But no progress on spinning-based antigravity drives
Joseph Nebus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/health/research/09aging.html?ref=science
Antibiotic Delayed Aging in Experiments With Mice
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: July 8, 2009
A new star has appeared in the field of drugs that delay
aging in laboratory animals, and are therefore candidates for
doing the same in people.
The drug is an antibiotic, rapamycin, already in use for
suppressing the immune system in transplant patients and for
treating certain cancers.
[ The typical sets of disclaimers apply, plus a bonus one that
people taking rapamycin not try this at home. I still find it neat to
see antibiotics used against ageing, assuming the research does hold up. ]
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mimus
> Another little tidbit from the real world of science ...
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/health/research/09aging.html?ref=science
> Antibiotic Delayed Aging in Experiments With Mice
> By NICHOLAS WADE
> Published: July 8, 2009
>
> A new star has appeared in the field of drugs that delay
> aging in laboratory animals, and are therefore candidates for
> doing the same in people.
>
> The drug is an antibiotic, rapamycin, already in use for
> suppressing the immune system in transplant patients and for
> treating certain cancers.
>
>
> [The typical sets of disclaimers apply, plus a bonus one that
> people taking rapamycin not try this at home. I still find it neat to
> see antibiotics used against ageing, assuming the research does hold up.]
Suppressing the immune system doesn't sound like a good long-term
gerontotherapeutic strategy to _me_.
And if it's not a long-term gerontotherapeutic strategy, it's not a
gerontotherapeutic strategy at all . . . .
--
"The math is easy," said Chaos.
< _Thief of Time_
David Johnston
> Another little tidbit from the real world of science ...
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/health/research/09aging.html?ref=science
> Antibiotic Delayed Aging in Experiments With Mice
> By NICHOLAS WADE
> Published: July 8, 2009
>
> A new star has appeared in the field of drugs that delay
> aging in laboratory animals, and are therefore candidates for
> doing the same in people.
>
> The drug is an antibiotic, rapamycin, already in use for
> suppressing the immune system in transplant patients and for
> treating certain cancers.
>
>
> [ The typical sets of disclaimers apply, plus a bonus one that
>people taking rapamycin not try this at home. I still find it neat to
>see antibiotics used against ageing, assuming the research does hold up. ]
The idea of a drug that retards aging but trashes your immune system
reminds me that science fiction tends to be weak on the idea of
tradeoffs. They have stories where a scientific advance goes horribly
wrong or where it does wonderful things with no real price to be paid
but not so many where an advancement simply has a realistic down-side.
Dorothy J Heydt
Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
> Another little tidbit from the real world of science ...
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/health/research/09aging.html?ref=science
> Antibiotic Delayed Aging in Experiments With Mice
I read off this line, and THEN your subject line, to Hal, who
has just finished re-reading _Cities in Flight._ He got a
good laugh.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Quadibloc
> And if it's not a long-term gerontotherapeutic strategy, it's not a
> gerontotherapeutic strategy at all . . . .
The point is, if it does some of the things that a gerontotherapeutic
strategy needs to do, it's a starting point from which research can
lead to other drugs which will do the useful thing that will prolong
life that this drug does, withouth the side effects that prevent it
from being useful in practice.
So it is an important breakthrough, even if it's only a stepping-stone
on the way to a practical product.
John Savard
MajorOz
> On 9 Jul 2009 14:07:52 -0400, nebu...@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
>
>
>
> > Another little tidbit from the real world of science ...
>
> > Antibiotic Delayed Aging in Experiments With Mice
> > By NICHOLAS WADE
> > Published: July 8, 2009
>
> > A new star has appeared in the field of drugs that delay
> > aging in laboratory animals, and are therefore candidates for
> > doing the same in people.
>
> > The drug is an antibiotic, rapamycin, already in use for
> > suppressing the immune system in transplant patients and for
> > treating certain cancers.
>
> > [ The typical sets of disclaimers apply, plus a bonus one that
> >people taking rapamycin not try this at home. I still find it neat to
> >see antibiotics used against ageing, assuming the research does hold up. ]
>
> The idea of a drug that retards aging but trashes your immune system
> reminds me that science fiction tends to be weak on the idea of
> tradeoffs. They have stories where a scientific advance goes horribly
> wrong or where it does wonderful things with no real price to be paid
> but not so many where an advancement simply has a realistic down-side.
