Clipmarks | wildcat's 'life' clips

Live Longer: The One Anti-Aging Trick That Works

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:28:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Calorie restriction

While the quest for the proverbial Fountain of Youth is endless and typically fruitless, one method known to extend the human lifespan by up to five years has quietly become accepted among leading researchers.

The formula is simple: Eat less. It could add years to your life, several experts now say. And done in moderation, it could at least help you live a more healthy life.

The only question is: Will the average person do it?

While little short of a nip-and-tuck will make you look younger, calorie restriction, as it is called, is as close to a real Fountain of Youth as any known technique comes. Even scientists who are cautious about anti-aging hype say it works, both by cutting risks for some diseases and by allowing all body cells, somehow, to hang in there longer.

The numbers

Here's a rough rule of thumb that many experts generally agree on now: Eat 15 percent less starting at age 25 and you might add 4.5 years to your life

Tags: calorie restriction, diet, longevity

Build a synthetic lifeform

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:14:04 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: io9.com

Mad Science Contest: Build a Lifeform and We'll Send You to Hong Kong or Give You $1000

io9 wants to encourage mad scientists in every field, but especially in the area of synthetic biology. That's because synthetic biologists are the people who are going to build new life forms, like ligers and unicorns and people with claws and glowing eyes. OK, they might build bacteria that can clean up oil spills and repair damaged kidneys too. The point is, building new lifeforms is the science of the future and therefore you can never have too many garage laboratories and mad scientists devoted to it. That's why io9 is sponsoring a contest to find two of the best synthetic life forms you can design for us. The winners in our two categories will get either an all-expenses-paid trip to the kickass Synthetic Biology Conference in Hong Kong this October, or $1000 and a chance to have their creature drawn by a cool comic book artist. Find out more below.

Tags: science, building, life, synthetic

“What is Life?” Evolution of Robots is Causing Scientists to Question

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:04:36 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: “Robots are not human, but humans aren’t the only things that have emotions,” she said. “The question for robots is not, Will they ever have human emotions? Dogs don’t have human emotions, either, but we all agree they have genuine emotions. The question is, what are the emotions that are genuine for the robot?”

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

There is ongoing debate about what constitutes life. Synthetic bacteria for example, are created by man and yet also alive. Some go so far as to say that robot “emotions” may already have occurred—that current robots have not only displayed emotions, but in some ways have experienced them.

“We’re all machines,” says Rodney Brooks author of “Flesh and Machines,” and former director of M.I.T.’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, “Robots are made of different sorts of components than we are — we are made of biomaterials; they are silicon and steel — but in principle, even human emotions are mechanistic.” A robot’s level of a feeling like sadness could be set as a number in computer code, he said. But isn’t a human’s level of sadness basically a number, too, just a number of the amounts of various neurochemicals circulating in the brain? Why should a robot’s numbers be any less authentic than a human’s?

Tags: robotics, intelligence, life

Life on Mars: What's The Truth?

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:48:31 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.efluxmedia.com

A Tufts University chemist who heads the team interpreting data gathered by the Phoenix lander's wet-chemistry lab alleges that the Martian soil in the area where NASA's contraption landed "seems very friendly" to simple forms of life.

Scientists are almost sure there is ice underneath the Red Planet's surface, and they say they found a lot of minerals which are the building blocks of organic life. However, the high concentration of minerals is not good news.

Back in February, NASA announced that it is very less likely that life on the fourth planet of the Sun was ever possible. Scientists said at the time that the high concentration of minerals constitutes a harsh environment even for the toughest microbes. The conclusion regarding the possibility of life on Mars in an extremely salty environment came after scientists conducted a series of experiments by simulating the Martian conditions.

Tags: mars, life, colony

Is Ice a Catalyst for Life Throughout the Universe?

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:48:28 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The unusual properties of frozen water may have been the ticket that made life possible. Over the decades, several notable scientists have began to suspect that life on Earth did not evolve in a warm primordial soup, but in ice—at temperatures that few living things can now tolerate. The very laws of chemistry may have actually favored ice, says Jeffrey Bada, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. “We’ve been arguing for a long time,” he says, “that cold conditions make much more sense, chemically, than warm conditions.”

