New OM update

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

Keep fighting the good fight OM. You ought to know your body better than
anyone else, right?


Oh no, I think there's that one lady at the "Pancho's Bar and Grill and
Dancehouse" that knows his body pretty well. :-)





--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:42:57 -0400, in a place far, far away, "Rhonda
Lea Kirk" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:55:42 -0500, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


Non-existence versus existence in this world is a lot like
considering the lesser of two evils, and frankly at times the
non-existence alternative looks a lot less intrusive on Earth's
ecology and more theologically sound overall. ;-)

By what theology? And when did "earth's ecology" (whatever that
means...) become the highest value?

http://www.vhemt.org/

Exactly. And I'm not shocked at all to find Pat sympathetic. But
then, we've always suspected that he's not really human...

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
news:VN6dnchVaMa3cprVnZ2dnUVZ_t2inZ2d@northdakotat elephone...
Latest from OM, who apparently has become a television-watching dope
fiend, with a morphine monkey on his back.



glad to see Stumpy's back to normal so soon g

--
Terrell Miller


"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee - that
will do them in."
- Bradley's Bromide

On Apr 18, 12:50*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
wrote:
I got my new Scientific American this evening and looked through it.
They had an article about limb regeneration in mammals. * I saw
something about OM here in these newsgroups, and for some reason
thought I should post that fact here.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=...ng-human-limbs

Good luck.

I'll forward this to him; I still think that amphibian DNA is the key. :-)

Pat

Yes it would be awesome wouldn't it? I'm thinking about all those
kids who were dismembered by mines throughout the world. Princess
Diana supported that cause when she was alive.

In article , Rand Simberg
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:55:42 -0500, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


Non-existence versus existence in this world is a lot like considering
the lesser of two evils, and frankly at times the non-existence
alternative looks a lot less intrusive on Earth's ecology and more
theologically sound overall. ;-)

By what theology?

Pat was just pointing out that his existence is proof that there is no
God.

But we already knew that.

--
David M. Palmer (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)

I think it has to do with the telomeres at the end of the DNA not the
DNA proper. Basically, when you cut of a salamandar's limb, instead
of scarring over, it triggers the same mechanism that occured in the
embryo in the first place. The same mechanism starts in humans, but
then is interrupted. The trick is to fool the growing scar, into
thinking its back in the embryo, and get the stump to grow a complete
limb - THEN STOP - telomerase - which is present in small quantities
in the embryo, but not in adult animals - is a powerful mutagen and
carcinogen. So, that's why I think telomeres are involved.

Also, shortening of the telomeres is associated with aging.
Telomerase has been known to lengthen telomeres.

Alright a little recap of biochem 101 - for those who are lost at this
poin.

All animals are made of cells. All animal cells can be thought of as
tiny water balloons - the balloon itself is the cell membrane, the
water is called cytoplasm - think of a water balloon filled with
broth. Inside each cell is a tiny center - think of a tiny whiffle
golf ball inside the broth filled water balloon. Inside the whiffle
ball is a set of zippers - zipped together.

The zippers have a lot of little hooks that fit together. There are
four kinds of hooks that operate in two pairs. A C G and T they're
called. A sticks with C and G with T - each pair is like a logical
zero and one - the zippers in thisway store information.

Now the zipper have two tricks - expression and replication.

Expression

A 'fly' can cruise along and unzip the two lines of hooks - and expose
the 'naked' hooks to the broth. In the broth are floating around
free floating hooks, of more types than just these four. They're
unzipped 3 at a time, and based on the six hook ends that present
themselve through the 'fly' to the solution, a particular hook from
solution is drawn in, and an complementary chain of hooks is formed.
This string floats off and bumps into other structures, and folds up
into a useful cellular machine. In fact all parts of the cell ismade
of stuff fromthe broth in this way.

so, this is howinformation gets expressed as operating machinery
within the cell.

