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Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

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Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#81

Post by possibilistic »

Dn_Ab wrote: post #69
possibilistic wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computational biochem student here. Unfortunately we do not have the technological prowess to replace parts of our body as they age. Researchers are working on growing whole organs from the extracellular scaffolds of cadavers, but this technique is in its infancy and I would take all news concerning it with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, we are limited by which organs and tissues we can replace. Case in point: we ca…

I enjoy machine learning, pure and applied maths. Where do I start? Any books, any summaries of the state of the art for the computationally inclined? I ignorantly guess that graph theory, statistics and perhaps even group theory may provide useful perspectives? I know dynamical systems theory has been applied and hear you can code new simple organisms or something? Am I talking nonsense? heh This has always been an…

Graph theory is applicable for exploring biochemical pathways, and all manner of statistics, ML, and metaheuristics are useful.

We can't "code" an organism, unfortunately. That won't be possible for some time. Venter has inserted a bacterial genome into a preexisting cell and called it "synthetic life", but this is hyperbole. He essentially just swapped out the operating system if you will. Both the genome and the cell were preexisting. This would be impossible to do for a eukaryotic cell with any of today's technology since we have extremely complicated molecular (genomic) machinery. Not to mention how much of our state information is epigenetic--precise methylation, etc.

We certainly cannot create novel proteins outside of fusions between subunits. Protein folding is just way too difficult to solve. If we ever figure it out, society will change overnight.

If you would like to study this, get some texts on cell physiology, molecular biology (genetics++), and maybe do some reading on higher level function. Like me you will see that your existing skill set is not immediately transferrable until you learn enough biology: you cannot effectively program in a language until you really know it innately. Biology is the same way, just much, much more sysemitized, complex and abstract. It has a very high barrier to entry (akin to learning Vim, but takes longer.)

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#82

Post by pyre »

btilly wrote: post #75
Judson wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all of that, except GDP. In an age of Fiat currency, GDP is nothing more than a proverbial phallus measuring contest. Paper is paper, is paper. Show me a real currency backed by something (Sorry, "faith" in the government doesn't count), and we can talk about progression on the GDP front. Beyond that, surely child mortality, literacy, and poverty are enough to prove your point, GDP doesn't really even fi…

Show me a real currency backed by something (Sorry, "faith" in the government doesn't count), and we can talk about progression on the GDP front. How about the fraction of disposable personal income spent on food? http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/cpifoodandexpenditures/data... From 1929 to the present that has dropped from 23.4% to 9.5%. This despite what other evidence suggests is a considerable increase in the quan…

  > This despite what other evidence suggests is a considerable
  > increase in the quantity and overall quality of said food
1. What will our food production look like in the future after we have damaged the quality of our soil in much of the current areas that we are farming? Our normal solution is to 'just add fertilizer' to it, but that comes with its own cost, and it also has to come from somewhere.

Currently -- iirc -- most fertilizers come from livestock feces. My personal views on whether or not we should be 'farming living beings' notwithstanding... You have to feed those livestock something in order for them to produce feces. The current practice is to grow food for them (or to feed them the ground out remains of other livestock animals). So you need to grow more food in order grow more food? That doesn't seem sustainable.

This is not even getting to the issues we have with fertilizers running off into waterways and creating 'dead zones.'

2. The growth of 'comfort' or 'junk' foods I see as more of a regression than anything else. Their existence would be fine, if it weren't that some people don't know the meaning of moderation...

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#83

Post by possibilistic »

carbocation wrote: post #74
possibilistic wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What spin do you refer to? Shouldn't society be able to benefit from a novel cell line, regardless of the origin? If it were you or me, wouldn't we gladly donate the knowledge and utility of our cells if they can serve mankind? So what if we are not reimbursed or attributed? That's a minor misfortune that pales in contrast to the ultimate societal impact. Haven't several things been done for her family retroactively?…

Your last line was going to be my reply to the questions in your first paragraph, so I think we're mostly in agreement.

