Science is Goddamn Awesome.

[dd0029]

There was a book called Waystation (I think it was by Clifford Simak?) with a similar premise -- the transporter would beam information to a remote station to build a new copy of you, and the old you would be automatically anesthetized and dissolved in acid.

I've got another one at home where the central character was essentially a circuit court judge for whatever interstellar polity existed. In the book, space travel was still limited by relativity. The ships were essentially flying cloud storage for his consciousness. At each stop, a new body would be created and his consciousness copied over. Once his reason for being there was concluded his consciousness would be reuploaded and the ship would continue on. However, the newly created guy would stay there still alive. I didn't get very far as the whole idea was a bit much for teenaged me, but from what I did read he spent time being jealous of the guys left behind on previous stops and the guy who would sail off to the next world.

[rk47]

We should stop focusing on fighting cancer and viruses and start focusing on growing entire new bodies on the back of mice or something, then simply transfer people's consciousness to those new bodies and ditch the old, sick ones. How hard can it be? :P

Technically, if we solve the problem of bridging nerves (which tissue engineers are getting closer to solving) we should be able to plop someone's head onto another's body and voila.  It was done in monkeys years ago, just couldn't solve the nervous issue.
We already have prospective gene therapies that'd take care of the rejection problems.  (having a body reject a head would be very bad)

I have no idea why I'm all for the idea of millions or trillions of tiny machines -- all of which probably will run on Windows Nano 2028 and be absolutely hackable -- running around my body fixing stuff and changing stuff, but the idea of cutting off my head and slapping it on a new body horrifies me.

And not just for the Franken-scar.

[pxib]

Here's a nice article from Stanford Medical School from last summer related to what exactly these altered cells are producing. Essentially there's a protein called CD47 that's very popular with a lot of cancers. It overrides white bloodcells urge to eat cells with major internal problems. These cancers overproduce it, and the altered T-cells produce antibodies to block it.

While a few healthy cells also happen to have the protein, if they're not displaying any other "oh god i'm malfunctioning" molecules, macrophages and hunter-killers won't eat them regardless.

This is much more hopeful news than I originally gave it credit for, and it's based on more than a decade of solid experimental evidence. Here's hoping this is as major a breakthrough as the hype-train is claiming.

[Morat20]

I suppose in a dark bit of irony, one of the cancers that particular treatment shows promise for is bladder cancer -- and is very effective at handling already spread cancer (whatever that m-word is). Which is, you know, the situation Iain Banks is in right now.

I sadly doubt he'll still be around when they get to human trials late this year or early next. :(

Still, the approach sounds pretty interesting. I mean their basic point -- successful cancer cells obviously have to have a "don't kill me" signal that prevents the immune system from cleaning them up like it does with other malformed cells (and does with all the cancer cells that don't turn into, you know, cancer). And obviously since your body develops cancerous cells that your immune system DOES kill, then there's obviously a "kill me" sort of signal for malformed cells. (Otherwise, as they note, the default for your immune system would all cells are bad, unless they prove otherwise, which is likely not the case).

So even if this particular cancer therapy doesn't work on many cancers -- or any at all -- it's a pretty promising line of research. Helping your immune system identify these things is akin the difference between vaccination and treatment --- it's so much easier to get your body to nip it in the bud than try to cure it once you have it.

[lamaros]

Oops. Days late.

[Lantyssa]

I suppose in a dark bit of irony, one of the cancers that particular treatment shows promise for is bladder cancer -- and is very effective at handling already spread cancer (whatever that m-word is). Which is, you know, the situation Iain Banks is in right now.

Metastasize.

As long as they don't dump the trial because it's not "economically viable" like the promising treatment they pulled my dad off of.  Fuck drug companies.  With cancer.

[Morat20]

One can hope. Given it might be fairly broad spectrum, that's a good sign.

[Merusk]

Not enough awesome science to keep this bumped I guess.. Page 3?!

Vid making Facebook rounds only just now, even though the article is from back in July.

http://junkee.com/someone-invented-magic-and-it-is-freaking-us-out/14880

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZrjXSsfxMQ

I remember seeing the Syrup thing a while back along with a Ketchup Bottle that ketchup didn't stick to from, I think, MIT.  Either way this is awesome.

Though putting both in an aerosol can and then spraying it around with no breathing apparatus makes me wonder how long until there's enough built-up in their lungs that they suffocate because they sealed their tissue up. 

[Ghambit]

NeverWet is old news dude - like last year old.      Granted, I try to catch the papers b4 they go "public."  Btw, you can already buy this off-the-shelf.  Rustoleum bought the patent no?

[Nevermore]

Science! 

[Bzalthek]

My father got that shit and sprayed his shoes, but it peels off pretty fast.

[SurfD]

My father got that shit and sprayed his shoes, but it peels off pretty fast.

I dont think the current formula they use for it is properly designed for use on a lot of fabric.   From what I remember the rep telling us at the last HomeHardware dealers market I was at this summer, they are hopeing to have a formulation specifically targeted at fabric out for consumer use early next year.

[01101010]

My father got that shit and sprayed his shoes, but it peels off pretty fast.

I dont think the current formula they use for it is properly designed for use on a lot of fabric.   From what I remember the rep telling us at the last HomeHardware dealers market I was at this summer, they are hopeing to have a formulation specifically targeted at fabric out for consumer use early next year.

And I will be spraying every single umbrella I have with it.

[Ironwood]

I thought neverwet was some kind of marriage guidance.

[01101010]

I thought neverwet was some kind of marriage guidance.

 

[Ghambit]

I thought neverwet was some kind of marriage guidance.

On the flipside, spray it (the neverwet) on the bedsheets perhaps?  Squeegee in the nightstand ftw.

[ghost]

RIP, Fredereick Sanger.....

Dr. Sanger won his first Nobel Prize, in chemistry, in 1958 for showing how amino acids link together to form insulin, a discovery that gave scientists the tools to analyze any protein in the body.

In 1980 he received his second Nobel, also in chemistry, for inventing a method of “reading” the molecular letters that make up the genetic code. This discovery was crucial to the development of biotechnology drugs and provided the basic tool kit for decoding the entire human genome two decades later.

Dr. Sanger spent his entire career working in a laboratory, which is unusual for someone of his stature. Long after receiving his first Nobel, he continued to perform many experiments himself instead of assigning them to a junior researcher, as is typical in modern science labs. But Dr. Sanger said he was not particularly adept at coming up with experiments for others to do, and had little aptitude for administration or teaching.

Sanger was an amazing man.  Not only did he win two nobel prizes, he stayed true to what he was about, something you just don't see much anymore. 

[Sir T]

And with enough self awareness to stick with what he was good at when given a choice.

[ghost]

I don't think it was self awareness.  It's called having a soul and not being a greedy bastard.  There are too many greedy bastards around now in medicine and science.  The whole goal is to essentially "get into management" and surf the internet while other people work for you. 

[Furiously]

It's also not your work. It's the company's.