Replication

the other trick is that the two sides of the zipper can be undone,
leaving two entirely naked lines, and a complementary line is drawn
out of solution - now you have TWO complete zipper pairs where you had
one before. These two get expressed at the same time, and they sort
of fight with each other, forming a wall between them, and where you
had one cell before, now you have TWO.

Now the machinery that gets made and is operating in the cell is
incompletely understood. One interesting thing to think about - when
thinking about regeneration - is how the heck to groups of cells
create structures like bones nerves veins arteries skin, hair you name
it... well, here's the best idea... the cell membranes have sticky
spots on them, just like a black and white dog has spots on him.
these sticky spots are ony sticky to other particular sticky spots.
Sort of like a molecular lock and key. In fact this lock and key
idea, ishow information gets transmitted between cells - and that's
incompletely understood as well.

but back to how this system creates structures...

Imagine the cells are a bunch of ping pong balls in a shoe box. If
they don't stick to one another - you put the balls in and shake them
- the equivalent of heat action - you don't get any structure. You
cover them with contact adhesive, and you put them in and shake the
box, and you get an undifferentiated blob!! more interesting than
before, but not by much. Now, you put two spots on each ball - one at
the north pole, one at the south pole, and this glue is special it
only sticks to another spot, not the box or parts of the ball that
don't have glue on it. call it grue. so you put these grue covere
balls in a shoe box, shake it and voila' - you get a nice single line
of ping pongballs. Change the position of one of the spots - moving
it 5 degrees off the pole toward the equator - and you get circle!!!
Now imagine you have different colors of grue that only stick to the
same colored grue - and you can see that by creating different breeds
of cells that change their spots as they divide, you can create very
sophisticated structures!!!

What are telomeres again? haha.. they're the heavy molecules at the
end of each of the zippers that hold the two lines of hooks together.
In the embryo, they get replicated along with the zippers when the
divide. In the adult they get split up and divided like splitting the
china in a divorce. After about 50 doublings, there isn't much left,
and the cells stop dividing - they become what is known as senescent -
senile cells - and that's when you have noticeable aging effects in
the organism.

Telomerase is a hormone - that tells the zipper to exress telomeres
before it replicates. That way when the two zippers are looking around
for telomeres, there are plenty to go around.

So, it is likely that once we figure all this out - we will not only
be able to regrow limbs - but control cancer, and aging effects as
well. Which is a sweet deal.

How far off is this?

Well lets look at the statistics, in 1900 people lived to about 43
and died. Some lived longer some lived shorter lives - but this was
the average. In 2000 people lived to about 78 and die. Again, some
longer some shorter this is the average. The interesting thing is
when you look at the INCREASE in age at death each year year by
year. You see that the INCREASE is itself INCREASING every year. And
when you plot that rate of increase and project it forward, you can
see that there will be a time when the average age will increase by
more than one year with each passing year.

Do you know when THAT will happens?

2010 - 2012 time frame.

Most people alive and well past 2012 - will likely be alive and well -
at any time thereafter.

Something to think about.

What major changes can we expect? Well, what major changes have
medical advances wrought in our past?

Well, the last time a medical breakthrough had significant social
consequences was the invention of anesthetics. Before anesthetics
people generally went through life miserable having nothing for the
pain. After the first generation of people lived with anesthetics, we
had a population with a fundamentally different view toward life.
Pain was treatable - not a given. This had a huge effect. This
included a great sense of optimism - if science could do this, what
else could science do? It was a great boon, and 19th century science
optimism was to a large degee due to this great medical success.

Another aspect was greater sensitivity to pain. Not just one's own
pain, but the pain of others as well. So you see arising up in this
pain free generation anti-vivisectionist societies, and anti-slavery
movements. This resulted in an end to slavery. At the start of the
19th century, in 1801 - slavery was considered natural and right - a
better man benefitted both himself and the lesser man, by taking
charge of the lesser man's affairs that the lesser man couldn't manage
himself. By 1901 the start of the 20th century, no civilized human
being defended slavery due to understanding the great emotional
hardship is created - regardless of the economic cost to both slave
and slave owner. This was all brought about by anesthetics.

