CryoNet #32861 - #32865

CryoNet - Sat 25 Sep 2010

    #32861: Re: CryoNet #32857 - #32860 [Gerald Monroe]
    #32862: Uploading [Eivind Berge]
    #32863: mix-ups [Ettinger]
    #32864: Electrolyzed-reduced water for cryopreservation? [oberon]
    #32865: Researchers engineer adult stem cells that do not age [Jonano]

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Message #32861
References: <[email protected]>
From: Gerald Monroe <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 04:37:24 -0500
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32857 - #32860

--0016e64bba347dfebe0490fe21b0

One comment on the debate over uploading.  I agree entirely with Keith's
premise that a person could be uploaded in a smooth and reversible manner
and thus it's philosophically impractical to say the uploaded personality is
not the same being.  However, Keith's comment "it's only a slight upgrade of
what's needed to get you back from the frozen state" brings to mind other
consequences.  One complication of philosophical discussions of cryonics is
that if one has the technology to rebuild a person from scanning their
frozen remains, one could readily make multiple copies of that person.  If,
in the future, a particular copy were killed, the other instances of that
person would continue.  The problem with copies is twofold : how do you know
if you're the original and what good does a copy do if "you" are the
instance who is killed.  However, again, technology has a solution to this.
 With another upgrade of the original nanotechnology needed to bring back
the frozen dead one could build systems that would allow you to synchronize
multiple instances of a person.   The human brain uses a system of memory
consolidation that could be hijacked so that once a day during sleep, or in
near realtime, one could be synchronized with the long term memories of the
other instances of yourself.

The ability to synchronize would let you solve other problems, such as
possible future overpopulation.  You could merge together excess instances
of a personality this way, or possibly merge different human individuals
together as well, with minimal loss of information.

So, who's working on the molecular manufacturing needed to get this ball
rolling?  If it's not possible to develop molecular manufacturing with the
current state of technology, what industry is working on a commercial
product that is closest?  I was thinking that the companies making DNA
sequencing and editing equipment might be the closest.

One final comment : death is a relative thing.  There's roughly 100 billion
neurons in the brain, and an average of 7000 synapses per neuron.  Assuming
you'd need 256 digital bits to represent accurately the state and position
of each synapse (just a WAG, but it's a decent amount of precision) then a
brain is about 25,000 petabytes of data.  All lost to this world upon death
as we know it today.  Think about the ways that humans have tried to
preserve something of themselves in the past : through reproduction (each
offspring is a couple gigabytes of DNA information), through writings (could
fit a an author's lifetime works in a couple hundred megs), through art,
etc.  None of it comes within orders of magnitude of the complexity of a
living human's personality and memories.

If cryonics works, and you awaken to discover yourself running on a computer
a million times faster than your brain ever was, with all of your memories
faithfully recovered and present, do you really have much to complain about?

--0016e64bba347dfebe0490fe21b0

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Message #32862
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:23:12 +0200
Subject: Uploading
From: Eivind Berge <[email protected]>

Uploading never particularly appealed to me, but after reading Mark
Gubrud's article "Why Transhumanism Won't Work" and the comments, I am
actually more inclined to believe it might work after all as survival
(but I still wouldn't want it except as a last resort). Gubrud
apparently fails to understand some very basic philosophical concepts,
so it's hard to take him seriously. I had to read the comments to
appreciate how bad his piece really is, and Gubrud doesn't do a good
job defending it, either. Max More pointed out he can't tell dualism
from functionalism, for one thing, and I especially liked the comments
of Philippe Verdoux, who wrote a detailed response:

Why "Why Transhumanism Won't Work" Won't Work

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/verdoux20100624/

I don't know much philosophy either, but then I don't make bombastic
claims about it. If Gubrud's piece is the best anyone can do to argue
against uploading, it seems to me the matter is no closer to being
settled.

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Message #32863
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 12:43:42 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: mix-ups

Keith Henson and others have advanced a pro-uploading argument essentially  
the same as my thought experiment # 20 from 1962--reversible replacement of 
 brain components by artificial equivalent ones. 
 
But my arguments against the likelihood of uploading refer to a different  
question--whether creation or recreation of consciousness is possible using 
a  digital algorithmic computer, essentially the same as those in use today 
or like  the Turing paper tape machine. The fact that today's computers, let 
alone a  paper tape machine, would be exceedingly slow, has no bearing on 
the issue. The  pro-uploading argument depends on the sufficiency of 
isomorphic similarity,  and that isomorphism does not depend on speed.
 
Robert Ettinger

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Message #32864
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 11:10:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: [email protected]
Subject: Electrolyzed-reduced water for cryopreservation?

As far as I am aware, electrolyzed-reduced water has never been tested in either transplantation, or cryopreservation fluids. Could this reduce cryoprotectant toxicity?

