Human dwarf species uncovered

"It is arguably the most significant discovery concerning our own genus in my lifetime." -- Bernard Wood, George Washington University.

It now appears that the Neanderthals weren't the only human-like species to co-habit the planet with modern humans in recent evolutionary terms. In fact, a completely different hominid species survived longer than the Neanderthals did (they died out about 28,000 years ago).

Indeed, the discovery of a human dwarf species that lived as recently as 18,000 years ago on the island of Flores is a breathtaking discovery.

The species, named Homo floresiensis, lived marooned for eons on the island of Flores while Homo sapiens rapidly colonized the rest of the planet. Flores was a kind of tropical world populated by giant lizards and miniature elephants.

Homo floresiensis had a grapefruit-sized brain about one-quarter the size of the brain of modern man; it is closer in size with the brains of transitional prehuman species in Africa more than three million years ago. However, evidence suggests that Flores man made stone tools, lit fires and organized group hunts for meat.

It is uncertain if this species ever crossed paths with modern humans. And geologic evidence suggests a massive volcanic eruption sealed its fate 12,000 years ago, along with other unusual species on the island.

Did Cybercity Radio show yesterday

I did my first ever live radio interview last night as I was Jack Landman's guest on Cybercity Radio. I believe the show is based out of San Antonio, Texas. The show is reminiscent of Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, and like Coast to Coast has an unhealthy attachment to UFO culture. That being said, Cybercity has its share of credible science. Past guests include Seth Shostak (SETI Astronomer), Alan Guth (Cosmologist), Kary Mullis (Nobel Prize Winner), Neil deGrasse Tyson (Astrophysicist), and Paul Kurtz (Philosophy - Founder CSICOP).

I had a great time doing the interview. Jack opened the show with the theme music to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I found quite appropriate and dramatic. Consequently, we were immediately engaged in some serious discussions about posthuman possibilities. Other topics we covered included indefinite lifespans, the global brain, technologically enabled telepathy, stem cells and therapeutic cloning, Betterhumans, the World Transhumanist Association, potential dangers in the 21st century (including artificial superintelligence) and molecular nanotechnology.

At the close of the show Jack asked if I would come back to do future shows, an offer to which I graciously accepted.

New Transitory Human Column: Death Vs. Hope

My latest column for Betterhumans has been published:

Death vs. Hope
The pace of medical progress should give patients and doctors pause when considering assisted suicide

Clearly, there is an issue here in desperate need of attention. The Canadian government, with its blanket refusal to allow and monitor assisted suicide, has forced desperate people to take desperate measures. Furthermore, the idea that our government can force us to stay alive—regardless of the particulars of our unique situation—is quite frightening and repugnant, especially when we consider how grossly underfunded health care is for the elderly and for palliative care units across the country.

But just because I defend the right to assisted suicide doesn't mean I have to like it. Given the primitiveness of today's technologies relative to what's on the horizon, I have to concede that in some cases it's a necessary evil. But there is the prospect of significantly advanced medical interventions arriving in the near future—interventions that may impact directly on people living with diseases or irreparable injuries today, and particularly those contemplating suicide. So for healthcare practitioners in countries where voluntary euthanasia is legal, and for those considering its legalization, it's time to act accordingly, including full disclosure to patients. Failing to inform patients of all their options is not only irresponsible, it could also mean the difference between someone choosing to live or die.

Conversation with Anders Sandberg on antimatter weapons

News that the US Airforce is pursuing an antimatter weapons program hit the media last week. Concerned that this theoretical technology could represent a new existential risk to our species, I opened a dialogue with Anders Sandberg to get his opinions on the subject. Here's our conversation:

Anders:

I wonder how serious this risk is. I have played around with antimatter weapon scenarios a bit, and they do not seem to be much worse than nuclear weapons. They still ought to be beside them on the list, but they do not seem to do anything truly new.

In the near future they are utterly too expensive to be useful, and they require major installations to build. This places them in the same fairly easily controlled category as nuclear weapons. Since containment is also active, proliferation is unlikely - simply too hard to keep stable.

Things change a bit if we move to space. There one can build "antimatter distilleries" orbiting the sun, accumulating antimatter or producing it through solar-powered accelerators. Everything scales up, and now one can make sizeable amounts. Production is still very visible, and fairly easily disrupted.