It seems reasonable that if people live forever due to advances in
science - we will have a similar sensitivity toward killing for any
reason. The same attitude most people have toward harming infants or
children, will be transferred to everyone, since in effect medical
science will make of us children with very long lives. Furthermore,
unlimited aging in vital vibrant bodies - will create a sense of
optimism and open ended possibility that will restore much of the
optimism of 19th century science.

Finally for those who worry about over population, don't! As living
standards rise from subsistence level reproductive rates rise as
medicine becomes available. But beyond a certain industrial level,
reproductive rates fall - below replacement levels at current
longevity. As humanity becomes space faring, the density of humans
will drop far from Earth - as we spread across the galaxy. This will
dominate over any longevity increase.

wrote:
Yes it would be awesome wouldn't it? I'm thinking about all those
kids who were dismembered by mines throughout the world. Princess
Diana supported that cause when she was alive.


That's why we must get her DNA and combine it with frog DNA...so we can
clone her back to life in a form that can self-regenerate if she's in
another auto accident.
In this way she would be better able to deal with the frog paparazzi,
yet wouldn't be in danger of croaking. :-)

Pat

David M. Palmer wrote:
By what theology?


Pat was just pointing out that his existence is proof that there is no
God.

But we already knew that.


Taking that concept seriously though, Hinduism shoots for as many people
as possible working up through the ecosystem via reincarnation and
eventually leaving Earthly existence altogether.
Buddhism considers being born a unlucky bad break, and the rest of their
philosophy being a attempt to get through life as damage control.
Even Christianity has the concept of Original Sin, so that all children
are born tainted to some degree.
My concept is closest to Hinduism...we are characters in some sort of
computer game played by the gods, and if we are boring enough, they'll
delete us from the game; however, if we do wild, violent, and strange
things they will keep bringing us back game after game. ;-)

Pat

http://edtech.clas.pdx.edu/gene_expression_tutorial/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-DNA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImageNA_replication.svg

Here is some more detail related to DNA replication and expressoin.

* * * *

The structure of multi-celled organisms is an interesting subject.
The idea of having spots on one cell that only stick to 'locking'
spots on another cell is an interesting one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recepto...iochemistry%29

Receptor biochemsitry involves protiens that bind only to certain
sites. It is but a short step to say that cellular surfaces
MECHANICALLY bind to each other in highly specific ways.

The evolution of structures in an embryonic organism, or in limb re-
growing, I imagine would envolve the EVOLUTION of spot placement as
the NUMBER of cells increase. This requires that the EXPRESSION of
mechanical bonding spots CHANGE with the number of daughter cells.

This requires that the DNA molecule be able to REMEMBER its parent by
counting or marking ts replication number - and change the expression
of mechanical bonding spots based on which cell it was.

Embryos develop structures over time, and there is generally many many
more cells produced, and when structures form, there is a cell die-
off.

These are cells that don't have bonding structures on them, and they
are sloughed off - but are important in generating the cells that
finally take part in the structure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis

I believe it is possible for DNA and DNA polymerase to make temporary
notes at the ends of the DNA molecule, using the telomeric chains, and/
or the interface between the telomeric chain and the DNA strand.

In this way, the DNA polymerase acts like a TURING MACHINE - reading
and writing on a tape to could replications and even uniquely mark
cells.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine

The telomeres likely play an important role in determining precisely
WHERE the DNA polymerase 'read/write' head starts when expressing the
DNA strand. So, WHAT gets expressed is fixed by the 'count' that is
written in the temporary notes - and those expressed items relate to
the mechanical spot pattern on the 'skin' of each cell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase

As I mentioned, telomeres occur at the end of a DNA strand, and do not
shorten during embryonic development. However, once an organism is
born, telomeres are not fully replaced and DO shorten. When they fall
below a certain length, after about 50 generatoins, the cells become
senescent - and the organism dies shortly thereafter.

