Why does this totally make of me think of the book (and movie) The Glow?
Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
51–60 of 64 posts
Re: Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
#52It's apparently a thing now. Peter Thiel has purportedly invested millions in anti-aging. A company called Ambriosa in particular matches older people with younger people for blood routine blood transfusions. While this study may or may not work with humans, the Ambriosa project does seem to have legs.
Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan.
"And there once was a generation so selfish they even harvested the blood of their own children to prolong their own lives."
"Grandma, you're telling stories again. That couldn't possibly be true!"
"I swear on my husbands grave that it was true! They even levied a tax on them and made them pay for the treatment."
Re: Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
#53I generally trust Nature, but unfortunately i can only access what appears to be more of an abstract, but i hope it addresses the concerns of http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/11/22/young-blood-does-not-rev... and similar research suggesting these claims could be anomalies.
> I generally trust Nature
That's your first mistake. Don't take my word for it:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/fig_tab/4835...
Glamor journals are glamorous because of their "impact" (people read and cite them), and that "impact" occurs because they publish sexy (not necessarily replicable or useful) findings. Note that Nature is not a bad actor per se, and in fact their editors have completely destroyed my lack of faith in peer review lately (as an author). But the incentives for CNS journals skew in favor of "sexy" rather than "scientific", and the general tendency of NIH to fund "sexy" means that almost all research in glamor journals must be treated as suspect until replicated, ideally in a clinical trial or by an un-incentivized third party lab.
> I can only access what appears to be more of an abstract
There's a site called http://sci-hub.bz/ that can help.
> these claims could be anomalies.
You are correct, and you should heed your instincts. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and a single experiment or replication is one (possibly quite principled) sample from a distribution of potential outcomes. Don't invest yet ;-)
Side note: it seems like numeracy and statistical thinking is becoming the default in an educated population. You, too, are destroying my lack of faith in humanity. Thanks.
Re: Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
#54I generally trust Nature, but unfortunately i can only access what appears to be more of an abstract, but i hope it addresses the concerns of http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/11/22/young-blood-does-not-rev... and similar research suggesting these claims could be anomalies.
> I generally trust Nature That's your first mistake. Don't take my word for it: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/fig_tab/4835... Glamor journals are glamorous because of their "impact" (people read and cite them), and that "impact" occurs because they publish sexy (not necessarily replicable or useful) findings. Note that Nature is not a bad actor per se , and in fact their editors have completely des…
nb. Here is the link to the article:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...
Here are the figures:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/fig_tab/n...
If you need a fulltext link that can be arranged, but it's not a bad idea to understand how DOIs work. Here is one:
doi:10.1038/nature22067
This is essentially a URI; the piece after the : is a URN, which is meant to uniquely identify a piece of published research (now expanded to include preprints and software).
To route it, you'll need a URL which your browser can resolve. Happily, if you visit
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature22067
you will return to the paper. It is meant to provide a durable identifier, so that even Elsevier journals can't reliably hide the identity of a publication. What this also means is that "unlocking" services like Elbakyan's can use it as a primary key. Suppose you paste the URN part of that DOI onto http://sci-hub.cc/ or http://sci-hub.bz/ to complete the URL. What do you suppose happens?
(This is left as an exercise for the reader, and of course I cannot and do not condone violations of copyright law. So don't read whatever might pop up, ok?)
Re: Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
#55Interesting study in this regard: Michigan State University, East Lansing: Modulation of mammary gland development in pre-pubertal mice as affected by soya and milk protein supplements. [1] - Makes me wonder if there is a connection between the young mice and the milk they get from their mothers "isolated form of bovine alpha-lactalbumin commercially available. Alpha-lactalbumin is the primary protein in human milk, and is therefore extremely important for infant nutrition."
[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=XLy5ZQVwPbcC&pg=PA24&lpg=P...
[2]http://www.sovereignhealthinitiative.org/articles/antiaging....
Re: Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan.
"And there once was a generation so selfish they even harvested the blood of their own children to prolong their own lives." "Grandma, you're telling stories again. That couldn't possibly be true!" "I swear on my husbands grave that it was true! They even levied a tax on them and made them pay for the treatment."
We are all equal but some are more equal than others. Those who are more equal have more money therefore they can officially buy bodies and rent their blood to others.
Re: Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
#57It's apparently a thing now. Peter Thiel has purportedly invested millions in anti-aging. A company called Ambriosa in particular matches older people with younger people for blood routine blood transfusions. While this study may or may not work with humans, the Ambriosa project does seem to have legs.
Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan.
For one, too frequent transfusions results in toxic excess levels of iron in the body, as humans cannot actively remove excess iron. This occurs in people with thalassemia treated with blood transfusions.
Re: Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan.
For one, too frequent transfusions results in toxic excess levels of iron in the body, as humans cannot actively remove excess iron. This occurs in people with thalassemia treated with blood transfusions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968466/
So extract some of the recipient's blood before they receive a transfusion? This could be donated to a blood bank.
Re: Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
#59It's apparently a thing now. Peter Thiel has purportedly invested millions in anti-aging. A company called Ambriosa in particular matches older people with younger people for blood routine blood transfusions. While this study may or may not work with humans, the Ambriosa project does seem to have legs.
> A company called Ambriosa in particular matches older people with younger people for blood routine blood transfusions.
All sorts of interesting setups could come out of this, with the rich paying the (compatible) poor for their youthful blood. Especially if compatibility is genetic, you'd potentially have multiple generations of a poor family existing specifically to support an aging rich person (and potentially the rich person's offspring).
Depending on how time consuming the blood contributions are, this could turn into a vampire-esque caste system, with the poor being blood cattle.
Re: Mice treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed improved memory
#60I'm reminded of this famous historical figure who inspired numerous vampire stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory
And a black metal band, if memory serves.