January 06, 2008
iLimb Arm Unnaturally Powerful
Accompanying Touch Bionics' prosthetic finger and hand (shown above), comes the iLimb Arm. It's interesting to read how its superhuman capabilities may be intentionally scaled back before they will become available. Hacking the limb to its designed capabilities may become more akin to unlocking than overclocking.
Programming DNA
Drew Endy presents on MIT's genetic reverse-engineering, developing a human-readable, high-level programming language, and leading a worldwide academic effort to develop open-source bio-objects. He proposes reprogramming bacterial DNA as one form of nano-engineering. Video documentation, found here, also covers a brief history of genetic decoding in terms of Accelerating Returns, safety protocols, and a speculative future of bio-hacking communities.
link via Hackaday
November 21, 2007
Stem Cells, Hold the Huevos
An end to the embryonic stem cell controversy is now increasingly likely. Although further such research may need to continue for now, scientists just announced a promising alternative. The successful reprogramming of human skin cells towards various human tissue types implies a major step towards a slew of therapies genetically matched to patients with a wide range of conditions.
At last week's LA Life Extension Workshop, the upcoming challenge of initial breakthroughs, followed by the Law of Accelerating returns, was gospel. Days later, it seems we are on our way to transitional research that can leave major ethical debate behind for a while, and catalyze funding and treatment that will prolong and save lives.
[MSNBC links via Propeller, and a sidebar of related articles]
November 17, 2007
Life Extension Workshop datablast
In this quick digest about my attendance of the Life Extension Workshop yesterday, I will drop a lot of names and links on you while I attempt to digest the profound content of the day. Thanks to everyone whom I met for being so cool and sharing your passion for your interests; even when you could not talk about certain things for various reasons.
The presenters and panelists included Doctors Stephen Coles, Aubrey de Grey, and Michael Rose, followed by David Kekich and Peter Voss. I will be helping Dr. Coles post video online; I'll post when and where that will be available.
Gerontology Research Group
Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS)
M Prize
Methuselah Foundation
Benford & Rose
Gregory Benford
Persona Foundation
GTCbio
Mediox
There were various plugs for books, which will reach you through links, slides, and video of the workshop. I want to mention a book that was not part of the day's official proceedings, which I learned of when I met Gregory Benford. He and Elisabeth Malarte have authored Beyond Human: Living with Robots and Cyborgs, and I'm excited to check it out.
November 12, 2007
Mixed Reality Cartography Corset
A wearable device for Gordan Savicic's "Constraint City: The Pain of Everyday Life", includes: "A chest strap (corset) with high torque servo motors and a WIFI-enabled game-console are worn as fetish object. The higher the wireless signal strength of close encrypted networks, the tighter the corset becomes." Whether it is meant to be painful or pleasurable seems unclear.
I suggest exploring the link below to glean the project's conceptual background. I find its discourse reminiscent of Stelarc's. I do share the artist's interest in sensing the electromagentic waves permeating our environment; even to the extent of mapping it to haptic feedback. However, regarding the restriction of the public through normally undetectable information layers, I do not share his tenet that secure WiFi networks are as actively constrictive as this project asserts. Perhaps wireless security cameras and traffic lights are even more controling than secure WiFi, since private citizens should have the right to encrypt their networks from the public without suspicion of conspiracy.
Life Extension Workshop- new schedule
Now beginning at 2PM:
2:00-2:30 Steve Coles
2:30-3:30 Aubrey de Grey
4:00-4:30 Michael Rose
4:30-5:30 Coles, de Grey, Rose (moderator: David Kekich)
location unchanged
seats are still available
[internal link]
November 07, 2007
Life Extension Workshop in LA 11/16
"Aubrey de Grey will be giving a Life Extension Workshop on Friday Nov
16th from 3pm to 5:30pm. Specifically, he will be giving an update on
SENS and the MPrize (more on that below).
Aubrey is a computer scientist, biomedical gerontologist, editor of
Rejuvenation Research and author the book "Ending Aging'..."
RSVP
[via Chuck Esterbrook on the BarCampLA mailing list]
Yes, you read that correctly: "Ending Aging"
Amazon lists it as #1 in some categories, including Physiology.
Location:
Embassy Suites LA - Int. Airport/South
1440 E. Imperial Ave, El Segundo, CA 90245
310-640-3600
*** To reserve a seat, forward this message to bruce@novamente.net
with your name and the names of any guests.
Adapted from the book description and Wikipedia pages:
MUST WE AGE?
A long life in a healthy, vigorous, youthful body has always been one
of humanity's greatest dreams. Recent progress in genetic
manipulations and calorie-restricted diets in laboratory animals hold
forth the promise that someday science will enable us to exert total
control over our own biological aging.
Nearly all scientists who study the biology of aging agree that we
will someday be able to substantially slow down the aging process,
extending our productive, youthful lives. Dr. Aubrey de Grey is
perhaps the most bullish of all such researchers. As has been reported
in media outlets ranging from 60 Minutes to The New York Times, Dr. de
Grey believes that the key biomedical technology required to eliminate
aging-derived debilitation and death entirely—technology that would
not only slow but periodically reverse age-related physiological
decay, leaving us biologically young into an indefinite future—is now
within reach.
