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Which medical models are you referring to? I know of no computer model designed to predict how long a person will live. Or did you just get confused by the meaning of the word model?

First of all, "computer" is extraneous to modeling. Newton was modeling objects in motion as point masses quite a while back.
Second of all, all science is modeling.
Third of all, what world do you occupy? Or are you posting from the past? Start here: http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/c... and work your way down. http://dmm.biologists.org/ http://idmod.org/ http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm... http://www.intellectualventure... and keep going.

The importance of feeling stupid: http://jcs.biologists.org/cont...

From the summary, it seems they're specifically looking at the decline in mitochondrial function that accompanies aging. There's already known to be such a relationship, and the study linked here is claiming that increasing the levels of something claimed NAD+ in the muscular tissue of mice appears to reverse the decline in mitochondrial function.

Again with the "we don't understand" argument.

Isn't that the point of simulating complex systems? To gain understanding of them? Or are you suggesting that we only simulate systems that are well understood, not to understand them, but just for the fuck of it?

Why do we need theories to deal with that level of complexity? Do the laws of physics break down when there's a lot of particles to simulate? How is this not simply an issue of scaling up computing infrastructure to support simulations of larger data sets?

if you think we know essentially nothing about most of the cells in the brain, I find it odd that IBM has been simulating everything from neocortical columns to cat brains in-house. Perhaps you should drop them a line explaining to them that they don't know what they're doing.

Regarding "experimental data", I don't understand why we'd need anything more than an accurate map of the brain's structure, and an understanding of the laws of physics that govern the interaction between the brain's constituent particles. Perhaps you can explain to me why the laws of physics don't apply to the human brain?

Why base simulations on experimental data? Wouldn't it be easier to simply map the structure of these glial cells (say, using an atomic force microscope), and then run a simply physics simulation on that collection of atoms?

Isn't the whole point of this project to use simulations instead of experimental data, due to the ethical concerns that stand in the way of getting sufficient experimental data?

Well we've seen these sudden collapses in the past (aka mass extinctions) and it wasn't just microscale life that survived. Dinosaurs as they existed ceased to exist, but their offspring (birds) kept on going.

I don't know whether or not our population (as a single species, vs dinosaurs which were many species) is larger than theirs, but I suspect it is. However we've already adapted to the most horrid conditions. Indigenous people in the Andes mountains compared to most populations are shorter, have a higher lung capacity, and thicker skin, which enables them to comfortably walk around barefoot in biting cold with 66% of the oxygen of sea level. These adaptations are known to have come within a single generation.

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/204/18/3151.full.pdf

That just shows that even without our technology, we've been able to make these adaptations pretty quickly. With as relatively frail as we view ourselves, we're rather resilient in that respect. We can survive almost entirely off of plants (indigenous people in India do so) or almost entirely off of animals (e.g. Canadian Inuit or Australian Aboriginals - notice both lived in extreme temperate ranges.) The herbivorous cultures weren't as healthy as the carnivorous ones, but they were still fruitful enough.

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/2/236.full.pdf+html

I think I'd find failing 90% of the time completely demoralising, but it's certainly true that if you never fail then you're probably not exploring really interesting possibilities.

relevant.

TFA says "Provided by University of Sydney."

This wasn't a computer science paper, this is a biology paper bublished a few days ago based on an experiment with actual ants. From the paper's abstract:

Contrary to previous studies, our study shows that mass-recruiting ant species such as the Argentine ant can forage effectively in a dynamic environment. Our results also suggest that novel optimisation algorithms can benefit from stronger biological mimicry.

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/214/1/50

TFA screwed up the link to the original journal article

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/213/12/i

Well, we know how to make tadpoles and flies with extra eyes in wierd places, like the middle of the frog head.

http://dev.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/126/19/4213

So we're almost there.

People who have tried using DI water found that after only a few minutes of water, the DI was no long- Metal ions were carried into the water very quickly (especially off charged surfaces) and then the resistance of the water dropped geometrically.

This was total immersion, not just a water-cooled cpu block. Hats off to them for risking their system. I looked but could not find the original source.

