Space is not only high, it's low. It's a bottomless pit.

Sun Ra
 Preface A beautiful story

Introduction Beyond the human horizon

I. The Metaverse
I.1 Puppeteering

II. Bio- and Neurotechnolgy

II.1 Revolutionizing Prosthetics
II.2 Brain Boosting
II.3 Age of Ageless
II.4 From Mouse to Mars
II.5 Proof Reading
II.6 Magic Bullets
II.7 Brain in Vitro
II.8 Artificial Hippocampus

III. Supercomputation
III.1 Blue Brain
III.2 Wetware

IV. Ethics & Politics

IV.1 Transhuman Express
IV.2 The Future of Nature
IV.3 10answers by...
IV.4 El Club de los Astronautas

last update: 06.02.2010

Preface - A beautiful story
xxx
Anaxagoras said 2 keen things. First: The human being is the smartest
being ever because of its use of hands[1]. Second: Life on Earth originated
from outer space[2]. That should motivate us to try the brave attempt to
start a voyage into interstellar space to check out if there are any guys like
us or different. Anaxagoras (500 – 428 BC) was member of the Ionian
School, known for the first dispute on mysticism[3].
xxx
Imagine a huge explosion on a far away planet catapulting water into outer
space caused by a meteoroid impact. The water containing microbes and
spores would have been shock-frozen in cold interstellar space and start a
long, long trip all the way through the universe until hitting our home
planet. Mother Earth would have been pregnant. The idea is called
panspermia. It's Greek and means primordial seed or seed of life.
xxx
Louis Pasteur revived the idea in 1864 by his disprove of the theory of
spontaneous generation[4].
xxx
Svante Arrhenius, Nobel Price winner of 1907 considered the idea
appealing that all organisms in the universe are related and the process of
evolution is everywhere the same[5].
x
Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted in 1953 the Miller-Urey
experiment on the origin of life. It established that the early Earth
atmosphere, as they pictured it, was capable of producing amino acids, the
building blocks of life, from inorganic substances[6].
xxx
James N. Gardner, author of the Selfish Biocosm Hypothesis, argues
intelligent life eventually emerges as a result of universe-wide evolution[7].
x
Fred Hoyle's book Evolution from Space even rejects Darwin's theory of
evolution and claims“biomaterials with their amazing measure or order
must be the outcome of intelligent design.”[8]
xxx
Francis Crick, together with Leslie Orgel, refined the panspermia
hypothesis to the directed panspermia, that could have been spread by an
extraterrestrial civilization[9].
xxx
Freeman Dyson, a anthropic principle friendly physicist and
mathematician, considers it plausible that the origins of life are not just a
matter of natural selection, but rather a spontaneous, even conscious
formation of a self-perpetuating mechanism[10]. His thoughts seem to be
related to the Greek concept of Nous (universal mind) and Anaxagoras'
cosmogony itself. Might Nous give quantum-mechanical structure the
freedom of conscious choice over itself?
xxx
Chandra Wickramasinghe, influenced by Fred Hoyle, developed the theory
of organic grains in comets and interstellar medium. He claims that even
the SARS-virus could be extraterrestrial because of its uniqueness[11].
Wickramasinghe:“I think the origin of life must have taken place on a
cosmological scale. It required all the resources of all the stars in the
entire universe to get started. But once started the incredible survival
properties of microbes makes it inevitable that it spreads across the
universe.”[12]
xxx
Milton Wainwright claims to have found extraterrestrial bacteria in
stratospheric air samples obtained at 41 km altitude[13]. But his discovery
was not confirmed by the scientific community.
xxx
The Murchison meteorite impacted in Australia in 1969. It contains
common amino acids such as glycine, alanine and glutamic acid[14].
xxx
Paul Higgs and Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University in Hamilton,
Ontario, Canada suggest that there are 10 common amino acids in all
prebiotic environments and that, if alien life exists, it probably has the
same 10 amino acids at its core[15].
xxx
Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center found glycine, an
amino acid in captured samples of comet Wild 2 returned to Earth by
NASA's Stardust mission. "We are interested in understanding what was
on the early Earth when life got started," Elsila said. "We don't know how
life got started … but this adds to our knowledge of the ingredient
pool[16].”
xxx
Jennifer Blank, UC Berkeley, shoots bullets containing amino acids into
metal targets to simulate cometary impact survival tests[17].
xxx
Forrest Bishop's Starseed Launcher proposes to launch interstellar
nanoprobes at one-third light speed[18].
xxx
Karl Sims, a virtual reality pioneer made a 3D-animation of explosive
vegetation shouting its seeds into outer space[19].
xxx
Most important, there is extensive activity to find bacteria on Mars[20] and
a new “space-race” to find earth-like exo-planets[21].
xxx
Michel Mayor, from the Geneva Observatory, Switzerland helped to
dedect the "lightest" planet ever outside our Solar System. It's called
Gliese 581 e. Its brother, Gliese 581 d, a little bit bigger is considered to be
the first known “water world” candidate and exo-planet orbiting inside the
habitable zone. NASA launched the Kepler telescope and ESA the
COROT telescope, both dedicated to finding Earth-size planets[22].
xxx
True or not, the panspermia hypothesis - at least - is a beautiful story of
life and should be very inspiring to the space exploration industry to create
an artificial panspermia by the human, a space ship to realize an
interstellar voyage.
xxx
Beyond the human horizon
xxx
The Mare Nostrum Spaceship (MNS) is a try by El Club de los
Astronautas (see Chapter IV.4) to create such an artificial panspermia. The
first step towards this aim is the compilation of a roadmap (The MNS
roadmap) that seeks, observers, evaluates and categorizes cutting edge
research, brand new ideas and key-technologies relevant to the
construction of an interstellar space ship hopefully during our life-time!
The “propulsion system” of the MNS is mainly based on medicine to
overcome our biological limits and to turn us into a self-designed species
as the premise to overcome the space-time-barrier of the universe.
xxx
But the MNS roadmap has not the exclusive goal to seek for strategies to
realize an interstellar voyage on the long term. Likewise, on the short term,
it features a panoramic view over present knowledge and technologies
related to the field, thus beneficial to a range of all kind of objectives with
humanitarian value. All above it supports the advance of medicine next to
other solutions for urging problems of our home planet, objectives with
much higher priority than space exploration. It deploys as a futurologist
analysis scrutinizing the fallowing domains with a critical eye:
xxx
- regenerative and nano medicine, stem cell and gene therapy
- brainboosting, nootropics and adult neurogenesis
- neurotechnolgy, brain computer interfaces and neuroprosthetics
- neurally-controlled animats, biomechanics and artificial organs
- supercomputing, neurosimulation and molecular computing
- the metaverse and the socio-psychology of the avatar and the internet
- bioethics, technopolitics, science fanaticism and human rights
xxx
The final utopian goal, the realization of an interstellar voyage, no matter
if feasible or not, serves as a vanishing point on our terrestrial, human
horizon to open it up. The MNS roadmap works as psychological
propulsion system to conquer far away lands even they won't be those of
our final goal.
xxx
When will be phase II. of the project, the design of a tangible plan of the
spaceship? It is unpredictable at this point, since there are still to many
incalculable factors of future scientific and technological development.
But the more precise the MNS roadmap becomes over time, the more
determinant will be its predictions, the more adequate its advices and the
more satisfying its answers to consulting. The MNS roadmap is under
continuous development, current chapters will be updated, outdated
information will be taken out and new breakthroughs will be added. You
are invited to participate, suggest and criticize.
xxx
I. The Metaverse
xxx
Today it is impossible to realize an interstellar voyage. We would need to
overcome the space-time-barrier which separates us from other planetary
systems for many light years. Even if we could travel at light speed it
would take us 26 000 years to reach Sagittarius A*, the centre black hole
of our galaxy. We only live 100 years - biologically - and if we are very
lucky. In Virtual Reality (VR) are neither biological nor physical limits at
all. In VR we don't breath air and we travel by beaming. Drew Harry of the
MITSociable Media Lab says, there is no advantage of VR if we don't
make use of the fact it isn't physical. He says: “We should stop to mimic
the physical world when creating VRs.”[1]
xxx
In the material world objects have two purposes: One physical, like gravity
withstanding, weather protection, transportation, etc. The second purpose
is communicative and aesthetic: telling people it is a museum of modern
art or a racing bike. In metaverse (the over-term of all existing VR) the
first purpose, the physical one, becomes obsolete, because VR is pure
information and communication. Its “physical laws” are man-made and
exist only in order to communicate. Consequently in the metaverse doesn't
exist a space-time-barrier and therefore it permits interstellar space-travel;)
A voyage of one million years in real-time would appear to us only like
one year if we change the clock in a 1:1 000 000 ratio inside VR. But there
is a condition: If we want to crack the space-time-barrier by the help of the
metaverse, we need to turn virtual ourselves! We need to emerge with the
metaverse, for example by loading our savvy on hard disc and shoot it into
outer space. Let's call this idea “panspermic metaverse”. The technology of
the MNS is based on this concept.
xxx
Let's find out how we can emerge with the metaverse! How do we upload
our savvy on hard disc? Probably we need to transform into an entire new
(human) life form.
xxx
I.1 Puppeteering
xxx
Artificial physical laws do not only affect the metaverse and its objects,
but also our self-representation, in this case our avatar inside a VR. Some
time ago the 3D motion sensing Zcam[1] was the next step to Nitendo Wii's
motion sensing capability[2]. It made it possible to capture gestures to
control video-games. Obviously a mouse and a keyboard aren't the right
things to puppeteer a variety of complex body language and facial
expressions in real-time. Computer pioneer Mitch Kapor said:"If I smile, I
just want my avatar to smile[3].” Researchers have developed software to
recognize full facial expressions to permit people acting out their emotions
by their avatars[4]. Psychologist Albert Mehrabian said that only 7% of
face-to-face communication are spoken words. 38% is voice tone, and
55% is body language[5]. Consequently the consolidation of self-
expression via VR opens a new dimension of identity creation. It is a big
step towards metaverse emerging.
xxx
“The ability to truly transform oneself has been regarded in myths and
legends as both dangerous and powerful.”, write Nick Yee and Jeremy
Bailenson of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University in
their research report, which is called: “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of
Transformed Self-Representation on Behaviour”[6]. Not only do we design
our avatar, but also the appearance of our avatar shapes how we interact
with others, thus a feedback-loop between identity and behaviour is
observable. To learn how the laws of VR form identity and behaviour will
be existential for us to cohabit the MNS peacefully. But therefore VR has
to turn into Real Virtuality (RV)[7]. It has to become as real as the material
