01.31.09

The Army’s Remote-Controlled Beetle

Posted in biotech, Future, Technology, Transhumanism at 12:54 pm by rheil

The Army’s Remote-Controlled Beetle (Technology Review, anuary 29, 2009)

The insect’s flight path can be wirelessly controlled via a neural implant.

By Emily Singer

„A giant flower beetle with implanted electrodes and a radio receiver on its back can be wirelessly controlled, according to research presented this week. Scientists at the University of California developed a tiny rig that receives control signals from a nearby computer. Electrical signals delivered via the electrodes command the insect to take off, turn left or right, or hover in midflight. The research, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), could one day be used for surveillance purposes or for search-and-rescue missions.“ [read original article]

01.28.09

Wachsende Zweifel am Wert von persönlichen Genanalysen

Posted in biotech, Deutschsprachige Seiten, Evolution / Genetics, Technology at 6:58 am by rheil

Wachsende Zweifel am Wert von persönlichen Genanalysen (heisenews, 27.01.09)

„Genomanalysen werden immer schneller und billiger: 2013 soll ein Sequenzierer auf den Markt kommen, der ein komplettes Genom in 15 Minuten entziffert – für weniger als 1000 Dollar. Doch die Datenflut sagt wenig aus“ [zum Originalartikel]

01.20.09

Stem cell stroke therapy assessed

Posted in biotech, Ethics, Future, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:20 am by rheil

Stem cell stroke therapy assessed (Pallab Ghosh, BBC News, 18.01.09)

A Glasgow team is to launch a major trial to assess whether stem cells can be used to treat stroke patients, the BBC has learned.

They hope it will put the UK at the forefront of developing stem cell therapy for incurable disease. Cells made from a human foetus will be injected into patients’ brains.It is hoped the cells will regenerate areas damaged by stroke, and increase patients’ movements and mental abilities.

However, the idea has in the past been described by anti-abortion groups as a “sick proposal”.[read original article]

Injektion von embryonalen Stammzellen in das Gehirn von Schlaganfallpatienten

Posted in biotech, Deutschsprachige Seiten, Evolution / Genetics, Future, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:16 am by rheil

Injektion von embryonalen Stammzellen in das Gehirn von Schlaganfallpatienten - In Großbritannen wurde der erste klinische Versuch genehmigt. (Florian Rötzer, Telepolis, 20.01.09)

„In Großbritannien könnte die Stammzellforschung einen Schritt weiter kommen. Genehmigt wurde von der Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency erstmals ein klinischer Versuch, bei dem vier Gruppen von jeweils drei Schlaganfallpatienten mit Hirnschädigungen über zwei Jahre embryonale Stammzellen injiziert werden.“ [zum Originalartikel]

01.15.09

My Genome, My Self

Posted in biotech, Ethics, Human Enhancement, Nootropics, Transhumanism at 7:48 am by rheil

My Genome, My Self (Steven Pinker, New York Times, Published: January 7, 2009)

„ONE OF THE PERKS of being a psychologist is access to tools that allow you to carry out the injunction to know thyself. I have been tested for vocational interest (closest match: psychologist), intelligence (above average), personality (open, conscientious, agreeable, average in extraversion, not too neurotic) and political orientation (neither leftist nor rightist, more libertarian than authoritarian). I have M.R.I. pictures of my brain (no obvious holes or bulges) and soon will undergo the ultimate test of marital love: my brain will be scanned while my wife’s name is subliminally flashed before my eyes. [...]“ [read original article]

The diversification of consumer genomics

Posted in biotech, Evolution / Genetics, Technology at 7:43 am by rheil

The diversification of consumer genomics

01.04.09

Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience

Posted in biotech, Neuro, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:32 am by rheil

Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience (Edward Vul, Christine Harris, Piotr Winkielman, Harold Pashler)

„The newly emerging field of Social Neuroscience has drawn much attention in recent years, with high-profile studies frequently reporting extremely high (e.g., >.8) correlations between behavioral and self-report measures of personality or emotion and measures of brain activation obtained using fMRI. We show that these correlations often exceed what is statistically possible assuming the (evidently rather limited) reliability of both fMRI and personality/emotion measures. The implausibly high correlations are all the more puzzling because social-neuroscience method sections rarely contain sufficient detail to ascertain how these correlations were obtained. We surveyed authors of 54 articles that reported findings of this kind to determine the details of their analyses. More than half acknowledged using a strategy that computes separate correlations for individual voxels, and reports means of just the subset of voxels exceeding chosen thresholds. We show how this non-independent analysis grossly inflates correlations, while yielding reassuring-looking scattergrams. This analysis technique was used to obtain the vast majority of the implausibly high correlations in our survey sample. In addition, we argue that other analysis problems likely created entirely spurious correlations in some cases. We outline how the data from these studies could be reanalyzed with unbiased methods to provide the field with accurate estimates of the correlations in question. We urge authors to perform such reanalyses and to correct the scientific record. [...]

