Singularity University
In the last century, breakthroughs in modern medicine have driven big gains in quality and length of life. Antibiotics, immunization, imaging and radiology, complex surgery, minimally invasive surgery—and more. It’s a long, impressive list.
But what will the next hundred years bring?
It needs an effort dwarfing all past peace-time and war-time efforts to be launched immediately, which prospect appears almost infinitely unlikely to be met in time.
The outbreak has long surpassed the threshold of instability and can only be spatially contained any more by the formation of uninfected (A) areas as large as possible and infected areas (B) as small as still possible. Water, food, gowns and disinfectants must be provided by international teams immediately in exponentially growing numbers and for whole countries. A supportive industry must be set in motion in a planet-wide action.
The bleak prospect that the quenching of the disease is close to a point of no return stems from chaos theory which is essentially a theory of exponential growth (of differences in the initial conditions). “Exponential growth” means that a level that has been reached – in terms of the number of infected persons in the present case – will double after a constant number of time units for a long time to come. Here, we have an empirical doubling every 3 weeks for 5 months in a row by now with no abating in sight. See the precise graphs at the end of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa
Written By: Steven Kotler — Sigularity Hub
Brain implants here we come.
DARPA just announced the ElectRX program, a $78.9 million attempt to develop miniscule electronic devices that interface directly with the nervous system in the hopes of curing a bunch of chronic conditions, ranging from the psychological (depression, PTSD) to the physical (Crohn’s, arthritis). Of course, the big goal here is to usher in a revolution in neuromodulation—that is, the science of modulating the nervous system to fix an underlying problem.
“I can imagine designing simple animal forms that provide novel sources of nutrients and pharmaceuticals, customizing human stem cells to regenerate a damaged, old, or sick body. There will also be new ways to enhance the human body as well, such as boosting intelligence, adapting it to new environments such as radiation levels encountered in space, rejuvenating worn-out muscles, and so on”
BPM 31510 is just another cancer drug in human development trials, except for one thing. Scientists didn’t toil away in labs to come up with it; artificial intelligence did.
The cancer drug development process is costly and time-consuming. On average, it takes 24 to 48 months and upwards of $100 million to find a suitable candidate. Add that to the fact that 95% of all potential drugs fail in clinical trials, and the inefficiencies of the whole drug-discovery machine really become apparent.
Backed by real estate billionaire Carl Berg, eponymous biotech startup Berg wants to use artificial intelligence to design cancer drugs that are cheaper, have fewer side effects, and can be developed in half the time it normally takes. BPM 31510 is the first of Berg’s drugs to get a real-world test.
By Suzanne Jacobs — MIT Technology Review
Last week Google and Novartis announced that they’re teaming up to develop contact lenses that monitor glucose levels and automatically adjust their focus. But these could be just the start of a clever new product category. From cancer detection and drug delivery to reality augmentation and night vision, our eyes offer unique opportunities for both health monitoring and enhancement.
“Now is the time to put a little computer and a lot of miniaturized technologies in the contact lens,” says Franck Leveiller, head of research and development in the Novartis eye care division.
Written By: Arlington Hewes — Singularity Hub
Absent an outright cure, it’s thought that early diagnosis of terminal diseases like cancer make treatment more effective and raise the probability of survival. But diagnosis is not always straightforward and often requires costly and invasive tests.
Simple, cheap, and accurate tests looking for the markers of disease may help.
One such method may be a blood test for cancer from University of Bradford researchers. The Lymphocyte Genome Sensitivity (LGS) test observes how DNA in lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell) is damaged under varying intensities of ultraviolet (UV) light.
Anders Sandberg, a member of the advisory board for the Lifeboat Foundation, recently took part in a panel debate on the future of human cloning produced by the Institute of Art and Ideas.
Debate blurb:
Human cloning is anathema to most of us conjuring up Metropolis visions of identical humans serving tyrannical masters. But might this be a mistaken horror story? Could human cloning instead lead to medical breakthroughs and the end to infertility?
Debate panel:
Dolly the Sheep embryologist Sir Ian Wilmut, outspoken Oxford bioethicist and transhumanist Anders Sandberg and radical sociologist Hilary Rose.
Written By: Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hub
Robots come in all shapes and sizes—some are mechanical, and some aren’t. Last year, a team of scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made a seven-millimeter-long 3D printed robot powered by the heart cells of a rat.
The device, made of 3D printed hydrogel—a water-based, biologically compatible gel—had two feet, one bigger than the other. The smaller, longer foot was coated in heart cells. Each time the cells contracted, the robot would crawl forward a few millimeters.
BySarah Fecht- Popular Science
Eight years ago, doctors took nasal tissue samples and grafted them onto the spines of 20 quadriplegics. The idea was that stem cells within the nasal tissue might turn into neurons that could help repair the damaged spinal cord, and the experiment actually worked a few of the patients, who regained a little bit of sensation. But it didn’t go well for one woman in particular, who not only didn’t experience any abatement in her paralysis, but recently started feeling pain at the site of the implant. When doctors took a closer look, they realized she was growing the beginnings of a nose on her spine, New Scientist reports.