DIET MEALS RECIPES
//////////////////BAKED BEANS DIET
/////////////////
Monday, 24 September 2007
EAT CLEAN DIET-T RENO
////////////Other than the obvious inclusion of fresh produce and the avoidance of processed foods, here are some of Reno’s guidelines (with my comments in parentheses):
Eat 5-6 times per day (Good idea – not realistic for many)
Each meal should be between 200-300 calories (this essentially makes it a low calorie diet as total calories would be between 1200–1800)
Eat a complex carbohydrate with protein at every meal
Drink at least 2L (8 cups) of water every day (not a bad idea if you are exercising daily)
Never miss a meal, especially breakfast (Agree with the breakfast part but 6 meals per day make skipping the odd one almost inevitable)
Avoid saturated and trans-fats (ouch… I’m leery of advice that lumps these 2 fats together)
Stick to proper portion sizes (agree completely)
DIET BLOG
Eat 5-6 times per day (Good idea – not realistic for many)
Each meal should be between 200-300 calories (this essentially makes it a low calorie diet as total calories would be between 1200–1800)
Eat a complex carbohydrate with protein at every meal
Drink at least 2L (8 cups) of water every day (not a bad idea if you are exercising daily)
Never miss a meal, especially breakfast (Agree with the breakfast part but 6 meals per day make skipping the odd one almost inevitable)
Avoid saturated and trans-fats (ouch… I’m leery of advice that lumps these 2 fats together)
Stick to proper portion sizes (agree completely)
DIET BLOG
Sunday, 23 September 2007
MULTIVERSE
//////////////////////////WORLD GETTING WETTER AND WARMER
////////////////RELIGN IS FEATURE OF NATURAL MADE HUMAN BRAIN
///////////////INTERNET ADDICTN SYNDROME=IMPULSE CONTROL DISORDER
///////////////TMI=TOO MUCH INFO
///////////////////N BAY OF BENGAL TSUNAMI CAN ALMOST REACH KOLKATA
//////////////////////AGGAR-2007
/////////////////////DEVONIAN,CAMBRIAN PERIODS FROM BRITISH NAMES AS THEY LED-JURASSIC(FRANCE),PERMIAN(URAL)
////////////////1 BONE IN 1 BILLION GETS FOSSILISED
////////////////QED=Quod erat demonstrandum
////////////////////////
If Egnor wants to be taken seriously he must come up with a way to identify, measure and test the ghost in his machine. He must show how a predictive falsifiable theory of neuroscience can develop from his hypothesis. Egnor can't do this, and his dualism is as much a science-stopper as "god did it." All of modern neuroscience is built around discovering how neuron interactions form thought and how these interactions can be manipulated to cure disease and recover from injury. The "ghost in the machine" hypothesis gives scientist nothing to work with. If researchers hadn't tossed out Egnor's dualism a hundred years ago, Egnor would not have a job right now.
//////////////////////DESIGN CANNOT PRECEDE EVOLN-DARWIN
///////////////////////CAUSE AND EFFECT
Charles Bukowski
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Cause And Effect
Charles Bukowski
poem
-->
the best often die by their own handjust to get away,and those left behindcan never quite understandwhy anybodywould ever want toget awayfromthem
////////////////////////LIFE=FREAK AXDENT OF CHEMISTRY-DAVIES
//////////////////////COSCIOUSNESS DOES NOT SURVIVE DTH=ABODES
/////////////////////DTH= A SLEEP U DONT WAKE UP FROM
//////////////////////QUANTUM PHYSICS-INFO AND REALITY MERGE
///////////////////MEN OF SCIENCE=DR
///////////////////////WHY A SCIENTIFIC LAW AT ALL?
//////////////////////TUROK-COLD SPOT-SPACE -TIME TWIST
/////////////////////B-DESH AVG WORKER EARNS 7% TO UK WORKER CORRECTED FOR LOW COST OF LIVING
/////////////////////////But do cut back on refined, worthless calories from cakes, cookies, pastries, crackers, chips, big bowls of pasta, and white bread.
////////////////////////SCIENCE RESISTANCE D/T COMMON SENSE ASSUMPN eg WORLD IS FLAT,CLOUD DESIGNED TO MAKE RAIN
/////////////////MICROSACCADES-TO MIND READ eg CAKE,WOMEN
///////////////////BAPTISTINA ASTEROIDS DTRS WIPED OUT DINO
/////////////////////SECULARISM=LIBERN FROM CLRGY POWER
///////////////////////JABOG=JUST A BAG OF 21K GENES=MAN
/////////////////////DONT CALL US ,WE'LL CALL U
/////////////////////SATELLITES=660 LONDON BUSES EQUIVALENT HURTLING IN SPACE
/////////////////////THUGOCRACY
///////////////////OUT OF AFRICA 70K YA
///////////////////SPACE AGE TURNS 50=SPUTNIK-SENT ON 4/10/1957
////////////////////HUNTINGDON GENE-MORE PROMISCUOUS-LESS CANCER
///////////////////VENTERS GENOME=CYBA-SO STARTED ON STATINS
///////////////////STATINS TO TREAT RISK NOT LIPID LEVELS
//////////////////MCLWP=HISTORICAL EXPONENTIAL VIEW OF FUTURE
//////////////////////EVERYDAY WORLD USES 14 TRILLION WATT POWER-1/3 OIL,1/4 COAL,1/5 GAS,7% NUKE,15% BIOMASS/HYDEL,0.5% SOLAR
///////////////////DECOHERENCE THEORY=WHEN QNTM SYSTEM INTERACTS WITH CLASSICAL MEASURING DEVICE -INFO DISPERSES INTO LARGER ENVIRONMENT AND ESSENTILALLY GETS LOST
//////////////////TO LOSE 7KG ,DOWN TO 85 KG
//////////////////AVOID ROAST POTAOES AS WELL
//////////////TO LOSE 1/2 LB PER WK,CUT OFF 250 CALS PER DAY
///////////////SINFOODS DIARY
////////////////////109 CITIES IN WORLD HAVE METRO-KOL HAS 16 KM OF METRO FOR 10.9 MN POPULN
/////////////////NORTHERN WRECK
/////////////////////CURIOSITY KILLS THE QUANTUM CAT-GEFTER
///////////////////FLAVINOIDS-QUERECTIN -IN APPLES,TEA,FRUITS,BERRIES-GOOD FOR IMMUNITY
////////////////ROOTS AND TUBERS FUELLED HUMAN BRAIN GRTH
/////////////////TYPICAL STAR=10^57 ATOMS
///////////////100 BN STARS= 1 GALAXY
///////////////////80 STABLE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS
/////////////////Energy: once used can't be used again: like food and fuel Quantum Leap: humongous change Heat: temperature Parameter: perimeter Field: an invisible force Light-year: a humongous time Acceleration: increase of speed Crystal: faceted and glass-like Statistics: a tool of liars, propagandists and politicians Epicenter: the center of something big
Everything was written by someone who didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, … They were teaching something they didn’t understand, and which was in fact useless…” All of those books were, "a little bit wrong, always! ... Perpetual absurdity ... UNIVERSALLY LOUSY!
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, pp 262-276
MAGIC OF PHYSICS
/////////////////////
////////////////RELIGN IS FEATURE OF NATURAL MADE HUMAN BRAIN
///////////////INTERNET ADDICTN SYNDROME=IMPULSE CONTROL DISORDER
///////////////TMI=TOO MUCH INFO
///////////////////N BAY OF BENGAL TSUNAMI CAN ALMOST REACH KOLKATA
//////////////////////AGGAR-2007
/////////////////////DEVONIAN,CAMBRIAN PERIODS FROM BRITISH NAMES AS THEY LED-JURASSIC(FRANCE),PERMIAN(URAL)
////////////////1 BONE IN 1 BILLION GETS FOSSILISED
////////////////QED=Quod erat demonstrandum
////////////////////////
If Egnor wants to be taken seriously he must come up with a way to identify, measure and test the ghost in his machine. He must show how a predictive falsifiable theory of neuroscience can develop from his hypothesis. Egnor can't do this, and his dualism is as much a science-stopper as "god did it." All of modern neuroscience is built around discovering how neuron interactions form thought and how these interactions can be manipulated to cure disease and recover from injury. The "ghost in the machine" hypothesis gives scientist nothing to work with. If researchers hadn't tossed out Egnor's dualism a hundred years ago, Egnor would not have a job right now.
//////////////////////DESIGN CANNOT PRECEDE EVOLN-DARWIN
///////////////////////CAUSE AND EFFECT
Charles Bukowski
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Cause And Effect
Charles Bukowski
poem
-->
the best often die by their own handjust to get away,and those left behindcan never quite understandwhy anybodywould ever want toget awayfromthem
////////////////////////LIFE=FREAK AXDENT OF CHEMISTRY-DAVIES
//////////////////////COSCIOUSNESS DOES NOT SURVIVE DTH=ABODES
/////////////////////DTH= A SLEEP U DONT WAKE UP FROM
//////////////////////QUANTUM PHYSICS-INFO AND REALITY MERGE
///////////////////MEN OF SCIENCE=DR
///////////////////////WHY A SCIENTIFIC LAW AT ALL?
//////////////////////TUROK-COLD SPOT-SPACE -TIME TWIST
/////////////////////B-DESH AVG WORKER EARNS 7% TO UK WORKER CORRECTED FOR LOW COST OF LIVING
/////////////////////////But do cut back on refined, worthless calories from cakes, cookies, pastries, crackers, chips, big bowls of pasta, and white bread.