Voodoo-Korrelationen in den Neurowissenschaften?

Posted in biotech, Deutschsprachige Seiten, Human Enhancement, Neuro, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:24 am by rheil

Voodoo-Korrelationen in den Neurowissenschaften? (Jörg Auf dem Hövel, Telepolis, 03.01.09)

Eine Forschergruppe zweifelt die diversen Studien an, die starke Zusammenhänge zwischen menschlichen Verhalten und Aktivitätsmustern im Gehirn nachgewiesen haben wollen

„Seit einigen Jahren ist es möglich, dem Menschen mittels bildgebender Verfahren quasi beim Denken zuzusehen. Es entstand das Feld der sozialen Neurowissenschaften: Wissenschaftler bringen sichtbare Vorgänge im Gehirn in Zusammenhang mit Verhalten, Entscheidungen und Emotionen. Eine Forschergruppe um Edward Vul vom MIT und Harold Pashler von der Universität von Kalifornien in San Diego hat nun 54 der wichtigsten solcher Studien aus den vergangenen Jahren untersucht und behauptet in einem Aufsatz für die Perspectives on Psychological Science, der vorab online veröffentlicht wurde: Eine Vielzahl dieser Leitstudien beinhaltet statistisch unmögliche oder falsche Korrelationen, die Autoren sollten nachbessern. [...]

Freigabe von “smart drugs” für Schüler und Studenten?

Posted in biotech, Deutschsprachige Seiten, Human Enhancement, Neuro, Nootropics, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:19 am by rheil

Freigabe von “smart drugs” für Schüler und Studenten? (Florain Rötzer, Telepolis, 03.01.09)

„Es gebe genügend Beweise, dass Medikamente wie Ritalin oder Provigil Konzentration und Leistung verbessern können, sagt der Bioethiker Harris. [...]

Let students take drugs to boost brainpower, says leading academic

Posted in biotech, Human Enhancement, Neuro, Nootropics, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:14 am by rheil

Alexandra Frean, Education Editor, from Times Online, January 1, 2009

Let students take drugs to boost brainpower, says leading academic

„Students should be allowed to take “smart drugs”, such as Ritalin, to help boost their academic performance, a leading academic has suggested.

John Harris, professor of bioethics and director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, said the government and medical profession should “seriously consider” making cognition-enhancing drugs available to students without prescription, or allowing them to be prescribed for non-therapeutic purposes, such as studying. [...]

01.01.09

Researchers’ vision: restoring sight through artificial retinas

Posted in biotech, Future, Human Enhancement, Neuro, Technology, Transhumanism at 6:59 am by rheil

Researchers’ vision: restoring sight through artificial retinas

December 30th, 2008 By Robert S. Boyd in Technology / Engineering (PhysOrg.com)

„Scientists are testing artificial retinas that they hope can restore partial sight to people who’ve lost their vision to the most common causes of blindness. [...]

Cognitive enhancement

Posted in biotech, Critics, Human Enhancement, Neuro, Nootropics, Technology, Transhumanism at 6:55 am by rheil

Cognitive enhancement

By Judith Warner (Herald Tribune), Published: December 30, 2008

„What if you could just take a pill and all of a sudden remember to pay your bills on time? What if, thanks to modern neuroscience, you could, simultaneously, make New Year’s Eve plans, pay the mortgage, call the pediatrician, consolidate credit card debt and do your job – well – without forgetting dentist appointments or neglecting to pick up your children at school?

Would you do it? Tune out the distractions of our online, on-call, too-fast ADD-ogenic world with focus and memory-enhancing medications like Ritalin or Adderall? Stay sharp as a knife – no matter how overworked and sleep-deprived – with a mental-alertness-boosting drug like the anti-narcolepsy medication Provigil?

I’ve always said no. Fantasy aside, I’ve always rejected the idea of using drugs meant for people with real neurological disorders to treat the pathologies of everyday life. [...]

12.21.08

Call for papers: Transhumanism? (Re-Public)

Posted in biotech, Evolution / Genetics, Future, Human Enhancement, Nanotechnology, Neuro, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:45 am by rheil

Call for papers: Transhumanism? (Re-Public)

We invite contributions for our upcoming special issue entitled “Transhumanism?”. Is there a new challenge about to dominate our world? A challenge that appears more pressing than the fight against climate change, as demanding as the one against poverty, more complex than our current questions around bioethics.