If Bada and others are correct, it would not only answer how life arose on our planet, but would dramatically change how we search for life in the Solar System and beyond. At that point, our chances of finding life elsewhere may be better than previously understood.

Tags: life, ice, water

Charles Stross Comes To Extropia!

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:31:43 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: to all those that read and enjoyed "accelerando" (available online- see article)

Clip Source: core.extropiacore.net

Award-winning novelist Charles Stross will be our guest at Sophrosyne's Special Salon, Saturday, June 21, from 1-2:30 pm SLT, in the Salon Room, Central Nexus at Extropia Core, Second Life (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Extropia%20Core/128/124/22).

(New to Second Life? With the Second Life client installed, and an account set up, click on the link above to teleport to the lobby of our conference facilities)

Charlie will discuss the Singluarity in fiction, cutting-edge technologies, his Hugo-Award finalist novel Halting State, about virtual worlds and augmented reality, and his upcoming novel Saturn's Children.

Tags: charles stross, second life

Books That Changed My Life

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:12:54 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: What's your list of Books That Changed Your Life?

Clip Source: www.kk.org

Books still have the power to change lives. Which ones have changed yours?

I don't mean merely great books, or memorable ones, or favorite ones. I mean books that altered your behavior, changed your mind, redirected the course of your life. Books as levers.

Childhood's End -- For a kid growing up without TV in the boring enclaves of suburbia in the 50s and early 60s, science fiction opened up my universe. I devoured any and all science fiction our public library contained. Arthur C. Clarke's stories in particular birthed a life-long interest in science, and a deep respect for the power of imagination. This story of a singularity always stuck with me as something to prepare for. (Available from Amazon)

Whole Earth Catalog --

The Fountainhead -

Leaves of Grass --

My Experiments with Truth

The Bible --

Godel, Escher, Bach

The Ultimate Resource -

Finite and Infinite GamesÂ

What's your list of Books That Changed Your Life?

Tags: books, life changing

The Galactic Internet

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:24:32 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: superconcepts.blogspot.com

We all know how the internet has changed our lives. It's not souly because of the information it can fill our minds with, but because of the applications that it brings us. We can go shopping, check flights, make money, network with people, form movements, archive entertainment, connect businesses, and lots more.

There's no knowing where the internet will take us in the next 10-20 years. What if, we were to look far further into the future?

This century we are closer than we have ever been to discovering alien life. If it exists, we may well discover it in the next few decades. Far more significant however, will be the discovery of intelligent life. The implications of discovering an extra terrestrial concious life form are immense. It will shake the entire foundations of our society. It will give us new perspectives on both the problems and pleasures of human life.

Tags: internet, alien, life, intelligent

Put a Little Science in Your Life

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:56:10 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Allow me a moment to explain.

But here’s the thing. The reason science really matters runs deeper still. Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that’s precise, predictive and reliable — a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional. To be able to think through and grasp explanations — for everything from why the sky is blue to how life formed on earth — not because they are declared dogma but rather because they reveal patterns confirmed by experiment and observation, is one of the most precious of human experiences.

As a practicing scientist, I know this from my own work and study. But I also know that you don’t have to be a scientist for science to be transformative. I’ve seen children’s eyes light up as I’ve told them about black holes and the Big Bang

Tags: science, way of life

FLOW: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE

Mon, 26 May 2008 21:16:10 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Steps Toward Enhancing the Quality of Life)

Mihaly Csiksczentmihalyi

Clip Source: web.ionsys.com

One must particularly achieve control over instinctive drives to achieve a healthy independence of society, for as long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends.

The knowledge - or wisdom - one needs for emancipating consciousness is not cumulative. It is not a cognitive skill and as well as intelligence requires commitment of emotions and will. It is not enough to know how to do it, one must do it consistently and it is a painfully slow process to modify our own habits and desires.