////////////////////////SCIENCE RESISTANCE D/T COMMON SENSE ASSUMPN eg WORLD IS FLAT,CLOUD DESIGNED TO MAKE RAIN
/////////////////MICROSACCADES-TO MIND READ eg CAKE,WOMEN
///////////////////BAPTISTINA ASTEROIDS DTRS WIPED OUT DINO
/////////////////////SECULARISM=LIBERN FROM CLRGY POWER
///////////////////////JABOG=JUST A BAG OF 21K GENES=MAN
/////////////////////DONT CALL US ,WE'LL CALL U
/////////////////////SATELLITES=660 LONDON BUSES EQUIVALENT HURTLING IN SPACE
/////////////////////THUGOCRACY
///////////////////OUT OF AFRICA 70K YA
///////////////////SPACE AGE TURNS 50=SPUTNIK-SENT ON 4/10/1957
////////////////////HUNTINGDON GENE-MORE PROMISCUOUS-LESS CANCER
///////////////////VENTERS GENOME=CYBA-SO STARTED ON STATINS
///////////////////STATINS TO TREAT RISK NOT LIPID LEVELS
//////////////////MCLWP=HISTORICAL EXPONENTIAL VIEW OF FUTURE
//////////////////////EVERYDAY WORLD USES 14 TRILLION WATT POWER-1/3 OIL,1/4 COAL,1/5 GAS,7% NUKE,15% BIOMASS/HYDEL,0.5% SOLAR
///////////////////DECOHERENCE THEORY=WHEN QNTM SYSTEM INTERACTS WITH CLASSICAL MEASURING DEVICE -INFO DISPERSES INTO LARGER ENVIRONMENT AND ESSENTILALLY GETS LOST
//////////////////TO LOSE 7KG ,DOWN TO 85 KG
//////////////////AVOID ROAST POTAOES AS WELL
//////////////TO LOSE 1/2 LB PER WK,CUT OFF 250 CALS PER DAY
///////////////SINFOODS DIARY
////////////////////109 CITIES IN WORLD HAVE METRO-KOL HAS 16 KM OF METRO FOR 10.9 MN POPULN
/////////////////NORTHERN WRECK
/////////////////////CURIOSITY KILLS THE QUANTUM CAT-GEFTER
///////////////////FLAVINOIDS-QUERECTIN -IN APPLES,TEA,FRUITS,BERRIES-GOOD FOR IMMUNITY
////////////////ROOTS AND TUBERS FUELLED HUMAN BRAIN GRTH
/////////////////TYPICAL STAR=10^57 ATOMS
///////////////100 BN STARS= 1 GALAXY
///////////////////80 STABLE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS
/////////////////Energy: once used can't be used again: like food and fuel Quantum Leap: humongous change Heat: temperature Parameter: perimeter Field: an invisible force Light-year: a humongous time Acceleration: increase of speed Crystal: faceted and glass-like Statistics: a tool of liars, propagandists and politicians Epicenter: the center of something big
Everything was written by someone who didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, … They were teaching something they didn’t understand, and which was in fact useless…” All of those books were, "a little bit wrong, always! ... Perpetual absurdity ... UNIVERSALLY LOUSY!
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, pp 262-276
MAGIC OF PHYSICS
/////////////////////
Saturday, 22 September 2007
BERTRAND RUSSELL
////////The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts. -- Bertrand Russell
RELIGION
/////////Religious people were speaking about a website of utterly naturalistic worldview, and then Inoticed I was a Bright. I'm just 16, but am sure that my natural brain is not able to understand supernatural issues. That's why supernatural deities/forces are not important to me. I'm waiting forthe day I'll be able to 'come out' and face the prejudice and rejection of many, beginning by my family and christian friends!"Many people, like Silas, simply have an "utterly naturalistic worldview." As with him,"supernatural deities/forces are not important." Positive terminology like the noun "bright" is just a beginning, but it's a necessary one to go forward in a new direction, one that doesn't treat a usefultrait such as skepticism as grounds for rejection by family and friends.
///////////////AGAIN RELIGION IS PRODUCT OF NATURAL BRAIN OF MAN=VEWS -DAWKINS
///////////////AGAIN RELIGION IS PRODUCT OF NATURAL BRAIN OF MAN=VEWS -DAWKINS
COLLEGE LOANS
//////////The "one-third" college savings rule of thumb says you should expect to save one third of the expected college costs, pay one third from current income and financial aid during college years, and borrow one-third using student loans
RULES OF THUMB
RULES OF THUMB
DROPPED FOOD
./////////That Dropped Doughnut: How Soon, and How Often, Will It Come Back Up?
By Monica HesseWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, July 8, 2007; D01
Last month, scientists at Clemson University in South Carolina determined that applying the five-second rule to dropped food will not actually prevent the food from gathering bacteria.
By Monica HesseWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, July 8, 2007; D01
Last month, scientists at Clemson University in South Carolina determined that applying the five-second rule to dropped food will not actually prevent the food from gathering bacteria.
PRETERMS
///////////Children born at less than 26 weeks of gestation have more mental and social problems at 11 years of age than do their full-term schoolmates, researchers report in the July issue of Pediatrics.
"Children born extremely immature have significantly greater health problems and special health care needs that require ongoing services through the school years," lead investigator Dr. Aijaz Farooqi told Reuters Health. "However, it is notable that very few children have severe impairments that curtail major activities of daily living. The overall results of this study are reassuring."
"Children born extremely immature have significantly greater health problems and special health care needs that require ongoing services through the school years," lead investigator Dr. Aijaz Farooqi told Reuters Health. "However, it is notable that very few children have severe impairments that curtail major activities of daily living. The overall results of this study are reassuring."
GLAUCOMA GENE- trabecular meshwork protein (TIGR).
//////////Primary type of the open angle glaucoma is likely to be due to a heterogeneous group of disorders that is induced due to the interaction of multiple genes and environmental factors. In the January 31 issue of Science, Stone et al, report on the identification of a gene linked to open angle glaucoma. Sequence tagged site (STS) and haplotype sharing between families who had chromosome 1q-linked open angle glaucoma were used to identify the gene. The search led to the identification of mutations in a gene that encodes for a trabecular meshwork protein (TIGR). Three separate mutations (Gly35Val, Gln361STOP, Tyr430His) were found to be present in 4.4% of patients with familial glaucoma, and in 3.9% of unselected patients with glaucoma. The same mutations were found only in 0.3% of the general population and none in the normal volunteers. It is proposed that the product of TIGR may lead to an increased intra-ocular pressure by the obstruction of the aqueous outflow. The findings should facilitate developing accurate, inexpensive pre-symptomatic testing for identification of patients at risk of the disease.
FRONTIERS BIOSCIENCE
FRONTIERS BIOSCIENCE
Good luck, Mr. Gorsky
/////////////O*** sex? O*** sex you want? You'll get oral sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"
Child Deaths Fall Below 10 Million/YEAR For First Time
////////////New figures show solid progress on child survival, including a decline in the annual number of under-five deaths, according to UNICEF. Global child deaths have reached a record low, falling below 10 million per year to 9.7 million, down from almost 13 million in 1990. "This is an historic moment," said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman. "More children are surviving today than ever before. Now we must build on this public health success to push for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals." Among these goals is a commitment to a two-thirds reduction in child mortality between 1990 and 2015, a result which would save an additional 5.4 million children by 2015. However, Veneman pointed out that there is no room for complacency. "The loss of 9.7 million young lives each year is unacceptable. Most of these deaths are preventable and, as recent progress shows, the solutions are tried and tested. We know that lives can be saved when children have access to integrated, community-based health services, backed by a strong referral system." The new figures are drawn from a range of national data sources, including two sets of household surveys, the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and the Demographic Household Surveys (DHS). The current round of MICS surveys was conducted in over 50 countries in 2005-06 and, together with the USAID-supported Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), are the largest single source of information of the Millennium Development Goals and form the basis of the assessment of progress in child survival. Their findings reinforce reports of progress released earlier this year on measles mortality, with a 60 per cent fall in measles deaths since 1999, and a 75 per cent reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. Rapid declines in under-five mortality have been seen in Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS) and East Asia and the Pacific. A number of countries have made particularly dramatic progress since the previous surveys of 1999-2000, with Morocco, Vietnam and the Dominican Republic reducing their under-five mortality rates by more than one-third. Madagascar has cut its rate by 41 per cent, while Sao Tome and Principe has seen its rate fall by 48 per cent. Of the 9.7 million children who perish each year, 3.1 million are from South Asia, and 4.8 million are from Sub-Saharan Africa. In the developing world, child mortality is considerably higher among children living in rural areas and in the poorest households. In developed countries there are just six deaths for every 1,000 live births. The Latin American and Caribbean region is on track to achieve the child mortality Millennium Development Goal, with 27 deaths on average for every 1,000 live births, compared to 55 per thousand in 1990. There has been significant progress in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Under-five mortality has declined 29 per cent between 2000 and 2004 in Malawi. In Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda and Tanzania child mortality rates have declined by more than 20 per cent. The highest rates of child mortality are still found in West and Central African countries. In southern Africa hard-won gains in child survival have been undermined by the spread of HIV and AIDS. Much of the progress is the result of the widespread adoption of basic health interventions, such as early and exclusive breast feeding, measles immunization, Vitamin A supplementation and the use of insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria. "The new figures show that progress is possible if we act with renewed urgency to scale-up interventions that have proven successful," said Veneman. "There is a clear need for action on child survival in Africa and beyond." In addition, there is unprecedented support for global health, with increased funding and expanding partnerships, including with Governments, the private sector, international foundations and civil society. Background Between now and the end of 2007, a number of important new statistics will be released charting progress towards the achievement of the MDGs. Under-5 child mortality estimates are produced at the global level by the Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, which includes UNICEF, WHO, The World Bank, the UN Population Division, Harvard University and others. About UNICEF UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.http://www.unicef.org
MCLWP FUTURE-LIFEBOAT
////////////
LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION SPECIAL REPORT
HUMAN BODY VERSION 2.0By Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member Ray Kurzweil. Print report! In the coming decades, a radical upgrading of our body's physical and mental systems, already underway, will use nanobots to augment and ultimately replace our organs. We already know how to prevent most degenerative disease through nutrition and supplementation; this will be a bridge to the emerging biotechnology revolution, which in turn will be a bridge to the nanotechnology revolution. By 2030, reverse-engineering of the human brain will have been completed and nonbiological intelligence will merge with our biological brains.
OverviewSex has already been largely separated from its biological function. For the most part, we engage in sexual activity for intimate communication and sensual pleasure, not reproduction. Conversely, we have multiple methodologies for creating babies without physical sex, albeit most reproduction still does derive from the sex act. Although not condoned by all sectors of society, this disentanglement of sex from its biological function has been readily, even eagerly, adopted by the mainstream. So why don't we provide the same extrication of purpose from biology for another activity that also provides both social intimacy and sensual pleasure, namely eating? We have crude ways of doing this today. Starch blockers, such as Bayer's Precose, partially prevent absorption of complex carbohydrates; fat blockers, such as Chitosan, bind to fat molecules, causing them to pass through the digestive tract; and sugar substitutes, such as Sucralose and Stevia, provide sweetness without calories. There are limitations and problems with each of these contemporary technologies, but a more effective generation of drugs is being developed that will block excess caloric absorption on the cellular level. Let us consider, however, a more fundamental reengineering of the digestive process to disconnect the sensual aspects of eating from its original biological purpose: to provide nutrients into the bloodstream that are then delivered to each of our trillions of cells. These nutrients include caloric (energy-bearing) substances such as glucose (from carbohydrates), proteins, fats, and a myriad of trace molecules, such as vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, that provide building blocks and facilitating enzymes for diverse metabolic processes.
