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Subject: CryoNet #25629 - #25633 - msg#00026List: culture.science.cryogenics#25629: CryoNet #25624 - #25628 [Thomas Donaldson] #25630: australian outreach website (3rd try) [Robin Helweg-Larsen] #25631: A major libertarian figure acknowledges Peak Oil [Mark Plus] #25632: C-MED 100 increases DNA repair, boosts immunity [Doug Skrecky] #25633: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick [starman2050] Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25629%2D25633 Administrivia To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to: cryonet-request@xxxxxxxxxxx with the subject line (not message _body_): subscribe To unsubscribe, use the subject line: unsubscribe To post a message to CryoNet, send your message to: cryonet@xxxxxxxxxxx (Note: A "Subject:" line starting the message body replaces the "Subject:" line in the header. This gives a second opportunity to provide a meaningful subject line.) Since all CryoNet messages are archived and accessible via WWW, including search engines, make certain that your postings reflect how you want the world to see you. To retrieve past messages, send email to: archive@xxxxxxxxxxx with the message numbers in the subject line. (Message 0003 describes the advanced syntax.) You also can retrieve them via the CryoNet web page at URL: http://www.cryonet.org/ For administrative or other questions/suggestions, send email to me at "kqb@xxxxxxxxxxx" with "cryonics" in the subject line. - Kevin Q. Brown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25629 Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 08:02:10 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <73647.1215@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: CryoNet #25624 - #25628 For Kennita Watson: Yes we know that lots of people who should not be are quite ignorant and dismissive of cryonics. I guess we can add the Storeys to that list. And for readers in general, it would not be wise to believe anything the Storeys had to say if it wasn't limited strictly to freezing frogs. The real blame for this article, of course, goes to its author, Elizabeth Svoboda. And incidentally, the engineer Boris Rubinsky would have done well to study previous cryobiology work. Others have done far better than he when they froze kidneys, and his work at best might be of interest for the exact cryoprotectants he used. Yes, he works at Berkeley, and people there know so much that they need not bother with anything others have done before them (perhaps I should say "most of the people there" instead. Art Quaife is now there, for instance). For Doug Skrecky: A good reference, which I have saved to read the paper myself (and thanks for not just giving a net address). I must add that we all wish to live much longer than 100 years, so your reference is just an interesting start. We know of genes in worms or flies which increase lifespans. It's of interest that these researchers have found AND verified some such genes in human beings. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25629 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25630 Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 09:25:05 -0500 From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: australian outreach website (3rd try) Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25630 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25631 From: "Mark Plus" <markplus@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: A major libertarian figure acknowledges Peak Oil Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 13:47:57 -0800 When a super-wealthy libertarian like Jim Rogers has to acknowledge the existence of Peak Oil, the denial game is over. Get to a North American location while you still can. Manage your risk, not your terror. Mark Plus http://www.ameinfo.com/news/Detailed/52594.html United Arab Emirates: Monday, January 24 - 2005 at 10:45 Another 10 years of high oil prices? A new assessment of the supply and demand position for oil suggests that the outlook for high prices may be much stronger than previously thought. Talk to traders about oil prices and they only look a few months ahead. But a new book from George Soros' former colleague Jim Rogers, 'Hot Commodities' points to a much more long-term outlook, and the news for oil is very good. Roger's thesis is that oil supply has peaked and is now in decline around the world. He cites the evidence for and against, noting the Saudi Government's strong objections to this claim. But even his critics would have to admit that he makes a compelling argument. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25631 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25632 Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 19:03:01 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Skrecky <oberon@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: C-MED 100 increases DNA repair, boosts immunity Phytomedicine. 2003 Jan;10(1):23-33 C-Med 100, a hot water extract of Uncaria tomentosa, prolongs lymphocyte survival in vivo. Water extracts of the bark of Uncaria tomentosa, a vine indigenous to South America, has been used for generations as an "immuno modulator". To understand the basis of this immuno modulatory effect we fed mice in their drinking water with C-Med 100, which is a commercially available water extract from Uncaria tomentosa. We found a dose-dependent increase in spleen cell numbers in the supplemented mice, but the proportions of B cells, T cells, NK cells, granulocytes, and memory lymphocytes were normal. However, there were no detectable changes of the lymphoid architecture of the spleen even after long-term treatment. Further, when C-Med 100 treatment was interrupted the cellularity returned to normal level within four weeks. The increased number of lymphocytes was most likely not due to increased production because C-Med 100 did not have any significant effect on precursor cells nor on the accumulation of recent thymic emigrants in the spleen. We conclude that accumulation is most likely due to prolonged cell survival, because adoptive transfer experiments demonstrated that C-Med 100 treatment significantly prolonged lymphocyte survival in peripheral lymphoid organs, without increasing their proliferation rate. Since the accumulation was reversible and without detectable pathological effects, these results suggest the use of C-Med 100 as a potential agent for clinically accelerating the recovery of patients from leukopenia. Phytomedicine. 