world.
xxx
David Howard from the Universitiy of York, works to develop a Virtual
Cocoon, a Real Virtuality device to stimulate all five senses[7].
xxx
Mandayam Srinivasan, of the MIT Touch Lab has tested BlindAid, a
device for blind people to feel their way around a virtual environment.
When a virtual obstacle is encountered, the computer produces a force
against the user’s hand, mimicking the reaction force from a real obstacle.
The New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, used BlindAid during an
event called “Art Beyond Sight,” to help blind people experience visual
arts[8].
xxx
How could we leave our body to enter another one: an avatar? What
happens to our brain during an out-of-body sensation while experiencing
near-death, under drug intake or meditation? Is this effect simulative?
Sensory streams like vision, touch, balance, body awareness usually work
together seamlessly to create our feeling of being. “When information
from sensory sources does not match up, the sense of being embodied as a
whole comes apart.” says Matthew Botvinick of Princeton University[9].
xxx
Henrik Ehrsson from the University College of London was able to cause
the sensation of being outside the body and seeing it from a distance by
manipulating a mismatch between touch and vision using virtual reality
goggles, a camera and a stick[10].
xxx
Olaf Blanke of the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne does similar
experiments. He stimulated a brain region called the temporoparietal
junction (TPJ) and caused the sensation of floating above the own body
and looking down on itself[11].
xxx
Alessandro Farné of the University of Claude Bernard in Lyon suggests
that when we use tools or a prosthetic limb, our brains incorporate them
into there "body-map"[12].
xxx
Will these discoveries be applied to the next generation avatar technology?
Can our brains directly connect to a VR-simulation-supercomputer? What
happens to our inmost self if we consign it to an artefact like an avatar?
xxx
NASA's attempt to do space exploration via the metaverse can be found at
NASA CoLab. The director of the NASA Ames Research Center, Pete
Worden, wants to live-stream data from space missions directly into VR:
“Your Avatar can explore along with those of scientists and engineers
managing the mission. You (...) shout to the mission manager: “Hey, over
here, isn’t this carbonaceous mineral!” In this manner we can all
participate in space exploration[13].” Virtual Astronaut was created by
Tietronix Software, Inc. in 2005 and it was a first example of engaging
interactive gaming experience[14]. NASA has already ambitious plans
about an own massively multiplayer online game á la Second Life. They
have published a request for information from organisations interested in
its development[15].
xxx
Now we got a basic insight of the whys and hows of the metaverse. By the
way, the term metaverse was coined by science fiction author Neil
Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash[16].
xxx
II. Bio and Neurotechnolgy
xxx
To permit us, the astronauts of the MNS to emerge intrinsically with the
metaverse for millions of years of voyage we have to go much further than
discussing VR as we did in the previous chapter. We need to figure out
how to upload our savvy on hard disc. How to substitute the brain for an
artificial medium like a molecular supercomputer?
xxx
II.1 Revolutionizing Prosthetics
xxx
“If they could throw a baseball before, they will throw a baseball again. If
they could play the piano before, they will play the piano again.”
Prosthesis is nothing new, but brain controlled prosthesis yes. Geoffrey
Ling of the DARPA Defence Sciences Office runs a project called
Revolutionizing Prosthetics[1]. It was awarded, between others, to the
DEKA Research and Development Corp.[2] and the Johns Hopkins
University's Applied Physics Laboratoy. The goal was to build an artificial
arm (the DEKA arm) that feels and acts exactly like a real one by the end
of 2009. "It is very much like a Manhattan Project at that scope. It is over
$100 million investment now. It involves well over 300 scientists, that is
engineers, neuroscientists, psychologists." Ling said[3].
xxx
To control prosthetics by thought, just as we do it with our real arm,
electrode arrays get plugged into the nerves or brain tissue. The nerve
signals then can be send in sufficient accuracy and bidirectionally between
brain and the chip controlling the artificial limb[4]. The idea is called brain
computer interface (BCI).
xxx
Maria Chiara Carrozza of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa leads a
research group to develop a biomechatronic prosthetic hand, called
SmartHand. Yosi Shacham-Diamand of the Tel Aviv University has
successfully wired the hand to nerve endings in the stump of a severed
arm. Function, sensitivity and appearance where recovered. Robin af
Ekenstam, the subject of the project, has been able to complete extremely
complicated tasks like eating, writing and feeling his fingers again[5]. A
similar hand, also developed at Sant'Anna, was surgically connected to an
amputee in Rome at the end of 2009[6].
xxx
Philip Kennedy implanted in 1998 an electrode into the motor cortex of
Johnny Ray, a full paralysed. He learned how to control the screen cursor
just by thinking[7].
xxx
John Donoghue of the Brown University, USA, developed a brain chip
technology called BrainGate, registered by Cyberkinetics Neuro-
technology Systems, Inc. Thereby a chip was implanted in 2004 into the
nervous system of Matthew Nagle. He was able to control a robot arm
using thought power. The US government allow more trials on humans in
July 2009[8].
xxx
Miguel Nicolelis of the Duke University is well known for having
accomplished to control a walking robot by the thoughts of his monkey
Idoya. He implanted electrode arrays into the monkey's brain to detect its
motor intent and to control reaching and grasping movements performed
by a robotic arm. Idoya realised that imaging the movement was enough
and it no longer needed to move a joystick[9].
xxx
Eberhard Fetz of the University of Washington in Seattle uses electrodes
to deliver electric impulses to stimulate muscles in monkeys. It is called
functional electrical stimulation (FES). An anaesthetically blocked nerve
connection in the arm was bypassed; the monkey moved its arm. It could
be an alternative treatment for paralysed persons instead of regrowing
damaged nerve fibres by stem cells (see chapter II.4)[10].
xxx
José Carmena of the University of California, Berkeley, showed that the
brain can establish a stable memory for motor tasks to control artificial
limbs more intuitively[11]. Earlier Carmena created a BCI that allowed
monkeys to play a computer game using their minds.
xxx
Dean Pomerleau at Intel Labs works on brain implants to control next
generation of personal computers and cell phones. "If we can get to the
point where we can accurately detect specific words, you could mentally
type," he said[12].
xxx
Frank Guenther of the Boston University used a BCI for real-time
synthetic speech production. A man with lockedin syndrome was able to
control sound output directly, rather than by typing. Signals collected from
an electrode in the speech motor cortex are amplified and sent wirelessly
across the scalp. A decoder translates the signals into speech commands
for the speech synthesizer[13].
xxx
The BCI technology was used and refined for the so successful Cochlear
implant, that made thousands of deaf hear again[14].
xxx
The same thing is expected to work for the eye and is already tested. First
devices, like Argus II (by Second Sight) are implanted in 18 people who
can recognise doors or fallow the white lines of streets[15].
xxx
John Wyatt of the MIT has a new electronic retinal implant, a small
camera that relays image data to a chip that fires an electrode array under
the retina to stimulate the optic nerve. The new prototype could be tested
on patients within three years[16].
xxx
Eberhart Zrenner of the Retina Implant AG, Reutlingen implanted a chip
under the retina of a blind with retinitis pigmentosa. Sight was achieved
with much better resolution than Argus II[17].
xxx
Agneta Richter-Dahlfors of the Karolinska Institutet and Linköping
University, Sweden, intents to create the first artificial nerve cell able to
communicate with normal nerve cells via neuro-transmitters. A new type
of “delivering electrode” activates only very specific neighbouring cells. It
gives hope to correct and refine BCIs[18].
xxx
David Colman of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital works
with plastic beads coated with a substance that encourages adhesion of
nerve cells in order to achieve neuronal repair. "We believe that within the
next five years we will have a fully functional device that will be able to
directly convey natural nerve cell signals from the nerve cell itself to an
artificial matrix containing a mini-computer that will communicate
wirelessly with target tissues," says Dr. Colman[19].
xxx
Mohammad RezaAbidian of the University of Michigan uses nanotubes
that are more biocompatible and record neural signals better than
conventional metal electrodes[20].
xxx
Brian Litt of the University of Pennsylvania has build thin, flexible silicon
electronics on silk substrates that almost completely dissolve inside the
body. They don't cause irritation because they are just nanometers thick
and could serve as arrays of conformable electrodes to interface with the
nervous system[21].
xxx
But a BCI not necessarily have to be invasive. An electrode-filled headset
by interpreting electroencephalogram signals (EEG) or electro-
corticographic signals (EcoG), can use mentally visualized commands or
motor imagery to control an avatar in Second Life as it is investigated by
the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory at Keio University[22].
xxx
Janez Janša, used a a non-invasive BCI to perform an art-performance
called Brainloop. Thereby he googles Earth and makes music just by
imaging. It takes quite a bit to learn it; maybe as much as when you try to
walk the first time[23].
xxx
His BCI was developed by the University of Technology Graz and the
University College London and was commercialised by Guger
Technologies (g.tec)[24].
xxx
Mick Grierson of the Goldsmith College, University of London used the
same device to translate thoughts into notes that could help musicians with
sclerosis or other handicaps[25].
Xxx
Silent Talk is a programme by the DARPA to use EEG signals of “pre-
speech,” to “allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without
the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals[26].”
Xxx
Paul Verschure of the Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive
Systems (SPECS) group of the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona,
created the Multimodal Brain Orchestra whereby people play virtual
musical instruments by the help of a BCI by g.tec[27].
xxx
A BCI to control a wheelchair was build by the BSI-Toyota Collaboration
Center (BTCC), an institute by RIKEN and Toyota[28]. Similar projects are
the Aware Chair at the Georgia State University[29] and a mined propelled
wheelchair developed by Matteo Matteucci of Milan's Polytechnical
Institute[30].
xxx
Cyberdyne, Inc. in Japon has built a robotic exoskeleton called "Robot Suit
HAL" to help people with stroke or spinal cord injury or workers doing
physically demanding work. Nerve signals sent from the brain to the
muscles are caught in a sensor attached on the skin to control the
exoskeleton[31].
xxx
The Walk Again Project is a multinational collaborative effort to free
paralysed patients led by the Duke Center for Neuroengineering. Its goal is
to develop and implement a brain machine interface to control the
movements of a full-body prosthetic device also known as an
exoskeleton[32].
xxx
Ben Strowbridge of Case Western Reserve School of Medicine works on