Antimatter becomes a serious problem if a stable (especially a passive) containment is constructed (or it can be produced in such a form). Penning traps are too small to be a threat, but once you have stably magnetically levitated anti-hydrogen or heavier, you have a potential problem with proliferation. Amat bombs could (if the containment is small) be sneaked around relatively easily and be hard to keep track of. Again, I don't think this is worse than suitcase nuclear proliferation. You get a very unstable and risky situation, but not the end of the world (Charles Stross description of the situation on the post-singularity Earth in his latest novels comes to mind).

Big antimatter detonations could be used to sterlize planetary surfaces if spread across the atmosphere. The ambiplasma fireball is going to radiate a very nasty blackbody spectrum over a sustained amount of time (minutes?) and likely produce lots of short-lived biologically active isotopes. But this kind of sterilization seems to require plenty of preparation (making the antimatter in significant amounts) and deliberate use, not just accidents. Most likely a Shriek rather than an accidental Bang.

Just some thoughts.

Me:

Thanks for the clarification and insight, Anders. It certainly doesn't seem like the kind of weapon that would be utilized by nihilist groups/individuals or even aggressive state actors.

Anders:

Maybe aggressive states would find uses for it, but beyond a certain size bigger explosions are not more destructive (most of the explosive power ends up in space). Maybe antimatter would be good for secretive space warfare or redirecting asteroids at enemies, but that seems a relatively low-level nastiness.

Me:

That being said, could a catastrophic accident arise from the development of such a weapon or fuel source (e.g. antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion)?

Anders:

I'm thinking possibly, but only in the form a localized disaster. A Shriek at Worst.

Hmm, to accelerate a starship to 0.3 c you need about 2.5% antimatter if you have perfect conversion of energy into kinetic energy. A million ton ship would need 25,000 ton antimatter, which would indeed be a bad day if it all blew up. About 976,000 gigatons bad. (assuming I calculated right). This kind of space opera starship would indeed be a dinosaur killer.

Going down to a mere 0.1 c gives a requirement of just 0.25% antimatter, and 0.01 c 2.5e-3% - much safer.

Me:

Although, how do you know how long the ambiplasma burst will linger? It's my understanding that they can be relatively long-lived, as the component particles and antiparticles are too hot and too low-density to annihilate with each other rapidly. If the ambiplasma fireball lingered for a protracted period, that could be bad.

Anders:

I tried to calculate this during my recent trip to Brussels, as I thought my earlier answer was a bit too handwavy, but the exact answer seems hard. The mean free path depends on the density, but the density will depend on how the initial fireball expands. This will in turn depend on how opaque to gamma rays the air is and how it is heated; my general impression is that there will be a high density shockwave accelerating outwards with much antimatter reactions (as fast moving antimatter reaches it from inside) and driven by internal gamma-rays and a low density ambiplasma with more antimatter inside. Given that average particle speeds will be hundreds of km/s scattering will be very intense unless the gas is very dilute. See this article.

But to do this correctly I would likely need a nuclear fireball simulator. Maybe we should ask Sandia labs :-)

Given these ponderings, I'm revising my estimates of ambiplasma longevity in an atmosphere downwards. You get a nasty fireball, but it won't last *much* longer than a nuclear one.

Me:

Don't antimatter explosions produce copious amounts of gamma rays?

Anders:

Yup. That is the primary effect of quark-antiquark and lepton-antilepton interactions. But don't forget that the reactions also cause cascades of very hot nuclei, protons, neutrons and leptons - you get all kinds of rays.

Me:

Gamma rays are very dangerous and are the primary source of the radioactive fallout of nuclear weapons. I recognize that the effects would be immediate (unlike radioactive isotopes which persist), but I wonder what the effect of that would be on biological organisms.

Anders:

Gamma rays in themselves do not cause fallout. They just hurt organic matter, but have to be very strong to disrupt atomic nuclei. In this case they will mainly heat up the fireball, and get scattered into (still dangerous) x-rays.

Actually, an antimatter bomb would be dirty since any atom getting hit by the antimatter would be transmuted. In air that would likely mean that you got lots of light nuclei. This isn't that bad, because most of them decay fairly quickly before they can get integrated into an organism - but *lots* of C14 and tritium could be troublesome. Unfortunately, a lot of highly accelerated alpha particles and others will slam into heavier nuclei and leave behind nastier isotopes, especially if it is a ground-burst.