...sounds like a pretty dull story to me
oz
Mike Ash
David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
> The idea of a drug that retards aging but trashes your immune system
> reminds me that science fiction tends to be weak on the idea of
> tradeoffs. They have stories where a scientific advance goes horribly
> wrong or where it does wonderful things with no real price to be paid
> but not so many where an advancement simply has a realistic down-side.
It seems plenty strong on this idea to me. _WALL-E_ shows strong AI
resulting in humanity being able to live in luxury in a post-scarcity
world, but also shows the downside of humanity turning inward and no
longer being an active force. "Scanners Live in Vain" shows interstellar
travel as a good thing, but shows the downside of the Habermans being
required for it. The ending does this again; the solution to that
downside in turn threatens to put the Scanners out of work.
Now, there is certainly a lot of SF which ignores this, but IMHO that
just falls under the heading of Sturgeon's Law as long as there is
plenty of good SF that doesn't.
--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
Wayne Throop
:: reminds me that science fiction tends to be weak on the idea of
:: tradeoffs. They have stories where a scientific advance goes
:: horribly wrong or where it does wonderful things with no real price
:: to be paid but not so many where an advancement simply has a
:: realistic down-side.
: Mike Ash <mi...@mikeash.com>
: It seems plenty strong on this idea to me. _WALL-E_ shows strong AI
: resulting in humanity being able to live in luxury in a post-scarcity
: world, but also shows the downside of humanity turning inward and no
: longer being an active force. "Scanners Live in Vain" shows
: interstellar travel as a good thing, but shows the downside of the
: Habermans being required for it. The ending does this again; the
: solution to that downside in turn threatens to put the Scanners out of
: work.
Or, for this particlar case, The Andromeda Strain (I think it was)
had a perfect antibiotic... but it totally trashed the immune system,
so you had to take it the rest of your life, and it wasn't at all sure
there weren't long-term effects. Hm. Was that tAS,
or was it somewhere else? I call "yasid"!!!
And speaking of long-term effects, we have both stroon and spice,
which are alleged to have some serious downsides. Unless you don't
mind being mutated into a giant sandworm, or <whatever it was that
stroon did, I don't think he was very specific>.
And telepathy is often depicted as having serious shortcomings.
As recent example, watercrafters, who have some empathic almost-telepathic
senses, have problems living in cities, especially if the population has
a mass panic or whatnot (eg, the "night of the red stars"). Another,
lakewalkers have problems living in farmer cities. Or going back to
the classics, the Howard Families get secure communications by breeding
telepaths (and other Sensitives), but the downside of the inbreeding
needed to reinforce the traits they were after was a large chance
of birth defects and developmental problems of many sorts.
And many many more.
Mind you, I can see the opposite also. Consider bobbles, or stassis
fields, or General Products hulls. Or many of the other artifacts of
tnuctpin tech. Niven, of course, being quite prone to such, since he's
often out to illustrate some point or other, and does the "consider a
spherical cow" or "consider a massless rope and pully" thing a lot.
But as a general trend, I think tradeoffs are normal, and Perfect
Solutions are more ab.
No force could affect a bobble's contents; no force could affect
its duration - not the heart of a star, not the heart of a lover.
--- Vernor Vinge in "Across Realtime"
"Somebody called shenanigans."
"Sweet, I'll get my broom."
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
lal_truckee
> Another little tidbit from the real world of science ...
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/health/research/09aging.html?ref=science
> Antibiotic Delayed Aging in Experiments With Mice
OK, we got our ascomycin (even sounds like an antibiotic - who knew?)
but you're right - going to be pretty boring without a spindizzy.
Somebody better get cracking ...
Tim McDaniel
"Child of All Ages" by Plauger? More like a limitation than a
side-effect, really.
In Niven's Known Space series, anti-aging technology before
boosterspice had major downsides:
- they couldn't repair nervous systems, so strudbrugs (sp?)
(like Gardner, Gil the Arm's boss, I think?) still ended up in
wheelchairs
- the technology often involved organ transplants, so the death
penalty for thinking hard about spitting on a slidewalk
Or his protector virus, which had <em>Down-Sides</em>.