An Era of Abundance Our knowledge of the complex pathways underlying digestive processes is rapidly expanding, although there is still a great deal we do not fully understand. On the one hand, digestion, like any other major human biological system, is astonishing in its intricacy and cleverness. Our bodies manage to extract the complex resources needed to survive, despite sharply varying conditions, while at the same time, filtering out a multiplicity of toxins. On the other hand, our bodies evolved in a very different era. Our digestive processes in particular are optimized for a situation that is dramatically dissimilar to the one we find ourselves in. For most of our biological heritage, there was a high likelihood that the next foraging or hunting season (and for a brief, relatively recent period, the next planting season) might be catastrophically lean. So it made sense for our bodies to hold on to every possible calorie. Today, this biological strategy is extremely counterproductive. Our outdated metabolic programming underlies our contemporary epidemic of obesity and fuels pathological processes of degenerative disease such as coronary artery disease, and type II diabetes. Up until recently (on an evolutionary time scale), it was not in the interest of the species for old people like myself (I was born in 1948) to use up the limited resources of the clan. Evolution favored a short life span—life expectancy was 37 years only two centuries ago—so these restricted reserves could be devoted to the young, those caring for them, and those strong enough to perform intense physical work. We now live in an era of great material abundance. Most work requires mental effort rather than physical exertion. A century ago, 30 percent of the U.S. work force worked on farms, with another 30 percent deployed in factories. Both of these figures are now under 3 percent. The significant majority of today's job categories, ranging from airline flight attendant to web designer, simply didn't exist a century ago. Circa 2003, we have the opportunity to continue to contribute to our civilization's exponentially growing knowledge base—incidentally, a unique attribute of our species—well past our child-rearing days. Our species has already augmented the "natural" order of our life cycle through our technology: drugs, supplements, replacement parts for virtually all bodily systems, and many other interventions. We already have devices to replace our hips, knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists, jaws, teeth, skin, arteries, veins, heart valves, arms, legs, feet, fingers, and toes. Systems to replace more complex organs (for example, our hearts) are beginning to work. As we're learning the principles of operation of the human body and the brain, we will soon be in a position to design vastly superior systems that will be more enjoyable, last longer, and perform better, without susceptibility to breakdown, disease, and aging. Artist and cultural catalyst Natasha Vita-More pioneered a conceptual design for one such system, called Primo Posthuman, designed for mobility, flexibility and superlongevity. It features innovations such as a metabrain for global-net connection with prosthetic neo-neocortex of AI interwoven with nanobots; smart skin that is solar protected with biosensors for tone and texture changeability, and high-acuity senses.
Introducing Human Body Version 2.0 We won't engineer human body version 2.0 all at once. It will be an incremental process, one already well under way. Although version 2.0 is a grand project, ultimately resulting in the radical upgrading of all our physical and mental systems, we will implement it one benign step at a time. Based on our current knowledge, we can already touch and feel the means for accomplishing each aspect of this vision. From this perspective, let's return to a consideration of the digestive system. We already have a reasonably comprehensive picture of the constituent ingredients of the food we eat. We already have the means to survive without eating, using intravenous nutrition (for people who are unable to eat), although this is clearly not a pleasant process, given the current limitations in our technologies for getting substances in and out of the blood stream. The next phase of improvement will be largely biochemical, in the form of drugs and supplements that will block excess caloric absorption and otherwise reprogram metabolic pathways for optimal health. We already have the knowledge to prevent most instances of degenerative disease, such as heart disease, stroke, type II diabetes, and cancer, through comprehensive programs of nutrition and supplementation, something which I personally do, as described in my book Fantastic Voyage : Live Long Enough to Live Forever , coauthored with Terry Grossman , M.D. I view our current knowledge as a bridge to the full flowering of the biotechnology revolution, which in turn will be a bridge to the nanotechnology revolution.
It's All About Nanobots In a famous scene from the movie, The Graduate, Benjamin's mentor gives him career advice in a single word: "plastics". Today, that word might be "software", or "biotechnology", but in another couple of decades, the word is likely to be "nanobots". Nanobots — blood-cell-sized robots — will provide the means to radically redesign our digestive systems, and, incidentally, just about everything else. In an intermediate phase, nanobots in the digestive tract and bloodstream will intelligently extract the precise nutrients we need, call for needed additional nutrients and supplements through our personal wireless local area network, and send the rest of the food we eat on its way to be passed through for elimination. If this seems futuristic, keep in mind that intelligent machines are already making their way into our blood stream. There are dozens of projects underway to create blood-stream-based "biological microelectromechanical systems" (bioMEMS) with a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic applications. BioMEMS devices are being designed to intelligently scout out pathogens and deliver medications in very precise ways. For example, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago has created a tiny capsule with pores measuring only seven nanometers. The pores let insulin out in a controlled manner but prevent antibodies from invading the pancreatic Islet cells inside the capsule. These nanoengineered devices have cured rats with type I diabetes, and there is no reason that the same methodology would fail to work in humans. Similar systems could precisely deliver dopamine to the brain for Parkinson's patients, provide blood-clotting factors for patients with hemophilia, and deliver cancer drugs directly to tumor sites. A new design provides up to 20 substance-containing reservoirs that can release their cargo at programmed times and locations in the body. Kensall Wise, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, has developed a tiny neural probe that can provide precise monitoring of the electrical activity of patients with neural diseases. Future designs are expected to also deliver drugs to precise locations in the brain. Kazushi Ishiyama at Tohoku University in Japan has developed micromachines that use microscopic-sized spinning screws to deliver drugs to small cancer tumors. A particularly innovative micromachine developed by Sandia National Labs has actual microteeth with a jaw that opens and closes to trap individual cells and then implant them with substances such as DNA, proteins or drugs. There are already at least four major scientific conferences on bioMEMS and other approaches to developing micro- and nano-scale machines to go into the body and bloodstream. Ultimately, the individualized nutrients needed for each person will be fully understood (including all the hundreds of phytochemicals) and easily and inexpensively available, so we won't need to bother with extracting nutrients from food at all. Just as we routinely engage in sex today for its relational and sensual gratification, we will gain the opportunity to disconnect the eating of food from the function of delivering nutrients into the bloodstream. This technology should be reasonably mature by the 2020s. Nutrients will be introduced directly into the bloodstream by special metabolic nanobots. Sensors in our bloodstream and body, using wireless communication, will provide dynamic information on the nutrients needed at each point in time. A key question in designing this technology will be the means by which these nanobots make their way in and out of the body. As I mentioned above, the technologies we have today, such as intravenous catheters, leave much to be desired. A significant benefit of nanobot technology is that unlike mere drugs and nutritional supplements, nanobots have a measure of intelligence. They can keep track of their own inventories, and intelligently slip in and out of our bodies in clever ways. One scenario is that we would wear a special "nutrient garment" such as a belt or undershirt. This garment would be loaded with nutrient bearing nanobots, which would make their way in and out of our bodies through the skin or other body cavities. At this stage of technological development, we will be able to eat whatever we want, whatever gives us pleasure and gastronomic fulfillment, and thereby unreservedly explore the culinary arts for their tastes, textures, and aromas. At the same time, we will provide an optimal flow of nutrients to our bloodstream, using a completely separate process. One possibility would be that all the food we eat would pass through a digestive tract that is now disconnected from any possible absorption into the bloodstream. This would place a burden on our colon and bowel functions, so a more refined approach will dispense with the function of elimination. We will be able to accomplish this using special elimination nanobots that act like tiny garbage compactors. As the nutrient nanobots make their way from the nutrient garment into our bodies, the elimination nanobots will go the other way. Periodically, we would replace the nutrition garment for a fresh one. One might comment that we do obtain some pleasure from the elimination function, but I suspect that most people would be happy to do without it. Ultimately we won't need to bother with special garments or explicit nutritional resources. Just as computation will eventually be ubiquitous and available everywhere, so too will basic metabolic nanobot resources be embedded everywhere in our environment. In addition, an important aspect of this system will be maintaining ample reserves of all needed resources inside the body. Our version 1.0 bodies do this to only a very limited extent, for example, storing a few minutes of oxygen in our blood, and a few days of caloric energy in glycogen and other reserves. Version 2.0 will provide substantially greater reserves, enabling us to be separated from metabolic resources for greatly extended periods of time. Once perfected, we will no longer need version 1.0 of our digestive system at all. I pointed out above that our adoption of these technologies will be cautious and incremental, so we will not dispense with the old-fashioned digestive process when these technologies are first introduced. Most of us will wait for digestive system version 2.1 or even 2.2 before being willing to do dispense with version 1.0. After all, people didn't throw away their typewriters when the first generation of word processors was introduced. People held onto their vinyl record collections for many years after CDs came out (I still have mine). People are still holding onto their film cameras, although the tide is rapidly turning in favor of digital cameras. However, these new technologies do ultimately dominate, and few people today still own a typewriter. The same phenomenon will happen with our reengineered bodies. Once we've worked out the inevitable complications that will arise with a radically reengineered gastrointestinal system, we will begin to rely on it more and more.
Programmable Blood As we reverse-engineer (learn the principles of operation of) our various bodily systems, we will be in a position to engineer new systems that provide dramatic improvements. One pervasive system that has already been the subject of a comprehensive conceptual redesign is our blood. One of the leading proponents of "nanomedicine", (redesigning our biological systems through engineering on a molecular scale) and author of a book with the same name is Robert Freitas, Research Scientist at nanotechnology firm Zyvex Corp. Freitas' ambitious manuscript is a comprehensive road map to rearchitecting our biological heritage. One of Freitas' designs is to replace (or augment) our red blood cells with artificial "respirocytes" that would enable us to hold our breath for four hours or do a top-speed sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath. Like most of our biological systems, our red blood cells perform their oxygenating function very inefficiently, and Freitas has redesigned them for optimal performance. He has worked out many of the physical and chemical requirements in impressive detail. It will be interesting to see how this development is dealt with in athletic contests. Presumably, the use of respirocytes and similar systems will be prohibited from Olympic contests, but then we will have the specter of teenagers in junior high school gymnasiums routinely outperforming Olympic athletes. Freitas envisions micron-size artificial platelets that could achieve hemostasis (bleeding control) up to 1,000 times faster than biological platelets. Freitas describes nanorobotic microbivores (white blood cell replacements) that will download software to destroy specific infections hundreds of times faster than antibiotics, and that will be effective against all bacterial, viral and fungal infections, with no limitations of drug resistance. I've personally watched (through a microscope) my own white blood cells surround and devour a pathogen, and I was struck with the remarkable sluggishness of this natural process. Although replacing our blood with billions of nanorobotic devices will require a lengthy process of development, refinement, and regulatory approval, we already have the conceptual knowledge to engineer substantial improvements over the remarkable but very inefficient methods used in our biological bodies.
