Posts by Bart Janssen
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And this is Artemis. She lurvs her couch. However, we really should have known better than to name her after the goddess of the hunt as she is now living up to her name.
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Our two fur children are from the SPCA. This is Apollo when, thankfully he was a bit smaller than now.
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Capture: Cats Love Cameras, in reply to Amy Gale,
He even brought his own cushion
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OnPoint: Association of Community…, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Whenever I come across something I know about, I tend to notice things that have been gotten wrong
This!
My guess from what I've seen and remember* is that 90%+ of the time science is reported it is incorrect either in the actual science being reported or in the interpretation.
From that I conclude that, in a subject where I don't know for certain, 90% of what is reported is also either flat out wrong or misinterpreted. That is a kind of depressing.
And it doesn't seem to matter how many times Kieth or others nail the media on these things it continues. It's like they just don't care.
*And yes I'm aware I'm much more likely to remember the mistakes.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Islander,
Oh yes, I could actually learn to be a cabinet maker, and then learn to surf and then do chemistry properly and then ...
I really can't understand anyone wondering what they would do with 700 years, there is so much more to do than one lifetime can encompass.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to B Jones,
There’s a lot about those books that reminds me of discussions here.
No accident I'm a huge SF fan :).
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to B Jones,
actuarially speaking
But if you knew your body would function healthily and happily for say 2000 years would you be more risk averse?
Or would you be a teenage hooligan for longer?
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Jackie Clark,
maybe that was just me
It wasn't for me. But I understand your point. For an individual in pain with no hope of recovery ...
Really I'm not suggesting death is an evil thing to be feared today but rather saying that biologically there is no reason why a self renewing individual cannot live for a very very long time, with good health.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to dyan campbell,
Really? What about
apoptosis
telomeres
entropy
inflammation
Apoptosis is about individual cells or tissues not the organisms as a whole, except that apoptosis is part of development to create organ shape etc.
Telomeres are more interesting but there is an increasing understanding of how they work and why in some cases they don't shorten. If that can be understood, and I see no reason why not, then it seems reasonable to postulate drugs or treatments that restore telomeres to "the young state".
Entropy is about physics and on the universe level you can't fight it. But it is trivial to reverse on a local level we do that every day, for the universe entropy always increases but for the individual entropy can decrease.
Inflammation is just another biological process we don't fully understand. Again I see no reason why we will not develop a complete understanding of the biology and be able to control it.
None of these things is easy and as I said I don't have any idea when it will happen but I'm quite certain that those things we think of as inevitable about aging will become trivial to deal with. It used to be inevitable that your teeth would fall out by age 30.
If you want to look at the history of science it's littered with folks (some of them very very bright) saying something is theoretically possible but practically impossible only to be run over by three different impossible things.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
just recycling
and if you are constantly reusing and recycling
are you still the same person?