light-activated brain-machine interfaces. "Wireless Activation of Neurons
in Brain Slices Using Nanostructured Semiconductor Photoelectrodes," is
called the corresponding report of brain stimulation using light-activated
semiconductor nanoparticles[33].
xxx
If you want to try yourself, get a BCI from Guger Technologies or a
product ready for gaming, like Project Epoc from Emotive Systems[34] or
Project Millennia from Neurosky[35]. But think twice before you publish
your brainwave pattern on the internet(-;[36]
xxx
The advance of BCIs will allow to connect to highly sophisticated avatars
to experience VR with all five senses. It will take the metaverse beyond
the audio-visual, thus experiences become intrinsically more real. We got a
glimpse of how this can be realized in a more or less foreseeable time. But
for the MNS it will be crucial to replace the brain and body by an artificial
medium resistant to interstellar space travel. This will take its time. To
survive in the meantime we need to conserve our old biology first.
xxx
II.2 Brain Boosting
xxx
“If you can do it better because you’ve got some drug on board, that
would be on the face of things seem like a plus.” says Martha Farah,
director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of
Pennsylvania in reference to academic doping[1].
xxx
Nootropics, like amphetamines, first synthesized in 1887 and its modern
commercial brand Adderall are in routine (ab)use among students to
improve performance and not only to treat attention deficit disorder, the
original purpose. But attention: Risks include dependence and
psychosis[2]!
xxx
Ulrike Rimmele of the University of Zurich tested oxytocin - known as the
“cuddle hormone” - on its affect on human memory and it increased the
recognition of faces. “One hormone can specifically influence one type of
memory, ” Rimmele said. Further research may lead to treatments for
autistic patients[3].
xxx
Lisa Marshall of the University of Lübeck, Germany shows that
interleukin-6, an immune system molecule, helps the brain retain
emotional and procedural memories during REM sleep[4].
xxx
Fred Gage[5] and Elizabeth Gould[6] shifted strong paradigms in
neuroscience a couple of years ago, by discovering adult neurogenesis.
Brains aren't chunks of wood any more; they are seen far more flexible
today; the neuron doctrine by Santiago Ramon y Cajal is updated[7]; mind
is a versatile weasel. The finding will progress the better understanding
and cure of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, strokes and depression.
Xxx
Darius Gleason and Peter Bryant of the University of California, Irvine
identified ependymal cells as neuronal stem cells which line the ventricles
in the brain and spinal cord. "We believe that all of the ependymal cells
are stem cells, and that they all have the ability to be activated.", Bryand
sais[8].
xxx
Jonas Frisén of the Karolinska Institutet located the molecular mechanisms
that control the activation of new nerve cells in mice. He was able to
switch off the so-called Notch signalling pathway, which inhibits the
creation of new nerve cells[9].
xxx
Timothy Bussey of the University of Cambridge, UK, found that aerobic
exercises such as running or jogging stimulates neurogenesis and improves
memory and recall[10].
xxx
Dong Feng Chen of the Harvard Medical School found that molecules like
ephrin-A2 and ephrin-A3 block neuronal stem cells. Sonic hedgehog in
contrast activates them[11].
xxx
Mike Modo of the King's College London injected a biodegradable
polymer loaded with neural stem cells directly into stroke cavities of mice,
where complex scaffolds where build and connections with the
surrounding brain tissue established[12].
xxx
Rutledge Ellis-Behnke of the University of Hong Kong and the MIT
developed a "self-assembling nanofiber scaffold" (SAPNS), to control
brain cell regeneration by guiding proliferation, differentiation and tissue
growth. It could be used to boost new neural circuits in the central neural
system[13].
xxx
Michal Stachowiak of the University of Buffalo has identified a new gene
signalling mechanism that prompts brain stem cells to differentiate into
neurons. It is known as Integrative FGFR1 Signalling (INFS)[14].
xxx
Li-Huei Tsai, a neuroscientist of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and
the MIT's Picower Institute works with an enzyme called histone
deacetylase (HDAC), a epigenetic regulator. Her goal is to boost
selectively gene expression in the brain. HDAC inhibitors might promote
growth of dendrites and increase synaptogenesis, improve plasticity,
strengthen the neural circuits and enhance memory. A a company called
EnVivo Pharmaceuticals is going to test related drugs soon[15]. Li-Huei
Tsai also found that a gene called DISC1 regulates the growth of neural
stem cells and also is linked to compromised cognition and behavioural
abnormalities. A better understanding of DISC1 could lead to new
treatments for schizophrenia[16].
xxx
William Snider of the University of North Carolina found that the gene
GSK-3 is responsible for the the amount of nerve cells in the brain. The
gene determines the frequency nerve cells divide[17].
xxx
Ana Mingorance-Le Meur and Timothy O’Connor of the University of
British Columbia identified proteins, calpain and cortactin, involved in
neural plasticity. “Neurons don't lose their capacity to re-grow
connections, but instead are under constant repression by the protein
calpain,” said Mingorance-Le Meur[18].
xxx
Keith Muir of the University of Glasgow will lead the first clinical trial
involving neural stem cell therapy in ischaemic stroke by a therapy called
ReN001 and developed by the ReNeuron Group plc after the company
received approval from the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products
Regulatory Agency (MHRA)[19].
xxx
Enterprises like BrainCells Inc., Neuronova and Stem Cell Therapeutics
Corp. already test drugs like BCI-540, BCI-632, sNN0031 and NTxTM-
265 to stimulate neurogenesis[20].
xxx
StemCells Inc., announced an important milestone to have successfully
transplanted purified human neural stem cells (HuCNS-SC™) into patients
with Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis or Batten Disease, a fatal
neurodegenerative disorder[21].
xxx
Neurologix, a biotechnology company, has developed a therapy now tested
in clinical trials. A gene called GAD codes an enzyme that catalyses the
production of GABA, a chemical messenger. Dopamine is a chemical
precursor to GABA, and the cells that produce it are lost in Parkinson's[22].
xxx
In the coming decades this kind of investigation could lead to treatments
for neurodegenerative disorders like Huntington's, Alzheimer's and
Parkinson's. Will it be possible in some future to tune our brains and keep
them fresh without scary side effects? Nootropics, neurogenesis, neuronal
stem cell transplantation and neuogenetics could mean a first step to
conserve our brain until we are able to replace it by an other medium.
xxx
II.3 Age of Ageless
xxx
Now the body! If we can keep fresh the brain, let's try to do same with the
body. To realize a million-years interstellar voyage, the first step is to
overcome our biological limits!
Xxx
Furry Aubrey de Grey of the Cambridge University, UK has founded the
Methuselah Foundation to cure senescence like a disease and it makes
SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence)[1] to people who
like living. But death is not hair loss. However, he claims there is a 50%
chance to gain an additional 30 years of life expectation in about 25
years[2]. To push anti-ageing science Aubrey's Foundation pays the
Methuselah Mouse Rejuvenation Prize (Mprize)[3] to people like Stephen
Spindler of the University of California at Riverside who prolonged mouse
lives an average 15%[4]. Andrzej Bartke of the School of Medicine,
Southern Illinois University, received the Mprize for keeping a mouse
alive for five years, what is the equivalent of extending a human life up to
200 years[3]. The Foundation's own research programmes with names like
LysoSENS or MitoSENS have a clear bio-engineering approach to target
ageing related cell damages. Searching for microbial enzymes to recycle
and remove cellular junk or trying to save vulnerable genes of the cellular
“power plants”, the mitochondria[1], it burns a funding budget of several
million dollars per year. Alongside Aubrey, there is a standing army
fighting our deadliest cause of death, the ageing sand-glass:
xxx
Bruce Ames of the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute follows
mitochondrial decay and oxidation of RNA/DNA, proteins, and lipids, that
is causing ageing and degenerative diseases[5].
xxx
William Haseltine founded Human Genome Sciences, a biopharmaceutical
corporation, and he wants to find "the fountain of youth" in genes
developing cellular replacement therapies[6].
xxx
Michael West founded Geron Corp. to create drugs based on telomere and
stem cell research and is CEO of BioTimes Inc. and former CEO of
Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., that works on stem cells[7].
xxx
William Andrews, former director of Geron Corp. founded Sierra
Sciences, a company to explore the mechanisms around the telomere, a
disposable buffer, which is consumed during cell division, thus relevant to
cell senescence. Andrews works with a telomerase-boosting supplement
called TA-65[8].
xxx
Judith Campisi of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory works on
telemeres, cancer and related mechanisms like tumour suppressors, DNA
repair and transcription, genetic and epigenetic damage, mitochondrial
function. She also works for the Buck Institute for Age Research,
dedicated to increase our health-span, the healthy years of life[9].
xxx
Michael Fossel of the Michigan State University says Children with
Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome die young because their telomeres are to
short. Those kids have balding heads, wrinkled skin and die from stroke,
cancer and heard attack. Fossel works on how to insert or switch on the
hTERT gene in all cells of the body[10]. hTERT is a catalytic component of
telomerase[11].
xxx
Richard Walker of the University of South Florida sequenced the DNA of
a 16 years old boy whose size and development corresponds to that of an
11 months old baby. Walker hypothesizes the cause is the disruption of an
unidentified master ageing gene or regulator of development[12].
xxx
Adolfo Díez Perez of the Autonomous University of Barcelona found that
two genes in combination, KLOTHO and LRP5, could lead to longevity. A
114 year old man and his 101 years old brother where target of the
investigation[13].
xxx
Tomohiro Kono of the Tokyo University links the gene Ras-GRF1 to
women's longer lifespans. He produced one third longer-living mice by the
DNA from two mothers but no father. The gene is expressed in men, but
silenced in women[14].
xxx
Thomas Cech, Nobel Laureate for discovering the ribosome, also does
research on telomerase and he is the president of the U.S. largest private
supporter of biomedical research, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
In 2008 $600 million are given to fund risky but potentially lifesaving
medical research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) gives more than
$28 billion in biomedical research grants every year[15]. Since the NIH
budget remains flat and the cost of research has increased, Cech worries:
"That's an enormous cutback in our nation's investment in tomorrow's
medicine. We're mortgaging our future by not funding this research
now[16]."
xxx
Elisabeth Blackburn, 2009 Medicine Nobel-price-winner of the University
of California in San Francisco discovered together with Carol Greider in
1984 telomerase, the enzyme that recovers the telomeres by adding DNA
strands. Blackburn currently tests how psychological stress is linked to cell
ageing and scuffing telomeres, and the effects of meditation on
telomerase[17].
xxx