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Bo Lindbergh
> Or, for this particlar case, The Andromeda Strain (I think it was)
> had a perfect antibiotic... but it totally trashed the immune system,
> so you had to take it the rest of your life, and it wasn't at all sure
> there weren't long-term effects. Hm. Was that tAS,
> or was it somewhere else? I call "yasid"!!!
Yes, _The Andromeda Strain_ has the suppressed substance "kalocin".
(Not to be confused with "kallocain".)
The part about wrecking the immune system was vigorously handwaved
("upset the balance and undid the evolutionary work of centuries").
/Bo Lindbergh
Mike Schilling
>
> And telepathy is often depicted as having serious shortcomings.
get out. i hate your bloody guts.
Mike Schilling
> In article <nebusj.1...@vcmr-86.server.rpi.edu>,
> Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>> Another little tidbit from the real world of science ...
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/health/research/09aging.html?ref=science
>> Antibiotic Delayed Aging in Experiments With Mice
>
> I read off this line, and THEN your subject line, to Hal, who
> has just finished re-reading _Cities in Flight._ He got a
> good laugh.
Nice, because he certainly didn't find any in those books.
Dorothy J Heydt
Yes. That one, incidentally, is set on the UC Berkeley
Campus.
Dorothy J Heydt
Oh, he did, because he's an engineer and a science geek and
he was able to find several OTHER* assumptions Blish made that
didn't hold water over the decades.
*Other than my particular pet peeve, which is that he called
his immortality drug "antiagathic," which is Greek for
"against the good." "Against Death" would have been
"antithanatic." Which is, of course, not a science goof.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Heydt) wrote:
>*Other than my particular pet peeve, which is that he called
>his immortality drug "antiagathic," which is Greek for
>"against the good." "Against Death" would have been
>"antithanatic." Which is, of course, not a science goof.
Linguistics is a science.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Mike Schilling
> On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:51:33 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> Heydt) wrote:
>
>> *Other than my particular pet peeve, which is that he called
>> his immortality drug "antiagathic," which is Greek for
>> "against the good." "Against Death" would have been
>> "antithanatic." Which is, of course, not a science goof.
>
> Linguistics is a science.
Yeah, but languages aren't.
David Goldfarb
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <h362ji$u97$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Wayne Throop wrote:
>>>
>>> And telepathy is often depicted as having serious shortcomings.
>>
>>get out. i hate your bloody guts.
>
>Yes. That one, incidentally, is set on the UC Berkeley Campus.
The ending, if I recall correctly, takes place right in front
of Dwinelle Hall.
--
David Goldfarb |"Sunset over Houma. The rains have stopped.
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | Clouds like plugs of bloodied cotton wool dab
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | ineffectually at the slashed wrists of the sky."
| -- Alan Moore
David Goldfarb
>his immortality drug "antiagathic," which is Greek for
>"against the good." "Against Death" would have been
>"antithanatic." Which is, of course, not a science goof.
And then when _Babylon 5_ tried to make a reference to that,
they corrupted the word still further into "antiagapic".
(Which would be something like "against compassionate love".)
--
David Goldfarb |"Why must you take everything good and true and
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | honest and wholesome and turn it into a vague
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | Alan Arkin movie reference?" -- MST3K
William December Starr
tm...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) said:
> In Niven's Known Space series, anti-aging technology before
> boosterspice had major downsides:
> - they couldn't repair nervous systems, so strudbrugs (sp?)
> (like Gardner, Gil the Arm's boss, I think?) still ended up
> in wheelchairs
In one story in which he appeared Luke Garner (note, no 'd') was
starting to take the [name forgotten] treatment, which showed
promise in doing just that. Alas, I think it was PROTECTOR, which
predates his appearences in the Gil the Arm stories; if so I guess
they didn't work, at least for him.
> - the technology often involved organ transplants, so the death
> penalty for thinking hard about spitting on a slidewalk
But see the development of artificial organs, per A GIFT FROM EARTH.
-- wds
David DeLaney
Footnotes:
>- they couldn't repair nervous systems, so strudbrugs (sp?)
struldbrugs (see: Swift's Luggnaggians)
> (like Gardner, Gil the Arm's boss, I think?) still ended up in
Lucas (Launcelot) Garner
> wheelchairs
Yep. But what wheelchairs! (After a while they didn't have wheels, either.)