Have a Heart, or Not The next organ on my hit list is the heart. It's a remarkable machine, but it has a number of severe problems. It is subject to a myriad of failure modes, and represents a fundamental weakness in our potential longevity. The heart usually breaks down long before the rest of the body, and often very prematurely. Although artificial hearts are beginning to work, a more effective approach will be to get rid of the heart altogether. Among Freitas' designs are nanorobotic blood cell replacements that provide their own mobility. If the blood system moves with its own movement, the engineering issues of the extreme pressures required for centralized pumping can be eliminated. As we perfect the means of transferring nanobots to and from the blood supply, we can also continuously replace the nanobots comprising our blood supply. Energy will be provided by microscopic-sized hydrogen fuel cells. Integrated Fuel Cell Technologies, one of many companies pioneering fuel cell technology, has already created microscopic-sized fuel cells. Their first-generation design provides tens of thousands of fuel cells on an integrated circuit and is intended to power portable electronics. With the respirocytes providing greatly extended access to oxygenation, we will be in a position to eliminate the lungs by using nanobots to provide oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. One might point out that we take pleasure in breathing (even more so than elimination!). As with all of these redesigns, we will certainly go through intermediate stages where these technologies augment our natural systems, so we can have the best of both worlds. Eventually, however, there will be no reason to continue with the complications of actual breathing and the requirement of having breathable air everywhere we go. If we really find breathing that pleasurable, we will develop virtual ways of having this sensual experience. We also won't need the various organs that produce chemicals, hormones, and enzymes that flow into the blood and other metabolic pathways. We already create bio-identical versions of many of these substances, and we will have the means to routinely create all biochemically relevant substances within a couple of decades. These substances (to the extent that we still need them) will be delivered via nanobots, controlled by intelligent biofeedback systems to maintain and balance required levels, just as our "natural" systems do today (for example, the control of insulin levels by the pancreatic Islet cells). Since we are eliminating most of our biological organs, many of these substances may no longer be needed, and will be replaced by other resources that are required by the nanorobotic systems. Similarly the organs that filter the blood for impurities, such as the kidneys, can also be replaced by nanorobot-based elimination services. It is important to emphasize that this redesign process will not be accomplished in a single design cycle. Each organ and each idea will have its own progression, intermediate designs, and stages of implementation. Nonetheless, we are clearly headed towards a fundamental and radical redesign of the extremely inefficient and limited functionality of human body version 1.0.
So What's Left? Let's consider where we are. We've eliminated the heart, lungs, red and white blood cells, platelets, pancreas, thyroid and all the hormone-producing organs, kidneys, bladder, liver, lower esophagus, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, and bowel. What we have left at this point is the skeleton, skin, sex organs, mouth and upper esophagus, and brain. The skeleton is a stable structure, and we already have a reasonable understanding of how it works. We replace parts of it today, although our current technology for doing this has severe limitations. Interlinking nanobots will provide the ability to augment and ultimately replace the skeleton. Replacing portions of the skeleton today requires painful surgery, but replacing it through nanobots from within can be a gradual and noninvasive process. The human skeleton version 2.0 will very strong, stable, and self repairing. We will not notice the absence of many of our organs, such as the liver and pancreas, as we do not directly experience their functionality. The skin, however, is an organ we will actually want to keep, or at least we will want to maintain its functionality. The skin, which includes our primary and secondary sex organs, provides a vital function of communication and pleasure. Nonetheless, we will ultimately be able to improve on the skin with new nanoengineered supple materials that will provide greater protection from physical and thermal environmental effects while enhancing our capacity for intimate communication and pleasure. The same observation holds for the mouth and upper esophagus, which comprise the remaining aspects of the digestive system that we use to experience the act of eating.
Redesigning the Human Brain The process of reverse engineering and redesign will also encompass the most important system in our bodies: the brain. The brain is at least as complex as all the other organs put together, with approximately half of our genetic code devoted to its design. It is a misconception to regard the brain as a single organ. It is actually an intricate collection of information-processing organs, interconnected in an elaborate hierarchy, as is the accident of our evolutionary history. The process of understanding the principles of operation of the human brain is already well under way. The underlying technologies of brain scanning and neuron modeling are scaling up exponentially, as is our overall knowledge of human brain function. We already have detailed mathematical models of a couple dozen of the several hundred regions that comprise the human brain. The age of neural implants is also well under way. We have brain implants based on "neuromorphic" modeling (i.e., reverse-engineering of the human brain and nervous system) for a rapidly growing list of brain regions. A friend of mine who became deaf while an adult can now engage in telephone conversations again because of his cochlear implant, a device that interfaces directly with the auditory nervous system. He plans to replace it with a new model with a thousand levels of frequency discrimination, which will enable him to hear music once again. He laments that he has had the same melodies playing in his head for the past 15 years and is looking forward to hearing some new tunes. A future generation of cochlear implants now on the drawing board will provide levels of frequency discrimination that go significantly beyond that of "normal" hearing. Researchers at MIT and Harvard are developing neural implants to replace damaged retinas. There are brain implants for Parkinson's patients that communicate directly with the ventral posterior nucleus and subthalmic nucleus regions of the brain to reverse the most devastating symptoms of this disease. An implant for people with cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis communicates with the ventral lateral thalamus and has been effective in controlling tremors. "Rather than treat the brain like soup, adding chemicals that enhance or suppress certain neurotransmitters," says Rick Trosch, an American physician helping to pioneer these therapies, "we're now treating it like circuitry." A variety of techniques are being developed to provide the communications bridge between the wet analog world of biological information processing and digital electronics. Researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute have developed noninvasive devices that can communicate with neurons in both directions. They demonstrated their "neuron transistor" by controlling the movements of a living leech from a personal computer. Similar technology has been used to reconnect leech neurons and to coax them to perform simple logical and arithmetic problems. Scientists are now experimenting with a new design called "quantum dots," which uses tiny crystals of semiconductor material to connect electronic devices with neurons. These developments provide the promise of reconnecting broken neural pathways for people with nerve damage and spinal cord injuries. It has long been thought that recreating these pathways would only be feasible for recently injured patients because nerves gradually deteriorate when unused. A recent discovery, however, shows the feasibility of a neuroprosthetic system for patients with long-standing spinal cord injuries. Researchers at the University of Utah asked a group of long-term quadriplegic patients to move their limbs in a variety of ways and then observed the response of their brains, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Although the neural pathways to their limbs had been inactive for many years, the pattern of their brain activity when attempting to move their limbs was very close to that observed in non-disabled persons. We will, therefore, be able to place sensors in the brain of a paralyzed person (e.g., Christopher Reeve) that will be programmed to recognize the brain patterns associated with intended movements and then stimulate the appropriate sequence of muscle movements. For those patients whose muscles no longer function, there are already designs for "nanoelectromechanical" systems (NEMS) that can expand and contract to replace damaged muscles and that can be activated by either real or artificial nerves.
We Are Becoming Cyborgs We are rapidly growing more intimate with our technology. Computers started out as large remote machines in air-conditioned rooms tended by white-coated technicians. Subsequently they moved onto our desks, then under our arms, and now in our pockets. Soon, we'll routinely put them inside our bodies and brains. Ultimately we will become more nonbiological than biological. The compelling benefits in overcoming profound diseases and disabilities will keep these technologies on a rapid course, but medical applications represent only the early adoption phase. As the technologies become established, there will be no barriers to using them for the expansion of human potential. In my view, expanding our potential is precisely the primary distinction of our species. Moreover, all of the underlying technologies are accelerating. The power of computation has grown at a double exponential rate for all of the past century, and will continue to do so well into this century through the power of three-dimensional computing. Communication bandwidths and the pace of brain reverse-engineering are also quickening. Meanwhile, according to my models, the size of technology is shrinking at a rate of 5.6 per linear dimension per decade, which will make nanotechnology ubiquitous during the 2020s. By the end of this decade, computing will disappear as a separate technology that we need to carry with us. We'll routinely have high-resolution images encompassing the entire visual field written directly to our retinas from our eyeglasses and contact lenses (the Department of Defense is already using technology along these lines from Microvision, a company based in Bothell, Washington). We'll have very-high-speed wireless connection to the Internet at all times. The electronics for all of this will be embedded in our clothing. Circa 2010, these very personal computers will enable us to meet with each other in full-immersion, visual-auditory, virtual-reality environments as well as augment our vision with location- and time-specific information at all times. By 2030, electronics will utilize molecule-sized circuits, the reverse-engineering of the human brain will have been completed, and bioMEMS will have evolved into bioNEMS (biological nanoelectromechanical systems). It will be routine to have billions of nanobots (nano-scale robots) coursing through the capillaries of our brains, communicating with each other (over a wireless local area network), as well as with our biological neurons and with the Internet. One application will be to provide full-immersion virtual reality that encompasses all of our senses. When we want to enter a virtual-reality environment, the nanobots will replace the signals from our real senses with the signals that our brain would receive if we were actually in the virtual environment. We will have a panoply of virtual environments to choose from, including earthly worlds that we are familiar with, as well as those with no earthly counterpart. We will be able to go to these virtual places and have any kind of interaction with other real (as well as simulated) people, ranging from business negotiations to sensual encounters. In virtual reality, we won't be restricted to a single personality, since we will be able to change our appearance and become other people.