Are we in a position to redefine, to drastically transform our very human nature?

This is a question formed in the last 20 years by an international movement, deriving from a scientific current, advocating that if the human is a result of an evolution process of millions of years time, nothing rationally preempts its conclusion. On the contrary, transhumanism proposes that the convergence of nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information and cognitive sciences provide us with a new opportunity, as well as, the responsibility to collectively participate and assume this evolution: it is, more than ever, possible to “form a better humanity” meaning better health for individuals, longer life expectancy, a more effective control of themselves, through enhanced skills, capacities and capabilities.

The special issue will attempt to investigate the influence of transhumanism and the new questions that its poses. […]

12.19.08

The Future of Man–How Will Evolution Change Humans?

Posted in biotech, Evolution / Genetics, Future, Human Enhancement, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:16 am by rheil

The Future of Man – How Will Evolution Change Humans? By Peter Ward (Scientific American)

Contrary to popular belief, humans continue to evolve. Our bodies and brains are not the same as our ancestors’ were—or as our descendants’ will be

People commonly assume that our species has evolved very little since prehistoric times. Yet new studies using genetic information from populations around the globe suggest that the pace of human evolution increased with the advent of agriculture and cities.

If we are still evolving, what might our species look like in a millennium should we survive whatever environ­mental and social surprises are in store for us? Specu­la­tion ranges from the hopeful to the dystopian. [...]

12.18.08

Better than human

Posted in biotech, Critics, Human Enhancement, Neuro, Nootropics, Technology, Transhumanism at 9:38 am by rheil

Better than human – Why is the world’s most prestigious science journal peddling the snake oil of cognition-enhancing drugs? (Michael Cook, Mercator Net)

Publication in the British journal Nature is the acme of academic achievement, a byword for quality and the touchstone of scientific opinion. So when its editor co-authors an article putting the case for a technology which has been called the world’s most dangerous idea, you’ve got to ask: what have these dudes been smoking? […]

12.07.08

Never Say Die Step aside, quacks. The search for longer life is a real science now.

Posted in Anti-Aging, biotech, Human Enhancement, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:46 am by rheil

Never Say Die -Step aside, quacks. The search for longer life is a real science now.

By Anne Underwood | NEWSWEEK, Published Dec 6, 2008, From the magazine issue dated Dec 15, 2008

By the time it reaches the age of 18 days, the average roundworm is old, flabby, sluggish and wrinkled. By 20 days, the creature will likely be dead—unless, that is, it’s one of Cynthia Kenyon’s worms. Kenyon, director of the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging at the University of California, San Francisco, has tinkered with two genes that turn simple worms into mini-Methuselahs, with life spans of up to 144 days. “You can beat them up in ways that would kill a normal worm—exposing them to high heat, radiation and infectious microbes—and still they don’t die,” she says. “Instead, they’re moving and looking like young worms. It’s like a miracle—except it’s science.” [...]

11.22.08

Telomerase verlängert das Leben

Posted in Anti-Aging, biotech, Deutschsprachige Seiten, Evolution / Genetics, Human Enhancement, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:15 am by rheil

Telomerase verlängert das Leben

Florian Rötzer 21.11.2008 (Telepolis)

Spanische Wissenschaftler konnten an krebsresistenten transgenen Mäusen zeigen, dass diese eine bis zu 50 Prozent längere Lebenszeit haben, wenn das mit Telomerase verbundene Krebsrisiko unterdrückt werden kann

Wissenschaftler haben nicht nur Supermäuse geschaffen, die wesentlich leistungsfähiger sind ([local] Genveränderte Supermäuse) sie haben nun auch gentechnisch veränderte Mäuse entwickelt, die krebsresistent sind und weitaus langsamer als gewöhnliche Mäuse altern. Würden Menschen ebenso verändert werden, dann könnten sie mit einer [extern] durchschnittlichen Lebenszeit von 120 Jahren rechnen. [...]

11.21.08

Flux Magazine

Posted in biotech, Ethics, Future, Human Enhancement, Nanotechnology, Neuro, Nootropics, Online Publications, Technology, Transhumanism at 12:49 pm by rheil

Flux Magazine

Flux will give you a taste of the torrent of new technological developments advancing on us: from the energy issue to human enhancement, from information technology to nanotechnology. This magazine is compiled on the occasion of the conference ‘Inspiring Future Politics’ to be held by the EPTA (European Parliamentary Technology Assessment) on Monday 27 October and Tuesday 28 October in The Hague, the Netherlands. The keynote speakers at this conference – chemist Michael Braungart, toxicologist Ellen Silbergeld, sociologist Nikolas Rose and climate expert Pier Vellinga – are interviewed in Flux. No one is more aware of the shifts taking place in our society. They have, furthermore, succeeded in formulating these issues aptly and getting them on to the (political) agenda. More information about the conference is available at www.eptaconference.eu. Because we want you to share in the speakers’ stories and the conference themes, you’ll find inspiring interviews, background stories and columns in ‘Flux’. […]