Me:

Oh, one final thought, is there any connection between gamma ray bursters and antimatter explosions? Do antimatter explosions happen naturally in the Universe?

Anders:

Not to my knowledge. Antimatter detonations would have a characteristic spectrum (like at 0.5 MeV for electron-positron annihilation), and it is not seen in GRBs or elsewhere. No risk for antimatter rocks hitting us.

New book about Fermi

Fermi acceleration. Fermi liquid. Fermi pressure. Fermi gas. The Fermi paradox. Fermi questions. The Fermi-Thomas model of the atom. The Fermi-Turkevich gap. Fermium and fermions. Enrico Fermi High School in Enfield. Conn. The Fermi National Accelerator in Batavia, Ill. The Enrico Fermi Institute at the University.

Okay, so this guy did something with his life.

James W. Cronin, a University of Chicago physicist and Nobel laureate, has brought together an impressive array of writers and scientists in a tribute to one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century, Enrico Fermi. The book, titled Fermi Remembered, describes the multi-faceted scientific legacy of Fermi, who made significant contributions to 20th-century physics.

In a review of the book, Steve Koppes writes:

Albert Einstein’s relativity theory and the quantum mechanics developed by Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger are often cited as milestones in 20th-century physics. But for sheer breadth of achievement, Fermi left a unique signature on modern physics.

“He gave to science all he had, and with him disappeared the last universal physicist in the tradition of the great men of the 19th century, when it was still possible for a single person to reach the highest summits, both in theory and experiment, and to dominate all fields of physics,” wrote the late Nobel laureate Emilio Segre of Fermi in 1962.

Although not a biography, the book contains reminiscences of Fermi from 25 scientists who knew him, as well as material from his research notebooks, correspondence, speech outlines and teaching.

Among Fermi’s early accomplishments was to apply quantum mechanics, which explains the behavior of atoms and subatomic particles, to the physics of solids and gases, Cronin said. In the 1920s, he built on quantum theory by formulating concepts called Fermi energy and, with Paul Dirac, Fermi-Dirac statistics. These concepts later became vital to the development of semiconductors and other electronic devices.

Fermi went on to earn the Nobel Prize in 1938 for his discovery of new radioactive elements produced by the addition of neutrons to the cores of other atoms, and for the discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slowly moving neutrons. He also directed construction of the first nuclear reactor at the University during World War II as part of the effort to develop the atomic bomb. But he turned his attention to an entirely new topic after the war.

While researching the book, Cronin discovered a 1945 letter from Fermi outlining his vision for the newly formed research institute that now bears his name at the University. “That was to do high-energy physics, not nuclear physics, not following up what he had done with the bomb,” Cronin said. “He was looking far, far ahead of that.”

In addition to his remarkable work as a physicist, Fermi also contributed to cosmological and metaphysical discussions by introducing the (in)famous Fermi Paradox, in which he contemplated the unexplained 'Great Silence' from other possible intelligent life-forms in the Universe.

Caplan: Stem-cell research a pawn in election politics

The more I read Art Caplan's work the more I like him.

His recent OpEd, "Stem-cell research a pawn in election politics," is an excellent critique of Bush's confused and misguided stem cell policy. Bush's policy, says Caplan, makes a mockery of the moral issues involved:

Not only is the president’s compromise nothing of the sort, his moral reasoning, and that of his defenders, is at best obtuse. Consider these points:

* The president says that embryo destruction is wrong, but still allows research on embryos destroyed before August 2001. Huh?

* The president says that embryo destruction is wrong, but does absolutely nothing to prevent the daily destruction of embryos in fertility clinics across the United States. What?

* The president says that embryo destruction is wrong, but fails to tell us whether he really believes that an embryo destined to be destroyed at a fertility clinic but now residing in a Petri dish is morally on par with a child suffering from juvenile diabetes or a person who cannot walk due to a spinal-cord injury. Huh?

* And the president says that embryo destruction is wrong, but does not tell us what he proposes to do about American scientists heading overseas to conduct embryonic stem-cell research in South Korea, Britain, China or Singapore, and then publishing the results in American journals and seeking American patents. Why?