Gil Atzmon of the Yeshiva University, New York, tries to understand the
mechanism by which the genetic variants of telomerase maintain telomere
length in centenarians. "Our research was meant to answer two questions:
Do people who live long lives tend to have long telomeres? And if so,
could variations in their genes that code for telomerase account for their
long telomeres?" The answer to both questions is yes[18].
xxx
Rita Effros at the University of California in Los Angeles uses TAT2, a
drug extracted from Astragalus, a plant known in Chinese medicine for
improving the immune system. TAT2 boosts telomerase and was
developed by Geron Corp. Good news is that TAT2 seems not to increase
the amount of telomerase in cancer cells. The drug also could help people
with HIV[19].
xxx
Cynthia Kenyon of the UC, San Francisco does basic research on
endocrine and transcriptional regulation genes of the Caenorhabditis
elegans, a microscopic roundworm found in soil environments. Kenyon's
findings of the daf-2 and daf-16 (FOXO factors) genes permit to change
the tissue respond to hormones that affect lifespan. The team was able to
extend the lifespan of active, youthful worms by the six fold. Daf-2/daf-
16-like genes already were found in fruit flies, mice and possibly, recently
in humans[20].
xxx
Bradley Willcox of the University of Hawaii found that people who
carried two copies of a particular form of the gene FOXO3A were almost
three times as likely to make it to 100 than those without the variation[21].
xxx
David Sinclair promotes resveratrol, a substance found for example in red
wine. It possibly extends human life span. Sinclair, a former postdoc at
Leonard Guarente's Lab, M.I.T., was studying gene regulation in yeast[22].
Leonard Guarente and Cynthia Kenyon founded a company called Elixir
Pharmaceuticals to fight ageing and metabolic diseases. David Sinclair,
now at the Harvard Medical School, thinks resveratrol activates SIRT1, a
gen believed to regulate ageing by encoding Sirt1, a sirtuin[23]. Sinclair co-
founded together with Christoph Westphal Sirtris Pharmaceuticals to
become a rival to Elixir Pharmaceuticals. Human trials on SRT501 or
mouse tests on SRT1720, both SIRT1 activators are undertaken[24]. It was
found to improve insulin sensitivity and lower plasma glucose levels in fat,
muscle and liver tissue, and increased mitochondrial and metabolic
function. Sinclair, a science rebel put into question by some, says: "This
will impact humans within a decade[25]." Christoph Westphal, the chief
executive of Sirtris says:”The frontiers of science are often turbulent, and
it can take years for clarity to emerge from confusion.” However, Sirtris
was bought by the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline for $720
million[26]. That has to say something.
xxx
David Harrison of the Jackson Laboratory, Maine and Randy Strong of the
University of Texas showed that rapamycin, a natural substance prolongs
mouse-lives of 9% in males and 13% in females. It is not recommend to
take rapamycin because it can effect the immune system negatively. But
the discovery gives hope to find treatments against cancer etc.[27].
xxx
Ricki J. Colman and Richard Weindruch at the University of Wisconsin
stared a study 20 years ago where rhesus monkeys are put under 30%
caloric restriction. The monkeys show significantly less diabetes, cancer,
and heart and brain disease. Mice kept on such a diet live up to 40 percent
longer[27].
xxx
Matthew Piper of the University College London co-authored a study on
the amino acid methionine. “When food is low, lots of methionine is o.k.
When food is high, reducing methionine can lengthen lifespan.”
Identifying pathways affected by amino acid imbalances could help to
design of drugs with the benefits of caloric restriction[28].
xxx
Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute's Gene Expression Laboratory is
working on cell signalling pathways and was able to turn laboratory mice
into endurance athletes with oral drugs such as Aicar and GW1516. He
mimicked the effects of exercise by activating a genetic switch called
PPAR delta, even when fed fatty food that causes obesity. Evans
collaborates with the World Anti-Doping Agency[29].
xxx
Dominic Withers of the University College London disabled in mice the
gene S6K1 involved in the signalling pathway target of rapamycin (TOR).
Female mice without S6K1 lived up to 20 percent longer than normal
mice[30].
xxx
Irina Conboy at the Berkeley Stem Cell Center, UC came a step closer to
understand the signalling pathways that regulate adult stem cell division
able to repair and replace damaged tissue. "What we discovered is the
interplay between two pathways - one an ageing pathway, and the other a
youthful pathway," sais Conboy. In young people there is an optimal
balance between those pathways and the question is how to calibrate them
in elderly people[31].
xxx
Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois, Chicago wrote an article for
the BBC in 2004 titled: “Don't fall for the cult of immortality” where he
writes “What is needed now is not exaggeration or false promises, but
rather, a scientific pathway to improved physical health and mental
functioning.” wile he is criticising seductive pledges made by some
people[32]. The “cult of immortality” was cultivated since thousands of
years by alchemists and charlatans and what they have all in common is
they are dead now. "The traditional medical approach of attacking
individual diseases - cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease
and Parkinson's disease - will soon become less effective if we do not
determine how all of these diseases either interact or share common
mechanisms with ageing," said Jay Olshansky[33].
xxx
II.4 From Mouse to Mars
xxx
Regenerative medicine could become a powerful tool to fix and replace
broken and outworn body parts. The understanding of stem cells and cell
communication is crucial.
xxx
Shinya Yamanaka of the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto
University was able to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)
from human adult fibroblasts in 2007, a mayor breakthrough shifting
paradigms in the stem cell debate. He achieved to create embryonic-like
stem cells by inserting four transcription factors into adult cells[1]. “Many
people seem to think that because of IPS cells, embryonic stem cells are
longer required," Yamanaka sais. "But that is not the case[2]."
xxx
James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin was the first one to isolate
human embryonic stem cells in 1998, starting a war on ethics, the stem cell
debate. Almost 10 years later he was able to turn adult cells into
embryonic-like stem cells. Independently he archived the same result
Shinya Yamanaka did, but with a slightly different group of factors[3].
xxx
Sean Morrison of the University of Michigan showed that 4 genes, Ink4a,
Arf, Hmga2 and let-7b, suppress tumour formation, regulate adult stem
cells and the shutting down of stem cells during ageing. It reveals shared
genetic pathways between cancer, aging and stem-cell function. Morrison
said. "The good news is that it allows us to get older before getting cancer.
The bad news is that your tissues lose their regenerative capacity, making
you older.”[4]
xxx
Sheng Ding of the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla was able to create
iPSCs of mice by treating them with proteins (Oct4, Klf4, Sox2, c-Myc).
The introduction of genes is not necessary any more. It is an important step
towards a safe method for generating patient-specific stem cells, to
reducing the risk of mutagenic side-effects and immune reaction[5].
xxx
Kwang-Soo Kim, of the Harvard Medical School and the CHA University,
Korea, obtained similar results by treating human skin cells. This new
proteinbased method does not fiddle with the genome, so it could be close
to clinical applications[6].
xxx
Andras Nagy of Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto and Keisuke Kaji of the
University of Edinburgh, UK used a sequence of DNA known as a
transposon (also called piggyBac) to carry four genes to reprogram human
skin cells into iPS cells without using a virus. "The rocket has to be
removed from the shuttle, otherwise it could create a problem," says Nagy.
The result could mean much safer cell lines, because potential cancer-
triggering genes get removed after reprogramming[7].
xxx
Qi Zhou of the Jiao Tong University, Shanghai and Shaorong Gao of the
National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing independently created
mice iPS cell lines to produce successfully embryos. To determine whether
iPS cells are functionally equivalent to embryonic stem cells additional
studies are still needed. "This was the last remaining barrier," said
Richard M. Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, also
the technique could be used one day to make a baby with a piece of skin
from your ex-boyfriend[8].
xxx
George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute produces disease-specific
stem cell lines for 10 genetic disorders like childhood diabetes,
Huntington's and Down syndrome. Distributing them to other scientists he
offers an alternative of studying diseases like within animal models[9].
xxx
iZumi Bio in San Francisco is developing a bank of iPS cell lines to create
laboratory models of diseases. Subtle molecular changes get observable in
the dish long before the telltale signs of a disease[10].
xxx
Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, was able
to change cells identity in living mice - not in the dish - to produce insulin.
Besides of being a major leap towards preventing diabetes it could give
rise to new treatments like growing new heart or nerve cells after heart
attack or stroke. Thereby the pattern of active and shut off genes of a cell
gets reprogrammed. “It's like a scientist becoming a lawyer without
having to go back to kindergarten and grow up again,” Melton says[11].
xxx
Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. in
Massachusetts, grows blood cells from human embryonic stem cells
(hESCs). It's a big step towards the mass-production of clean and disease-
free transfusible blood for example with the rare type O-negative that can
be transfused into any patient. Lanza says iPSCs will be used later on
instead of embryonic[12]. In 2006 Lanza was able to use blastomeres, to
create new stem cell lines, a method without destroying the parent
embryos[13]. Blastomeres are cells produced by the division of the egg
after fertilization.
xxx
Yukio Nakamura at the Riken's BioResource Center in Tsukuba, Japan,
led a team that was able to cure mice with clinically induced anaemia.
Embryonic stem cells were used to create progenitor cell lines to self-
generate healthy red blood cells. A significant step towards limitless
supply of transfusable blood prepared in vitro[14].
xxx
Fate Therapeutics is testing the drug FT1050 in a an early-stage clinical
trial to stimulate proliferation of hematopoietic stem cells which give rise
to blood and immune cells. The drug could become a companion treatment
to bone-marrow transplants and cord-blood transfusions. The company is
pursuing the same strategy to disrupt the uncontrolled growth of cancer
cells[15].
xxx
Philip Gregory of Sangamo Biosciences of Richmond, California, makes
artificial zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), enzymes which can disrupt genes.
For example it could be used to stop making HIV its door-handle protein
to enter cells[16].
xxx
Joshua Hare of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
develops therapies for heart injuries with stem cells obtained from bone
marrow. He aims to amplify cardiac stem cells in culture and put them
back into the body[17].
xxx
Benoit Bruneau of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, San
Francisco found proteins that tell embryonic cells to form into cardiac
muscle cells (cells in the heart) and they eventually start to beat[18].