Experience Beamers "Experience beamers" will beam their entire flow of sensory experiences as well as the neurological correlates of their emotional reactions out on the Web just as people today beam their bedroom images from their web cams. A popular pastime will be to plug in to someone else's sensory-emotional beam and experience what it's like to be someone else, Ã la the plot concept of the movie Being John Malkovich. There will also be a vast selection of archived experiences to choose from. The design of virtual environments and the creation of archived full-immersion experiences will become new art forms. The most important application of circa-2030 nanobots will be to literally expand our minds. We're limited today to a mere hundred trillion interneuronal connections; we will be able to augment these by adding virtual connections via nanobot communication. This will provide us with the opportunity to vastly expand our pattern recognition abilities, memories, and overall thinking capacity as well as directly interface with powerful forms of nonbiological intelligence. It's important to note that once nonbiological intelligence gets a foothold in our brains (a threshold we've already passed), it will grow exponentially, as is the accelerating nature of information-based technologies. A one-inch cube of nanotube circuitry (which is already working at smaller scales in laboratories) will be at least a million times more powerful than the human brain. By 2040, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will be far more powerful than the biological portion. It will, however, still be part of the human-machine civilization, having been derived from human intelligence, i.e., created by humans (or machines created by humans) and based at least in part on the reverse-engineering of the human nervous system. Stephen Hawking recently commented in the German magazine Focus that computer intelligence will surpass that of humans within a few decades. He advocated that we "develop as quickly as possible technologies that make possible a direct connection between brain and computer, so that artificial brains contribute to human intelligence rather than opposing it." Hawking can take comfort that the development program he is recommending is well under way.
LIFEBOAT
LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION SPECIAL REPORT
HUMAN BODY VERSION 2.0By Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member Ray Kurzweil. Print report! In the coming decades, a radical upgrading of our body's physical and mental systems, already underway, will use nanobots to augment and ultimately replace our organs. We already know how to prevent most degenerative disease through nutrition and supplementation; this will be a bridge to the emerging biotechnology revolution, which in turn will be a bridge to the nanotechnology revolution. By 2030, reverse-engineering of the human brain will have been completed and nonbiological intelligence will merge with our biological brains.
OverviewSex has already been largely separated from its biological function. For the most part, we engage in sexual activity for intimate communication and sensual pleasure, not reproduction. Conversely, we have multiple methodologies for creating babies without physical sex, albeit most reproduction still does derive from the sex act. Although not condoned by all sectors of society, this disentanglement of sex from its biological function has been readily, even eagerly, adopted by the mainstream. So why don't we provide the same extrication of purpose from biology for another activity that also provides both social intimacy and sensual pleasure, namely eating? We have crude ways of doing this today. Starch blockers, such as Bayer's Precose, partially prevent absorption of complex carbohydrates; fat blockers, such as Chitosan, bind to fat molecules, causing them to pass through the digestive tract; and sugar substitutes, such as Sucralose and Stevia, provide sweetness without calories. There are limitations and problems with each of these contemporary technologies, but a more effective generation of drugs is being developed that will block excess caloric absorption on the cellular level. Let us consider, however, a more fundamental reengineering of the digestive process to disconnect the sensual aspects of eating from its original biological purpose: to provide nutrients into the bloodstream that are then delivered to each of our trillions of cells. These nutrients include caloric (energy-bearing) substances such as glucose (from carbohydrates), proteins, fats, and a myriad of trace molecules, such as vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, that provide building blocks and facilitating enzymes for diverse metabolic processes.
An Era of Abundance Our knowledge of the complex pathways underlying digestive processes is rapidly expanding, although there is still a great deal we do not fully understand. On the one hand, digestion, like any other major human biological system, is astonishing in its intricacy and cleverness. Our bodies manage to extract the complex resources needed to survive, despite sharply varying conditions, while at the same time, filtering out a multiplicity of toxins. On the other hand, our bodies evolved in a very different era. Our digestive processes in particular are optimized for a situation that is dramatically dissimilar to the one we find ourselves in. For most of our biological heritage, there was a high likelihood that the next foraging or hunting season (and for a brief, relatively recent period, the next planting season) might be catastrophically lean. So it made sense for our bodies to hold on to every possible calorie. Today, this biological strategy is extremely counterproductive. Our outdated metabolic programming underlies our contemporary epidemic of obesity and fuels pathological processes of degenerative disease such as coronary artery disease, and type II diabetes. Up until recently (on an evolutionary time scale), it was not in the interest of the species for old people like myself (I was born in 1948) to use up the limited resources of the clan. Evolution favored a short life span—life expectancy was 37 years only two centuries ago—so these restricted reserves could be devoted to the young, those caring for them, and those strong enough to perform intense physical work. We now live in an era of great material abundance. Most work requires mental effort rather than physical exertion. A century ago, 30 percent of the U.S. work force worked on farms, with another 30 percent deployed in factories. Both of these figures are now under 3 percent. The significant majority of today's job categories, ranging from airline flight attendant to web designer, simply didn't exist a century ago. Circa 2003, we have the opportunity to continue to contribute to our civilization's exponentially growing knowledge base—incidentally, a unique attribute of our species—well past our child-rearing days. Our species has already augmented the "natural" order of our life cycle through our technology: drugs, supplements, replacement parts for virtually all bodily systems, and many other interventions. We already have devices to replace our hips, knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists, jaws, teeth, skin, arteries, veins, heart valves, arms, legs, feet, fingers, and toes. Systems to replace more complex organs (for example, our hearts) are beginning to work. As we're learning the principles of operation of the human body and the brain, we will soon be in a position to design vastly superior systems that will be more enjoyable, last longer, and perform better, without susceptibility to breakdown, disease, and aging. Artist and cultural catalyst Natasha Vita-More pioneered a conceptual design for one such system, called Primo Posthuman, designed for mobility, flexibility and superlongevity. It features innovations such as a metabrain for global-net connection with prosthetic neo-neocortex of AI interwoven with nanobots; smart skin that is solar protected with biosensors for tone and texture changeability, and high-acuity senses.
Introducing Human Body Version 2.0 We won't engineer human body version 2.0 all at once. It will be an incremental process, one already well under way. Although version 2.0 is a grand project, ultimately resulting in the radical upgrading of all our physical and mental systems, we will implement it one benign step at a time. Based on our current knowledge, we can already touch and feel the means for accomplishing each aspect of this vision. From this perspective, let's return to a consideration of the digestive system. We already have a reasonably comprehensive picture of the constituent ingredients of the food we eat. We already have the means to survive without eating, using intravenous nutrition (for people who are unable to eat), although this is clearly not a pleasant process, given the current limitations in our technologies for getting substances in and out of the blood stream. The next phase of improvement will be largely biochemical, in the form of drugs and supplements that will block excess caloric absorption and otherwise reprogram metabolic pathways for optimal health. We already have the knowledge to prevent most instances of degenerative disease, such as heart disease, stroke, type II diabetes, and cancer, through comprehensive programs of nutrition and supplementation, something which I personally do, as described in my book Fantastic Voyage : Live Long Enough to Live Forever , coauthored with Terry Grossman , M.D. I view our current knowledge as a bridge to the full flowering of the biotechnology revolution, which in turn will be a bridge to the nanotechnology revolution.
It's All About Nanobots In a famous scene from the movie, The Graduate, Benjamin's mentor gives him career advice in a single word: "plastics". Today, that word might be "software", or "biotechnology", but in another couple of decades, the word is likely to be "nanobots". Nanobots — blood-cell-sized robots — will provide the means to radically redesign our digestive systems, and, incidentally, just about everything else. In an intermediate phase, nanobots in the digestive tract and bloodstream will intelligently extract the precise nutrients we need, call for needed additional nutrients and supplements through our personal wireless local area network, and send the rest of the food we eat on its way to be passed through for elimination. If this seems futuristic, keep in mind that intelligent machines are already making their way into our blood stream. There are dozens of projects underway to create blood-stream-based "biological microelectromechanical systems" (bioMEMS) with a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic applications. BioMEMS devices are being designed to intelligently scout out pathogens and deliver medications in very precise ways. For example, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago has created a tiny capsule with pores measuring only seven nanometers. The pores let insulin out in a controlled manner but prevent antibodies from invading the pancreatic Islet cells inside the capsule. These nanoengineered devices have cured rats with type I diabetes, and there is no reason that the same methodology would fail to work in humans. Similar systems could precisely deliver dopamine to the brain for Parkinson's patients, provide blood-clotting factors for patients with hemophilia, and deliver cancer drugs directly to tumor sites. A new design provides up to 20 substance-containing reservoirs that can release their cargo at programmed times and locations in the body. Kensall Wise, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, has developed a tiny neural probe that can provide precise monitoring of the electrical activity of patients with neural diseases. Future designs are expected to also deliver drugs to precise locations in the brain. Kazushi Ishiyama at Tohoku University in Japan has developed micromachines that use microscopic-sized spinning screws to deliver drugs to small cancer tumors. A particularly innovative micromachine developed by Sandia National Labs has actual microteeth with a jaw that opens and closes to trap individual cells and then implant them with substances such as DNA, proteins or drugs. There are already at least four major scientific conferences on bioMEMS and other approaches to developing micro- and nano-scale machines to go into the body and bloodstream. Ultimately, the individualized nutrients needed for each person will be fully understood (including all the hundreds of phytochemicals) and easily and inexpensively available, so we won't need to bother with extracting nutrients from food at all. Just as we routinely engage in sex today for its relational and sensual gratification, we will gain the opportunity to disconnect the eating of food from the function of delivering nutrients into the bloodstream. This technology should be reasonably mature by the 2020s. Nutrients will be introduced directly into the bloodstream by special metabolic nanobots. Sensors in our bloodstream and body, using wireless communication, will provide dynamic information on the nutrients needed at each point in time. A key question in designing this technology will be the means by which these nanobots make their way in and out of the body. As I mentioned above, the technologies we have today, such as intravenous catheters, leave much to be desired. A significant benefit of nanobot technology is that unlike mere drugs and nutritional supplements, nanobots have a measure of intelligence. They can keep track of their own inventories, and intelligently slip in and out of our bodies in clever ways. One scenario is that we would wear a special "nutrient garment" such as a belt or undershirt. This garment would be loaded with nutrient bearing nanobots, which would make their way in and out of our bodies through the skin or other body cavities. At this stage of technological development, we will be able to eat whatever we want, whatever gives us pleasure and gastronomic fulfillment, and thereby unreservedly explore the culinary arts for their tastes, textures, and aromas. At the same time, we will provide an optimal flow of nutrients to our bloodstream, using a completely separate process. One possibility would be that all the food we eat would pass through a digestive tract that is now disconnected from any possible absorption into the bloodstream. This would place a burden on our colon and bowel functions, so a more refined approach will dispense with the function of elimination. We will be able to accomplish this using special elimination nanobots that act like tiny garbage compactors. As the nutrient nanobots make their way from the nutrient garment into our bodies, the elimination nanobots will go the other way. Periodically, we would replace the nutrition garment for a fresh one. One might comment that we do obtain some pleasure from the elimination function, but I suspect that most people would be happy to do without it. Ultimately we won't need to bother with special garments or explicit nutritional resources. Just as computation will eventually be ubiquitous and available everywhere, so too will basic metabolic nanobot resources be embedded everywhere in our environment. In addition, an important aspect of this system will be maintaining ample reserves of all needed resources inside the body. Our version 1.0 bodies do this to only a very limited extent, for example, storing a few minutes of oxygen in our blood, and a few days of caloric energy in glycogen and other reserves. Version 2.0 will provide substantially greater reserves, enabling us to be separated from metabolic resources for greatly extended periods of time. Once perfected, we will no longer need version 1.0 of our digestive system at all. I pointed out above that our adoption of these technologies will be cautious and incremental, so we will not dispense with the old-fashioned digestive process when these technologies are first introduced. Most of us will wait for digestive system version 2.1 or even 2.2 before being willing to do dispense with version 1.0. After all, people didn't throw away their typewriters when the first generation of word processors was introduced. People held onto their vinyl record collections for many years after CDs came out (I still have mine). People are still holding onto their film cameras, although the tide is rapidly turning in favor of digital cameras. However, these new technologies do ultimately dominate, and few people today still own a typewriter. The same phenomenon will happen with our reengineered bodies. Once we've worked out the inevitable complications that will arise with a radically reengineered gastrointestinal system, we will begin to rely on it more and more.