2001 Jul;8(4):275-82 DNA repair enhancement of aqueous extracts of Uncaria tomentosa in a human volunteer study. The Uncaria tomentosa water extracts (C-Med-100) have been shown to enhance DNA repair, mitogenic response and leukocyte recovery after chemotherapy-induced DNA damage in vivo. In this study, the effect of C-Med-100 supplement was evaluated in a human volunteer study. Twelve apparently healthy adults working in the same environment were randomly assigned into 3 groups with age and gender matched. One group was daily supplemented with a 250 mg tablet containing an aqueous extract of Uncaria tomentosa of C-Med-100, and another group with a 350 mg tablet, for 8 consecutive weeks. DNA repair after induction of DNA damage by a standard dose of hydrogen peroxide was measured 3 times before supplement and 3 times after the supplement for the last 3 weeks of the 8 week-supplement period. There were no drug-related toxic responses to C-Med-100 supplement when judged in terms of clinical symptoms, serum clinical chemistry, whole blood analysis and leukocyte differential counts. There was a statistically significant decrease of DNA damage and a concomitant increase of DNA repair in the supplement groups (250 and 350 mg/day) when compared with non-supplemented controls (p < 0.05). There was also an increased tendency of PHA induced lymphocyte proliferation in the treatment groups. Taken together, this trial has confirmed the earlier results obtained in the rat model when estimating DNA repair enhancement by C-Med-100. J Ethnopharmacol. 2000 Feb;69(2):115-26. Enhanced DNA repair, immune function and reduced toxicity of C-MED-100, a novel aqueous extract from Uncaria tomentosa. Female W/Fu rats were gavaged daily with a water-soluble extract (C-MED-100) of Uncaria tomentosa supplied commercially by CampaMed at the doses of 0, 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 mg/kg for 8 consecutive weeks. Phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulated lymphocyte proliferation was significantly increased in splenocytes of rats treated at the doses of 40 and 80 mg/kg. White blood cells (WBC) from the C-MED-100 treatment groups of 40 and 80 mg/kg for 8 weeks or 160 mg/kg for 4 weeks were significantly elevated compared with controls (P < 0.05). In a human volunteer study, C-MED-100 was given daily at 5 mg/kg for 6 consecutive weeks to four healthy adult males. No toxicity was observed and again, WBC were significantly elevated (P < 0.05) after supplement. Repair of DNA single strand breaks (SSB) and double strand breaks (DSB) 3 h after 12 Gy whole body irradiation of rats were also significantly improved in C-MED-100 treated animals (P < 0.05). The LD50 and MTD of a single oral dose of C-MED-100 in the rat were observed to be greater than 8 g/kg. Although the rats were treated daily with U. tomentosa extracts at the doses of 10-80 mg/kg for 8 weeks or 160 mg/kg for 4 weeks, no acute or chronic toxicity signs were observed symptomatically. In addition, no body weight, food consumption, organ weight and kidney, liver, spleen, and heart pathological changes were found to be associated with C-MED-100 treatment. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25632 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25633 From: <starman2050@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 22:32:01 -0700 Hello everyone, I just wanted to say I have received the latest issue of Cryonics magazine and the CEO report really caught my attention. Alcor CEO/President Joseph Waynick outlined his ambitious goals for 2005 which included obtaining a new transport vehicle, a new patient care bay, a perfusion enclosure for whole-body vitrification, a second operating room, increased membership growth powered by a newly hired public relations firm, and finally a comprehensive member standby program! I am quite impressed and truly hope he can accomplish all of these goals. But I am troubled because I know lofty goals have been set before by Alcor leaders and not been achieved for various reasons. And so I ask the list members what they think we can do to support President Waynick in his efforts to get these things actually done before the year is out. What can we do? Sometimes it seems to me that Alcor presidents are somewhat like ancient Mycenaean kings who reigned for only a short predetermined time and/or until things went bad and they were made to take the blame by taking a fatal blow to the head. I want to see Joseph Waynick avoid this fate and instead have a proudly remembered tenure when he looks back at having been at Alcor's helm. -New Transport Vehicle -New Patient Care Bay -Whole-Body Vitrification Perfusion Enclosure -Operating Room Expansion -Comprehensive Member Standby -Membership Growth Excellent Goals. I hope we can all help and not hinder President Waynick in seeing them accomplished. Sincerely, John Grigg Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25633 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- End of CryoNet Digest ********************* Thread at a glance:
Previous Message by Date: click to view message previewCryoNet #25624 - #25628CryoNet - Wed 26 Jan 2005 #25624: Fwd: The Biology of . . . Cryogenics (take 3) [Kennita Watson] #25625: CryoNet #25617 - #25623 [Thomas Donaldson] #25626: Australian outreach website [Robin Helweg-Larsen] #25627: Re: Limpinwood X-Prize: Butterflies vs. K-Spaces [Azt28] #25628: active proteasome key advantage of centenarians [Doug Skrecky] Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25624%2D25628 Administrivia To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to: cryonet-request@xxxxxxxxxxx with the subject line (not message _body_): subscribe To unsubscribe, use the subject line: unsubscribe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25624 Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 02:54:42 -0800 Subject: Fwd: The Biology of . . . Cryogenics (take 3) From: Kennita Watson <kennita@xxxxxxxxxxx> Grf. One more try, with stuff I think confused the mailer elided. Kennita The Biology of . . . Cryogenics Waking From a Dead Sleep Wood frogs survive long periods in a deep freeze. Can people do the same? By Elizabeth Svoboda DISCOVER Vol. 26 No. 02 | February 2005 | Biology & Medicine As far as Ken and Janet Storey are concerned, the most interesting frog is one that doesn t move or breathe and has no heartbeat or brain activity. In the Storeys biochemistry lab atCarletonUniversityinOttawa, the typical study subject is thrown into an industrial freezer. They call them frogsicles, though they re partially liquid inside. Basically, the body turns into a syrupy mass, Ken Storey says. As far as the frog is concerned, this is nothing out of the ordinary. Like a handful of other creatures, the common wood frog, Rana sylvatica, is a biological conundrum. It spends its winters interned in subzero sleep, its tissues steel-rigid, and revives in the spring raring to go. It s the Rip van Winkle of the animal world. The Storeys have spent more than 20 years identifying the genetic switches and biochemical processes that make this reanimation possible. Their