José Manuel García-Verdugo of the University of Valencia injected

neuronal stem cells into animals with multiple sclerosis. The cells produce
a molecule that decelerates the the demyelinating process which is
characteristic for the illness[19].
xxx
Konstantinos Meletis of the MIT's Picower Institute was able to
genetically mark stem cells within the spinal cord. It could lead to new
treatments to boost ependymal cells (cells of the nervous system) to
produce more myelin and less scar tissue in order to repair spinal-cord
injuries[20].
xxx
Hans Keirstead of the University of California, Irvine in 2005 was able to
make partially paralyzed rats walk - by human stem cells[21].
xxx
Thomas Okarma is the CEO of Geron Corp. the world leader in the
development of human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-based therapeutics.
Hans Keirstead works for Geron that received clearance from the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) to begin the world's first human clinical trial
of an embryonic stem cell-based therapy using a drug called GRNOPC1
for acute spinal cord injury. A success of the trial would mean a mayor
breakthrough for the regenerative medicine sector. The whole world is
going to watch this trial, but preliminary data won't be earlier than 2010
and what works in rats may fail in humans[21]. Geron's trial will mark
crucially the destiny of regenerative medicine and it might be one of the
most important scientific events within the next two years! However the
Phase I trial is on clinical hold since the 18.08.2009 after being reviewed
by the FDA as a low frequency of injected animals developed microscopic
cysts[22].
xxx
William Lowry of the University of California Los Angeles turned skin
fibroblasts into iPS-derived neurons. "We demonstrate the successful
generation of electrically active motor neurons from multiple human iPS
cell lines and provide evidence that these neurons are molecularly and
physiologically indistinguishable from motor neurons derived from human
embryonic stem cells," he said[23].
xxx
Kevin Eggan of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Christopher
Henderson of the Columbia University where able to generate motor
neurons from skin cells taken from elderly people. Eggan says: "It opens
the door to being able to make patient-specific stem cell lines to treat
diseases that affect people very late in life, like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's
disease." And it also will provide a better understanding of how a disease
evolves, observing and testing those stem cell lines in a dish[24].
xxx
Yoshiki Sasai at Riken Centre for Development Biology was able to create
functioning human brain tissues from stem cells. The tissues could serve to
study the cause of Alzheimer's disease. There goal now is to augment the
complexity of the tissues[25].
xxx
Bob Vandre of the Army's Medical Research & Materiel Command at the
Pentagon authorized an initiative to spend $ 250 million into adult stem-
cells. "We'll use the soldiers' own stem cells to repair nerve damage, to re-
grow muscles and tendons, to repair burn wounds, and to help them heal
without scarring," said Eric Schoomaker, the army Surgeon-General[26].
xxx
More on neuronal stem cells see chapter II.2 Brain Boosting
xxx
David Stocum, biology professor at the Purdue University in Indiana,
intents to isolate proteins and grow factors that promote the regeneration
of limbs[27]. However the application on humans will be a long struggle.
xxx
Elly Tanaka of the Max Planck Institute in Dresden found that lost limbs
in axolotl salamander begin to regenerate by the formation of a clump of
blastema cells. Skin, muscle, bone, blood vessels and neurons regrow into
a limb identical to the old one. It seems the body find it easier to accept
only partially reprogrammed cells than embryonic or fully reprogrammed
cells[28].
xxx
Gerald Pao of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies sequence genes of
the axolotl salamander in the hope to find master genes that could be used
to wake up residing regenerative potential in the human[29].
xxx
Doris Taylor of the University of Minnesota, shows that not only blood
can be recreated in vitro, but also organs. Her lab was able to grow a
complete brand new beating pig heart by introducing stems cells on the
extracellular matrix of a old pig heart. The procedure is called Whole
Organ Decellularization and might be used one day for any organ to be
produced on assembly lines[30]. Today, on average, one person dies every
90 minutes while waiting for an organ[31].
xxx
Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has
implanted the first custom made bladders in 7 patients since 2002
preserving kidney function. Atala is now working on tissue replacement
projects for almost any body part: blood vessels, nerves, muscles,
cartilage, bones, oesophagus, trachea, pancreas, kidneys, livers, pancreas,
hearts, heart valves and patches, wombs, skeletal muscle cells for urinary
continence, insulin-producing tissue, salivary gland tissue, vaginal tissue,
penile implants, etc. He even grow a rabbit penis yet. How? Making
moulds and scaffolds. Degradable polymers, collagen, keratin or even
carbon nanotubes can be used for three-dimensional forms where stem or
progenitor cells can be seeded on for tissue formation. “A salamander can
grow back its leg, why can’t a human do the same?” Atala askes[32].
xxx
David Weitz of the Harvard University created a blob of muscle proteins
that could lead to controllable biomaterials to replace damaged body
tissue. A scaffold with controllable stiffness could direct stems cells into
different cell types to sculpt more intricate tissues that contain different
kinds of cell[33].
xxx
Lei Xiao, of the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology
wants to breed pigs for organ transplants for humans. Reprogrammed stem
cells could be used to make pig organs compatible to the human immune
system, minimising the risk of rejection[34].
xxx
Gabor Forgacs of the University of Missouri, 3D-printed chicken heart
cells making them start beating and blood vessels that branch like veins
and arteries do[21]. “We can use multiple cell types and that we do not
have to control what happens when the cells fuse together. Nature is smart
enough to do the job.” Forgacs sais[35].
xxx
Geoff MacKay is CEO of Organogenesis, a company that commercialized
the first living-cell-based tissue-engineered product called Apligraf. It's for
the treatment of venous leg ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers and yet used in
over 200 000 patients[36].
xxx
Anthony Hollander at the University of Bristol implanted lab-grown
cartilage tissue into the knees of accident and osteoarthritis patients[37].
xxx
Songtao Shi of the University of Southern California works on recreating
teeth from adult stem cells out of wisdom teeth. Shi already created a
living root using stem cells of a pig[38].
xxx
Maria Grant and Edward Scott of the University of Florida program bone
marrow stem cells to repair damaged retinas in mice. "This work applies to
85 percent of patients who have age-related macular degeneration," Grant
said. "There are no therapies for this devastating disease[39]."
xxx
Raymond Lund of the Casey Eye Institute, Oregon injected hESCs into
mice with Stargardt disease. Functional rescue was nearly achieved,
possibly suitable for human clinical trials in some future[40]. Lund also
works in collaboration with StemCells, Inc. on studies with neural stem
cells in the hope of achieving a breakthrough in treating age-related
macular degeneration (AMD)[41].
xxx
Pete Coffey of the University College London got financial support by
Pfizer, the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company to
develop a hESCs treatment for age-related macular degeneration and to
begin patient trials in 2010 or 2011[42].
xxx
Nick di Girolamo of the University of New South Wales, Australia, used
adult limbal stem cells grown onto contact lenses to improve sight[43].
xxx
Steven Artandi of the Stanford University School of Medicine found that a
protein called TERT stimulates resting adult stem cells to divide. TERT
also is involved in telomere maintenance. It shows that stem cell
maintenance and activation is directly connected to cancer cell
proliferation[44].
xxx
James M. Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania directed a human trial
on gene-therapy in 1999 where Jesse Gelsinger died of massive immune
response. It injured dramatically the whole branch of gene therapy. Wilson
recently wrote an article in Science titled “A History Lesson for Stem
Cells”. He warns of the hype of regenerative medicine[45].
xxx
II.5 Proof Reading
xxx
Mistakes on the DNA can be inherited or caused by mutation and viruses.
Higher DNA sequencing speeds and data processing power allow a
quicker finding of mistakes. Genetic engineering and gene therapy rises
hope to fix them and cure disease. Will you carry your DNA sequence on a
memostick?
xxx
Stephen Quake of Stanford's School of Medicine sequenced his entire
genome for less than $50,000 and with a team of just two other people
using an instrument called the Helicos Biosciences SMS Heliscope. The
sequencing process took about one month to complete. The $1,000
genome could be attained in two or three years[1].
xxx
Timothy Ley of the Washington University read each of the 3 billion
building blocks of DNA from acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells. The
code was compared to noncancerous skin cells. 10 mutations where
discovered. “What we need are thousands of genomes from each cancer,”
says Ley[2].
xxx
Steven Dowdy of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of
California, studies cancer therapy potentials of RNA inhibition to silence
genes through interfering RNA fragments called siRNAs. “RNAi is the
ultimate warhead to kill cancer cells because it has the ability to adapt
as the genetics of the cancer adapt,” Dowdy says[3].
xxx
Hugh Brady of the Imperial College London has shown that E4bp4 is the
master gene that causes blood stem cells to turn into diseasefighting
'Natural Killer' (NK) immune cells. Boosting the body's production of
these frontline tumour-killing cells could lead to new ways to treat
cancer[4].
xxx
Kevin Weeks of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill lead a
study where the structure of an entire HIV genome has been decoded for
the first time. It could accelerate the development of antiviral drugs. The
HIV is encoded in RNA which able to fold into intricate patterns and
structures, what makes it extremely difficult to decode[5].
xxx
Shoukhrat Mitalipov and his colleagues at the Oregon Health & Science
University in Beaverton replaced in Monkeys defective for healthy
mitochondrial DNA which is separate of nuclear DNA and is passed down
through the mother only. 200 to 250 known disease-causing mutations in
mitochondrial DNA show syndromes like muscle weakness, loss of motor
control, diabetes, liver disease and developmental delays[6].
xxx
William W. Hauswirth of the University of Florida developed a gene-
transfer technique to cure squirrel monkeys of color blindness. About five
weeks after the treatment, the monkeys began to acquire color vision[7].
Xxx
Kári Stefánsson of the deCODE genetics, Reykjavik has scanned single-
letter DNA variations of 38,000 Icelanders to examine the risks of disease.
The same gene variant can behave differently depending on which parent
it came from[8].
Xxx
23andMe is a gene-testing company backed by Google Inc. and wants to
collect DNA from 10,000 people with Parkinson’s disease to find genes
that connect to responsiveness to therapy[9].
xxx
Ainsley Newson of the University of Bristol writes for the BBC: “Protect
consumers from gene tests.”A House of Lords committee (UK) has said
