Cell turnover is pretty low in the brain. While there are some stem cells in the brain that replace lost cells it's nowhere near the number of cells that are lost. That said, there's no way to know that I'm the same me that I was five minutes ago let alone 5 years, but it does seems to be the case. I have much less confidence that the same would be true if my brain cells were slowly replaced by artificial representations.
I don't mean any disrespect, but no he didn't. He died due to organ failure from his stem cells not being able to replace damaged cells as quickly as they were being damaged. Nobody dies from "old age" per se.
I read an article recently that talked about how eggs/sperm/embryos aren't actually protected from the genetic and cellular damage that afflicts the rest of the body with age, but rather have strong repair responses that are turned on at conception. The researchers managed to find a way to turn the same responses on in adult cells leading to an apparent reduction in age of the cell culture. Now, doing this in a cell culture is one thing. An entire living organism is another thing altogether. Buts still, this seems like a fairly significant breakthrough.
I think that you're right that 5-10 years is optimistic, but we (as a society) have made quite a few significant advancements in the last few years. It wasn't that long ago that researchers really thought that the huge quantities of so called junk DNA in the human genome had little purpose. Now we know that at least a large fraction of it plays major roles in controlling how genes are expressed. It's really only a matter of time before we know enough to start making some real changes.
You're talking about activities that would take on the order of thousands of years, not a couple hundred. Also, I like to travel, but there's no way I'd be interested in sailing to every port, or walking every trail in the world. It would be incredibly monotonous. Yes there is variety in those tasks but not enough to maintain interest. I think you'd discover that yourself pretty quickly.
It's possible that may work. Or, you may simply feel more and more detached from reality as more and more of your brain is replaced by silicon. Feeling more and more as though you are watching life happen rather than being the master of it. Eventually losing your connection with it entirely.
Nothing would have changed to anyone around you though. You would still act like yourself, but it would be the new silicon brain controlling your body. Not the true "you" anymore.
Why are you so certain that the computer you would still be the actual you? Seems MUCH more likely that there would be a good likeness of you in a computer but the real you, your consciousness, would be dead.
Would you be willing to see your taxes double to pay for it? Would you be willing to give up one of the big government expenses/entitlements (Social Security, the military, Medicare) and funnel that money to NASA? If your answer is "no" to both of those questions, you can probably forget about your Mars bases. Exploration and colonization that far out isn't going to come cheap.
No it won't be cheap, but it's a different scale of expense than what your suggesting. We're talking about a cost of probably something around $100 billion. While that's many times the current NASA budget, it's still only a small fraction of the total Federal budget. It would be less than $1000 per tax payer per year. Not to downplay the value of $1000, but i'd certainly be willing to give that if it meant "boldly going" to places like Mars, Europa, etc.
The benefit of this idea is that we may be able to use similar computer models to look for materials with other valuable properties. Rather than just happen upon a useful material, such as teflon, (or maybe just entertaining, such as silly putty) we can look for something that specifically suits the end purpose. No, we probably wouldn't find teflon by accident when looking for alternative refrigerants, but we might find it (or something far better) when specifically looking for a tough and slippery material.
The way I look at it is that we're moving on from semi-randomly combining things, hoping to get something that suits our purpose, to being able to determine ahead of time what will work. It's like the difference between alchemy and chemistry.
Even the Falcon Heavy is unlikely to be capable of a Moon, NEA, or Mars mission.
On it's own, no. But those type of missions would use part of the payload capacity for an upper stage engine and enough fuel to get there. Based on what I've read, the folks at SpaceX do believe that they can do these sort of missions. Larger missions would require multiple launches, but that's not impossible.
If you read up on Elon Munsk, you'll find that one of his personal goals is to make it feasible to colonize Mars. Even before he was involved in founding paypal, his sights were on Mars. Based on what he has already accomplished, I wouldn't be quick to bet against him getting a long way toward that goal.