Programmable Blood As we reverse-engineer (learn the principles of operation of) our various bodily systems, we will be in a position to engineer new systems that provide dramatic improvements. One pervasive system that has already been the subject of a comprehensive conceptual redesign is our blood. One of the leading proponents of "nanomedicine", (redesigning our biological systems through engineering on a molecular scale) and author of a book with the same name is Robert Freitas, Research Scientist at nanotechnology firm Zyvex Corp. Freitas' ambitious manuscript is a comprehensive road map to rearchitecting our biological heritage. One of Freitas' designs is to replace (or augment) our red blood cells with artificial "respirocytes" that would enable us to hold our breath for four hours or do a top-speed sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath. Like most of our biological systems, our red blood cells perform their oxygenating function very inefficiently, and Freitas has redesigned them for optimal performance. He has worked out many of the physical and chemical requirements in impressive detail. It will be interesting to see how this development is dealt with in athletic contests. Presumably, the use of respirocytes and similar systems will be prohibited from Olympic contests, but then we will have the specter of teenagers in junior high school gymnasiums routinely outperforming Olympic athletes. Freitas envisions micron-size artificial platelets that could achieve hemostasis (bleeding control) up to 1,000 times faster than biological platelets. Freitas describes nanorobotic microbivores (white blood cell replacements) that will download software to destroy specific infections hundreds of times faster than antibiotics, and that will be effective against all bacterial, viral and fungal infections, with no limitations of drug resistance. I've personally watched (through a microscope) my own white blood cells surround and devour a pathogen, and I was struck with the remarkable sluggishness of this natural process. Although replacing our blood with billions of nanorobotic devices will require a lengthy process of development, refinement, and regulatory approval, we already have the conceptual knowledge to engineer substantial improvements over the remarkable but very inefficient methods used in our biological bodies.
Have a Heart, or Not The next organ on my hit list is the heart. It's a remarkable machine, but it has a number of severe problems. It is subject to a myriad of failure modes, and represents a fundamental weakness in our potential longevity. The heart usually breaks down long before the rest of the body, and often very prematurely. Although artificial hearts are beginning to work, a more effective approach will be to get rid of the heart altogether. Among Freitas' designs are nanorobotic blood cell replacements that provide their own mobility. If the blood system moves with its own movement, the engineering issues of the extreme pressures required for centralized pumping can be eliminated. As we perfect the means of transferring nanobots to and from the blood supply, we can also continuously replace the nanobots comprising our blood supply. Energy will be provided by microscopic-sized hydrogen fuel cells. Integrated Fuel Cell Technologies, one of many companies pioneering fuel cell technology, has already created microscopic-sized fuel cells. Their first-generation design provides tens of thousands of fuel cells on an integrated circuit and is intended to power portable electronics. With the respirocytes providing greatly extended access to oxygenation, we will be in a position to eliminate the lungs by using nanobots to provide oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. One might point out that we take pleasure in breathing (even more so than elimination!). As with all of these redesigns, we will certainly go through intermediate stages where these technologies augment our natural systems, so we can have the best of both worlds. Eventually, however, there will be no reason to continue with the complications of actual breathing and the requirement of having breathable air everywhere we go. If we really find breathing that pleasurable, we will develop virtual ways of having this sensual experience. We also won't need the various organs that produce chemicals, hormones, and enzymes that flow into the blood and other metabolic pathways. We already create bio-identical versions of many of these substances, and we will have the means to routinely create all biochemically relevant substances within a couple of decades. These substances (to the extent that we still need them) will be delivered via nanobots, controlled by intelligent biofeedback systems to maintain and balance required levels, just as our "natural" systems do today (for example, the control of insulin levels by the pancreatic Islet cells). Since we are eliminating most of our biological organs, many of these substances may no longer be needed, and will be replaced by other resources that are required by the nanorobotic systems. Similarly the organs that filter the blood for impurities, such as the kidneys, can also be replaced by nanorobot-based elimination services. It is important to emphasize that this redesign process will not be accomplished in a single design cycle. Each organ and each idea will have its own progression, intermediate designs, and stages of implementation. Nonetheless, we are clearly headed towards a fundamental and radical redesign of the extremely inefficient and limited functionality of human body version 1.0.
So What's Left? Let's consider where we are. We've eliminated the heart, lungs, red and white blood cells, platelets, pancreas, thyroid and all the hormone-producing organs, kidneys, bladder, liver, lower esophagus, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, and bowel. What we have left at this point is the skeleton, skin, sex organs, mouth and upper esophagus, and brain. The skeleton is a stable structure, and we already have a reasonable understanding of how it works. We replace parts of it today, although our current technology for doing this has severe limitations. Interlinking nanobots will provide the ability to augment and ultimately replace the skeleton. Replacing portions of the skeleton today requires painful surgery, but replacing it through nanobots from within can be a gradual and noninvasive process. The human skeleton version 2.0 will very strong, stable, and self repairing. We will not notice the absence of many of our organs, such as the liver and pancreas, as we do not directly experience their functionality. The skin, however, is an organ we will actually want to keep, or at least we will want to maintain its functionality. The skin, which includes our primary and secondary sex organs, provides a vital function of communication and pleasure. Nonetheless, we will ultimately be able to improve on the skin with new nanoengineered supple materials that will provide greater protection from physical and thermal environmental effects while enhancing our capacity for intimate communication and pleasure. The same observation holds for the mouth and upper esophagus, which comprise the remaining aspects of the digestive system that we use to experience the act of eating.
Redesigning the Human Brain The process of reverse engineering and redesign will also encompass the most important system in our bodies: the brain. The brain is at least as complex as all the other organs put together, with approximately half of our genetic code devoted to its design. It is a misconception to regard the brain as a single organ. It is actually an intricate collection of information-processing organs, interconnected in an elaborate hierarchy, as is the accident of our evolutionary history. The process of understanding the principles of operation of the human brain is already well under way. The underlying technologies of brain scanning and neuron modeling are scaling up exponentially, as is our overall knowledge of human brain function. We already have detailed mathematical models of a couple dozen of the several hundred regions that comprise the human brain. The age of neural implants is also well under way. We have brain implants based on "neuromorphic" modeling (i.e., reverse-engineering of the human brain and nervous system) for a rapidly growing list of brain regions. A friend of mine who became deaf while an adult can now engage in telephone conversations again because of his cochlear implant, a device that interfaces directly with the auditory nervous system. He plans to replace it with a new model with a thousand levels of frequency discrimination, which will enable him to hear music once again. He laments that he has had the same melodies playing in his head for the past 15 years and is looking forward to hearing some new tunes. A future generation of cochlear implants now on the drawing board will provide levels of frequency discrimination that go significantly beyond that of "normal" hearing. Researchers at MIT and Harvard are developing neural implants to replace damaged retinas. There are brain implants for Parkinson's patients that communicate directly with the ventral posterior nucleus and subthalmic nucleus regions of the brain to reverse the most devastating symptoms of this disease. An implant for people with cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis communicates with the ventral lateral thalamus and has been effective in controlling tremors. "Rather than treat the brain like soup, adding chemicals that enhance or suppress certain neurotransmitters," says Rick Trosch, an American physician helping to pioneer these therapies, "we're now treating it like circuitry." A variety of techniques are being developed to provide the communications bridge between the wet analog world of biological information processing and digital electronics. Researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute have developed noninvasive devices that can communicate with neurons in both directions. They demonstrated their "neuron transistor" by controlling the movements of a living leech from a personal computer. Similar technology has been used to reconnect leech neurons and to coax them to perform simple logical and arithmetic problems. Scientists are now experimenting with a new design called "quantum dots," which uses tiny crystals of semiconductor material to connect electronic devices with neurons. These developments provide the promise of reconnecting broken neural pathways for people with nerve damage and spinal cord injuries. It has long been thought that recreating these pathways would only be feasible for recently injured patients because nerves gradually deteriorate when unused. A recent discovery, however, shows the feasibility of a neuroprosthetic system for patients with long-standing spinal cord injuries. Researchers at the University of Utah asked a group of long-term quadriplegic patients to move their limbs in a variety of ways and then observed the response of their brains, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Although the neural pathways to their limbs had been inactive for many years, the pattern of their brain activity when attempting to move their limbs was very close to that observed in non-disabled persons. We will, therefore, be able to place sensors in the brain of a paralyzed person (e.g., Christopher Reeve) that will be programmed to recognize the brain patterns associated with intended movements and then stimulate the appropriate sequence of muscle movements. For those patients whose muscles no longer function, there are already designs for "nanoelectromechanical" systems (NEMS) that can expand and contract to replace damaged muscles and that can be activated by either real or artificial nerves.