11.19.08

The medical miracle / Ärzte retten Patientin mit gezüchteter Luftröhre

Posted in biotech, Deutschsprachige Seiten, Technology, Transhumanism at 7:09 am by rheil

The medical miracle

Mother-of-two becomes first transplant patient to receive an organ grown to order in a laboratory

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor (The Independent)

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

A 30-year-old Spanish woman has made medical history by becoming the first patient to receive a whole organ transplant grown using her own cells.

Experts said the development opened a new era in surgery in which the repair of worn-out body parts would be carried out with personally customised replacements.

Claudia Castillo, who lives in Barcelona, underwent the operation to replace her windpipe after tuberculosis had left her with a collapsed lung and unable to breathe. [...]

Ärzte retten Patientin mit gezüchteter Luftröhre (spiegelonline)

Ein internationales Ärzteteam hat mit einer neuartigen Technik einer jungen Mutter das Leben gerettet. Die Mediziner züchteten ein Luftröhren-Implantat aus Stammzellen, die sie aus dem Rückenmark der Patientin gewonnen hatten, und setzten es der Frau ein. [...]

10.18.08

h+ transhumanist magazine launched

Posted in AI / Singularity, Anti-Aging, biotech, Cryonic, Evolution / Genetics, Human Enhancement, Nanotechnology, Neuro, Nootropics, Online Publications, Technology, Transhumanism at 11:08 am by rheil

h+ transhumanist magazine launched

Humanity Plus (formerly the World Transhumanist Association) has launched h+, a stylish, web-based quarterly magazine that focuses on transhumanism, covering the scientific, technological, and cultural developments that are challenging and overcoming human limitations.

Edited by the legendary RU Sirius, co-founder and editor of the seminal Mondo 2000 magazine, and beautifully designed by virtual worlds artist D.C. Spensley, the magazine’s first issue features cutting-edge ideas and interviews with leaders in longevity, neuroengineering, nanofabrication, open-source robotics, science fiction, and other breakthrough areas. [...]

10.13.08

Lebensmittel von geklonten Tieren? Nein, danke!

Posted in biotech, Deutschsprachige Seiten, Technology, Transhumanism at 6:22 am by rheil

Lebensmittel von geklonten Tieren? Nein, danke!

Florian Rötzer 12.10.2008 (Telepolis)

Europäer lehnen in der Mehrzahl der Klonen von Tieren für Lebensmittelprodukte ab und sehen für die Verbraucher keine Vorteile

Die Europäer wissen in aller Regel in etwa, was Klonen ist, nämlich die Herstellung “einer identischen Kopie eines bereits vorhandenen Lebewesens”. Das aber macht ihnen Fleisch und Milch von geklonten Tieren zum Verzehr nicht schmackhaft. Daher lehnen nach einer aktuellen [http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1478&format=HTML&aged=0&language=DE&guiLanguage=en Eurobarometer-Umfrage] 58 Prozent der EU-Bürger das Klonen von Tieren zur Herstellung von Lebensmitteln grundsätzlich ab, 28 Prozent würden es unter bestimmten Einschränkungen zulassen, gerade einmal 9 Prozent sprechen sich dafür aus. [...]

USA: Lebensmittel und Medikamente von genveränderten Tieren bald auf dem Markt

Posted in biotech, Deutschsprachige Seiten, Technology, Transhumanism at 6:18 am by rheil

USA: Lebensmittel und Medikamente von genveränderten Tieren bald auf dem Markt

Florian Rötzer 08.10.2008 (telepolis)

Nachdem geklonten Tieren Unbedenklichkeit bescheinigt wurde, hat nun die zuständige US-Behörde FDA Richtlinien für die Zulassung von Produkten genveränderter Tiere ausgearbeitet

In den USA wurden bereits Produkte von geklonten Tieren von der zuständigen [extern] Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Anfang des Jahres für den menschlichen Verzehr als unbedenklich [extern] zugelassen. Milch oder Fleisch und daraus hergestellte Produkte müssen auch nicht gekennzeichnet werden. Geklonte Tieren seien praktisch in jeder Hinsicht mit herkömmlich gezüchteten Tieren identisch, weil ihre Gene nicht verändert wurden. Jetzt muss die FDA entscheiden, wie sie Lebensmittel beurteilt, die von genveränderten Tieren stammen. [...]

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