As another poster commented, aluminum could have been used. Also, there have been advances in composites since 1996. Building a composite tank of that size/shape would actually be possible with today's technology.
You're referring to the Aries 1 but I believe that RetiredMidn is referring to the Aries 5, which was more or less the same configuration as the new proposal.
This place has all kinds http://www.magnet4less.com/ But I've not tried it myself, just heard that it has worked for some people. Also, be forewarned that the larger neodymium magnets are VERY strong, they easily crush fingers etc if you get them stuck between the magnet and another magnet or ferrous object.
Then please explain the purpose of this activity - other than ego and being a 'tard.
I doubt it has much to do with ego. Some people are just assholes. But I'd wager that most of those weavers are probably just regular otherwise decent drivers who've gotten stuck behind some oblivious person talking on a cell phone one too many times. In the end, a lot of people just want to get to where they are going without unnecessary hold-ups. When these people encounter a lot of unnecessary delays, they get frustrated. Frustration leads to poorly reasoned decisions.
Yes, it's easy to say that everyone should just take a chill pill, but that's not going to happen, so what's a real solution?
I was stating the practical truth, not exactly advocating driving like an ass. Frankly, I think it should be a lot harder to get a license and lane etiquette should be strictly enforced. That would go a long way to smooth traffic flow and a reduction in weaving. No automated cars needed. They certainly wont hurt though.
Except that in many places the lights aren't timed to minimize the number of stops at the posted speed limit. That's the point of this entire discussion.
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Cell turnover is pretty low in the brain. While there are some stem cells in the brain that replace lost cells it's nowhere near the number of cells that are lost. That said, there's no way to know that I'm the same me that I was five minutes ago let alone 5 years, but it does seems to be the case. I have much less confidence that the same would be true if my brain cells were slowly replaced by artificial representations.
My grandad died of old age at like 94
I don't mean any disrespect, but no he didn't. He died due to organ failure from his stem cells not being able to replace damaged cells as quickly as they were being damaged. Nobody dies from "old age" per se.
I read an article recently that talked about how eggs/sperm/embryos aren't actually protected from the genetic and cellular damage that afflicts the rest of the body with age, but rather have strong repair responses that are turned on at conception. The researchers managed to find a way to turn the same responses on in adult cells leading to an apparent reduction in age of the cell culture. Now, doing this in a cell culture is one thing. An entire living organism is another thing altogether. Buts still, this seems like a fairly significant breakthrough.
I think that you're right that 5-10 years is optimistic, but we (as a society) have made quite a few significant advancements in the last few years. It wasn't that long ago that researchers really thought that the huge quantities of so called junk DNA in the human genome had little purpose. Now we know that at least a large fraction of it plays major roles in controlling how genes are expressed. It's really only a matter of time before we know enough to start making some real changes.
You're talking about activities that would take on the order of thousands of years, not a couple hundred. Also, I like to travel, but there's no way I'd be interested in sailing to every port, or walking every trail in the world. It would be incredibly monotonous. Yes there is variety in those tasks but not enough to maintain interest. I think you'd discover that yourself pretty quickly.
It's possible that may work. Or, you may simply feel more and more detached from reality as more and more of your brain is replaced by silicon. Feeling more and more as though you are watching life happen rather than being the master of it. Eventually losing your connection with it entirely.
Nothing would have changed to anyone around you though. You would still act like yourself, but it would be the new silicon brain controlling your body. Not the true "you" anymore.
Actually Kevorkian built it, and it went up for auction recently: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jHMdC7FZppUvB8bNOrk9iShcQS-g?docId=f44540c68e6d4e0ea15bd979f28f3755
Why are you so certain that the computer you would still be the actual you? Seems MUCH more likely that there would be a good likeness of you in a computer but the real you, your consciousness, would be dead.
Would you be willing to see your taxes double to pay for it? Would you be willing to give up one of the big government expenses/entitlements (Social Security, the military, Medicare) and funnel that money to NASA? If your answer is "no" to both of those questions, you can probably forget about your Mars bases. Exploration and colonization that far out isn't going to come cheap.
