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Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

quantamagazine.org

181–190 of 253 posts

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#181

"Biologists discovered a widespread protein that abruptly shuts down a cell’s activity — and turns it back on just as fast." Maybe we need this for dogs, so their lifespan isn't substantially squandered when their owners are at work.

You should check out a company called Loyal — they’re making lifespan increasing drugs for dogs of all sizes!

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#182

"Biologists discovered a widespread protein that abruptly shuts down a cell’s activity — and turns it back on just as fast." Maybe we need this for dogs, so their lifespan isn't substantially squandered when their owners are at work.

This feels quite distopian.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find the statement that "money can't buy time" something that only a fairly wealthy person would believe, and not at all accurate in practice. Most people with money are old, because that's how you get money in general: provide value over a long period of time. But they would probably all trade that money for being 22 again, and having a lifetime ahead.

Someone asked a substitute teacher if she would make that trade, and she said she wouldn’t, not unless she could retain what she knew now. So, buy a renewed youth? Sure. But do 22 again as a 22 year old? Nope. Now that I’m “over the hill”, I see what she meant. Being 44 is similar to the difference between 11 and 22; not as drastic, but the stuff I understand about life I would not even be able to communicate to 22 y…

Yes, but you're not 70 and wealthy. 44 is still pretty young[0].

[0] this may be cope

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#184
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A systematic study of birds would find that many do indeed starve to death.

Is the goal of humanity to replicate infinitely and love as long as possible regardless of anything else ? Because that's what cancers do and it never end well for the host

In what way does cancer "love"?

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#186
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You should consider the commenting guidelines > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. And adhere to that culture before complaining about others

And of course because we are explicitly forbidden from talking about such a problem, it never happens, right?

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#187
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only the Inuit for example do not need sun, to produce Vitamin D btw As far as I can tell, they need vitamin D just like any other life form and can only synthesise it from the sun, just like all other lifeforms on Earth. They might have adapted to reduced amounts of available vitamin D though[0], because they don't have much of it available to them in the first place and because there's really no other source than…

Humans cannot synthesise vitamin D, but we can acquire it through diet from other sources, including particularly fresh fish, which are abundant in Inuit diets. Note that numerous of the sources listed here are fortified (that is, have additional vitamin D added), however it does occur naturally in some sources as well: https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/resources/2020-2025-dietar... >

> The major natural source of vitamin D is synthesis of cholecalciferol in the lower layers of the epidermis of the skin, through a photochemical reaction with Ultraviolet B (UV-B) radiation from sun exposure or UV-B lamps.[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#188

Nobody seems to be mentioning the therapeutic possibilities. I'd love to be able to make a bacterial infection dormant. Or a tumor.

Tumors might be difficult, since afaik, cancer cells aren't working correctly by definition.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#189

> Karla Helena-Bueno discovered a common hibernation factor when she accidentally left an Arctic bacterium on ice for too long. I love how this story follows the magic pattern of so much of innovation and discovery - an accident. It's refreshingly human and not a mode of discovery that machine learning is going to completely take away from us.

> The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..." -- commonly attributed to Isaac Asimov

As a one-time scientist, I think Asimov may have been tricked by extreme selection bias on "That's funny..." utterances. It almost always precedes a crushing realization that you have fucked something up and probably wasted a lot of time.

You're probably days down exploring that explanation before the eventual "holy shit" (that I never really had the benefit of experiencing).

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#190

"Biologists discovered a widespread protein that abruptly shuts down a cell’s activity — and turns it back on just as fast." Maybe we need this for dogs, so their lifespan isn't substantially squandered when their owners are at work.

Is the value of a dog's life subjectively tied to the enjoyment of the owner? May as well shut down when the owner is asleep too... or, get a robot dog instead.
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