I did find this, and since this is slashdot I'll just go ahead and post the link:

THE COOLING POWER OF PIGEON LEGS
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/136/1/193.pdf

-b

20 (meters per minute) = 0.745645431 mph
  that doesn't seem very fast for a mouse. Maybe running for 6 hours is amazing though.

  Mice can run up to 4 Kilometers per hour this is around 2.48548477 mph
        See: http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/figsonly/207/22/3839

    So they are running at around 30% of there maximum speed.

    To put that into some perspective humans walk at around 3mph. and sprint for short distances at 20 Mph.
    A 4 Minute mile is 15 Mph, this is considered very good for a runner.

    The Marathon world record time running a 42.195 kilometers distance is 2 hours 4 minutes and 26 seconds, set in the Berlin Marathon by Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia on September 30, 2007.
    This required an average speed of 13 Miles per hour for 2 hours. Just amazing really.

    For regular humans in a Marathon the average time is more like to 4 hours or around 6.5 Mph.
          http://www.marathonguide.com/features/Articles/2005RecapOverview.cfm

    So to compare this with mice a humans peak is 15Mph (4 minute Mile) so 30% of peak is is 4.5 Mph.

    This accomplishment for mice is roughly equal to humans running at 4.5 Mph for 6 hours. for 27 miles or 43.452 kilometers just over a marathon distance. 6 Hour times are well below average and would be the slow runners in a marathon.

    So the mice are running a slow Marathon! Well below a human average.

...the angular accelleration of the fielder's line of sight to the ball provides the strongest initial clues to the location of the eventual landing point.

There's similar research done on how fish catch insects falling out of the air.

I've mentioned this before in a similar article months ago. There are studies of twins separated at birth, either raised at sea level or high in the Andes. Even though the two individuals are genetically identical the ones raised in the mountains are barrel chested and stout whereas the siblings raised at sea-level are average. Plasticity due to behavior (needing to breath deeply in a thin atmosphere - perhaps not voluntary but still a behavior), caused a person to develop differently.
Link to one article:
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/204/18/3151. pdf
It often makes me wonder if we will begin seeing people naturally born more darkly pigmented given the current state of the ozone.
Just some food for thought.


Cally

There are a lot of contradictory studies on bird navigation.
This news article discusses how robins get lost if one eye is patched (but only the right eye, not the left one) and talks about some experiments that indicate that pigeons navigate long distances using smell instead of sensing magnetic fields.

This beautiful paper (big pdf) indicates that pigeons navigate visually when near home, and by smell for longer distances, claiming "sensory inputs, being neither olfactory nor visual, do not substantially contribute to determining current position with respect to home."

So don't go sticking magnets all over your car in hopes of averting bird poop: if they can sense magnetic fields, it might not mean anything to them.

Don't short-change insects, some have six or so.

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/208/4/6 87

"For instance, papilionid butterflies have six opsins, one UV, one blue and four LW..."

FYI SW, MW and LW are "short wavelength (SW, 300-400 nm), middle wavelength (MW, 400-500 nm) and long wavelength (LW, 500-600 nm)" - same source.

For info, bees are UV,green,blue.

Unless he's also a biologist, I don't think this Martin Fleischmann has published since the '89 debacle.

Or was I missing some irony there?

Insects develop DDT resistance because of their fast breeding rate. Larger animals do not. DDT already in the system will outlast you and I, and may well outlast a number of endangered species that it is helping to make extinct.

DDT is hardly the only chemical available nowadays for killing malaria-spreading mosquitoes nowadays - for example, pyrethoids seem to be completely safe in testing, but more effective than DDT and seem to have the same cost potential.

It is certainly a complex issue, but lets not forget what DDT does, and how long it lasts in the ecosystem. DDT half-life estimates are generally measured in decades. In addition to weakening egg shells to the point of singlehandedly endangering several species and assisting the decline of others, it is genotoxic, very carcinogenic, neurotoxic, damages the liver and kidnes, is teratogenic, and is transferred in breast milk.

If you really want a way to end malaria, by the way, the best thing would be to spent the money instead on recessive lethal "selfish genes", or other such approaches to make the malaria-spreading species of mosquitoes go extinct once and for all.

Already been done!

The best way to study their movement is to mount railguns on them, and fire them at random, confusing the hell out of the little guys...don't believe me?

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/205/18/ 1803/i

Check out the picture!