No it won't be cheap, but it's a different scale of expense than what your suggesting. We're talking about a cost of probably something around $100 billion. While that's many times the current NASA budget, it's still only a small fraction of the total Federal budget. It would be less than $1000 per tax payer per year. Not to downplay the value of $1000, but i'd certainly be willing to give that if it meant "boldly going" to places like Mars, Europa, etc.
The benefit of this idea is that we may be able to use similar computer models to look for materials with other valuable properties. Rather than just happen upon a useful material, such as teflon, (or maybe just entertaining, such as silly putty) we can look for something that specifically suits the end purpose. No, we probably wouldn't find teflon by accident when looking for alternative refrigerants, but we might find it (or something far better) when specifically looking for a tough and slippery material.
The way I look at it is that we're moving on from semi-randomly combining things, hoping to get something that suits our purpose, to being able to determine ahead of time what will work. It's like the difference between alchemy and chemistry.
Also contains info about why silicon-based life isn't seen that much.
How about not at all?
I hadn't looked that closely at the Wikipedia graph... there is actually something like 630 times more silicon in the crust than carbon.
Silicon is more common than carbon in the earths crust, though there is a lot of both: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crust_(geology)#Composition_of_the_continental_crust
If you're willing to ignore the plethora of genetic evidence, how about something more direct? Evolution has actually been recorded in the lab: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
Seriously, what sort of evidence would be enough for you?
Even the Falcon Heavy is unlikely to be capable of a Moon, NEA, or Mars mission.
On it's own, no. But those type of missions would use part of the payload capacity for an upper stage engine and enough fuel to get there. Based on what I've read, the folks at SpaceX do believe that they can do these sort of missions. Larger missions would require multiple launches, but that's not impossible.
If you read up on Elon Munsk, you'll find that one of his personal goals is to make it feasible to colonize Mars. Even before he was involved in founding paypal, his sights were on Mars. Based on what he has already accomplished, I wouldn't be quick to bet against him getting a long way toward that goal.
The X-33 was intended to be a scaled down technology demonstrator. The full size version (Venture Star) would have been capable of SSTO.
As another poster commented, aluminum could have been used. Also, there have been advances in composites since 1996. Building a composite tank of that size/shape would actually be possible with today's technology.
You're referring to the Aries 1 but I believe that RetiredMidn is referring to the Aries 5, which was more or less the same configuration as the new proposal.
Then stuff the loose ends into your shoes.
Having a 30mph difference in speed is asking for trouble. Yes, I know it's often legal, but it's still an accident waiting to happen.
This place has all kinds http://www.magnet4less.com/ But I've not tried it myself, just heard that it has worked for some people. Also, be forewarned that the larger neodymium magnets are VERY strong, they easily crush fingers etc if you get them stuck between the magnet and another magnet or ferrous object.
Then please explain the purpose of this activity - other than ego and being a 'tard.
I doubt it has much to do with ego. Some people are just assholes. But I'd wager that most of those weavers are probably just regular otherwise decent drivers who've gotten stuck behind some oblivious person talking on a cell phone one too many times. In the end, a lot of people just want to get to where they are going without unnecessary hold-ups. When these people encounter a lot of unnecessary delays, they get frustrated. Frustration leads to poorly reasoned decisions.
Yes, it's easy to say that everyone should just take a chill pill, but that's not going to happen, so what's a real solution?
I was stating the practical truth, not exactly advocating driving like an ass. Frankly, I think it should be a lot harder to get a license and lane etiquette should be strictly enforced. That would go a long way to smooth traffic flow and a reduction in weaving. No automated cars needed. They certainly wont hurt though.
Except that in many places the lights aren't timed to minimize the number of stops at the posted speed limit. That's the point of this entire discussion.
Are you kidding me? Driving 40 in a 70 IS dangerous.