Furthermore, consider Bush's position on cloning for stem-cell research. Using the techniques involved in creating Dolly the sheep, it is possible to create cloned human embryos for use as a source of embryonic stem cells. But the president has done nothing but vigorously try to ban this method for getting stem cells. While it otherwise has little time for the United Nations, the Bush administration is currently devoting much energy to trying to persuade the world body to ban cloning for the purposes of stem-cell research.

Caplan concludes by arguing that the Bush administration has painted themselves into a corner:

So what is really going on here? What's going on is that the president’s defenders are in a political pickle that they themselves created.

Bush believes that human life and human rights begin at conception even if conception occurs in a Petri dish. The president and his operatives know that their core base of supporters fervently opposes all forms of abortion and agrees that embryos are people from the moment of conception. They also know that the vast majority of American people do not agree with these views.

So, the Bush administration made a political calculation to use opposition to stem-cell research and cloning as a low-risk stalking horse to advance its anti-abortion agenda and secure support among its most avid anti-abortion constituents.

Interestingly, Caplan ends the piece with a moderately partisan outro in which he says, "Whatever your views about the upcoming presidential election, have no doubt about where the candidates stand on this issue — Bush is opposed to stem-cell research, Sen. John Kerry is not."

Hmmmm. I wonder if he has his sights set on the Chair position for the President's Council on Bioethics. Even from here in Canada, I'd love to see Caplan replace Leon Kass. We can only hope.

Building a machine designed by ET: not a good idea

I recently re-watched "Contact," the 1997 film adaptation of Carl Sagan's novel of the same name.

In this film, extra terrestrial contact is made, with the ET's transmitting the blueprints to a massive engineering project—supposedly for us to build. After studying the schematics it is determined that it is the outline for some sort of transportation device for a lone passenger. The exact means of transportation is unknown, as is much of the science behind the radically advanced technology.

There is some debate about the safety of embarking upon such a project, including worries about it being a possible Trojan horse or doomsday device, but ultimately the fears are set aside and the device is built at a cost of a quarter of a trillion dollars. [spoiler follows]Of course, the machine is a success, and our heroine gets to go on the thrill ride of a lifetime [end spoiler].

As I reflect on this film, however, I believe the decision to construct the device was the wrong one. Rather, the precautionary principle should have been invoked big time. In general I'm not a big fan of the PP, but in this case I think it would have been warranted.

Without knowing the nature of the transmitting ETs themselves, or even if conscious entities were actually transmitting the signal, there's no way we could predicted ET's true intentions. It very well could have been a Trojan horse; the device could have been deliberately designed to look like a transportation device to fool us into building it, only to turn out to be something far more nefarious instead—like a doomsday device, for example.

Why would ETs do such a thing? Well, the transmission could have been viral. Imagine a malevolent or paranoid civilization (or group or individual) determined to wipe out intelligent life across the Galaxy. They set up a bunch of beacons across the Galaxy that transmit the evil code.

As precedent that intelligences are capable of such a thing, people write viruses here on Earth for no good reason. Perhaps signals such as these are the ultimate manifestation of computer viruses—one information system finding memetic compatibility with another and infecting it. The trouble with such a scenario, however, is that such a code wouldn't replicate and re-transmit. But if the source transmitter remains intact, it would be the Typhoid Mary of civilizations.

So, rather than build the device on sheer blind faith alone (i.e. Not knowing how the technology works, not knowing exactly what the device is supposed to do, not knowing who transmitted it, not knowing why it was transmitted....), I would have suggested that the extra terrestrial schematics be studied, reverse engineered, and modeled to the point were we felt comfortable enough to predict as much of its effects as possible.

And then we could build it.

Maybe.

The art of Kenn Brown

Is this a transhumanist picture or what?

I found this magnificent illustration by Kenn Brown while reading the Wired article, "The Crusade Against Evolution."

Brown has done some pretty amazing work, typically showcasing various themes in science and technology. His illustration of the DNA helix was featured in the March 15th edition of New Scientist Magazine--it runs over 8.5 feet from start to finish and spans 7 sections outlining our accrued knowledge of DNA to date.

Economist on Earth-like planets and cognitive enhancers

The Economist has recently published a couple of very good articles worth checking out:

In search of the Earth mark II: Earth-sized exoplanets should soon be discovered.