DAve
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> In article <KMJJp...@kithrup.com>,
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>> *Other than my particular pet peeve, which is that he called
>> his immortality drug "antiagathic," which is Greek for
>> "against the good." "Against Death" would have been
>> "antithanatic." Which is, of course, not a science goof.
>
> And then when _Babylon 5_ tried to make a reference to that,
> they corrupted the word still further into "antiagapic".
> (Which would be something like "against compassionate love".)
>
No, I heard it as "antiagathic".
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Nicholas Waller
> In article <1ddc55pi2vqtn1rhi7hkhev8r80culi...@4ax.com>,
> David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>
> > The idea of a drug that retards aging but trashes your immune system
> > reminds me that science fiction tends to be weak on the idea of
> > tradeoffs. They have stories where a scientific advance goes horribly
> > wrong or where it does wonderful things with no real price to be paid
> > but not so many where an advancement simply has a realistic down-side.
>
> It seems plenty strong on this idea to me. _WALL-E_ shows strong AI
> resulting in humanity being able to live in luxury in a post-scarcity
> world, but also shows the downside of humanity turning inward and no
> longer being an active force. "Scanners Live in Vain" shows interstellar
> travel as a good thing, but shows the downside of the Habermans being
> required for it. The ending does this again; the solution to that
> downside in turn threatens to put the Scanners out of work.
>
> Now, there is certainly a lot of SF which ignores this, but IMHO that
> just falls under the heading of Sturgeon's Law as long as there is
> plenty of good SF that doesn't.
There's also conceivably Arthur C Clarke's "Superiority" (though maybe
that falls into the horribly-wrong camp). Anyway, basically technical
improvements to one side's fleet in a space war lead to adverse
results for them.
http://arthur-clarke-fansite.blogspot.com/2007/04/short-story-review-superiority-1951-by.html
for a synopsis
Nick
David Goldfarb
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>David Goldfarb wrote:
>> And then when _Babylon 5_ tried to make a reference to that,
>> they corrupted the word still further into "antiagapic".
>> (Which would be something like "against compassionate love".)
>
> No, I heard it as "antiagathic".
Well, you heard wrong then, no doubt influenced by your knowledge of
James Blish's work. I actually went and checked the script before
posting: Larry DiTillio wrote "antiagapic" with a p, and the actors
followed his script.
--
David Goldfarb |"I've always had a hard time getting up when
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | it's dark outside."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | "But in space, it's always dark."
|"I know. I know..." -- Babylon 5
Dorothy J Heydt
David Goldfarb <gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>In article <h37ffm$us8$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>David Goldfarb wrote:
>>> And then when _Babylon 5_ tried to make a reference to that,
>>> they corrupted the word still further into "antiagapic".
>>> (Which would be something like "against compassionate love".)
>>
>> No, I heard it as "antiagathic".
>
>Well, you heard wrong then, no doubt influenced by your knowledge of
>James Blish's work. I actually went and checked the script before
>posting: Larry DiTillio wrote "antiagapic" with a p, and the actors
>followed his script.
Oimoi.
Quadibloc
> In article <KMKr0D....@kithrup.com>,
> David Goldfarb <goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> >Well, you heard wrong then, no doubt influenced by your knowledge of
> >James Blish's work. I actually went and checked the script before
> >posting: Larry DiTillio wrote "antiagapic" with a p, and the actors
> >followed his script.
>
> Oimoi.
I remember, in a publication that reprinted old science-fiction
stories from pulps of the thirties, a story about the "agathon" which
was apparently some kind of machine for keeping people immortal, or
killing them, so James Blish's error in Greek may have derived from
this or another earlier science-fiction story.
John Savard
Joseph Nebus
>On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:51:33 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>>*Other than my particular pet peeve, which is that he called
>>his immortality drug "antiagathic," which is Greek for
>>"against the good." "Against Death" would have been
>>"antithanatic." Which is, of course, not a science goof.
>Linguistics is a science.
And I'm still not convinced that Blish wasn't slipping a joke
into things. Wasn't he the one who decided to dub his faster-than-light
drive for one story the 'imaginary drive'? And had a bit in ``Common
Time'' blessing those who snore?
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quadibloc
Ah. This one was hard to Google up, but I managed.