Telomerase lengthens telomeric chains. It is likely that telomerase
operates in a more sophisticated way as a Turing Machine to actually
write simple logical marking and counting functions onto the telomeric
chain. Resetting the scar tissue to a certain telomeric configuration
then, should cause a bud to grow into a limb. Resetting all the
cells in the body to an appropriate telomeric configuration should
cause the organism's age to be reset. Slowing the shortening of
telomeric strands with each cell division should slow the aging
process at the cellular level and delay senescence and death due to
old age.

So, it is expected that we should see the following medical advances
occur in the next few years;

1) slow aging process
2) halt cancer process
3) reverse cancer process
4) reset aging process
5) regrow limbs
6) regrow organs

Another possibility is the growth of biological systems outside the
body. The creeation of food products for example. A chicken leg, or
a side of beef might be grown on demand with far less time, space and
materiel than raising a chicken or a cow. Mid-way between a modern
farm and a Star Trek style replicator.

As I mentioned elsewhere, pressure vessels postulated for free flying
space colonies, can be easily adapted to grow crops in greenhouse type
environments. Special environments are 10x or more productive than
open-air environments. So, creating pressure vessels at very low cost
- to produce arable land at less cost than land on Earth, using
abundant asteroidal feedstocks and telerobotic labor - is but the
first step to lower cost more abundant higher quality food for
everyone.

Already we have the means to take small fragments of protiens and
replicate them in any quantity, using PCR - polymerase chain reaction
- technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCR

Slight variations in this technique might transform it from a
laboratory process to a larger scale production process.

One might imagine rather than selling chickens or sides of beef or
whole hogs - one could sell a 'seed' for such things that are then
grown in a plastic bag over the course of a few days or weeks -
providing massive improvements over current or even advanced farming
techniques.

1 person per acre - conventional farming
8 persons per acre - green house farming
20 persons per acre - space habitat avanced farming
20,000 persons per acre - 'limb growth' in a test-tube

Generally speaking cells are cloned that are similar to a fertilized
egg for an organism, but they grow into specific limbs - or organs or
parts of animals or plants of interest. Even fast growing plants and
animals take longer than 90 days to spawn. Cellular division if
promoted and controlled to the degree we're talking about here, has
the potential to grow a chicken or a cow limb - in 10 days or so. So,
you have a bio-med factory that produces seeds that are stored in a
'development bag' and have a connector to a 'growing machine' similar
to the way an inkjet print head is installed in a printer. The 'seed'
or 'egg' can be stored in a cool dry place for up to 10 years and
still be vital. Two weeks before its needed, its plugged into a
growing machine, which reads the ID of the bag, and supplies the
appropriate nutrients water and so forth. Specialty chemicals are
provided by PCR derived products - feed solutions of appropriate amino
acids. Amino acids, carbohydrates, sugars and oils, are supplied by
local regeneration plants that take bio-waste and process it back to
sterile raw materials through a variety of processes - Generally if
a home is supplied water and energy, it has sufficient resources to
make whatever sort of food products it has 'eggs' or 'seeds' for.
Within two weeks the plant or animal part is fully developed, and
ready to be removed from the grower and put into cold storage prior to
cooking or processing into the desired meal item.

Approximately 200 distint plant and animal products supply every food
item, including spices and flavorings, needed to produce any meal
possible. A human being eats about 80,000 meals in a lifetime. Each
meal requires no more than 10 or 12 plant or animal varieties. So,
1,000,000 'seed' items in cryogenic storage should be able to provide
all the meals for a human being over the course of a 72 year span. -
this would all fit on the head of pin!!! and take something between
the size of a bread box to refrigerator to turn into meals in a week
at a rate to provide 21 or more meals per week per person.

Again, this is not a replicator in the sense of Star Trek - but it is
far more efficient than traditional farming methods.

It is something that could fit in an industrial kitchen, and provide
meals to hundreds of people nearly automatically.
..