work has been avidly followed by biologists in the field of organ transplantation: If a donor s heart or kidney could be frozen and stored without damage, physicians could dramatically increase the number of transplants they perform. The fact that a wood frog can nearly come back from the dead has also fanned the futuristic fantasies peddled by commercial cryonics labs, where human corpses are kept on ice in the vain hope that medical science might one day restore them to life. Warm-blooded animals are designed to stay at a near-constant temperature 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit in the case of humans. When they start to get cold, their metabolism revs up, generating internal heat. Once this system breaks down and the animals freeze solid, the ice tears up their insides: The water in their cells expands as it freezes, shredding membranes and dislodging organelles. Wood frogs and a few other animals such as box turtles do exactly the opposite. When temperatures drop below freezing, the frog s metabolism eases to a near halt, so its cells can survive on negligible amounts of oxygen and energy. Meanwhile, the liver begins to pump out glucose, raising concentrations in the bloodstream to more than 50 times those found in a human diabetic. Ice crystallizing in the frog s body cavities draws some of the water from the cells in the flesh and organs. This further concentrates glucose inside the cells, turning it into an antifreeze that keeps the remaining water from solidifying. (Commercial antifreeze is made of a sugar alcohol similar to glucose, called ethylene glycol.) With the antifreeze in its cells, a frog can remain in a torpid state until spring, when its metabolism whirs back to life. It goes brain dead for a few months, then has little froggy thoughts again, Ken says. The ability of wood frogs to freeze and thaw probably evolved during an ice age about 15,000 years ago, the Storeys say. The cells in the frog s moist, delicate skin were already optimized to prevent dehydration; glacial conditions just kicked the process up a notch. Ordinarily, high blood-sugar levels trigger a process known as glycation, in which glucose molecules bind to the body s structural proteins, among other things, causing cellular damage. Not so in wood frogs. The Storeys recently isolated a gene that short-circuits glycation. Other DNA tests have allowed them to identify genes that turn off metabolic processes, control cellular volume during freezing, and limit the damage that oxygen can do to cells when it flows into them again in the spring. When the Storeys compared the livers of frozen wood frogs to those of control frogs in a normal state, they also found unusually high levels of messenger RNA molecules that code for fibrinogen, a clot-enhancing protein. Once activated by an enzyme in the bloodstream, fragments of fibrinogen bind together into a sturdy lattice, sealing any leaks that have formed in blood vessel walls due to the stress of the freeze-thaw cycle. Boris Rubinsky, an engineer at theUniversityofCaliforniaatBerkeley, has worked with a number of scientists to apply the Storeys findings to other animals, including humans. In 1999 Rubinsky and his colleagues used a computer-controlled pump to infuse rat livers with a cocktail of cryoprotective chemicals. He froze the livers at 29.3 degrees F for about two hours, then thawed and transplanted them into other rats. Of the nine transplantees, eight survived for several hours after receiving the donor organs, and one survived for five days, suggesting that the livers were at least partially functioning. Since that landmark trial, Rubinsky and researchers at theShebaMedicalCenterin Tel Hashomer,Israel, have applied similar freezing techniques to frozen rat hearts. In a 2003 experiment, the hearts remained viable and pumping for more than an hour after being thawed and transplanted. Cryopreserving organs could one day revolutionize transplantation, but some scientists have their eyes on an even larger prize: freezing entire human bodies. The Alcor Life Extension Foundation inScottsdale,Arizona, made news in 2002 when it wrangled with some relatives of baseball player Ted Williams. Alcor officials say Williams paid them to freeze his body after he died, but his nephews John and Samuel Williams recently filed suit against the company, alleging it didn t have proper legal permission to do so. Alcor continues to hold the remains, pending future legal action. Alcor s goal, trumpeted on its Web site, is to keep deceased customers in a state that will be regarded as viable and treatable by future medicine. Most cryobiologists deride this as a pie-in-the-sky enterprise. They re trying to take a thousand steps at once, Ken Storey says. The temperatures they re dealing with are lower than anything in nature, so there s extensive tissue damage and cell dehydration. Yet Alcor has never guaranteed that its patients will receive a return on their $150,000 investment. This is an experiment it s speculative science at best, the company s CEO, Joe Waynick, says. Alcor is banking on the proposition, Waynick adds, that survival of structure means survival of the person. The company s scientists are trying to figure out how to cool corpses to temperatures that cause total metabolic arrest around 321degrees F with minimal tissue damage, so the bodies can remain perfectly intact for thousands of years. To that end, they infuse clients with a proprietary mixture of carbohydrate-based antifreezes similar to those naturally produced by the frogs in the Storeys lab. Waynick thinks some of the first patients who signed up for Alcor preservation in the 1970s and 1980s were too damaged by freezing to be revived, but current techniques are less likely to cause cracking, he says. The tissues are pumped so full of cryoprotectant that they never completely solidify. Significant obstacles remain, however, including the toxic effects of antifreeze on tissue and its imperfect dispersal throughout the body. Different organs absorb the cryoprotectant at varying rates, and some don t do as well as others, Waynick says. To the Storeys, there isn t that much difference between institutions like Alcor and most organized religions. The promise of eternal life is something that s appealing to just about everybody, Ken Storey says. Still, they don t entirely dismiss cryobiology s grander goals. It s possible in decades that we might be able to freeze astronauts for long missions and things like that, Janet Storey says. But our focus is not how to apply these techniques to humans down the line. We want to figure out how the biological systems work. Other people can take it from there. