Alzheimer’s disease is on the rise, even as doctors continue to struggle to find potential treatments for it. Researchers expect the number of those suffering from dementia to grow from 44 million at present to three times that by 2050.
The growing number puts increased pressure on researchers to do something to ameliorate the disease. And one drug is attracting the spotlight as it enters clinical trials. Eric Karran, the director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said in a press conference in the lead-up to a G8 summit on dementia that he is “full of hope” that a drug now being tested in the United States on patients with mild dementia may be to Alzheimer’s disease what statins are to heart disease.
Computerworld - Approximately 18 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant. But that may change someday sooner than you think — thanks to 3D printing.
Advances in the 3D printing of human tissue have moved fast enough that San Diego-based bio-printing company Organovo now expects to unveil the world’s first printed organ — a human liver — next year.
Like other forms of 3D printing, bio-printing lays down layer after layer of material — in this case, live cells — to form a solid physical entity — in this case, human tissue. The major stumbling block in creating tissue continues to be manufacturing the vascular system needed to provide it with life-sustaining oxygen and nutrients.
Medicine is more an art than a science, doctors are the first to admit, not just because so much remains unknown about the human body, but also because patients often fail to provide relevant details or follow the doctor’s orders. Which explains the strong appeal of digitizing pills so that they register when the patient takes them and including Internet-enabled medical sensors in medical devices.
But how can we safely power electronic technology inside the body? A number of researchers are aggressively seeking answers to that question. For instance, Singularity Hub has covered an electronic pill that, when activated by stomach acid, generates enough power to signal an external device that then registers that the pill has been taken.
Carnegie Mellon biomedical engineer Christopher Bettinger argues that flexible biodegradable batteries safe for human consumption would help implants achieve maximum benefits.
By James GallagherHealth and science reporter, BBC News
US scientists have performed a dramatic reversal of the ageing process in animal studies.
They used a chemical to rejuvenate muscle in mice and said it was the equivalent of transforming a 60-year-old’s muscle to that of a 20-year-old — but muscle strength did not improve.
Their study, in the journal Cell, identified an entirely new mechanism of ageing and then reversed it.
Other researchers said it was an “exciting finding”.
He knows this because when he had his genetic code read, he found out that he was likely to get age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
The disease leaves the sufferer with a very narrow field of vision.
As head of bio-technology at the world’s most futuristic learning institution, Singularity University, he found the news “burdensome” at first.
“I had never heard of AMD, I had no family history of it and in many ways it was the worst story you can get in genetic diagnosis, ‘Here’s something that you didn’t know about which we can’t do anything about,’” he says.
Some people become incredibly confused about the effort to eliminate aging, which they see as a nebulous, ill-defined process. I refer to the concept of radical life extension, when aging as a process has been abolished. I am not referring to simple healthy longevity (the effort to live a healthy life until the current maximum lifespan of 110–120). Here are some common misconceptions:
1. The Fallacy of words
Eliminating aging will make us ‘immortal’ and we will live forever.
No, it won’t. If we eliminate aging as a cause of death, we may be able to live for an indefinite (not infinite) period, until something else kills us. Even in a world without aging, death can happen at any time (at age 10, 65 or 1003) and for any reason (a shot in the head, malaria, drowning). If we manage to eliminate aging as a cause of death, the only certain thing would be that we will not necessarily die when we reach the currently maximum lifespan limit of around 110–120 years. We would certainly NOT live for ever, because something else will kill us sooner or later. Our organs cannot be repaired if we perish in a nuclear explosion for example, or in a fire. Some statisticians have mentioned that, without aging, we may be able to live to 1700–2000 years on average before death happens due to some other catastrophic damage. This is a long time, but it is not ‘forever’.
2. The Fallacy of numbers
Eliminating aging will result in overpopulation.
No, it won’t. This is based on spurious, even naïve, thinking. Aging happens because we need to reproduce. Or, we need to reproduce because we age. If aging is eliminated, the need to reproduce will also be broadly eliminated. It is a cyclical, reciprocal argument.
3. The Fallacy of loneliness
“I don’t want to live dramatically longer because I will have to witness the deaths of all my family and friends”.
No, you won’t. If you live longer because aging has been eliminated, then your family and friends will too. In any case, this counteracts fallacy number 2: if everybody else dies, how come we would have overpopulation? And fallacy number 2 counteracts this one: if we do have overpopulation, then it is likely that your friends and relatives will be alive too.