the private genetic testing industry should be more tightly controlled.
Otherwise personal genomics may turn out to be an expensive way to be
told to eat more greens and do more exercise. Professional clinical
interpretation should be provided with a test[10].
xxx
II.6 Magic Bullets
xxx
Drug-delivery agents that can target the site of disease in the body have
been referred to "magic bullets". The term was coined by Paul Ehrlich
(1854 - 1915), a German scientist and Nobel laureate in the fields of
hematology, immunology and chemotherapy. The rise of nanotechnology
will provide a new generation of magic bullets: nanomedicine.
xxx
David Naylor, president of the University of Toronto and professor of
medicine says: “The age of nanomedicine is dawning[1]."
xxx
Shana Kelley of the University of Toronto uses nanomaterials to create a
microchip to determine the type and severity of a patient's cancer[1].
xxx
Ashutosh Chilkoti of the Duke University has developed a method for
loading cancer drug payloads into nanoscale delivery vehicles such as
chimeric polypeptides. In animal models this new nanoformulation can
eliminate tumours after a single treatment[2].
xxx
Robert Langer of the MIT and Omid Farokhzad of Harvard used
"nanoburrs" that cling to damaged artery walls and vascular tissue to
slowly release medicine. The particles may also prove useful to deliver
drugs to tumours[3].
xxx
Michael Sailor of the University of California, San Diego concentrates
goldrods in tumours. Laserlight heat the goldrods what makes the tumour
to produce the protein p32. Doxorubicin-loaded liposomes then bind to the
p32 and kill the cancer[4].
Xxx
Virginia Nazarica Borza of the National Institute for Physics and Nuclear
Engineering, Bucharest has found a way to load up nanospheres of water-
soluble protein from blood plasma with the radioactive element rhenium-
188. High-energy beta-emitter radioisotopes coupled to nanoparticles
could deliver a therapeutic dose of radioactivity to a tumour, while sparing
more distant tissues from toxicity[5].
xxx
Jennifer West of the Rice University in Houston works with nanoparticles
like metal nanoshells. For cancer therapy the nanoshells are designed to
absorb light and convert the energy to heat for tumour destruction[6].
xxx
Nanospectra Biosciences Inc. works on clinical trials using tiny gold-
coated silica balls to cook tumours while leaving healthy tissue intact[7].
xxx
Andreas Jordan, founder of Magforce Nanotechnologies AG, Berlin,
injects iron-oxide-nano-particles with a diameter of 10 to 15 nanometers
into tumour cells and exposes them to a magnate field. The cells heat up
to 70º C and die off. Clinical trials showed that the survival period of
patients with malicious tumours (Glioblastom) significantly expanded[8].
xxx
II.7 Brain in Vitro
xxx
Now we got a little idea of what our brain and body can expect in the
upcoming decades. But why not throw your body on the compost and just
focus on the brain? We will peel out your brain and put it into a shoe-box
deep below earth inside a homely nuclear bunker until we are able to
upload it into the MNS later on. Meanwhile a fancy perfusion system will
supply your brain with fresh blood substitute, hormones, vitamins, beer
and a flavoursome nootropical cocktail to keep it youngish for centuries.
Your input/output nerves get connected via a BCI to the metaverse. You
will remote control robots anywhere else on the planet and you will have a
wardrobe full of avatars designed by Calvin Klein to hang out with your
family, friends, the NASA officials and of course Pamela Anderson. You
will be protected against meteoroid impacts, epidemics and nuclear strikes!
This concept was inspired by the philosophical idea called "brain in a
vat"[1] and its biological counter part, an "isolated brain".
xxx
Sound's Frankenstein? Experiments on blood perfusion systems for
isolated brains, head and whole body transplantation where done more
than 50 years ago. Sergei Bryukhonenko's “Revival Of Organisms“[2] is a
bestial example.
xxx
Robert White of the Brain Research Laboratory, Case Western Reserve
University in Cleveland, was the most successful on isolating brains for
hours and even days[3]. In the 60ties his work like the “Isolation of the
Monkey Brain: In vitro Preparation and Maintenance”[4] brought him
trouble with animal rights activists[5] and even his own lab-animals tried
to bit of his fingers[6]. But he was a respected neurosurgeon pioneer and
his deeds saved human life.
xxx
An isolated brain fully aware obviously can't be happy. At least until now.
But brain computer interfaces (BCI) will evolve. So why dying because
the body fails but the brain still is ok? We could survive by connecting our
brain to VR. We could remote control or reside in a humanoid robot, using
Cochlear implants, artificial retinas and brain controlled prosthetics. Our
brain could be supplied with blood substitutes and nootopics via a brain
perfusion system. And think about the rent: A human brain fits into a shoe-
box. Does this still sound Frankenstein? Well, there is certain progress:
xxx
Thomas DeMarse of the University of Florida some time ago put neurons
in a dish to fly a F-22 flight simulator[7].
xxx
Hirotaka Sato and Michel Maharbiz of the University of California,
Berkeley connected electrodes and radio antennas to the nervous systems
of beetles, making them take off, dive and turn on command. The goal is
to create remote-controlled insects. Part of a programme was funded by
DARPA[8].
xxx
Steve Potter, DeMarse's former college at Georgia Tech works on Hybots
and Neurally-Controlled Animats[9].
xxx
Kevin Warwick of London's Reading University creates an “Architecture
for Neuronal Cell Control of a Mobile Robot"[10].
xxx
Miguel Nicolelis's lab at Duke University is best known for a robot
controlled by a monkey brain this year[11].
xxx
Michael Coleman of the Aston University in Birmingham reprogrammed
cancerous cells into neuronal cells and planed them in cultures. The aim is
to study the human brain at the most basic level[12].
xxx
Dialysis systems that assume functions of organs like liver and kidneys are
today successfully in operation for the detoxification treatment of
blood[13]. However, liver dialysis systems, unlike kidney dialysis, cannot
support a patient for an extended period of time yet. It is considered while
waiting for transplantation or liver regeneration[14]. Artificial pancreas to
control the blood glucose level of diabetes patients is on the horizon[15].
xxx
Bill Johns of the Swansea University, UK works on an implantable
artificial lung, a portable device to allow patients to recover outside
intensive care units and offer them a better quality of life[16].
xxx
Once we arrived at this important milestone, a shoe-box for our brain, we
can head for the next step: brain prosthetics and mind uploading.
Something that replaces our brain and holds our consciousness. We would
be ready to board the MNS!
xxx
II.8 Artificial Hippocampus
xxx
The hippocampus is that part of the brain, when it breaks, like with
Alzheimer's disease and as the result of anterograde amnesia, we suffer
from memory problems and disorientation[1]. But for Theodore Berger
from the University of Southern California the hippocampus is
replaceable, like a burned out bulb. For Berger all brain parts are
principally replaceable by microchips. His effort is the first ever to create a
prosthetic device to restore cognitive loss[2]. How this is to be done?
Berger sais: “A repairman doesn’t need to understand music to fix your
broken CD player.” His guideline is to convert brain function into
mathematical equations, than actually understand the brain[3]. Therefore he
slices a rat hippocampus in little pieces, big enough to preserve a
substantial portion of intrinsic circuitry, and plugs on electrode arrays.
Each piece gets stimulated by random signals over and over while its
output recorded. Step by step a mathematical model of the non-linear
input/output transformation of the whole brain area gets puzzled together.
Finally the mathematical model can mimic the neural functionality to run a
microchip that replaces the specified brain area, in this case the
hippocampus. Berger said it is in principal applicable to any other part of
the cortex, too[4].
xxx
Of course it has to work inside the behaving animal and that's much more
complicated to realize than in an isolated slice of cell tissue. But most
important, Berger provides the proof-of-concept to his idea and he thinks,
after it already woks on living rats, there will be models on primates in two
years and implementations on the human in less than 15 years[4]. So what
can we expect in 50 years?
xxx
Theodore Berger's work bears new arguments for mind-uploading
enthusiasts, also his work is criticized, both by scientists and ethicists.
“Any device that mimics the brain clearly raises ethical issues. The brain
affects memory, mood, awareness and consciousness - parts of
fundamental identity," says Joel Anderson of the Washington University[4].
It seems there is still a slight difference between a light bulb and a human
brain. However, it could mean an important step towards the MNS, since
mind-uploading is probably the hardest barrier for its construction. To
overcome this barrier, we have to think about the software and hardware
for our brains and the VR inside the MNS.
xxx
III. Supercomputation
xxx
The MNS was inspired by Europe's once most powerful supercomputer,
the MareNostrum Supercomputer at the Barcelona Supercomputing
Center[1]. In a few decades a supercomputer could be tuned up into a
hardware device for brain-uploaded astronauts immersed with the
metaverse and shot into outer space to create a "panspermic metaverse"
(see preface). But even the worlds fastest supercomputer, the Cray Jaguar
at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee with a
peak performance of more 2.3 petaflops[2], still is not powerful enough to
simulate the our brains and the VR of the MNS.
xxx
The human brain has about 100 billion neurons, each linked to another
10.000 and with a progressing power of about 100 trillion instructions per
second, as calculated Hans Moravec of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie
Mellon University in 1997[3]. Of course it is non-sense to compare a
human brain with a silicon based supercomputer since both are organized
completely different. But it gives us an idea of how close we might be to
obtain a device powerful enough to hold the capacity of human brain
power if we somehow could transfer or upload our mind as we discussed
in chapter II. We need the right software to run our brains!
xxx
III.1 Blue Brain
xxx
Henry Markram, a brainiac of the Brain and Mind Institute at the École
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne together with IBM launched the Blue
Brain Project. His goal is to reverse-engineer the human brain via
computer simulation, on molecular level, including the mechanisms of
gen-expression. "The Blue Brain Project is about showing people the
whole," Markram says[1]. That means to simulate the effects of genetic
variation of neurotransmitters and the implications of drugs for example[2].
An accurate model of the neocortical column works since 2007 and
signifies an essential step[3]. In 2 years Markram wants to have build a
robotic rat with a blue brain inside[4]. When he was asked by the BBC
when his simulation will do something artistic or make an invention,
Markram said: "It's not a question of years, it's one of dollars. The
psychology is there today and the technology is there today. It's a matter
of if society wants this. If they want it in 10 years, they'll have it in 10
years. If they want it in 1000 years, we can wait[5]."
xxx
Javier de Felipe of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