Fruits of the Agathon, by Charles L. Harness, which appeared as the
cover story in Thrilling Wonder Stories for December, 1948; the hero,
Frudian Toring, questions the infallibility of the machine that
predicts death!
So that could be where anti-agathic came from, changing the meaning of
Agatha from "good" to "death".
John Savard
Michael Stemper
>On Jul 10, 10:52=A0am, Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> I remember, in a publication that reprinted old science-fiction
>> stories from pulps of the thirties, a story about the "agathon" which
>> was apparently some kind of machine for keeping people immortal, or
>> killing them, so James Blish's error in Greek may have derived from
>> this or another earlier science-fiction story.
>
>Ah. This one was hard to Google up, but I managed.
>
>Fruits of the Agathon, by Charles L. Harness, which appeared as the
>cover story in Thrilling Wonder Stories for December, 1948; the hero,
>Frudian Toring, questions the infallibility of the machine that
>predicts death!
Was it a Toring machine, or was that just a Frudian slip?
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
The name of the story is "A Sound of Thunder".
It was written by Ray Bradbury. You're welcome.
Dorothy J Heydt
Quadibloc
> In article <01b034b1-6195-4154-898f-25cfdd5fa...@t21g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >On Jul 10, 10:52 am, Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >> On Jul 10, 10:38 am, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> >> > In article <KMKr0D....@kithrup.com>,
> >> > David Goldfarb <goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
> >> > >Well, you heard wrong then, no doubt influenced by your knowledge of
> >> > >James Blish's work. I actually went and checked the script before
> >> > >posting: Larry DiTillio wrote "antiagapic" with a p, and the actors
> >> > >followed his script.
>
> >> > Oimoi.
>
> >> I remember, in a publication that reprinted old science-fiction
> >> stories from pulps of the thirties, a story about the "agathon" which
> >> was apparently some kind of machine for keeping people immortal, or
> >> killing them, so James Blish's error in Greek may have derived from
> >> this or another earlier science-fiction story.
>
> >Ah. This one was hard to Google up, but I managed.
>
> >Fruits of the Agathon, by Charles L. Harness, which appeared as the
> >cover story in Thrilling Wonder Stories for December, 1948; the hero,
> >Frudian Toring, questions the infallibility of the machine that
> >predicts death!
>
> >So that could be where anti-agathic came from, changing the meaning of
> >Agatha from "good" to "death".
>
> Could be.
>
> It's still crummy Greek.
As I was able to confirm by going here:
http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Agatha
which, interestingly enough, also helps to date our favorite
Heterodyne.
John Savard
Dorothy J Heydt
Not very closely. Third century CE ... and that's merely a
_terminus ante quem,_ when a _terminus post quem_ would be
rather more informative.
Quadibloc
> In article <0b4eb6a1-ceb1-405b-9e49-cc5aad828...@n11g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >As I was able to confirm by going here:
>
> >http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Agatha
>
> >which, interestingly enough, also helps to date our favorite
> >Heterodyne.
>
> Not very closely. Third century CE ... and that's merely a
> _terminus ante quem,_ when a _terminus post quem_ would be
> rather more informative.
I was thinking of the graph that showed that the name was much more
popular in 1900 than recently.
John Savard
Robert Bannister
The problem is that names like Agatha and Agnes, which have beautiful
meanings and sound lovely in some languages, both sound so horrible in
English.
--
Rob Bannister
Mark Zenier
>
>>On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:51:33 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>>*Other than my particular pet peeve, which is that he called
>>>his immortality drug "antiagathic," which is Greek for
>>>"against the good." "Against Death" would have been
>>>"antithanatic." Which is, of course, not a science goof.
>
>>Linguistics is a science.
>
> And I'm still not convinced that Blish wasn't slipping a joke
>into things. Wasn't he the one who decided to dub his faster-than-light
>drive for one story the 'imaginary drive'? And had a bit in ``Common
>Time'' blessing those who snore?
And at the low comedy end of things, naming the nausea gas, in
_Cities in Flight_, "polybathroomfloorite" (or something like that).
Mark Zenier mze...@eskimo.com
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>And at the low comedy end of things, naming the nausea gas, in
>_Cities in Flight_, "polybathroomfloorite" (or something like that).
"Bathroomfloorine," punning on "fluorine."