Comment Re:really? (Score 1) 88
So everything is going to taste like chicken?
So everything is going to taste like chicken?
From the Reddit AMA by JohnRamus (the lead author):
Asked to describe a bit of background and where he thinks this research fits in with the rest of the field:
People have been extending telomeres in human cells since at least 1998, and there are many methods of extending telomeres, including delivery of TERT DNA, delivery of small molecule activators of TERT, and other methods. However, before our method, there was no method to extend telomeres that meets all of several criteria that we think are probably of value in a potential therapy: a method that extends telomeres rapidly, but by only a finite amount after which the normal protective anti-cancer telomere shortening mechanism remains intact, without causing an immune response, and without risk of insertional mutagenesis.
The innovations brought by our study:
Our method meets the above criteria for a potentially useful therapy. Specifically, we found that by delivering mRNA modified to reduce its immunogenicity and encoding TERT to human fibroblasts, telomerase activity was transiently (24-48h) increased, telomeres were lengthened (~0.9kb over a few days), proliferative capacity of the cells increased in a dose-dependent manner, telomeres resumed shortening, and the cells eventually stopped dividing and expressed markers of senescence to the same degree as untreated cells.
Getting RNA into people in any sort of controlled method hasn't yet happened. And it won't be easy.
Of course it's going to be expensive. Do you think they want everyone to live forever?
He also seems to think we're going to live forever in a computer cloud (hello Pauley's ROM construct). I think he might have ingested too much acrylamide as a grad student.
Interesting, thank you.
He sounds a bit, well, enthusiastic about all of this. He is really looking at this from the rejuvenation end rather than straight molecular biology which pricks up my suspicion meter. Nonetheless, he does make it clear that this procedure (if it really works, if it can be used in a therapeutic sense) is only going to be one small part of a rejuvenation 'package' and there is a long ways to go before this is advertised on late night TV.
Good read.
Roman, go spend some quality time in the library (at taxpayer's expense, mind you) and read up on some history. Look at how well neo-anarchists have provided for the 'general good'. Look up some actual, functioning examples of libertarian philosophy.
And if you find any, come back here and tell us about it.
Yes, capitalism is pretty screwy. Doesn't work well. Not a stable system, needs lots of inputs to keep from feeding back on itself and destroying everything in sight. No, this 'civilization' will not last forever and has a number of major issues with it at the moment.
But your goofy system won't work beyond a 12 pack of brownies.
Yep, totally top secret. They've hidden those old B-52s in brush covered canyons in Utah. Right next to Area 51.
You are remarkably naive to think that this represents something 'new' in any society.
Those cave pictures withe the hands and the animals - perhaps you thought they represented something philosophically interesting. Perhaps a statement of early man's domination over his environment. A way for the artist to identify his painting.
No, it was more likely that that Ogg was stating something along the lines of 'My horses! My ungulates! Keep your furry paws away from my stuff you Neanderthal!"
Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it.
You of course realize that what you are doing is quite a ways from the universe discussed in TFA. You've already made it to the point where technology is a tool for you. You're on the right side of the bell curve.
What TFA is talking about is tech in the public school system as a vehicle, for 'mass improvement' - dragging the whole curve upward. I don't think anyone argues that SOME people figure out how to use tech to better themselves. Where it sits for the hoi polloi is the question.
As we always said, a week in the lab could save an hour in the library....
Not that I would wish the current funding situation on anyone, but the tools available to grad students and other grunts, compared with the 1980s, are just astounding. Of course, I'm sure they said the same between the 1950s and 1980s - that's progress. But it could take weeks to get an article - even if you knew of it. Graphing huge datasets with a little Texas Instruments calculator that had a little slice of magnetic tape for memory took up many hours of my graduate student life.
I recall one of my professors trying to do early polyploid genetics calculations on an Osborne I. His tech spent hours swapping floppies back and forth - but it was easier than trying to get mainframe time.
I'm not even sure we had lawns back in those days....
I'd sortof maybe agree. I started out with a time shared BASIC terminal equipped with the finest punch tape reader available in 1972. Hooked up to a mainframe. The ONLY thing we could access was BASIC. So it wasn't a general purpose computer in the sense that we couldn't browse porn, news or even anyone's grades. All we could do is learn how to program. So, the half dozen of us who played with the machine (instead of going to pep rallies) learned something.
We were 1) antisocial and 2) more or less intellectually motivated to do something. Even if it was calculating trajectories for potato bombs.
Come forward a couple of decades, kids get a shiny machine that can browse the Internet, play games, take pictures, play music. Yeah, the half dozen kids that are 1) antisocial and 2) more or less intellectually motivated might load python on the machine (can't do BASIC AFAIK) or use it to learn something. The rest of the kids are going to screw off. If you just left it at the punch tape / BASIC level, most kids would not touch it with ten foot pole - they'd go to the pep rally (or whatever the hell they call it these days).
Buying stuff is easy.
Teaching is hard.
And yet, look at you. Thirty years later, the day before Superbowl, you are frittering away the time, hanging out with the low life pond scum at Slashdot.
Were it for your teachers to lock that closet. Think of the possibilities.
I've seen people actually resort to physical violence.
In remote support? Exactly how does that work?
Maybe they meant NASA?
One man's constant is another man's variable. -- A.J. Perlis