(CISC) and Jose Maria Pena of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid,
work on the “Cajal Blue Brain”, a collaborative project of Spain with the
Blue Brain Project where Spain injected 25 million €. De Felipe works
with the “Cross Beam” a microscope to analyse neuronal tissue of only 20
nanometers to reconstruct it virtually on a supercomputer later[6].
xxx
Other Blue Brain partners are the University of Jerusalem, which offers
expertise in modelling the electrical properties of synaptic integration, the
University of Nevada, Reno, which specialises in modelling the electrical
properties of neurones, the University of Yale, which provides the Neuron
simulator, and the University of London, which offers expertise in
neocortical electrophysiology and anatomy[7].
xxx
Olaf Sporns of the Indiana University wants to create an atlas of the
connections in the brain that he calls the connectome. Correspondingly the
National Institutes of Health Blueprint for Neuroscience Research is
launching the $30 million Human Connectome Project (HCP) by 2015[8].
xxx
Karlheinz Meier of FACETS (Fast Analog Computing with Emergent
Transient States) has linked up 200,000 neurons by 50 million synaptic
connections. His chip is able to to learn more closely to the brain than any
other device[9].
xxx
Systems of neuromorphic adaptive plastic scalable electronics (SyNAPSE)
is called another super-brain project by IBM and the DARPA with the goal
of analysing vast amounts of data from many sources in the blink of an
eye, letting the military or civilian businesses make rapid decisions with
significant impact on a given problem or situation. As in biological
systems, processing will be maximally distributed, nonlinear and noise-
and defect-tolerant. Such an intelligent system could analyse the Internet
for plans and rhetoric of political organizations, according to DARPA[10].
Dharmendra Modha, IBM's lead researcher on the project said: “Even a
Computer with the ability of a rat brain would be a success.” As a first
result at IBM Research, Almaden and with help by the Lawrence Berkeley
National Lab advances in cat-scale cortical simulation where achieved.
But the project was dismissed by Hendry Markram: "This is light years
away from a cat brain, not even close to an ant's brain in complexity[11]."
xxx
Another similar project is Brains in Silicon by the University of
Stanford[12].
xxx
A future supercomputer, maybe even based on quantum or molecular
processes, should become the hardware device of the MNS. An advanced
version of the Blue Brain could become the medium to simulate our
uploaded brains and the VR we will live in during our millions of years
space voyage. If you want to read how such a simulation could look like
read about another project by El Club de los Astronautas:
elclubdelosastronautas.com/prelapsarian.
xxx
III.2 Wetware
xxx
Will a silicon based supercomputer simulate consciousness? Alternatively
we should prospect for other materials which are likely to contain or
interact with consciousness. Our brain and body could hold as an example,
even we don't understand consciousness itself.
xxx
"If one day we want to construct computers of similar power and
complexity to the human brain, my bet would be on some form of chemical
or molecular computing," said Frantisek Stepanek of the Institute of
Chemical Technology, Prague to the BBC[01].
xxx
Klaus-Peter Zauner of the University of Southampton tries to mimic some
of the actions of neurons in the brain. Biologically-inspired computing
uses chemistry to accomplish signal processing. His € 1.8 mio. project is
funded by the EU emerging technologies programme[01].
xxx
Bob Allen of IBM Research works on DNA molecules to create tiny
circuits for more powerful computer chips. DNA can arrange itself into
patterns on to which millions of tiny carbon nanotubes and nanoparticles
could be deposited, acting as the wires and transistors on future computer
chips[02].
xxx
Paul W. K. Rothemund of the California Institute of Technology works on
ideas like “DNA origami,” where DNA could align circuits and get
destroyed by the chipmaking processes[03].
xxx
Erik Winfree of the California Institute of Technology uses DNA origami
to build carbon nanotube circuits and to construct millions or billions of
complex logic units that self-assemble in parallel[04].
xxx
Frances Ross, an IBM researcher “grows” silicon nanowires that may
become the next generation building blocks for processor electronics[05].
xxx
Paul McIntyre of the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials at
Stanford works with purified crystal layers to create threedimensional
microchips. "Many scientific groups are trying to find something that will
have more computing power, higher speed, lower energy consumption,
and could continue to scale down for many years to come," McIntyre
said[06].
xxx
Mark Reed of the Yale University and Takhee Lee of the Gwangju
Institute, South Korea showed that a benzene molecule attached to gold
contacts could behave just like a silicon transistor[07]. Even a scientific
breakthrough, molecular computers are still far from practical applications.
Xxx
IV. Ethics & Politics
xxx
Now we got a short introduction of the state of the art of the key-
technologies relevant to create the MNS. Most of them provide proof-of-
concept. It means the MNS will become viable within the next decades!
But it is not only a question of feasibility, it is also a matter of
affordability, utility and delicate ethical implications.
xxx
IV.1 Transhuman Express
xxx
The MNS roadmap is not just a futurologist analysis but also of ethical
concern. It focus not only on the discovery of space but also on the attitude
we adapt, aggressive or peaceful, to subjugate or to respect space. We can
destroy our home planet, escape and keep annihilating the universe. Or we
can harmonize with Mother Earth and Cosmos. It is our choice!
xxx
We could think of a philosophical concept called “democratic
transhumanism”. “Transhumanism” per se focuses on the transformation
of the human into a self-designed species, in our case the premise to do
interstellar space travel. “Democratic transhumanism” tries to add
democratic principles, a premise for freedom and justice. The term was
coined by James Hughes, a left-wing sociologist, bioethicist, member of
the World Transhumanist Association[1] and founder of the Institute for
Ethics and Emerging Technologies[2].
xxx
Transhumanists support human life-extension, human enhancement and
“morphological freedom” by means of science and technology. This goal
appears to be conformable with humanitarian and democratic principles
and the human rights. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights says: Everyone has the right to live, have liberty, and security of
person. Using science and technology to reduce the risks of death fosters
the security of person. But not everybody desires or can afford radical
technological enhancement. What happens if our society splits into
humans, superhumans and posthumans with ineffable differing levels of
existence, capability and intellect? Will superhuman and posthuman
existence still be conformable with the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, for example with Article 1: All human beings are born free and
equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience
and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Should we
deploy the right of equal access to technological enhancement for
everyone? Can we avoid a rich-poor-gap of technology and information?
How will we establish democratic principles in a technologically
inhomogeneous world society? Should we tax wealth, knowledge and
power to invest it into start-ups of the poor and miserable and to balance
and our unfair society?
xxx
IV.2 The Future of Nature
xxx
A common point of view on not considering human enhancement and life
extension technology is hold by Daniel Callahan, philosopher and co-
founder of the Hastings Center, a nonprofit bioethics research institute[1].
“Nature knew what it was doing when it arranged, through natural
selection, to have all of us get old and die. That is the price of species
survival and vitality, and it has worked well. I don’t think we humans can
invent a better scenario, but we can surely do much harm in trying.”[2]
Well, evolution has not finished yet and as we humans originate from
nature we and our actions are part of evolution. Any human action and
creation that results in art, design, products, architecture or engineering
can be considered as artificial. Callahan and some stone age bio-
conservatives like Leon Kass or Francis Fukuyama, say we should not
meddle with nature at all, because nature knows what it does and better
leave it as it is. With other words we should not do anything. We start
touching nature when waking up in the morning. We have no other choice
since we are curious, conscious, creative, imaginative, ingenious and
innovative beings. We are part of nature, the artificial is part of nature! So
why not design our phenotype and life-circle? Callahan says we can do
harm. But what about earthquakes, hurricanes, comet impacts, volcanic
eruptions, floods and epidemics? We can do much harm by not preventing
a harmful nature. Nevertheless Callahan is right, we still can do harm. We
did so many times in history. A longer, artificial life does not mean a better
life. How do human enhancement and longer life spans relate to climate
change, overpopulation, resources and energy shortage? Does it fit into a
sustainable future? How does it relate to other priorities, such as finding
solutions for violence, hunger and misery?
xxx
El Club de los Astronautas started a project to find answers:
elclubdelosastronautas.com/pizza
xxx
All of this problems are not because of the lack of technology because
there is already plenty of it. It is not because of missing resources,
otherwise we couldn't still waste them. Neither it is a problem of
overpopulation, because Mars and Moon are still empty. It is because of a
lack of true will and empathy. It is because of missing communication,
compassion, exchange of affection and application of good ideas. Space,
resources and possibilities are infinite! To access them it is necessary to
open our mind, our heart, our imagination, our frontiers, our limits, our
planet! Just close your eyes for a moment and imagine to leave Mother
Earth and start a voyage across the Milky Way. How would it feel like?
Would you be exited? What if we meet aliens? Let's open our planet! Let's
connect with the universe! The MNS is not just a spaceship, it's a symbol!
xxx
IV.3 10answers by..
xxx
10answers is a questionnaire set up by El Club de los Astronautas to find
out what people think about the feasibility of a manned, interstellar voyage
and the cultural relevance of the search for extraterrestrial entities. 10
questions inspired by the technological draft of our advocated spaceship,
the MNS, are made to different artists, scientists and thinkers. You can
read a variety of feedback concerning the technological, social, cultural
and ethical implications here: elclubdelosastronautas.com/10answers
xxx
IV.4 El Club de los Astronautas
xxx
El Club de los Astronautas is a space advocacy group of artists and
musicians. Its mission is to promote a manned, interstellar voyage. Its
approach is to find and debate strategies that might make stand out this
idea beyond fiction, hopefully during our life-time! Therefore a
hypothetical spaceship is suggested: The Mare Nostrum Spaceship (the
MNS). To realize a million-years interstellar voyage and to find some sexy
aliens, the essential, first step is to overcome our biological limits and to
transform into a new kind of (human) existence.
xxx
elclubdelosastronautas.com
xxx
References
Preface

