[JimmyT]

vansig wrote: To those who say, “move over, old man. The world belongs to the young,”
I say, “I am not ready to go, yet, thanks. I want to Live a long time and travel to the stars.”

Who cares if that’s selfish?

To which I say: BRAVO! There is nothing quite as refreshing as a bit of enlightened self interest.

[JimmyT]

Rezwan wrote: I was told about a brilliant book relating to longevity, evolution, etc. Nick Lane’s Oxygen: The Molecule that made the world.

Apparently, oxygen enables predators.

Oxygen enables predators just because it allows creatures to grow to be sufficiently large size to be predators. Without oxygen organism size is single cell or perhaps just a few cells. And similarly higher oxygen concentration allows larger body size and higher metabolic rates in those organisms which do exist.

[JimmyT]

I came across this story some time ago and I am just now getting around to posting it. Its subject may become a significant break through in longevity research. Or not. Time will tell. It apparently involves something secreted by stem cells. At the very least it’s good news for the mice involved in the research. 🙂

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/01/18/factor-x-have-finally-found-fountain-youth/

Just read the article on the linked page. The video embeded on the page seems to change. So it may not be about the same subject.

[JimmyT]

I read an interesting scheme for desalinating water a few years back which might play well with this technology. Rather than using distillation it uses fractional crystallization.

Basically you pump seawater up to the high Sierras during the winter and spray the water on the mountain slopes. Relatively fresh water crystallizes as ice or snow and concentrated brine drains away (back to the ocean presumably). When spring comes the ice melts and vola! Potable water. It does contain some salt, but so little that it can’t be tasted.

The high alcohol content of a couple of liquors is obtained this way too. Apple jack is one. Don’t know the other off hand. In this case the high alcohol content is poured off and saved and the relatively alcohol free ice is discarded.

[JimmyT]

Brian H wrote: Let me be the first to suggest Fo-Fu-Fum-1. And probably the last. 😉

P.S. Ivy, thanx for that! read the link, and I now wonder what those of us who comment on a nuke plant as though it was a bikeshed should be called.

Don’t answer that! Be polite! 😛

Fo-Fu Phoenix is another possibility.

[JimmyT]

I’m not sure about this, but I believe Eric’s shot numbers are randomly assigned.

Aaron could you chime in on this?

[JimmyT]

Matt M wrote: Here is a link to a PPT presentation from Tri Alpha Energy.

They are appear to be very far along on their process that is colliding two plasma
toroids into each other at high supersonic speeds.

Check out the shot numbers on their graphs. It appears they are
5800+!

But, they reference deuturium recycling and residue issues. So, they
don’t appear to be working in the aneutronic arena.

Matt

http://www.iccworkshops.org/icc2011/uploads/241/icc2011_gota_talk_8_16_11.pdf

I doubt that their shot numbers started with 1. Maybe they started this current run at 5,000?

[JimmyT]

vansig wrote: by the way, how does gravity behave w.r.t. antimatter?

do galaxies and anti-galaxies repel each other?

There is no theoretical basis for believing that antimatter behaves any differently then regular matter with respect to gravity. But I’m no expert.

[JimmyT]

I just updated the link. Should work now.

I recently told a friend that I couldn’t get my DVR to stop blinking 12:00. She suggested a way to fix it: Cut a 2 inch long strip of black electrical tape and place it directly over the display. That’s the kind of fix I like.

[JimmyT]

How to know a parity symmetry violation when you see it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambidextrous_Universe

The author implys that this wouldn’t work for antimatter galaxys, but if I’m not mistaken neither would Madam Wu’s experiment.

[JimmyT]

Rezwan wrote:

Since I won’t be alive 100 years from now why should I care about (insert virtually any item here). Nothing promotes good stewardship like self interest.

Very few people on the planet to date have lived over 100. Have they all been bad stewards?

I don’t know why I care about (insert the random group of things and people i care about), I just do. Call it a compulsion. I really would rather not care, and go get a beer and watch it all burn. But it’s here, and I find myself engaged despite my nihilistic laziness. Partly because it’s novel. Also, I find the shelf life manageable (“well, it’s only for another few decades, tops.”). And I like to cultivate autonomy in others so they can take care of themselves and I can check out. Seriously, you guys don’t find existence exhausting? It’s a lot of work to give things their proper focus. Haven’t you seen groundhog day? Every day has infinite possibilities. And you want to stretch this out?

But like I say, be my guest. It’s just a preference. No right or wrong here.