We Are Becoming Cyborgs We are rapidly growing more intimate with our technology. Computers started out as large remote machines in air-conditioned rooms tended by white-coated technicians. Subsequently they moved onto our desks, then under our arms, and now in our pockets. Soon, we'll routinely put them inside our bodies and brains. Ultimately we will become more nonbiological than biological. The compelling benefits in overcoming profound diseases and disabilities will keep these technologies on a rapid course, but medical applications represent only the early adoption phase. As the technologies become established, there will be no barriers to using them for the expansion of human potential. In my view, expanding our potential is precisely the primary distinction of our species. Moreover, all of the underlying technologies are accelerating. The power of computation has grown at a double exponential rate for all of the past century, and will continue to do so well into this century through the power of three-dimensional computing. Communication bandwidths and the pace of brain reverse-engineering are also quickening. Meanwhile, according to my models, the size of technology is shrinking at a rate of 5.6 per linear dimension per decade, which will make nanotechnology ubiquitous during the 2020s. By the end of this decade, computing will disappear as a separate technology that we need to carry with us. We'll routinely have high-resolution images encompassing the entire visual field written directly to our retinas from our eyeglasses and contact lenses (the Department of Defense is already using technology along these lines from Microvision, a company based in Bothell, Washington). We'll have very-high-speed wireless connection to the Internet at all times. The electronics for all of this will be embedded in our clothing. Circa 2010, these very personal computers will enable us to meet with each other in full-immersion, visual-auditory, virtual-reality environments as well as augment our vision with location- and time-specific information at all times. By 2030, electronics will utilize molecule-sized circuits, the reverse-engineering of the human brain will have been completed, and bioMEMS will have evolved into bioNEMS (biological nanoelectromechanical systems). It will be routine to have billions of nanobots (nano-scale robots) coursing through the capillaries of our brains, communicating with each other (over a wireless local area network), as well as with our biological neurons and with the Internet. One application will be to provide full-immersion virtual reality that encompasses all of our senses. When we want to enter a virtual-reality environment, the nanobots will replace the signals from our real senses with the signals that our brain would receive if we were actually in the virtual environment. We will have a panoply of virtual environments to choose from, including earthly worlds that we are familiar with, as well as those with no earthly counterpart. We will be able to go to these virtual places and have any kind of interaction with other real (as well as simulated) people, ranging from business negotiations to sensual encounters. In virtual reality, we won't be restricted to a single personality, since we will be able to change our appearance and become other people.
Experience Beamers "Experience beamers" will beam their entire flow of sensory experiences as well as the neurological correlates of their emotional reactions out on the Web just as people today beam their bedroom images from their web cams. A popular pastime will be to plug in to someone else's sensory-emotional beam and experience what it's like to be someone else, Ã la the plot concept of the movie Being John Malkovich. There will also be a vast selection of archived experiences to choose from. The design of virtual environments and the creation of archived full-immersion experiences will become new art forms. The most important application of circa-2030 nanobots will be to literally expand our minds. We're limited today to a mere hundred trillion interneuronal connections; we will be able to augment these by adding virtual connections via nanobot communication. This will provide us with the opportunity to vastly expand our pattern recognition abilities, memories, and overall thinking capacity as well as directly interface with powerful forms of nonbiological intelligence. It's important to note that once nonbiological intelligence gets a foothold in our brains (a threshold we've already passed), it will grow exponentially, as is the accelerating nature of information-based technologies. A one-inch cube of nanotube circuitry (which is already working at smaller scales in laboratories) will be at least a million times more powerful than the human brain. By 2040, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will be far more powerful than the biological portion. It will, however, still be part of the human-machine civilization, having been derived from human intelligence, i.e., created by humans (or machines created by humans) and based at least in part on the reverse-engineering of the human nervous system. Stephen Hawking recently commented in the German magazine Focus that computer intelligence will surpass that of humans within a few decades. He advocated that we "develop as quickly as possible technologies that make possible a direct connection between brain and computer, so that artificial brains contribute to human intelligence rather than opposing it." Hawking can take comfort that the development program he is recommending is well under way.
LIFEBOAT
FUTUROLOGY
////////////Sex has already been largely separated from its biological function. For the most part, we engage in sexual activity for intimate communication and sensual pleasure, not reproduction. Conversely, we have multiple methodologies for creating babies without physical sex, albeit most reproduction still does derive from the sex act. Although not condoned by all sectors of society, this disentanglement of sex from its biological function has been readily, even eagerly, adopted by the mainstream. So why don't we provide the same extrication of purpose from biology for another activity that also provides both social intimacy and sensual pleasure, namely eating? We have crude ways of doing this today. Starch blockers, such as Bayer's Precose, partially prevent absorption of complex carbohydrates; fat blockers, such as Chitosan, bind to fat molecules, causing them to pass through the digestive tract; and sugar substitutes, such as Sucralose and Stevia, provide sweetness without calories. There are limitations and problems with each of these contemporary technologies, but a more effective generation of drugs is being developed that will block excess caloric absorption on the cellular level. Let us consider, however, a more fundamental reengineering of the digestive process to disconnect the sensual aspects of eating from its original biological purpose: to provide nutrients into the bloodstream that are then delivered to each of our trillions of cells. These nutrients include caloric (energy-bearing) substances such as glucose (from carbohydrates), proteins, fats, and a myriad of trace molecules, such as vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, that provide building blocks and facilitating enzymes for diverse metabolic processes.
LIFEBOAT
LIFEBOAT
THE GREAT COFFEE DEBATE
//////////Drinking three or more cups of coffee a day may cut the risk of colon cancer in women by half, according to a study by Japanese scientists.
Researchers from Tokyo's National Cancer Center studied data from more than 96,000 men and women aged between 40-69 over a period of up to 12 years from 1990, a member of the team said on Wednesday. They found no significant benefit in men.
Even after adjusting for other factors including diet and exercise, they found that women who drank three or more cups of coffee a day had half the risk of developing colon cancer, compared with those who drank no coffee at all.
//////////////BUT MAY CAUSE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
Researchers from Tokyo's National Cancer Center studied data from more than 96,000 men and women aged between 40-69 over a period of up to 12 years from 1990, a member of the team said on Wednesday. They found no significant benefit in men.
Even after adjusting for other factors including diet and exercise, they found that women who drank three or more cups of coffee a day had half the risk of developing colon cancer, compared with those who drank no coffee at all.
//////////////BUT MAY CAUSE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
PANTHEISM
Tim writes: "However, growth is progressive and I've found many polytheists to be more progressive and nature-centric in their faith than Christianity with its Bible-centric approach to religion."A couple days ago I was reading an interesting take on polytheism and monotheism written by Huston Smith in his book "Why Religion Matters." Smith contends that atheism, polytheism, monotheism, and mysticism are not progressions, but are human temperaments. He contends that in any period and in any culture there will be people with each of these temperaments. As an example, I have a sister-in-law who is a very devote Catholic. She is really into going to so-called sacred places like Fatima and Lourdes. I think Smith would say that she has a polytheistic temperament, even though if asked she would say she was a firm monotheist.By the way, the Smith book is worth reading. Even though I disagree with much that he says, Smith provides a well thought out defense of traditional religion.Thomas
Science chief: cut birthrate to save Earth
/////////////The new head of the Science Museum has an uncompromising view about how global warming should be dealt with: get rid of a few billion people. Chris Rapley, who takes up his post on September 1, is not afraid of offending. 'I am not advocating genocide,' said Rapley. 'What I am saying is that if we invest in ways to reduce the birthrate - by improving contraception, education and healthcare - we will stop the world's population reaching its current estimated limit of between eight and 10 billion.
'That in turn will mean less carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere because there will be fewer people to drive cars and use electricity. The crucial point is that to achieve this goal you would only have to spend a fraction of the money that will be needed to bring about technological fixes, new nuclear power plants or renewable energy plants. However, everyone has decided, quietly, to ignore the issue.'
Such arguments give an indication of the priorities of the new Science Museum chief, an office that has been vacant since 2005 when Lindsay Sharp abruptly left the £150,000 post following rows about financial waste, cronyism and the 'Disneyfication' of exhibitions.
Now Rapley, currently head of the British Antarctic Survey and a passionate believer in man's influence on climate, is set to take charge of the museum, one of Britain's most challenging institutions, where strict academic requirements must be met while competing with Legoland and Disneyland to attract visitors. Only by tackling the issues of the day can he succeed, Rapley said.
Hence his urging that we deal with overpopulation, a call of wide public interest and one that reflects the contents of the recent report by the Optimum Population Trust, which called for each couple in Britain to be limited to having two children each. 'A voluntary stop-at-two guideline should be adopted for couples in the UK who want to adopt greener lifestyles,' it stated.
The interest of Rapley, 60, in this subject stems directly from his climatic concerns. He sits near the extreme end of scientific views about global warming. He fears our planet faces a very hot and uncomfortable future. This belief puts him opposite climate-change deniers, about whom Rapley is generally vitriolic. He described the recent Channel 4 programme The Great Global Warming Swindle as 'a tissue of lies' while individual deniers, like Dominic Lawson, are dismissed in unexpectedly terse, Anglo-Saxon terms. Read the full content……
'As to my job at the Science Museum, my remit is very simple,' Rapley said. 'It is to make it the most advanced museum in the world. I will only be able to do that by addressing the key issues in science today and the most important of these is climate change and energy policy. However, there are topics like stem cell science and genomics that are set to have enormous impact and which will have to be tackled in detail.'
Rapley is passionate about making displays and instruments far more accessible. 'If you look at the Science Museum's great engine hall, there are wonderful machines on display but the accompanying explanations are quite often above most people's heads. Most children today probably don't realise these machines run on heat and water, but that is never mentioned. We need different explanations for different levels of understanding: the six-year-old, the 60-year-old, the PhD student. At the same time, there is no point having a few touch-screens about the place. People can only use them one at a time. One idea would be to send free texts to visitors' mobile phones, according to their needs, as they stand in front of displays. Just about everyone has a mobile phone, after all.'
The Oxford-educated physicist earned his spurs as a scientist who built instruments for space probes, such as X-ray detectors for the international Solar Maximum Mission launched in 1980. He went on to work at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory using satellite radar scanners to study the Earth and in particular Antarctica.
'All sorts of environmental issues lead to the Antarctic: sea-level rise, ozone depletion, atmospheric warming,' added Rapley, who is married with two daughters. In 1997, he was appointed head of the British Antarctic Survey and has worked there ever since.
As to key influences, Rapley points to an English teacher at his old school, King Edward's School, Bath, who introduced him to the works of Conan Doyle. 'I learned the joys of deduction from Sherlock Holmes and they stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. They got me to the Science Museum, in effect.'
'That in turn will mean less carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere because there will be fewer people to drive cars and use electricity. The crucial point is that to achieve this goal you would only have to spend a fraction of the money that will be needed to bring about technological fixes, new nuclear power plants or renewable energy plants. However, everyone has decided, quietly, to ignore the issue.'