4. The Fallacy of the pill
Aging will be eliminated by taking a pill (or a combination of pills, injections, something physical).
No, it won’t. It will be eliminated through a change in the direction of human evolution, when billions of humans continue to engage with technology (or via other, abstract global technologically-dependent means). As the general direction of evolution is towards a more complex state which makes us better adapted to our environment, there would come a point when our hyper-technological environment would select individual longevity instead of aging and degeneration, as a more thermodynamically efficient situation.
5. The Fallacy of money
Research into the elimination of aging is not progressing fast due to lack of appropriate funding.
No, funding is not the main bottleneck. The main problem is the widespread adoption of the wrong approach. The idea that aging can be eliminate through pharmacological intervention dates back to the time of the Alchemists. It has no place in a modern, highly technological and intellectually sophisticated society, and certainly not with respect to defying such a fundamental process as aging. It is reductionist instead of integrative. Aging may be eliminated when the cause for its presence is removed. Aging happens because within a tendency to progress from simple to complex, evolution has selected reproduction (and thus aging) as a mechanism for maximising the use of thermodynamical resources, and so to ensure the survival of the species
6. The Fallacy of the rich elite
Only a few rich people will have access to the treatment.
This is a combination of fallacies number 4 and 5, a fallacy based on fallacies. People who adapt and fit within an upwards moving technological environment will be more likely to survive. Money is irrelevant. What is relevant is intellectual effort and aggressive engagement with our environment (hyperconnectivity is an example). If a large number of humans (in the order of hundreds of millions) actively engage with their increasingly technological environment, there would be no reason to age/reproduce at the current rates, as survival can be assured through the individual rather than the species. Therefore, there could be no secrets about the process, due to the very fact that a significant section of humanity must necessarily participate.
7. The fallacy of frailty
Living dramatically longer will mean a long life with debilitating illnesses.
No, it won’t. The two concepts are mutually exclusive. A life without aging necessarily means a life without age-related degeneration. You cannot have one without the other.
“Your threshold for pain is near zero”, said my dentist, as she deftly moved the extremely thin fiber optic laser head away.
“That’s why I chose to fly in here. Gum filet carving doesn’t appeal to me”, I mumbled, my lips feeling leathery from the anesthetic spray.
There was a mild tingling as the laser killed millions of enemies under my gum-line. I lay back in the chair and considered the alternative I was presented only the day before by an over enthusiastic periodontist — A scalpel and suture gum flap procedure for “deep cleaning.”
‘This is 2013′, I had thought to myself. ‘There has to be a less primitive way… a less painful solution.’
12 hours later, with 25 browser windows open and an estimated further 40 websites bookmarked, I was sure I had enough information to consider writing a thesis on pain free dentistry — The answer, I concluded, was LANAP. I delved deep into the pros and cons of laser dentistry procedures, understanding OPG xrays, doing comparisons and reading on soft tissue lasers, diode lasers, wave-lengths and even the patent wars of companies spearheading the future of medical technology.
The Transhumanist Patient:
Doctors have it hard today and I genuinely sympathize with them- to a certain degree. After all, every person has access to the internet but not everyone knows how to distill this ‘open source knowledge’ effectively. So doctors stand to lose patients and patience, when catering to the whims of clients walking into their clinics.
Yet, we are in the midst of an information and knowledge explosion and if doctors rely only on a degree earned about a decade ago or even 3 years ago, while not immersing themselves in the accelerating changes in technology and discoveries in their field, they will encounter a patient who will challenge or at the very least — question such a doctor’s line of diagnosis and treatment.
I learned the following:
Ask for a 3rd opinion — That second-opinion should be one’s own obligation, using the internet as an interactive medical encyclopedia to thoroughly understand the ailment.
A medical practitioner who does not have access to the latest in medical technology and/or has not updated their skill-set in the usage of such, will lose out.
Tele-medicine is the future.
Services such as Medcarelive, that offer a flavor of tele-medicine is just the start. Competition will soon catch-up and there is no doubt, the smart phone will truly become ubiquitous with personal healthcare. Devices such as Google Glass are already providing healthcare professionals with real time updates of patients vital information.
A smart phone coupled to such wearable technology could transform such a visor — into a Wizer — the fictional device from the story Memories with Maya.