Yes, that part is unfortunate.

WRT your username, I love mispronouncing carbocations as carbo-cashuns.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#84

Post by corin_ »

Not related to the purpose of the article, but the subject:

Are there legal precedents regarding situations like this? If she developed into a body/mind of a child who understands how to buy something, could she buy alcohol/cigarettes? If someone had sex with her (again, not now, but say she developed to the equivilent of a 13-15 year old) then presumably it wouldn't count as sex with a minor? (If someone were to have sex with her right now then it might be proven to be non-consensual, but not legally paedophilia?)

Sorry, latter part of that is not exactly a nice subject, but pretty interesting from a legal point of view I think.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#85

Post by btilly »

pyre wrote: post #82
btilly wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me a real currency backed by something (Sorry, "faith" in the government doesn't count), and we can talk about progression on the GDP front. How about the fraction of disposable personal income spent on food? http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/cpifoodandexpenditures/data... From 1929 to the present that has dropped from 23.4% to 9.5%. This despite what other evidence suggests is a considerable increase in the quan…

> This despite what other evidence suggests is a considerable > increase in the quantity and overall quality of said food 1. What will our food production look like in the future after we have damaged the quality of our soil in much of the current areas that we are farming? Our normal solution is to 'just add fertilizer' to it, but that comes with its own cost, and it also has to come from somewhere. Currently -- iir…

I'm not going to argue for the sustainability of our current technological society. I'm just saying that real wealth has increased quite markedly.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#86

Post by andrenotgiant »

corin_ wrote: post #84

Not related to the purpose of the article, but the subject: Are there legal precedents regarding situations like this? If she developed into a body/mind of a child who understands how to buy something, could she buy alcohol/cigarettes? If someone had sex with her (again, not now, but say she developed to the equivilent of a 13-15 year old) then presumably it wouldn't count as sex with a minor? (If someone were to hav…

Yes of course there are laws against rape of someone who is mentally incapacitated. Ususally something along the lines of: "[It's rape if] the actor knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally incapable, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless"

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#87

Post by possibilistic »

rbanffy wrote: post #68
tensor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmed isn't quit the right word. It is true that aging is in our genetic code, but it has arising via random mutation combined with selection. This case is hypothesized to be a result of yet another random mutation that has tampered with the aging mechanics. Thus, it's interest to scientists.

Death supposedly helps evolution by removing previous iterations of the genome from the gene pool, leaving newer, allegedly better adapted, "models" with less competition. It works cross-species - if your species does not provide better adapted generations for some time, it will be outcompeted into extinction.

A really ineresting way to look at aging is this: if longer life was evolutionarily advantageous, we would have evolved additional molecular mechanisms to support it. It's not that by dying earlier we keep the gene pool fitter, because that's not how evolution works. (We'd otherwise have a much more complicated algorithm on our hands.) Rather, we die simply because there is no advantage in having us persist--we only gained and conserved what was optimal for our species' lifecycle. Anything else requires extra energy and support machinery and is not likely to be amplified since occasional breakdowns are likely to be serious or fatal (and more common with the increased complexity!)

Compare gymnosperms (conifers) and certain angiosperms (flowering plants). The former persist for long periods under drought and stress conditions and only bear seeds after a two-year long development. Some desert angiosperms sprout, pollinate, spread seeds, then die in the span of a week. -- Different evolutionary strategies evolved under different environments and selection pressures.

(Concession: evolution isn't "optimal", but it has found good enough solutions that I often call it such.)

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#88

Post by corin_ »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #86
corin_ wrote: post #84

Not related to the purpose of the article, but the subject: Are there legal precedents regarding situations like this? If she developed into a body/mind of a child who understands how to buy something, could she buy alcohol/cigarettes? If someone had sex with her (again, not now, but say she developed to the equivilent of a 13-15 year old) then presumably it wouldn't count as sex with a minor? (If someone were to hav…

Yes of course there are laws against rape of someone who is mentally incapacitated. Ususally something along the lines of: "[It's rape if] the actor knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally incapable, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless"

But what about if she becomes mentally/physically ten, and consents?

