Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 11275

Classifying aging as a disease, the debate is hotting up as ICD11 at WHO draws near.

What is considered to be normal and what is considered to be diseased is strongly influenced by historical context (Moody, ). Matters once considered to be diseases are no longer classified as such. For example, when black slaves ran away from plantations they were labeled to suffer from drapetomania and medical treatment was used to try to “cure” them (Reznek, ). Similarly, masturbation was seen as a disease and treated with treatments such as cutting away the clitoris or cauterizing it (Reznek, ). Finally, homosexuality was considered a disease as recently as 1974 (Reznek, ). In addition to the social and cultural influence on disease definition, new scientific and medical discoveries lead to the revision of what is a disease and what is not (Butler, ). For example, fever was once seen as a disease in its own right but the realization that different underlying causes would lead to the appearance of fever changed its status from disease to symptom (Reznek, ). Conversely, several currently recognized diseases, such as osteoporosis, isolated systolic hypertension, and senile Alzheimer’s disease, were in the past ascribed to normal aging (Izaks and Westendorp, ; Gems, ). Osteoporosis was only officially recognized as a disease in 1994 by the World Health Organization (WHO, ).

Disease is a complex phenomenon and a current definition must consider both a biological and social explanation. The medical definition of disease is any abnormality of bodily structure or function, other than those arising directly from physical injury; the latter, however, may open the way for disease (Marcovitch, ). The disorder has a specific cause and recognizable signs and symptoms, and can affect humans, other animals, and plants (Martin, ). The social aspect of disease is significant when trying to divide a line between a healthy and a pathological state. This is a highly context and value driven process and, considering the WHO definition of health as a “state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” it is not as simple as classifying disease as the opposite of health (WHO, ). “Someone starving to death is not taken to have a disease, but is still not considered healthy” (Reznek, ).

Continue reading “It is time to classify biological aging as a disease” | >

How society can profit from treating age-related diseases.

We’re now living longer than ever – only to suffer from diseases of old age. New therapies promise a new lease of life for the elderly – and big profits for investors, says Matthew Partridge.

Over the past century, average life expectancy in most countries has grown substantially. Vastly lower infant mortality, improved living standards, better public sanitation, and the discovery of cures or vaccines for many once-deadly diseases, have seen average life expectancy in most developed nations rise to around 80, compared with 50 in 1900. Developing nations have benefited too. Life expectancy in China, for example, was just 43 in 1960 – it’s 75 today. Indeed, according to the World Health Organisation, no individual nation outside Africa now has a life expectancy of below 60, and even Africa has seen huge gains since 2000, helped by improved anti-malarial measures and wider availability of HIV/Aids treatments.

However, the pace of progress is slowing. From 1900, it took less than 30 years for life expectancy in the US to rise from 50 to 60 years. It took another 40 years to rise to 70, and now, nearly 50 years later, it is still hovering at just below 80. The problem is that while we’ve largely beaten the diseases that used to kill people in childhood, early adulthood and even middle age, we’re having much less success in prolonging the life of the elderly. Here’s a stark illustration: in Britain in 1840, if you made it to 65, you could expect, on average, to die at age 76. In 2011, a 65-year-old could expect to die aged 83. In other words, today you have a far better chance of living to 65 than you did 170-odd years ago. But if you do, your remaining life expectancy won’t be much greater than that of your 19th-century peers.

Continue reading “How we can profit from winning the battle against ageing” | >

For millennia the human experience has been governed by five senses, but advances in neuroscience and technology may soon give us a far broader perspective.

What counts as a sense in the first place is not clear cut. Sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch make up the traditional five senses, but our sense of balance and the ability to track the movement of our own body (proprioception) are both key sensory inputs. While often lumped in with touch, our temperature and pain monitoring systems could potentially qualify as independent senses.

These senses are also not as concrete as we probably believe. Roughly 4.4% of the population experiences synesthesia — where the stimulation of one sense simultaneously produces sensations in another. This can result in people perceiving colors when they hear sounds or associating shapes with certain tastes, demonstrating the potential fluidity of our senses.

Read more

A driverless, electric public transport service is now making its way onto the streets of Lyon, France. Unveiled in an announcement made earlier this month, two Navya ARMA minibuses have embarked on a year-long trial. The purely battery-powered vehicles travel at an average speed of 10 kph (6 mph) and are able to carry 15 passengers at a time.

The ARMA shuttles along a circular route 1,350 meters (0.8 miles) long in the Confluence district of Lyon’s 2nd borough. Unlike other roads, this route does not have crosswalks, stoplights, or intersections. Though pretty advanced, the minibuses are not able to weave in and out of traffic due to restrictions based on the current level of technology, as well as legislative issues.

According to Navya chief executive Christophe Sapet in an interview with The Telegraph, the buses are “equipped with a range of detectors that allow them to know exactly where they are and to detect everything happening around them and to manage it intelligently to avoid collisions.” Human operators are present within the vehicle at all times as an added precaution.

Read more

Though they’re touted as ideal for electronics, two-dimensional materials like graphene may be too flat and hard to stretch to serve in flexible, wearable devices. “Wavy” borophene might be better, according to Rice University scientists.

The Rice lab of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and experimental collaborators observed examples of naturally undulating, metallic , an atom-thick layer of boron, and suggested that transferring it onto an elastic surface would preserve the material’s stretchability along with its useful electronic properties.

Highly conductive graphene has promise for flexible electronics, Yakobson said, but it is too stiff for devices that also need to stretch, compress or even twist. But borophene deposited on a silver substrate develops nanoscale corrugations. Weakly bound to the silver, it could be moved to a flexible surface for use.

Read more