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25624 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25625 Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 07:21:34 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <73647.1215@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: CryoNet #25617 - #25623 For Mark Plus: You have made this statement before (international air travel stopping because of the price of fuel) and it remains just as faulty as before. 1. Forgetting what happens with airlines in the US, lots of other airlines can simply raise their prices and go on as before. Once international air travel was more expensive than now, so that fewer people paid for it. We may simply see the same situation again. 2. If NO US airline can make a profit with international flights, that will not be because of the price of oil but because of bureaucratic anticapitalist restrictions imposed by government agencies in the US. For what it's worth, I am optimistic that either such restrictions will be revoked or modified so that even US airlines can take profitable international flights. 3. THE major Australian airline, Qantas, seems to feel the problem of the price of fuel much less than many large US airlines. Qantas still flies to the US, too. Perhaps this is because the Australian government owns part of Qantas and so doesn't want it to go out of business; it may be simply that government restrictions on Qantas are less than those on most big US airlines. In the long range, of course, we'll all stop using oil as fuel. Other alternatives exist, after all. Before South Africa gave up apartheid, they had no source of oil, so they made their own. A large airliner could probably be easily designed to use hydrogen instead. Then we have such things as ethyl alcohol (no doubt laced with something so that it ceases to be drinkable). Please don't repeat yourself as you have done. If you wish to argue that air travel will become impossible or even very difficult and costly, then come up with new rather than old arguments to that effect. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25625 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25626 Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:29:34 -0500 From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Australian outreach website Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25626 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25627 From: Azt28@xxxxxxx Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 01:53:08 EST Subject: Re: Limpinwood X-Prize: Butterflies vs. K-Spaces >From Peter Merel: > > You assume > > i) that artificial neurons are computationally equivalent to biological > neurons. This appears quite unlikely, at least in terms of current ANN > technologies. > > ii) that I was correct in the number of neurons I quoted. While the > source I used seemed authoritiative, most of the articles I've found > online suggest 300,000 neurons is more like it. Mea culpa. > i/ There are different "computer neurons" Those of DeGaris for example looks very simplified. He choose them because he wanted as much of them as possible on few FPGAs. If you want more realistic neurons, far less can be implemented on a circuit. ii/ Bee are said to have 800 000 neurons, so 300 000 may be right as an order of magnitude. On the other hand, 3 000 "good" (not perfect) neuron is what can be currently implemented on the biggest FPGA. So I remain with this walue for my proposal : A 5 carats ruby for the drawing of such an ANN on a Spartan 3 FPGA. Any taker ? Yvan Bozzonetti. Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25627 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25628 Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:33:56 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Skrecky <oberon@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: active proteasome key advantage of centenarians [This implies most of humanity fail to reach the 100 year mark because of proteasome deficits.] Exp Gerontol. 2000 Sep;35(6-7):721-8. Fibroblast cultures from healthy centenarians have an active proteasome. Healthy centenarians represent the best example of successful ageing. Various studies have shown that centenarians have escaped the major age-associated diseases, they have several well-conserved immune parameters and at least one gene allele has been identified and linked with their increased longevity. During ageing there is an accumulation of oxidised proteins, a phenomenon that has been related to an impaired function of the 20S proteasome in aged cells. We have, therefore, analysed the expression and the proteolytic activity of the proteasome in centenarian cells. Four fibroblast cultures derived from healthy centenarians were studied and compared with cultures derived from adult donors of different ages. Analysis of several proteasome subunits RNA expression levels, determination of one peptidase activity and identification of oxidised proteins in these samples revealed that centenarian cultures have a functional proteasome. In addition, it was found that the centenarian cultures exhibit characteristics similar to the younger rather than the older control donors derived cultures in all three assays. These data indicate that centenarian cells may be different from elderly donors cells, thus opening up new dimensions for the identification and characterisation of factors that are linked with longevity. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25628 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- End of CryoNet Digest ********************* Next Message by Date: click to view message previewCryoNet #25634 - #25639CryoNet - Fri 28 Jan 2005 #25634: CryoNet #25629 - #25633 [Thomas Donaldson] #25635: australian outreach website (4th and hopefully final attempt) [Robin Helweg-Larsen] #25636: RE: CryoNet #25633: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick [Michael P. Read] #25637: Alcor's Presidents [Lempaula] #25638: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick [Shannon Vyff] #25639: Artifical Intelligence [John de Rivaz] Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25634%2D25639 Administrivia To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to: cryonet-request@xxxxxxxxxxx with the subject line (not message _body_): subscribe To unsubscribe, use the subject line: unsubscribe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25634 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 07:36:16 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <73647.1215@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: CryoNet #25629 - #25633 For Mark Plus: Hardly good enough. First of all, it's an argument from authority. Second, oil may easily run out with no trouble to anyone at all: the problems depend on just how fast we can make or find substitute sources of power. Did Jim Rogers even look at this question? If you seriously want to argue that the lack of oil would make transport back to the US far too expensive, then you simply cannot look only at the price of oil. If its price rise is fast enough, we'll have at least some temporary problems. If its price rise is slow enough, we'll all end up with cars, trucks, and airlines powered by some other means. And it's easy to point to work on other means going on right now. I listed some in my last reply to you. Of course we're likely to also use fuel cells, because they're more efficient than simple combustion, but they are a better means to use one of the many other alternative fuels we may have, not a way to get power directly. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25634 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25635 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 12:55:57 -0500 From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: australian outreach website (4th and hopefully final attempt) Thanks for bearing with me, folks. It wasn't ever an important message, just this: Here's what you see when you click on the Cryonics Society of Australia website.... (cryonics dot org dot au) very amusing!: "To promote public awareness of cryonics and the interests of the Cryonics Association of Australia. ACCESS DENIED You are not authorized to access this page." Robin Robin Helweg-Larsen Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25635 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25636 From: "Michael P. Read" <mpread@xxxxxxx> Subject: RE: CryoNet #25633: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 12:38:15 -0700 >what they think we can do to support President Waynick in his efforts to >get >these things actually done before the year is out. What can we do? :) Send more money to Alcor. >Excellent Goals. I hope we can all help and not hinder President Waynick >in >seeing them accomplished. Joe is very financially savvy (meaning budget and making money make money minded) and he has a lot of smart people working for/with him. I'm confident that it will work out. Sincerely, Mike Read Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25636 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25637 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:44:25 -0500 From: Lempaula@xxxxxxx Subject: Alcor's Presidents In reply to John Grigg and his note yesterday about Joe Waynick, I, too, hope Joe accomplishes his goals and is remembered for them. He certainly shows promise of great achievement. This is a good time to once again thank Steve Bridge for having the foresight to create and establish the Patient Care Trust, and remember Carlos Mondragon and thank him, for it was his guidance that enabled Alcor to survive the legal assault from the state of California in the late 1980's. Also, Jerry Lemler should be thanked for conceiving comprehensive member standby, arranging for the first ever hospice care for terminally ill Alcor members, and initiating the process of professionalizing and standardizing field operations. If it were not for outstanding presidents of vision, Alcor would not be approaching its 33rd year of cryonic supremacy. Paula Lemler Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25637 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25638 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:41:22 -0800 (PST) From: Shannon Vyff <shannonvyff@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick I have wondered about the goals, and if they are realistic. Personally I have seen the need for Alcor to professionalize-- with the response of my own family. I am optimistic about their knowing what needs to be changed and especially about their PR program. I will cheer them all the way! The easiest way to support-- is to attend the conference, as I'm planning on doing with my children. To talk with your family and friends. To do writing if you have the time, about the common sense, logicalness of cryonics. Most people on this list already put their money where their mouth is, but they can spend time exciting others about cryonics. That is always a fun challenge for me, I'm sure some will even join someday (I always have friends that are intensely interested-- one couple at my (UU) church that is from India right now, but there are some major hurdles for them) Hope to see you all at the conference :-) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25638 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25639 From: "John de Rivaz" <John@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Artifical Intelligence Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 09:54:08 -0000 Artificial intelligence seems to be a popular topic here, so whilst off topic to cryonics specifically, maybe this will interest some of the readers: Computers can learn the meaning of words simply by plugging into Google. The finding could bring forward the day that true artificial intelligence is developed. Trying to get a computer to work out what words mean - distinguish between "rider" and "horse" say, and work out how they relate to each other - is a long-standing problem in artificial intelligence research. One of the difficulties has been working out how to represent knowledge in ways that allow computers to use it. But suddenly that is not a problem any more, thanks to the massive body of text that is available, ready indexed, on search engines like Google (which has more than 8 billion pages indexed). more on http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6924 -- Sincerely, John de Rivaz: http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy, Nomad .. and more Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25639 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- End of CryoNet Digest ********************* Previous Message by Thread: click to view message previewCryoNet #25624 - #25628CryoNet - Wed 26 Jan 2005 #25624: Fwd: The Biology of . . . Cryogenics (take 3) [Kennita Watson] #25625: CryoNet #25617 - #25623 [Thomas Donaldson] #25626: Australian outreach website [Robin Helweg-Larsen] #25627: Re: Limpinwood X-Prize: Butterflies vs. K-Spaces [Azt28] #25628: active proteasome key advantage of centenarians [Doug Skrecky] Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25624%2D25628 Administrivia To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to: cryonet-request@xxxxxxxxxxx with the subject line (not message _body_): subscribe To unsubscribe, use the subject line: unsubscribe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25624 Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 02:54:42 -0800 Subject: Fwd: The Biology of . . . Cryogenics (take 3) From: Kennita Watson <kennita@xxxxxxxxxxx> Grf. One more try, with stuff I think confused the mailer elided. Kennita The Biology of . . . Cryogenics Waking From a Dead Sleep Wood frogs survive long periods in a deep freeze. Can