The human body is a sacred object and should not be altered by science in any way

This thing about a head transplant keeps coming across my timeline

If you can fix things. . .then fix them

Rocket River

 

No Popeye jokes in the first hour or so?

 

Its gonna suck when in 500 years they figure out how to keep people alive forever but we'll all be dead.

Good news for my great great great great great grand children tho.

 

I heard that if you take some hair from a cheetah's tail you can grow a duck billed platypus.

 

Somehow don't see this ever taking effect. Maybe it'll be possible with science, but how do you handle it? We're already at 7.5bn people, what happens when people live forever and still birth children at the same time? The world would be incredibly overpopulated in no time and it would be impossible to accomodate and feed everyone.

 

I was actually thinking it over earlier and had some ideas on how it could work lol

The world would have to completely switch a flip a switch on how it's energy and food systems work (something I wish we did now). 100% clean renewable energy and self sufficient food/waste systems would be necessary, basically absolutely no more pollution and big time self sufficiency would be needed to survive. As well as a understanding amongst the people that if they are going to live for a really long time that they would have to stop having children at a surplus rate (super high rates of vasectomy/tied tubes). It's not like people would be immortal, they would just live really long if untouched, but still susceptible to death if physical damage or disease is done. It could work, who know's what the world would be 500-2k years in the future. You have to imagine we might find other planets as well down the line.

I think it all comes down to the the brain, it's what makes us, us. That's the one and only organ that if replicated... I don't believe we would still be us, so I'm guessing the real goal would be to preserve the brain as long as possible since it likely cannot be replicated like the rest of our bodies potentially could through regeneration.

Basically what I'm saying is

Spoiler

 

That would still be a helluva task and I don't see it working.

I've also thought about the question of humanity/civilization for quite some time and found a great paper around two years ago, which concludes that artificial life /postbiology is the logical next step of evolution, as it's the only way we'll truly be able to live forever and protected from diseases, ressource-shortage etc.
It also mentions the aspect of brains, which could only be conserved for eternity by copying them into software.

Dug up the paper and article again, may be interesting to some:

http://www.universetoday.com/13368/is-our-universe-ruled-by-artificial-intelligence/

http://avsport.org/IAA/abst2006/IAC-06-A4.2.01.pdf

 

I think we could make a 100% exact replica of our brains through cloning, I don't think it will be us. That's with a exact flesh replica, I think it's even more impossible for it to be us with a software copy.

If a clone we're made of us right now, I don't think we would start thinking through two brains and seeing through 4 eyes. It's just a replica and it becomes it's own being.

 

Alot less than 500 years.. I say within 50 years actually.

We are finally able to understand mechanisms of age and cell death and there are a few things that for sure can extend, stabilize, or reverse the aging process.

TO give one of the possible solutions to aging or programmed 'cell death' is telemerase

Body cells are not immortal and can only divide a limited number of times. Telomeres are protective caps on each chromosome, held in place by telomerase. Telomeres become smaller and smaller with each cell division and eventually become so small they signal the cell to stop replication.(old age/death)

However, if telemerase was sustained.. Telemeres would not grow smaller after replication. If the telemeres don't grow smaller after replication then there IS NOT a limited number of times it can divide. If there is not a limited number of times it can divide then it's immortal because it could replicate itself for eternity. What I'm saying is, your body cells could continually replicate itself forever.

So why can't we just activate and sustain telemerase now you ask? Well, because we don't know how yet.. it would take research to figure it out and even more research to control it. The good news is it's happening. The better news is that we know it is 100% possible to do, we've seen it occur.

While we might not know how to activate and sustain telemerase yet, we do know that activation and sustaining telemerase is 100% possible. We know that because one thing knows how, and this thing uses the activation of telemerase to grow and grow and grow,.and as long as it is fed with oxygen and all the necessities that create life it would never stop growing, it's essentially immortal.

What is that? The only thing we know that activates and sustains telemerase right now is Cancer. Rapidly reproducing cells/tumor growth.

Telemerase is just one of several very possible things that will stop the agining process, and it isn't even the best of the possible ways. I used it in this discussion because it's the easiest to explain.

Cellular immortality is going to be a very real and possible thing within 50 years. It's basically right around the corner.

Sure you will still die from drowning, or bullets. But you will not be dieing from old age, or because your organs are older/weaker and your cells have stopped replicating.

 

I think the idea would be to not just copy it, but to decrypt your whole brain and transfer it in some way, ending our past consciousness.
Did you by chance hear of the game "SOMA"? It's that scenario pretty much, with mankind ending and the consciousness of some people being put into artificial beings which are to populate a new world.

 

If it wasn't for Science:

- this forum and website would not exist
And even if it did ...
- only 1 of 3 posters would be alive today

 

The most important question of our time is whether science can turn it into a fleshlight.

 

Meh, so another, "Look what we can do!" technology that won't have any real applications for another few decades? That is unless it just fizzles out and we forget about the prospect and hype it's trying to convey. It's cool that they can do this in a lab...unfortunately labs aren't real life

 

Vampires rejoice

Doctors dream of having artificial blood always on hand, but the reality has usually been very different. While you can produce red blood cells in a lab, the current technique (which prods stem cells into action) only nets a small number of them at best. British researchers appear to have found the solution, however: they've developed a technique that can reliably produce an unlimited number of red blood cells. The trick is to create "immortalized" premature red blood cells that you can culture as much as you like, making mass production a real possibility.

The biggest challenge is translating the technique to commercial manufacturing. Scientists have produced a few liters of blood in the lab, but there's a big difference between that and the massive volumes needed to serve even a single hospital. Although the UK's National Health Service is planning to trial artificial blood this year, this new technique won't be involved.

As it is, you wouldn't likely see a wholesale switch to artificial blood even if this new method was ready for the real world. Any mass production is most likely to focus on people with rare blood types that can't always count on donations. Even that limited effort could make a huge difference, mind you. Hospitals could always have a consistent supply of rare blood, so you wouldn't have to worry about them running out in a life-or-death situation.

Don't be jaded. Every month is like Christmas with new things people never seen before.

 

Yeah you're right, the tech is cool...it'd be nice if engineering applications out of these discoveries were a bit quicker...I'd like to see it in my lifetime.