Aubrey has created a detailed plan called Strategies for Engineered
Negligible Senescence (SENS) which is aimed at preventing age-related
physical and cognitive decline. He is also the co-founder (with David
Gobel) and chief scientist of the Methuselah Foundation, a ...
nonprofit organization. A major activity of the Methuselah Foundation
is the Methuselah Mouse Prize, a prize designed to accelerate research
into effective life extension interventions by awarding monetary
prizes to researchers who extend the lifespan of mice to unprecedented
lengths.
Regarding this, de Grey stated in March 2005 "if we are to bring about
real regenerative therapies that will benefit not just future
generations, but those of us who are alive today, we must encourage
scientists to work on the problem of aging". The prize reached US$4.2
million in February 2007. de Grey believes that once dramatic life
extension of already middle-aged mice has been achieved, a large
amount of funding will be diverted to this kind of research, which
would accelerate progress in doing the same for humans.
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, pledged $3.5 Million to the
Methuselah Foundation for SENS research. Justin Bonomo, professional
poker player, has pledged 5% of his tournament winnings for SENS
research.
There is more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mprize
Again, it's on Friday Nov 16th from 3pm to 5:30pm.
*** To reserve a seat, forward this message to bruce@novamente.net
with your name and the names of any guests.
Hope to see some of you there,
-Chuck
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
BarcampLA Wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLosAngeles
BarcampLA Blog: http://www.barcampla.org/
BarcampLA Group: http://groups.google.com/group/BarcampLA?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
April 01, 2006
Transhumanists & Society
When I was younger, I was occasionally called a nerd, mostly because when I wasn't able to become wildly social with my peers, I turned to computers- one thing I could control and completely own mentally. Like most others who had similar experiences, I'm no longer called a nerd, but instead the more favorable term, "geek". I get this respect because this social group has grown through the dot com boom, and the push of the world wide web. I no longer wish to hide my interests as a geek, but stand tall.
Transhumanists though, while a subset of geeks, are less understood. In fact the idea of modifying oneself seems outright alien to many. The idea of pushing one's human shell to the limits to improve performance, and lifespan is even threatening to some. I myself have had conversations with people where I've expressed my desire to live for centuries instead of just one, and found myself in an argument about playing god. Nevertheless the goals of the transhumanist movement are appealing to many, which Stacy Robinson addresses in her book Transhumanism Reloaded:
...It may be a mistake to dismiss the transhumanists as a harmless group of under-socialized techno-geeks. Their vision of a world in which atomized individuals use technology and free markets to achieve dominance over others differs in degree, and not kind, from much of the real world today. At a time when many people feel powerless to influence social conditions, their message—don’t worry about society; technology will make you smart, strong, and attractive—could seem compelling.
It may seem foreign and strange right now to wear head mounted displays and want to put impant electronics under our skin now, but I think like theg geeks and the world wide web, transhumanism and cyborganics are going to become more and more accepted as this group of individuals excels beyond others. I will stand tall with my desire to augment myself because the idea of improving myself is compelling, and I believe while the transhumanist movement is young, the work being done now will be the foundations for years to come.
Fusing Chips with Brains
Cyborganics took a big step forward when european researchers were able to fuse electronic chips with brain cells. The reason why they did this was to pave the road towards sophisticated neural prostheses. These prostheses could be used potentially to assist nurological disorders or build more advanced computers using human tissue. Yeah, it sounds a bit like Robocop, but it could mean a great leap in computational power and cyborgs.
To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.
[Researchers] used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive."They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.
The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.
They see the payoff being decades away, but for the meantime they believe their work can be used for screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry. After all researchers follow where the money is, and the pharmaceutical industry has bags of it.
[ Link via Xaos. Thanks Xaos! ]
January 17, 2006
Ray Kurzweil Analyzes Self
This book looks really interesting as well. I myself read very little beyond tech books and the intarweb, but I'm going to go get this. Maybe it's because it fits into some cyberpunk and nanotechnology live forever fantasy that my friend dragoon sucked me into. Maybe it's just the idea of having a massive super-subconcious entity in some way or another. Something big is coming though, and it's going to be an exciting ride.
[ Link via boingboing ]
December 05, 2005
Stelarc Third Ear
All of Selarc's performances revolve around the "the notion of the prosthetic", and Stelarc's Third Ear is no exception.
The EXTRA EAR is a soft prosthesis, constructed not out of hard materials and technologies, but out of soft tissue and flexible cartilage. This would not be simply a wearable prosthesis, but one constructed on the body using its skin and cartilage as a permanent addition. The surgical techniques for ear reconstruction have been developed, so this is a plausible project. The difficulty is finding the appropriate medical assistance to realise it. Since 1997, there were several instances where doctors initially expressed interest in assisting, but then changed their minds. The problem is that it goes beyond mere Cosmetic Surgery. It is not simply about the modifying or the adjusting of existing anatomical features (now sanctioned in our society), but rather what’s perceived as the more monstrous pursuit of constructing an additional feature that conjures up either some congenital defect, an extreme body modification or even perhaps a radical genetic intervention.
This is really interesting, even though he hasn't acomplished it yet for the simple fact that he can't acomplish it yet. The idea of this is so far from society's norms that doctors won't assist him for the fear of being labled a deviant or "playing god", as so many like to say.
If you are a doctor, and have the know how to perform such a procedure, contact Stelarc at mailto:stelarc@va.com.au.