Supercharging the brain: New drugs promise to improve memory and sharpen mental response. Who should be allowed to take them?

G&M Poll: legalize merciful euthanasia

Latest Globe & Mail poll: Should Canada legalize merciful euthanasia if the patient wants to die and the process takes place under a doctor's supervision?

Yes: 83%
11361 votes

No: 17%
2280 votes

Total Votes: 13641

Getting down with MC Hawking

My evil brother recently introduced me to MC Hawking, a twisted merger of Stephen Hawking computer's voice set to rap music. MC Hawking's albums to date include A Brief History of Rhyme and Fear of a Black Hole.

This stuff has to be heard to be believed (there are some MP3s available). It's actually very well done, and all set to themes about science, cosmology, and, uh, gangsta rap. Here are the lyrics to the track, "Entropy" (done to Naughty By Nature's "O.P.P."):

Verse 1
Entropy, how can I explain it? I'll take it frame by frame it,
to have you all jumping, shouting saying it.
Let's just say that it's a measure of disorder,
in a system that is closed, like with a border.
It's sorta, like a, well a measurement of randomness,
proposed in 1850 by a German, but wait I digress.
"What the fuck is entropy?", I here the people still exclaiming,
it seems I gotta start the explaining.

You ever drop an egg and on the floor you see it break?
You go and get a mop so you can clean up your mistake.
But did you ever stop to ponder why we know it's true,
if you drop a broken egg you will not get an egg that's new.

That's entropy or E-N-T-R-O to the P to the Y,
the reason why the sun will one day all burn out and die.
Order from disorder is a scientific rarity,
allow me to explain it with a little bit more clarity.
Did I say rarity? I meant impossibility,
at least in a closed system there will always be more entropy.
That's entropy and I hope that you're all down with it,
if you are here's your membership.

Chorus
You down with entropy?
Yeah, you know me! (x3)
Who's down with entropy?
Every last homey!

Verse 2
Defining entropy as disorder's not complete,
'cause disorder as a definition doesn't cover heat.
So my first definition I would now like to withdraw,
and offer one that fits thermodynamics second law.
First we need to understand that entropy is energy,
energy that can't be used to state it more specifically.
In a closed system entropy always goes up,
that's the second law, now you know what's up.

You can't win, you can't break even, you can't leave the game,
'cause entropy will take it all 'though it seems a shame.
The second law, as we now know, is quite clear to state,
that entropy must increase and not dissipate.

Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!
That, in a nutshell, is what entropy's about,
you're now down with a discount.

Be sure to check out the lyrics to F*uck the Creationists :-)

Life expectancy gap narrowing between sexes

Good news, guys: we're living longer and catching up to women in terms of life expectancy.

Life expectancy in Canada increased for men in 2002 while holding steady for women, according to a new Statistics Canada report. Specifically, men born in 2002 can expect to live 77.2 years, up 0.2 years from 2001. Life expectancy for girls born that year remained the same at 82.1 years.

Statistics Canada said it is part of a trend that shows a continued narrowing of life expectancy between men and women over the past two decades. The gap had narrowed to just 4.9 years in Canada by 2002, from 7.4 years in 1979.

Researchers are not sure why the gap is narrowing, but I'd be willing to bet that some factors include safer and healthier jobs for men (ie less exposure to toxins at the workplace and less physical labour), and that men are starting to take better care of themselves, particularly in terms of better eating habits and through avoiding smoking.

G&M poll on ovarian tissue implants

Here's a recent poll posted in the Globe and Mail:

A Belgian woman regained her fertility through an ovarian tissue implant developed for sterility caused by disease such as cancer. Should women be able to use this advancement to delay motherhood past menopause and have a child at any age they choose?

Yes 4434 votes (56 %)
No 3493 votes (44 %)
Total Votes: 7927

Toronto's Da Vinci team delays launch

Canada's top contending Ansari X-Prize team, the Da Vinci project, has delayed their launch citing equipment deficiencies:

"It's very simple," [Brian] Feeney said in a telephone interview Friday morning. "We have some pieces of equipment that haven't arrived." Specifically, he said the da Vinci team needed a four-axis filament winder -- a device used in fabricating fiberglass and carbon-fiber parts -- to complete work on a key spaceship component.