Such arguments give an indication of the priorities of the new Science Museum chief, an office that has been vacant since 2005 when Lindsay Sharp abruptly left the £150,000 post following rows about financial waste, cronyism and the 'Disneyfication' of exhibitions.
Now Rapley, currently head of the British Antarctic Survey and a passionate believer in man's influence on climate, is set to take charge of the museum, one of Britain's most challenging institutions, where strict academic requirements must be met while competing with Legoland and Disneyland to attract visitors. Only by tackling the issues of the day can he succeed, Rapley said.
Hence his urging that we deal with overpopulation, a call of wide public interest and one that reflects the contents of the recent report by the Optimum Population Trust, which called for each couple in Britain to be limited to having two children each. 'A voluntary stop-at-two guideline should be adopted for couples in the UK who want to adopt greener lifestyles,' it stated.
The interest of Rapley, 60, in this subject stems directly from his climatic concerns. He sits near the extreme end of scientific views about global warming. He fears our planet faces a very hot and uncomfortable future. This belief puts him opposite climate-change deniers, about whom Rapley is generally vitriolic. He described the recent Channel 4 programme The Great Global Warming Swindle as 'a tissue of lies' while individual deniers, like Dominic Lawson, are dismissed in unexpectedly terse, Anglo-Saxon terms. Read the full content……
'As to my job at the Science Museum, my remit is very simple,' Rapley said. 'It is to make it the most advanced museum in the world. I will only be able to do that by addressing the key issues in science today and the most important of these is climate change and energy policy. However, there are topics like stem cell science and genomics that are set to have enormous impact and which will have to be tackled in detail.'
Rapley is passionate about making displays and instruments far more accessible. 'If you look at the Science Museum's great engine hall, there are wonderful machines on display but the accompanying explanations are quite often above most people's heads. Most children today probably don't realise these machines run on heat and water, but that is never mentioned. We need different explanations for different levels of understanding: the six-year-old, the 60-year-old, the PhD student. At the same time, there is no point having a few touch-screens about the place. People can only use them one at a time. One idea would be to send free texts to visitors' mobile phones, according to their needs, as they stand in front of displays. Just about everyone has a mobile phone, after all.'
The Oxford-educated physicist earned his spurs as a scientist who built instruments for space probes, such as X-ray detectors for the international Solar Maximum Mission launched in 1980. He went on to work at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory using satellite radar scanners to study the Earth and in particular Antarctica.
'All sorts of environmental issues lead to the Antarctic: sea-level rise, ozone depletion, atmospheric warming,' added Rapley, who is married with two daughters. In 1997, he was appointed head of the British Antarctic Survey and has worked there ever since.
As to key influences, Rapley points to an English teacher at his old school, King Edward's School, Bath, who introduced him to the works of Conan Doyle. 'I learned the joys of deduction from Sherlock Holmes and they stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. They got me to the Science Museum, in effect.'
WALKING=AT 4MPH=24 CAL USED EVERY 5 MINS
When It Comes To Walking, It's All Good, Says Mayo Clinic Researcher
Science Daily — These days, it's easy for people to get confused about exercise -- how many minutes a day should they spend working out, for how long and at what exertion level? Conflicting facts and opinions abound, but one Mayo Clinic physician says the bottom line is this: walking is good, whether the outcome measurement is blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, joint problems or mental health.
///////////////SCIENCE DAILY
Science Daily — These days, it's easy for people to get confused about exercise -- how many minutes a day should they spend working out, for how long and at what exertion level? Conflicting facts and opinions abound, but one Mayo Clinic physician says the bottom line is this: walking is good, whether the outcome measurement is blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, joint problems or mental health.
///////////////SCIENCE DAILY
Religious concepts promote cooperation
///////////Religious concepts promote cooperationEffect seems to work regardless of a person's beliefs.
Matt Kaplan
Exposure to religious and civic concepts both make people more generous.PunchstockA belief in God may have promoted the evolution of cooperative behaviour, say Canadian psychologists. They found that priming people with religious concepts makes them more generous — regardless of whether they declare themselves to be believers. Notions of civic responsibility also promote cooperation, suggesting that religion might encourage altruism by invoking an omniscient judge of behaviour."One idea that we seriously considered was that God, to those who believe, is a supernatural policing agent," says psychologist Azim Shariff of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "We started to wonder whether civic [responsibilities] and religion operated all that differently within the unconscious mind." To investigate how belief in supernatural agents might influence cooperation, Shariff and his colleague Ara Norenzayan used a word game to stealthily introduce religious concepts to their subjects. Participants had to unscramble five-word sentences, dropping an extraneous word from each to create a grammatical four-word sentence. For example, "felt she eradicate spirit the" would become "she felt the spirit," and "dessert divine was fork the" could become "the dessert was divine." A control group unscrambled sentences made up of non-spiritual words. Share and share alikeAfter this exercise, the participants played an economic decision-making game. Each player was given $10 to share with an anonymous recipient. Participants primed with religious concepts gave their partner an average of $4.22, compared with only $1.84 in the control group. But those who declared themselves religious before the study were no more generous than non-believers. "The effect of the religious prime was both large and surprising, especially considering that during exit interviews the participants were unaware of having been religiously primed," says Shariff. A second study introduced a third group, primed with words associated with civic responsibility such as "jury", contract", and "police." This group behaved almost identically to that primed with religious concepts. Common functions"This research is really ground-breaking," says social psychologist Adam Cohen at Arizona State University, Tempe. "The subtle prime of religion is one of the greatest strengths of this research because it does not tip people off to what the study is about."
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But why such priming makes people more charitable is unclear. "The fact that primes to civic institutions also produced more charitable behaviour gives some clues," he says. "Perhaps religion and these civic institutions have certain functions or effects in common." Whether religion and civic responsibilities are equally effective spurs to cooperation remains to be seen. "We can't compare the relative strengths of religion and civics, or draw tight analogies to real-world situations," says Shariff. "What we can do is identify that both concepts have substantial effects on prosocial behaviour."
MATT KAPLAN
Matt Kaplan
Exposure to religious and civic concepts both make people more generous.PunchstockA belief in God may have promoted the evolution of cooperative behaviour, say Canadian psychologists. They found that priming people with religious concepts makes them more generous — regardless of whether they declare themselves to be believers. Notions of civic responsibility also promote cooperation, suggesting that religion might encourage altruism by invoking an omniscient judge of behaviour."One idea that we seriously considered was that God, to those who believe, is a supernatural policing agent," says psychologist Azim Shariff of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "We started to wonder whether civic [responsibilities] and religion operated all that differently within the unconscious mind." To investigate how belief in supernatural agents might influence cooperation, Shariff and his colleague Ara Norenzayan used a word game to stealthily introduce religious concepts to their subjects. Participants had to unscramble five-word sentences, dropping an extraneous word from each to create a grammatical four-word sentence. For example, "felt she eradicate spirit the" would become "she felt the spirit," and "dessert divine was fork the" could become "the dessert was divine." A control group unscrambled sentences made up of non-spiritual words. Share and share alikeAfter this exercise, the participants played an economic decision-making game. Each player was given $10 to share with an anonymous recipient. Participants primed with religious concepts gave their partner an average of $4.22, compared with only $1.84 in the control group. But those who declared themselves religious before the study were no more generous than non-believers. "The effect of the religious prime was both large and surprising, especially considering that during exit interviews the participants were unaware of having been religiously primed," says Shariff. A second study introduced a third group, primed with words associated with civic responsibility such as "jury", contract", and "police." This group behaved almost identically to that primed with religious concepts. Common functions"This research is really ground-breaking," says social psychologist Adam Cohen at Arizona State University, Tempe. "The subtle prime of religion is one of the greatest strengths of this research because it does not tip people off to what the study is about."
ADVERTISEMENT
But why such priming makes people more charitable is unclear. "The fact that primes to civic institutions also produced more charitable behaviour gives some clues," he says. "Perhaps religion and these civic institutions have certain functions or effects in common." Whether religion and civic responsibilities are equally effective spurs to cooperation remains to be seen. "We can't compare the relative strengths of religion and civics, or draw tight analogies to real-world situations," says Shariff. "What we can do is identify that both concepts have substantial effects on prosocial behaviour."
MATT KAPLAN
SOCRATES-MARKET LINE
////////////If you don't always get everything you want, just think of all the things you don't get that you don't want." - Anonymous
///////////SOCRATES-SLPT=SIMPLE LIVING,PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING
//////////////SOCRATES=MKT=SHOWS SO MANY THINGS I DO NOT NEED
///////////SOCRATES-SLPT=SIMPLE LIVING,PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING
//////////////SOCRATES=MKT=SHOWS SO MANY THINGS I DO NOT NEED
NUT CRAVINGS
/////////Nuts are another great source but can be high in calories: Have just five 1-ounce servings a week (an ounce is about 24 almonds, 18 cashews, or 35 peanuts).
WEBMD
WEBMD
LEAN GENE
////////////The gene is called Adipose or Adp. Fifty years ago, a Yale researcher discovered a strain of fruit flies that lacked the Adp gene. The flies put on a lot of weight -- which helped them survive the famine-prone region in which they lived.
Graff's team showed that mice genetically engineered to express the Adp gene in fat tissues became skinny. Moreover, they showed that Adp works in a dose-related manner. The more Adp activity there is, the leaner the animal becomes
WEBMD
Graff's team showed that mice genetically engineered to express the Adp gene in fat tissues became skinny. Moreover, they showed that Adp works in a dose-related manner. The more Adp activity there is, the leaner the animal becomes
WEBMD
NASH-LIVER DAMAGED BY WHITE RICE,WHITE BREAD AND POTATO
/////////// diet rich in potatoes, white bread and white rice may be contributing to a "silent epidemic" of a dangerous liver condition.
"High-glycaemic" foods - rapidly digested by the body - could be causing "fatty liver", increasing the risk of serious illness.
Boston-based researchers, writing in the journal Obesity, found mice fed starchy foods developed the disease.
BBC
"High-glycaemic" foods - rapidly digested by the body - could be causing "fatty liver", increasing the risk of serious illness.
Boston-based researchers, writing in the journal Obesity, found mice fed starchy foods developed the disease.
BBC
Thursday, 20 September 2007
"If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you."
Rapidly Dying 47-Year-Old Professor Gives Exuberant ‘Last Lecture’
ARTALAD-PLAN FIN AND ENJOY /PALLIATE
ARTALAD-PLAN FIN AND ENJOY /PALLIATE
the world's most dangerous food-fugu
I cannot see her tonight.I have to give her upSo I will eat fugu.Yosa Buson (1716–1783)
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
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