people do the same? By Elizabeth Svoboda DISCOVER Vol. 26 No. 02 | February 2005 | Biology & Medicine As far as Ken and Janet Storey are concerned, the most interesting frog is one that doesn t move or breathe and has no heartbeat or brain activity. In the Storeys biochemistry lab atCarletonUniversityinOttawa, the typical study subject is thrown into an industrial freezer. They call them frogsicles, though they re partially liquid inside. Basically, the body turns into a syrupy mass, Ken Storey says. As far as the frog is concerned, this is nothing out of the ordinary. Like a handful of other creatures, the common wood frog, Rana sylvatica, is a biological conundrum. It spends its winters interned in subzero sleep, its tissues steel-rigid, and revives in the spring raring to go. It s the Rip van Winkle of the animal world. The Storeys have spent more than 20 years identifying the genetic switches and biochemical processes that make this reanimation possible. Their work has been avidly followed by biologists in the field of organ transplantation: If a donor s heart or kidney could be frozen and stored without damage, physicians could dramatically increase the number of transplants they perform. The fact that a wood frog can nearly come back from the dead has also fanned the futuristic fantasies peddled by commercial cryonics labs, where human corpses are kept on ice in the vain hope that medical science might one day restore them to life. Warm-blooded animals are designed to stay at a near-constant temperature 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit in the case of humans. When they start to get cold, their metabolism revs up, generating internal heat. Once this system breaks down and the animals freeze solid, the ice tears up their insides: The water in their cells expands as it freezes, shredding membranes and dislodging organelles. Wood frogs and a few other animals such as box turtles do exactly the opposite. When temperatures drop below freezing, the frog s metabolism eases to a near halt, so its cells can survive on negligible amounts of oxygen and energy. Meanwhile, the liver begins to pump out glucose, raising concentrations in the bloodstream to more than 50 times those found in a human diabetic. Ice crystallizing in the frog s body cavities draws some of the water from the cells in the flesh and organs. This further concentrates glucose inside the cells, turning it into an antifreeze that keeps the remaining water from solidifying. (Commercial antifreeze is made of a sugar alcohol similar to glucose, called ethylene glycol.) With the antifreeze in its cells, a frog can remain in a torpid state until spring, when its metabolism whirs back to life. It goes brain dead for a few months, then has little froggy thoughts again, Ken says. The ability of wood frogs to freeze and thaw probably evolved during an ice age about 15,000 years ago, the Storeys say. The cells in the frog s moist, delicate skin were already optimized to prevent dehydration; glacial conditions just kicked the process up a notch. Ordinarily, high blood-sugar levels trigger a process known as glycation, in which glucose molecules bind to the body s structural proteins, among other things, causing cellular damage. Not so in wood frogs. The Storeys recently isolated a gene that short-circuits glycation. Other DNA tests have allowed them to identify genes that turn off metabolic processes, control cellular volume during freezing, and limit the damage that oxygen can do to cells when it flows into them again in the spring. When the Storeys compared the livers of frozen wood frogs to those of control frogs in a normal state, they also found unusually high levels of messenger RNA molecules that code for fibrinogen, a clot-enhancing protein. Once activated by an enzyme in the bloodstream, fragments of fibrinogen bind together into a sturdy lattice, sealing any leaks that have formed in blood vessel walls due to the stress of the freeze-thaw cycle. Boris Rubinsky, an engineer at theUniversityofCaliforniaatBerkeley, has worked with a number of scientists to apply the Storeys findings to other animals, including humans. In 1999 Rubinsky and his colleagues used a computer-controlled pump to infuse rat livers with a cocktail of cryoprotective chemicals. He froze the livers at 29.3 degrees F for about two hours, then thawed and transplanted them into other rats. Of the nine transplantees, eight survived for several hours after receiving the donor organs, and one survived for five days, suggesting that the livers were at least partially functioning. Since that landmark trial, Rubinsky and researchers at theShebaMedicalCenterin Tel Hashomer,Israel, have applied similar freezing techniques to frozen rat hearts. In a 2003 experiment, the hearts remained viable and pumping for more than an hour after being thawed and transplanted. Cryopreserving organs could one day revolutionize transplantation, but some scientists have their eyes on an even larger prize: freezing entire human bodies. The Alcor Life Extension Foundation inScottsdale,Arizona, made news in 2002 when it wrangled with some relatives of baseball player Ted Williams. Alcor officials say Williams paid them to freeze his body after he died, but his nephews John and Samuel Williams recently filed suit against the company, alleging it didn t have proper legal permission to do so. Alcor continues to hold the remains, pending future legal action. Alcor s goal, trumpeted on its Web site, is to keep deceased customers in a state that will be regarded as viable and treatable by future medicine. Most cryobiologists deride this as a pie-in-the-sky enterprise. They re trying to take a thousand steps at once, Ken Storey says. The temperatures they re dealing with are lower than anything in nature, so there s extensive tissue damage and cell dehydration. Yet Alcor has never guaranteed that its patients will receive a return on their $150,000 investment. This is an experiment it s speculative science at best, the company s CEO, Joe Waynick, says. Alcor is banking on the proposition, Waynick adds, that survival of structure means survival of the person. The company s scientists are trying to figure out how to cool corpses to temperatures that cause total metabolic arrest around 321degrees F with minimal tissue damage, so the bodies can remain perfectly intact for thousands of years. To that end, they infuse clients with a proprietary mixture of carbohydrate-based antifreezes similar to those naturally produced by the frogs in the Storeys lab. Waynick thinks some of the first patients who signed up for Alcor preservation in the 1970s and 1980s were too damaged by freezing to be revived, but current techniques are less likely to cause cracking, he says. The tissues are pumped so full of cryoprotectant that they never completely solidify. Significant obstacles remain, however, including the toxic effects of antifreeze on tissue and its imperfect dispersal throughout the body. Different organs absorb the cryoprotectant at varying rates, and some don t do as well as others, Waynick says. To the Storeys, there isn t that much difference between institutions like Alcor and most organized religions. The promise of eternal life is something that s appealing to just about everybody, Ken Storey says. Still, they don t entirely dismiss cryobiology s grander goals. It s possible in decades that we might be able to freeze astronauts for long missions and things like that, Janet Storey says. But our focus is not how to apply these techniques to humans down the line. We want to figure out how the biological systems work. Other people can take it from there. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25624 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25625 Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 07:21:34 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <73647.1215@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: CryoNet #25617 - #25623 For Mark Plus: You have made this statement before (international air travel stopping because of the price of fuel) and it remains just as faulty as before. 1. Forgetting what happens with airlines in the US, lots of other airlines can simply raise their prices and go on as before. Once international air travel was more expensive than now, so that fewer people paid for it. We may simply see the same situation again. 2. If NO US airline can make a profit with international flights, that will not be because of the price of oil but because of bureaucratic anticapitalist restrictions imposed by government agencies in the US. For what it's worth, I am optimistic that either such restrictions will be revoked or modified so that even US airlines can take profitable international flights. 3. THE major Australian airline, Qantas, seems to feel the problem of the price of fuel much less than many large US airlines. Qantas still flies to the US, too. Perhaps this is because the Australian government owns part of Qantas and so doesn't want it to go out of business; it may be simply that government restrictions on Qantas are less than those on most big US airlines. In the long range, of course, we'll all stop using oil as fuel. Other alternatives exist, after all. Before South Africa gave up apartheid, they had no source of oil, so they made their own. A large airliner could probably be easily designed to use hydrogen instead. Then we have such things as ethyl alcohol (no doubt laced with something so that it ceases to be drinkable). Please don't repeat yourself as you have done. If you wish to argue that air travel will become impossible or even very difficult and costly, then come up with new rather than old arguments to that effect. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25625 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25626 Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:29:34 -0500 From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Australian outreach website Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25626 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25627 From: Azt28@xxxxxxx Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 01:53:08 EST Subject: Re: Limpinwood X-Prize: Butterflies vs. K-Spaces >From Peter Merel: > > You assume > > i) that artificial neurons are computationally equivalent to biological > neurons. This appears quite unlikely, at least in terms of current ANN > technologies. > > ii) that I was correct in the number of neurons I quoted. While the > source I used seemed authoritiative, most of the articles I've found > online suggest 300,000 neurons is more like it. Mea culpa. > i/ There are different "computer neurons" Those of DeGaris for example looks very simplified. He choose them because he wanted as much of them as possible on few FPGAs. If you want more realistic neurons, far less can be implemented on a circuit. ii/ Bee are said to have 800 000 neurons, so 300 000 may be right as an order of magnitude. On the other hand, 3 000 "good" (not perfect) neuron is what can be currently implemented on the biggest FPGA. So I remain with this walue for my proposal : A 5 carats ruby for the drawing of such an ANN on a Spartan 3 FPGA. Any taker ? Yvan Bozzonetti. Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25627 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25628 Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:33:56 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Skrecky <oberon@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: active proteasome key advantage of centenarians [This implies most of humanity fail to reach the 100 year mark because of proteasome deficits.] Exp Gerontol. 2000 Sep;35(6-7):721-8. Fibroblast cultures from healthy centenarians have an active proteasome. Healthy centenarians represent the best example of successful ageing. Various studies have shown that centenarians have escaped the major age-associated diseases, they have several well-conserved immune parameters and at least one gene allele has been identified and linked with their increased longevity. During ageing there is an accumulation of oxidised proteins, a phenomenon that has been related to an impaired function of the 20S proteasome in aged cells. We have, therefore, analysed the expression and the proteolytic activity of the proteasome in centenarian cells. Four fibroblast cultures derived from healthy centenarians were studied and compared with cultures derived from adult donors of different ages. Analysis of several proteasome subunits RNA expression levels, determination of one peptidase activity and identification of oxidised proteins in these samples revealed that centenarian cultures have a functional proteasome. In addition, it was found that the centenarian cultures exhibit characteristics similar to the younger rather than the older control donors derived cultures in all three assays. These data indicate that centenarian cells may be different from elderly donors cells, thus opening up new dimensions for the identification and characterisation of factors that are linked with longevity. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25628 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- End of CryoNet Digest ********************* Next Message by Thread: click to view message previewCryoNet #25634 - #25639CryoNet - Fri 28 Jan 2005 #25634: CryoNet #25629 - #25633 [Thomas Donaldson] #25635: australian outreach website (4th and hopefully final attempt) [Robin Helweg-Larsen] #25636: RE: CryoNet #25633: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick [Michael P. Read] #25637: Alcor's Presidents [Lempaula] #25638: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick [Shannon Vyff] #25639: Artifical Intelligence [John de Rivaz] Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25634%2D25639 Administrivia To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to: cryonet-request@xxxxxxxxxxx with the subject line (not message _body_): subscribe To unsubscribe, use the subject line: unsubscribe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25634 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 07:36:16 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <73647.1215@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: CryoNet #25629 - #25633 For Mark Plus: Hardly good enough. First of all, it's an argument from authority. Second, oil may easily run out with no trouble to anyone at all: the problems depend on just how fast we can make or find substitute sources of power. Did Jim Rogers even look at this question? If you seriously want to argue that the lack of oil would make transport back to the US far too expensive, then you simply cannot look only at the price of oil. If its price rise is fast enough, we'll have at least some temporary problems. If its price rise is slow enough, we'll all end up with cars, trucks, and airlines powered by some other means. And it's easy to point to work on other means going on right now. I listed some in my last reply to you. Of course we're likely to also use fuel cells, because they're more efficient than simple combustion, but they are a better means to use one of the many other alternative fuels we may have, not a way to get power directly. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25634 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25635 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 12:55:57 -0500 From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: australian outreach website (4th and hopefully final attempt) Thanks for bearing with me, folks. It wasn't ever an important message, just this: Here's what you see when you click on the Cryonics Society of Australia website.... (cryonics dot org dot au) very amusing!: "To promote public awareness of cryonics and the interests of the Cryonics Association of Australia. ACCESS DENIED You are not authorized to access this page." Robin Robin Helweg-Larsen Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25635 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25636 From: "Michael P. Read" <mpread@xxxxxxx> Subject: RE: CryoNet #25633: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 12:38:15 -0700 >what they think we can do to support President Waynick in his efforts to >get >these things actually done before the year is out. What can we do? :) Send more money to Alcor. >Excellent Goals. I hope we can all help and not hinder President Waynick >in >seeing them accomplished. Joe is very financially savvy (meaning budget and making money make money minded) and he has a lot of smart people working for/with him. I'm confident that it will work out. Sincerely, Mike Read Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25636 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25637 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:44:25 -0500 From: Lempaula@xxxxxxx Subject: Alcor's Presidents In reply to John Grigg and his note yesterday about Joe Waynick, I, too, hope Joe accomplishes his goals and is remembered for them. He certainly shows promise of great achievement. This is a good time to once again thank Steve Bridge for having the foresight to create and establish the Patient Care Trust, and remember Carlos Mondragon and thank him, for it was his guidance that enabled Alcor to survive the legal assault from the state of California in the late 1980's. Also, Jerry Lemler should be thanked for conceiving comprehensive member standby, arranging for the first ever hospice care for terminally ill Alcor members, and initiating the process of professionalizing and standardizing field operations. If it were not for outstanding presidents of vision, Alcor would not be approaching its 33rd year of cryonic supremacy. Paula Lemler Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25637 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25638 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:41:22 -0800 (PST) From: Shannon Vyff <shannonvyff@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: Supporting Alcor President Joseph Waynick I have wondered about the goals, and if they are realistic. Personally I have seen the need for Alcor to professionalize-- with the response of my own family. I am optimistic about their knowing what needs to be changed and especially about their PR program. I will cheer them all the way! The easiest way to support-- is to attend the conference, as I'm planning on doing with my children. To talk with your family and friends. To do writing if you have the time, about the common sense, logicalness of cryonics. Most people on this list already put their money where their mouth is, but they can spend time exciting others about cryonics. That is always a fun challenge for me, I'm sure some will even join someday (I always have friends that are intensely interested-- one couple at my (UU) church that is from India right now, but there are some major hurdles for them) Hope to see you all at the conference :-) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25638 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message #25639 From: "John de Rivaz" <John@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Artifical Intelligence Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 09:54:08 -0000 Artificial intelligence seems to be a popular topic here, so whilst off topic to cryonics specifically, maybe this will interest some of the readers: Computers can learn the meaning of words simply by plugging into Google. The finding could bring forward the day that true artificial intelligence is developed. Trying to get a computer to work out what words mean - distinguish between "rider" and "horse" say, and work out how they relate to each other - is a long-standing problem in artificial intelligence research. One of the difficulties has been working out how to represent knowledge in ways that allow computers to use it. But suddenly that is not a problem any more, thanks to the massive body of text that is available, ready indexed, on search engines like Google (which has more than 8 billion pages indexed). more on http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6924 -- Sincerely, John de Rivaz: http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy, Nomad .. and more Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25639 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- End of CryoNet Digest ********************* Loading Comments...
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