Well, from what I understand, Feeney is not being entirely honest. A friend of mine close to X-Prize happenings recently told me that the Da Vinci project is all hype, and that any attempt to beat Rutan's SpaceShip One any time soon would be "suicide." They're simply not ready.

And besides, a rocket that brings back its passengers with a hard landing in the Canadian prairies is not viable space tourism venture to begin with.

Catholic Register on transhumanism, TV04

Bernard Daly has published his report of TransVision 2004 in The Catholic Register. Called "Opening religion up to the 'brave new world' of science and technology," he comments both critically and in support of the transhumanist mission. Ultimately, Daly doesn't dismiss human enhancement out of hand, and instead calls Catholics to open a dialogue with transhumanists. Daly writes:

Besides optimistic and even utopian reports, there was also some questioning and debate with, for example, both scornful criticism and tentative support of the US President's Council on Bioethics and its cautionary stance. One WTA member identified as a Catholic was Tihamer Toth-Fejel, a US research engineer. In his view, "enhancements that degrade our humanity are not good for us because they contradict who we are as persons and, therefore, should be prohibited and discouraged. Our difficulty is in recognizing which enhancements are degrading us, discovering how this degradation occurs, and finally, finding the strength to resist the alluring promises they make," - an opinion he wrote for the Summer 2004 issue of The National Catholic Bioethics
Quarterly.

Daly continues,

Perhaps because the transhumanist message is largely disseminated by the Internet, and perhaps also because of their call for total freedom in scientific exploration and technical engineering, many of the non-member participants in the Toronto weekend were university students preparing for high-tech careers. This conference made the faith views of the transhumanists easily accessible to these students. As they move their 2005 conference to Caracas, Venezuela, the tiny band of transhumanists will continue to challenge all larger faith communities to review what they have to say to such groups, and how best to say it.

One post-Vatican II challenge for Catholics, especially lay specialists in science and technology, is to enter "interfaith dialogue" with transhumanists, perhaps especially via the Internet, searching for "those seeds of the Word which lie hidden among them," while rejecting "nothing that is true and holy" in what they have to say.

Arch-BioLuddite Richard Hayes defines CybDem Mission

[via James Hughes/Cyborg Democracy] In the transcript of the conference on Inequality, Democracy and the New Human Biotechnologies (July 15, 2004 - New York) Richard Hayes, the Co-Director of the Center for Genetics and Society with Marcy Darnovsky said:"...the most well organized constituencies active on human genetic issues are in fact the biotech interests on the one hand and the religious conservatives on the other. In that sense, the polarized framing adopted by the press is accurate. The terrible consequence of this is that if these two polarized constituencies or points of view remain the only choices available then liberal and progressive voices, when compelled to enter the policy arena, if forced to choose between the two, are going to go with the biotechnology industry....

...so it is imperative that third voice enter the fate. This is a voice that isn't necessarily opposed to all human genetic technologies, nor necessarily opposed to human embryo research in any absolutist sense, but is very concerned about the social, economic and political implications of these technologies and would certainly not want to trust genetic future of the human species to research scientists and biotechnology companies.

So what is to be done? We need new initiatives within existing liberal and progressive organizations and we need new organizations to take these issues and put them on the public agenda in a new and compelling way. We need visionaries in the philanthropic community to support such efforts. Domestically and internationally we need new levels awareness, commitment, and engagement - in short, a new social movement - to ensure that the new human biotechnologies support rather then subvert deeply held commitments to equality, democracy and social justice. The hour is late. There's no greater challenge. Golly - couldn't agree with you more. So if any of those visionaries in the philanthropic community, who aren't already underwriting CGS' $800,000 annual budget, wanna gimme a call. The WTA budget is precisely 1% the size of CGS'. Or maybe we should have lunch Richard?

Simulation recursion

How cool is this?

This is a screenshot taken from "The Sims 2" video game in which a Sim is playing the original "The Sims."

It's turtles all the way down, folks....

Eventually, given more processing power and enhanced parallelism, I can imagine that Sims will start to play actual games (ie. sub-programs within the larger program).

If you're interested in this concept, check out my Betterhumans column, "Welcome to the Unreal World" A must read on this topic is Barry Dainton's "Innocence Lost: Simulation Scenarios: Prospects and Consequences," in which he attempts to describe and categorize possible simulation types and varieties of virtual life. And of course there's Dr. Nick's seminal "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?"