Maybe it all comes down to attention span 🙂

Do I really need to spell this out?

I wouldn’t be involved with lots of projects If I were entirely selfish. I’m not going to live long enough to reap the entire benefit of most projects I am involved in. And I certainly won’t benefit from the life extension efforts currently underway. Others will and that makes these projects worthy of my support.

Having longer lifespans leads to inherently better stewardship. Because it is people’s own future they are caring about.

This may not be true for everyone, but it is obviously true for many. This tripe about people not wanting to leave messes for their children to inherit is obviously not true for a lot of people. Otherwise we wouldn’t be running a 1.6 trillion dollar annual deficit here in the United States. Words speak so much louder than actions And it’s obvious from their actions that many people would gladly enslave their children and grandchildren in order to live more comfortable themselves.

Yeah, life sucks sometimes. I HATE my current job. I deal with it. I also try to make the world a better place.

When you get sick do you seek medical attention? You don’t have to. Must be because you want to live longer. Others do too.

Big suprise!

[JimmyT]

de wrote: A little more on the Methuselah Foundation (and related SENS Foundation)…Aubrey de Grey identified seven components of aging, which they’re tackling in various ways.

For example, excess junk accumulates inside and between cells, which the body can’t get rid of. But it decomposes in soil, so they’re surveying soil microbes looking for enzymes they can use to clean that stuff up.

Mitochondrial DNA takes a lot of oxidative damange, so they’re looking at using gene therapy to insert the mitochondrial genes into the nucleus, where they’ll be protected.

Cross-linking between sugars and proteins happens over time and makes everything stiffen up, so they’re looking for ways to dissolve those links.

His basic idea: fixing aging is like restoring an old car. You don’t have to figure out in detail why it rusts, you just need to apply rust cleaner and maybe replace some parts.

There’s a book de Grey wrote which goes into the science in great detail. He’s actually not a big fan of the telomere approach, but there are other people pursuing that pretty vigorously. Regenerative medicine with stem cells is another approach with a lot of promise that’s not really part of SENS.

Yes! I’ve watched that video. Absolutely fascinating! I’ll try to get links to that video and some other material as soon as I get some free time.

Since I won’t be alive 100 years from now why should I care about (insert virtually any item here). Nothing promotes good stewardship like self interest.

[JimmyT]

I don’t mean to put a damper on this topic. I realize that I started it to some extent. But we are reinventing the wheel here. Many of the topics being addressed have been discussed ad nauseaum in other venues. There are a couple of excellent google technical videos which discuss some of these topics also. Such as the desirability/morality of wanting to live longer lives.

[JimmyT]

Rezwan wrote:

I saw an interesting statistic fairly recently. The gist of it was: If we eliminated all death from all forms of disease how long would the average individual live before he/she died from an accident/murder/other trauma.

The answer was around 600 years.

Really? I heard your outside lifespan is controlled by telomere, and is naturally considerably shorter than 600 years.

Allegedly, every time the cells in your body replicate (your body replaces most of its cells so that every 7 years you have a whole new set of cells – you’re constantly dropping cells and creating new cells. Only brain, heart and cancer cells are immortal – I think). In any case, as these cells replicate, the DNA does its thing and the new cell gets its copy of the previous cell – minus a few bits on the end. Some genes just drop off. Or they would be in danger of dropping off without telomere – but the telomere are limited to a fixed number of divisions…so that sets the limit on lifespan.

You have a built in termination date predicated on the length of this extra tail in your DNA. For most people it maxes out at 120 years. For many people considerably less.

So, without disease, you would nevertheless, at some point, in a peak state of health – just keel over because your time is up.

Use it well.

The Methuselah Foundation considers old age to be a disease. And I have adopted their view. Hence my comment “absent all diseases” is meant to include old age. And you are right, the telomere problem is one of the major obstacles in curing this disease.

My broader point was: Even if we eliminate all diseases as a cause of death, we will not have become immortal.

Use it well indeed. (well said, Rez!)

[JimmyT]

zapkitty wrote:

The only reason all nations have supported this agreement is because it is a practical impossibility at this point. Nations one and all will quickly abandon this treaty under one pretense or another if it becomes viable.

… but if the paradigm shift that enables this is the advent of aneutronic fusion then the reason for colonizing in the first place, the resources, becomes a non-issue in turn.

Quite possible to some extent. Depends on the ore quality available, and how much fusion helps in other ore extraction or reuse.

[Author]

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