Eight Components of Enjoyment

Confronting tasks that we have a chance of completing.

2. Concentration.

Concentration is possible because the task has clear goals.

4. Task provides immediate feedback.

A deep, effortless involvement removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life.

Enjoyable experiences allow one to exercise a sense of control over one’s actions.

Tags: life, quality, steps

Sun's properties not 'fine-tuned' for life

Fri, 23 May 2008 21:26:46 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: space.newscientist.com

There's nothing special about the Sun that makes it more likely than other stars to host life, a new study shows. The finding adds weight to the idea that alien life should be common throughout the universe.

"The Sun's properties are consistent with it being pulled out at random from the bag of all stars," says Charles Lineweaver from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. "Life does not seem to require anything special in its host star, other than it be close."

Some previous studies of the Sun's vital statistics have concluded that it is unusual among stars, for instance, by having a higher mass than average. Such atypical properties might somehow help explain why the Sun seems to be unique, as far as we know, in having an inhabited planet.

Mistaken conclusion

"You can mistakenly come to the conclusion that the Sun is 'special'," Lineweaver told New Scientist.

Tags: sun, life, aliens

Is life a gift?

Thu, 15 May 2008 20:55:30 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: ieet.org

Mike LaTorra

Ethical Technology

Harvard’s Michael Sandel argues in his book The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering that life is a gift and that we should accept the unbidden nature of this gift, working toward acceptance and solidarity with others rather than seeking unbridled mastery over human biology. But is life properly viewed as a gift?

The claim that life is a gift automatically entails a responsibility on the part of the recipient of that gift to respond with gratitude and without taking issue with the precise attributes and characteristics of what has been given and received. One is supposed to live by the aphorism “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” (or you might see a lot of rotten teeth). So to accept Sandel’s premise that life is a gift is also to accept that one is obliged to respond in a certain way and without closely scrutinizing the actual conditions of what has been received.

But is life a gift at all?

Tags: ethics, technology

Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:43:31 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: so if you needed permission, now you've got it

Clip Source: physorg.com

(AP) -- Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."

In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.

Tags: vatican, aliens, permission, religion

What Happens When the art IS life?

Sat, 10 May 2008 10:53:04 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: quite incredible

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Bio Art: Life Imitates Art. But What Happens When the art IS life?

Well, then the bio-art starts growing out of control and has to be killed by a lone hero. Obviously. That might sound like the script of "Little Shop Of Horrors: The Revenge", but it actually happened in New York this month.

The organic art in question was the piece "Victimless Leather", a tiny jacket grown from mice embryonic stem cells and kept alive by an external life-support system. Yes, you read that right. Artists, working with the SymbioticA research laboratory in the University of Western Australia, grew living tissue into the shape of a tiny leather jacket and cyborged it up with electrical parts. Presumably to give Tom Thumb either a stylish biodegradable look or nightmares for life.

The mini-flesh-threads were designed to raise questions about human use of animals, and it certainly did - even if only by adding the questions "What the hell are they doing with that jacket?"

Is that terrible or awesome?"

Tags: life, art, biotech

Real-Life Droid 'By End of the Year'

Mon, 05 May 2008 09:52:35 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Real-Life Droid Army of Robotic Spiders to Be Deployed 'By End of the Year'

In another creepy case of life mimicking fiction, BAE Systems is creating an army of robotic spiders that they will be selling to the US Army to use in warfare. The development is causing some worry over whether some of the frightening scenes in the sci-fi flick Minority Report were a fairly accurate representation of the future.

In the movie, Tom Cruise is chased by an army of government deployed robotic spider spies attempting to hunt him down. Although Hollywood intended it as science fiction, the US military says they are dropping the fiction part of the equation.

Dr. Joseph Mait of the US Army Research Lab explains, “Robotic platforms extend the warfighter's senses and reach, providing operational capabilities that would otherwise be costly, impossible, or deadly to achieve."

Eventually we hope to have animals flying and slithering.

Tags: robotics, soon, here