The longevity gene

Researchers have discovered a gene that releases stored fat--a possible key to longer life:

Scientists have known for nearly 70 years that calorie restriction extends the life spans of mammals by as much as 50 percent, but just how it works has remained a mystery. Guarente believes he has found the answer, and that it could potentially lead to extended life spans for people, too. For more than a decade, Guarente has been gradually solving the puzzle with the ambitious goal of discovering how to slow the aging process in humans without imposing a thousand-calorie-a-day diet. In 1999, he came to the surprising conclusion that manipulating just one gene, SIR2, could affect longevity. Guarente became so convinced that his findings could lead to antiaging pills that in 1999 he cofounded Cambridge-based Elixir Pharmaceuticals to commercialize them. In June, Guarente and his colleagues published a paper in the scientific journal Nature that detailed how a version of the SIR2 gene in mice releases fat from storage tissue, which seems to have a direct effect on how fast the animals age. Although Guarente’s lab has yet to determine exactly why a reduction in fat allows animals to live longer, he’s confident that medicines that cause the mechanism to spring into action aren’t too far around the corner. “I think there’s going to be an ever growing clamor to take advantage of this,” Guarente says. And he believes life-span-lengthening medicines will be available within a decade.

Stealth dinosaur

Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, a long-necked sea reptile that probably preyed on fish and squid in a shallow sea in present-day southeastern China more than 230 million years ago, may have been Earth's first stealth hunter:

The strike would have come out of nowhere: One second, the fish was swimming placidly, no danger in sight, a moment later it was lunch.

Scientists have discovered what may have been one of the first stealth hunters, a long-necked swimming dinosaur that could sneak up on prey and attack without warning.

“The long neck would allow it to approach prey without the whole body becoming visible,” said Olivier Rieppel of the Field Museum in Chicago, co-author of a new report in Thursday's issue of the journal, Science.

Pinkerton: Future Shock for America

James Pinkerton has written an excellent OpEd for Tech Central Stupid in which he contrasts the differences between futurist visions of the West and East by considering their recent film contributions. Specifically, he looks at Hollywood's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence:

If, as many suspect, the 21st century ends up being the Asian Century, two movies from 2004 will be remembered as early auguries. The first film bodes poorly for the US; the second film bodes well for Asia. In watching "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," Americans thrill to the simple comic-book glories of 1939. At the same time, the Japanese, watching "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence," think ahead to the cyber-future of 2032, pondering its potentialities and pitfalls.

A culture which prefers the languorous comfort of a quasi-mythic past to the rigors of confronting the hard-edged future is complacent, maybe even decadent -- and out of decadence comes defeat.

Pinkerton continues:

So is "Ghost" director Mamoru Oshii guilty, after all, of the same retro-mindedness as "Sky Captain" director Conran?

No, not at all. "Ghost" director Oshii is on a mission to instruct. In an interview with The Washington Post, he observed, "People are very different from animals. We don't accept our original bodies. Humans wear clothes, have earrings and tattoos, do cosmetic surgery, take vitamins. If they are sick, they get organ transplants. And now we have radios, telephones, microphones, watches, computers, microchips outside the body now, but soon we will utilize these machines inside our bodies and then we will be part cyborg. This is inevitable. The process has already begun."

Dig that: It's inevitable. The process has already begun. Welcome to the machine, as Pink Floyd would say.

Going further, Oshii predicted, in terms not entirely complimentary to his countrymen, that the pioneers of body mechanization "will probably be Japanese. That, and human cloning… because we do not have the same taboos." He added, "Japan is a really weird country without any religion. We take ideas from everywhere. We don't really care about what is lost and what is acquired."

It's worth pausing over Oshii's "no religion" point. Most Americans probably think that the dominant faith in the US, Protestantism, has been an asset -- the upwardly mobile "Protestant Ethic," and all that. Yet some citizens, in the name of faith and morality, are seeking to put stumbling blocks in the path of their progress. The Bush administration seems perfectly prepared, for instance, to say "sayonara" to rivals across the Pacific, as the Asian Tigers pull ahead in the Great Game of Human Techno-Destiny.

There are many other very good insights, and the entire article can be read here.