Apps for the Smart phone, running sophisticated software and processing algorithms can harness common sensors in the device such as a Microphone, to analyze or transmit a patient’s cough or voice. There’s even a possibility to do ultra-sound imaging with an add-on peripheral. High resolution cameras can transmit detailed imagery and videos for remote diagnostics — and possibly in real-time in some scenarios with tele-medicine.
A medical professional who has a genuine love for learning and keeping abreast with technology in his/her field of practice is by very definition — a Transhumanist. Such professionals may not even know of their transhumanist leanings, but by putting into practice what some Transhumanist fashionistas only preach about, a transhumanist doctor is doing actual ground work to better a patients condition, using science and technology. One such (highly respected) person is Dr. Eric Topol and the strides he’s made with his contribution to Wireless Medicine
To be true to the medical profession in this age, one needs to be highly trained and competent in the use of advanced medical technology — Simply attending a 101 or a couple of seminars and training sessions on use of robotic surgery equipment for instance, can lead to severe accidents and can stall the progress of the very technology that we seek to make mainstream.
There are downsides to be aware of if medical practitioners are not thorough in their training and in their own follow-up research in related fields. For example: Should a dentist or surgeon be studying more about lasers in-depth than the system and controls that are present on the console they are using? I would argue yes they should. Learning as much as possible about types of laser, pulse duration, power and even the very type of laser to use for different soft/hard tissue procedures is an important factor that should not be ignored. In robotic surgery systems, should surgeons understand the degree of motion scaling and tremor reduction systems? Just as a true camera professional might learn how much his/her camera lens ‘breathes’, so too should a surgeon be keen on in-depth learning about the technology and tools they are using.
In keeping with the ethics of such emerging technology, it is only appropriate to mention the many ‘accidents’ that have occurred with even the very advanced minimally invasive DaVinci Robotic Surgery system. The video in the link below is worth the approx 10 minutes viewing time. Full link to report :here:
The home of 2025 — Kitchen, living-room, bedroom and the MedPod room:
Medical technology has to become affordable, if our quest to better the human condition is to succeed. Pain free or minimally invasive medicine should not only be for the rich. While it is true that private corporations are investing in the manufacture of these systems and thus earn the right to profit from their deployment, access to advanced medicine should be the right of every person - else we run the risk of an Elysium like future.
With smart phones already being deployed in medical diagnostics, it won’t be long before personal health pods find a place in homes. Such systems might allow for remote tele-medicine or even remote human assisted surgery to become reality. After all, in the DaVinci Robotic Surgery system, it does not matter if the surgeon is sitting a few feet away at his master console or… across town.
Desktop 3D printed Pharmacies:
Desktop 3D Printing Pharmacies could print out capsules / pills on-demand, or drones could deliver a prescription from a local pharmacy right to one’s door-step.
The future looks good for pain free healing of the human body — and it is up to us to make such technology accessible and affordable.
The yellow arrow points to retinal ganglion cell, responsible for transmitting signals from the eye to the brain.
Using an inkjet printer, researchers have succeeded in printing adult eye cells for the first time. The demonstration is a step toward producing tissue implants that could cure some types of blindness.
Scientists have previously printed embryonic stem cells and other immature cells. But scientists had thought adult cells might be too fragile to print. Now, researchers have printed cells from the optic nerves of rats, finding the cells not only survived, but also retained the ability to grow and develop.
This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…Superintelligence…” that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article: EXCERPT.
How do I exercise my mind? What types of thinking modes I daily use?
The Future of Management Wargaming, Now! By Mr. Andres Agostini
This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…The Future of Management Wargaming , Now…!” that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:
In addition to being aware and adaptable and resilient before the driving forces reshaping the current present and the as-of-now future, there are some extra management suggestions that I concurrently practice:
a) “…human knowledge is doubling every ten years [as per the 1998 standards]…”
b) "...computer power is doubling every eighteen months. the internet is doubling every year. the number of dna sequences we can analyze is doubling every two years…”
c) “…beginning with the amount of knowledge in the known world at the time of Christ, studies have estimated that the first doubling of that knowledge took place about 1700 A.D. the second doubling occurred around the year 1900. it is estimated today that the world’s knowledge base will double again by 2010 and again after that by 2013…”
d) “…knowledge is doubling by every fourteen months…”
e) “…more than the doubling of computational power [is taking place] every year…”