Biomed Res. 2009 Oct;30(5):263-9.
Electrolyzed-reduced water inhibits acute ethanol-induced hangovers in Sprague-Dawley rats.
Park SK, Qi XF, Song SB, Kim DH, Teng YC, Yoon YS, Kim KY, Li JH, Jin D, Lee KJ. Department of Environmental Medical Biology, Wonju College of Medicine, Yonsei University, Wonju, Gangwon, Republic of Korea.
Abstract
    Ethanol consumption disturbs the balance between the pro- and anti-oxidant systems of the organism, leading to oxidative stress. Electrolyzed-reduced water (ERW) is widely used by people in East Asia for drinking purposes because of its therapeutic properties including scavenging effect of reactive oxygen species. This study was performed to investigate the effect of ERW on acute ethanol-induced hangovers in Sprague-Dawley rats. Alcohol concentration in serum of ERW-treated rats showed significant difference at 1 h, 3 h and 5 h respectively as compared with the rats treated with distilled water. Both alcohol dehydrogenase type 1 and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase related with oxidation of alcohol were significantly increased in liver tissue while the level of aspartate aminotransferase and
  alanine aminotransferase in serum was markedly decreased 24 h after pre-oral administration of ERW. Moreover, oral administration of ERW significantly activated non-ezymatic (glutathione) a
 nd enzymatic (glutathione peroxidase, glutathione-S-transferase, Cu/Zn-superoxide dismutase and catalase) antioxidants in liver tissues compared with the control group. These results suggest that drinking ERW has an effect of alcohol detoxification by antioxidant mechanism and has potentiality for relief of ethanol-induced hangover symptoms.
PMID: 19887722
Free text>
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/biomedres/30/5/263/_pdf

Biol Pharm Bull. 2007 Feb;30(2):234-6.
Preservative effect of electrolyzed reduced water on pancreatic beta-cell mass in diabetic db/db mice.
Kim MJ, Jung KH, Uhm YK, Leem KH, Kim HK. Department of Obesity Management, Graduate School of Obesity Science, Dongduk Women's University, Seoul, South Korea.
Abstract
    Oxidative stress is produced under diabetic conditions and involved in progression of pancreatic beta-cell dysfunction. Both an increase in reactive oxygen free radical species (ROS) and a decrease in the antioxidant defense mechanism lead to the increase in oxidative stress in diabetes. Electrolyzed reduced water (ERW) with ROS scavenging ability may have a potential effect on diabetic animals, a model for high oxidative stress. Therefore, the present study examined the possible anti-diabetic effect of ERW in genetically diabetic mouse strain C57BL/6J-db/db (db/db). ERW with ROS scavenging ability reduced the blood glucose concentration, increased blood insulin level, improved glucose tolerance and preserved beta-cell mass in db/db mice. The present data suggest that ERW may protects 
 beta-cell damage and would be useful for antidiabetic agent.
PMID: 17268057
Free text>
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bpb/30/2/234/_pdf

Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1997 May 8;234(1):269-74.
Electrolyzed-reduced water scavenges active oxygen species and protects DNA from oxidative damage.
Shirahata S, Kabayama S, Nakano M, Miura T, Kusumoto K, Gotoh M, Hayashi H, Otsubo K, Morisawa S, Katakura Y. Institute of Cellular Regulation Technology, Graduate School of Genetic Resources Technology, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Abstract
    Active oxygen species or free radicals are considered to cause extensive oxidative damage to biological macromolecules, which brings about a variety of diseases as well as aging. The ideal scavenger for active oxygen should be 'active hydrogen'. 'Active hydrogen' can be produced in reduced water near the cathode during electrolysis of water. Reduced water exhibits high pH, low dissolved oxygen (DO), extremely high dissolved molecular hydrogen (DH), and extremely negative redox potential (RP) values. Strongly electrolyzed-reduced water, as well as ascorbic acid, (+)-catechin and tannic acid, completely scavenged O.-2 produced by the hypoxanthine-xanthine oxidase (HX-XOD) system in sodium phosphate buffer (pH 7.0). The superoxide dismutase (SOD)-like activity of reduced water is stable a
 t 4 degrees C for over a month and was not lost even after neutralization, repeated freezing and melting, deflation with sonication, vigorous mixing, boiling, repeated filtration, or closed 
 autoclaving, but was lost by opened autoclaving or by closed autoclaving in the presence of tungsten trioxide which efficiently adsorbs active atomic hydrogen. Water bubbled with hydrogen gas exhibited low DO, extremely high DH and extremely low RP values, as does reduced water, but it has no SOD-like activity. These results suggest that the SOD-like activity of reduced water is not due to the dissolved molecular hydrogen but due to the dissolved atomic hydrogen (active hydrogen). Although SOD accumulated H2O2 when added to the HX-XOD system, reduced water decreased the amount of H2O2 produced by XOD. Reduced water, as well as catalase and ascorbic acid, could directly scavenge H2O2. Reduce water suppresses single-strand breakage of DNA b active oxygen species produced by the Cu(II)-catal
 yzed oxidation of ascorbic acid in a dose-dependent manner, suggesting that reduced water can scavenge not only O2.- and H2O2, but also 1O2 and .OH.
PMID: 9169001

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Message #32865
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 22:21:02 +0200
Subject: Researchers engineer adult stem cells that do not age
From: Jonano <[email protected]>

Researchers engineer adult stem cells that do not age

http://www.physorg.com/news204389634.html

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