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#89

Post by Judson »

btilly wrote: post #75
Judson wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all of that, except GDP. In an age of Fiat currency, GDP is nothing more than a proverbial phallus measuring contest. Paper is paper, is paper. Show me a real currency backed by something (Sorry, "faith" in the government doesn't count), and we can talk about progression on the GDP front. Beyond that, surely child mortality, literacy, and poverty are enough to prove your point, GDP doesn't really even fi…

Show me a real currency backed by something (Sorry, "faith" in the government doesn't count), and we can talk about progression on the GDP front. How about the fraction of disposable personal income spent on food? http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/cpifoodandexpenditures/data... From 1929 to the present that has dropped from 23.4% to 9.5%. This despite what other evidence suggests is a considerable increase in the quan…

This is what I hate about HN. People who don't understand economics are inherently the people that are down-vote happy. Thats why I don't care one bit about karma.

You have chosen to compare what I was talking about, GDP (Nominal in this case) and a percentage of dollars (since you quote the USDA, I was talking about worldwide btw, just like the op) to food. It's an apples to oranges comparison, and for the most part, reinforces my comment above, that someone down-voted.

Yes, we spend less on food than we did in 1929. Do you have cows in your back yard btilly? Probably not. Why do I ask? Because comparing the farming industry in 1929 to the industry of 2010 is like comparing the age of slaughtering your own "home-raised" cow, to the age of mechanized cow raising, slaughtering, and delivery into the closest super market. Um, of course the price is lower. The real interesting part, though, is that the price could be even lower if the money supply wasn't artificially increased by trillions of dollars. Fun fact, if $1.00 would have purchased $1.00 worth of goods in 1929 (which it did), if you had instead, saved it until 2010, it would purchase ... wait for it ... $0.08 worth of goods. Does that not strike you as odd, that although productivity has boomed, e.g., we can make more things for less dollars, the value of the dollar has plummeted?

But to the main point, it shows by your argument that you failed to grasp the full extent of what I was saying. Money is just paper. How do I know that? When a country can lend itself (by selling its paper for another countries paper, in the case of the US, China purchases the vast majority of US treasuries, though, no one even knows if China is printing money, or being disciplined with their monetary policy) trillions of dollars and put that into circulation, of course the GDP will rise, but has progress been made? NO. GDP is nominal, not absolute, and it does not reflect productivity, or even actual PHYSICAL output! It reflects prices.

In a small country of 10 people, if all of those people have $1, and a barrel of oil is $1, the GDP is $10 or 10 barrels of oil. If the government prints up $10 more dollars and hands it out to those 10 people, now everyone has $20, but oil prices increase to $20 since MV = PQ. Ah, now the GDP is $20, but we can still only buy 10 barrels of oil. Now that is Your kind of progress.

My point, to wrap it up, was that things like global literacy and hunger are things we have been improving. Improving global GDP has no measurable impact by just inflating the number. The number is just a number unless it is put in real terms, which is not how the original post read when it listed "improving global GDP" as some kind of accomplishment.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#90

Post by [deleted] »

Judson wrote: post #89
btilly wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me a real currency backed by something (Sorry, "faith" in the government doesn't count), and we can talk about progression on the GDP front. How about the fraction of disposable personal income spent on food? http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/cpifoodandexpenditures/data... From 1929 to the present that has dropped from 23.4% to 9.5%. This despite what other evidence suggests is a considerable increase in the quan…

This is what I hate about HN. People who don't understand economics are inherently the people that are down-vote happy. Thats why I don't care one bit about karma. You have chosen to compare what I was talking about, GDP (Nominal in this case) and a percentage of dollars (since you quote the USDA, I was talking about worldwide btw, just like the op) to food. It's an apples to oranges comparison, and for the most part…

[deleted]
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