[1] Aristoteles, De partibus animalium, IV, 10; 687 a 7

[2] Anaxagoras, Peri Physeos (On Nature)

[3] Ionian School, Encyclopedia Britannica

[4] Astronomical Origins of Life: Steps Towards Panspermia Von Fred Hoyle, N C
Wickramasinghe, 1-2

[5] Svante Arrhenius, Textbook of cosmic physics, 1903

[6] Miller/Urey Experiment, www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html

[7] James N. Gardner, Biocosm, Inner Ocean Publishing, 2003

[8] Fred Hoyle, Evolution from Space, Omni Lecture, 27-28, 1982

[9] Francis H. C. Crick, Leslie E. Orgel, Icarus, International journal of solar system studies,
341-346, 1973

[10] Robert Wright intervirews Freeman Dyson, meaningoflive.tv, 2007

[11] Chandra Wickramasinghe, Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, www.cf.ac.uk

[12] A panspermic view of life, The Hindu, Vol. 17, 2000

[13] Wainwright, Microoganisms cultured from stratospheric air samples obtained at 41km,
FEMS Micorbiology Letters. 218,161-165, 2003

[14] Shock, E. L. & Schulte, M. D., Implications of the Reported Amino Acid Concentrations
in the Murchison Meteorite, Abstracts of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference,
volume 21, page 1150, 1990

[15] Do aliens share our genetic code?, Lewis Dartnell, NewScientist, 09.04.2009

[16] The building blocks of planets within the `terrestrial' region of protoplanetary disks,
Nature, Vol. 432, Iss. 7016, 479-482, 2004

[17] Was Johnny Appleseed a Comet? Astrobiology Magazine, April 5, 2001

[18] Institute of Atomic-Scale Engineering, The Starseed/Launcher, Forrest Bishop

1996

[19] Karl Sims, Panspermia, 1990

[20] NASA's Mars Exploration Program, www.mars.jpl.nasa.gov

[21] How NASA's Kepler Will Seek Out Strange New Worlds, Leonard David. Space.com,
04.03.2009

[22] 'Lightest' exoplanet discovered, Paul Rincon / Jonathan Amos, BBC, 21.04.2009

Chapter I.

[1] Technology Review, Unreal meetings, 11.07.2007

[2] Drew Harry, Dietmar Offenhuber, The Projects, MIT Sociable Media Lab, 2007

[3] Social networking sites to go 3D, NewScientist, 2008

[4] Drew Harry, Agree/Disagree Space, MITSociable Media Lab, 2007

Chapter I.1

[1] Zcam, 3DV Systems, www.3dvsystems.com, 2006-2008

[2] Wii, Nitendo, www.wii.com 2005-2008

[3] Mitch Kapor: 3D cameras will make virtual worlds easier to use, Daniel Terdiman, c-net
news.com, 2008

[4] Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Facial Expression Recognition Software Developed,

ScienceDaily, 2008

[5] Albert Mehrabian, 7%-38%-55% Rule, UCLA, www.kaaj.com/psych, 1981

[6] The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior, Human
Communication Research, Nick Yee, Jeremy Bailenson, Stanford University,
www.nickyee.com, 2007

[7] The first virtual reality technology to let you see, hear, smell, taste and touch, Physorg,
2009

[8] Feeling the way, Anne Trafton, MIT news, 23.11.2009

[9] Studies Report Inducing Out-of-Body Experience, Sandra Blakeslee, NYT, 2007

[10] Henrik Ehrsson, Out-of-body experiences at UCL, Institute of Neurology, 2007

[11] Out of your head: Leaving the body behind, Anil Ananthaswamy, NewScientist,
13.10.2009

[12] Brain could adapt well to cyborg enhancements, Linda Geddes, NewSientist, 23.06.2009

[13] S. Pete Worden, International Space Development Conference, Houston, May 26, 2007

[14] Virtual Astronaut, Tiertronix Inc., virtualastronaut.tietronix.com, 2005

[15] NASA Learning Technologies Request for Information: Development of a NASA-based

massively multiplayer online learning game, ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/mmo, 2008
[16] Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash, Random House, 1992

Chapter II

Chapter II.1

[1] COL Geoffrey Ling, M.D., Ph.D., Program Manager, Human-Assisted Neural Devices,
Revolutionizing Prosthetics, DARPA, www.darpa.mil/dso, 2008

[2] Michael Belfiore, The World's Most Advanced Bionic Arm, Wired, 2007

[3] '60 Minutes' video: The Pentagon's bionic arm, cnet news, 13.04.2009

[4] University of Utah, Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, Imaging of Utah
Electrode Array, Implanted in Cochlear Nerve, 2003

[5] Applause For The SmartHand: Human-machine Interface Is, Essential Link In
Groundbreaking Prosthetic Hand, ScienceDaily, 05.11.2009

[6] Amputee able to move robotic hand with his mind, LA Times, 05.12.2009

[7] Philip R. Kennedy, Restoration of neural output from a paralysed patient by a direct brain
connection, Neuroreport, June 1998

[8] Cyborg-like monkeys get to grips with thought, Daily News, 14.07.2009

[9] Laboratory of Miguel A.L. Nicolelis, nicolelislab.net

[10] Bionic brain chips could overcome paralysis, Sunny Bains, News Scientist, 01.09.2009

[11] Brain develops motor memory for prosthetics, study finds, 21.07.2009, Psyorg.com

[12] Intel: Chips in brains will control computers by 2020, Computerworld, 19.11.2009

[13] Cochlear Corp, www.cochlear.com, 2005-2008

[14] Machine Translates Thoughts into Speech in Real Time, Lisa Zyga, Physorg.com,
21.12.2009

[15] Bionic eye gives blind man sight, BBC, 04.03.2009

[16] Bionic eye may restore sight to the blind, Tim Hornyak, Cnet News, 25.09.2009

[17] Digitales Wiedersehen, Philip Bethge, Gerald Traufetter, Spiegel Online, 19.12.2009

[18] One step closer to an artificial nerve cell, Pysorg.com, 06.07.2009

[19] One small step for neurons, one giant leap for nerve cell repair, Physorg.com, 07.10.2009

[20] A step toward better brain implants using conducting polymer, nanotubes, Physorg.com,
29.10.2009

[21] Implantable Silicon-Silk Electronics, Technology Review, Katherine Bourzac, 03.11.2009

[22] Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, Keio University, 2007
Second Life Avatars Controlled by the Human Brain, SL insider, Aimee Weber, 2007

[23] Brainloop, Janez Janša, Aksioma, www.aksioma.org/brainloop, 2007,

Reinhold Scherer, Technische Universität Graz, 2007

[24] Guger Technologies, g.BCIsys, www.gtec.at, 2007-2008

[25] Tocar música con la mente, Darren Waters, BBC Mundo, 2008

[26] Pentagon Preps Soldier Telepathy Push, Katie Drummond, Wired, 14.05.2009

[27] Multimodal Brain Orchestra, Multimodal Brain Orchestra by the Synthetic, Perceptive,
Emotive and Cognitive Systems (SPECS), University Pompeu Fabra, www.specs.upf.edu

[28] Toyota Develops Mind-Controlled Wheelchair, Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek,

29.06.2009

[29] The Aware Chair, http://www.cis.gsu.edu/brainlab/ProjectsAwareChair.htm

[30] Thought-propelled wheelchair developed in Italy, Physorg.com, 06.03.2009

[31] Wearable robotic suit could help disabled to walk, Sharon Gaudin, IT World, 13.04.2009

[32] Walk Again Project, www.walkagainproject.org

[33] Researchers develop 'wireless' activation of brain circuits, PhysOrg, 23.02.2009

[34] Project Epoc, Emotive Systems, www.emotive.com, 2008

[35] Project Millennia, Neurosky, www.neurosky.biz, 2008

[36] Direct Brain-to-Game Interface Worries Scientists, Emmet Cole, Wired Magazine, 2007

Chapter II.2

[1] Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right?, Benedict Carey, New York Times, 2008

[2] Aderall XR® II, prescribing information, 2007

[3] A Hormone to Remember New Ideas, Joe Kloc, Seed, 17.02.2009

[4] Scientists Develop Nasal Spray That Improves Memory, ScienceDaily, 02.10.2009

[5] Fred Gage, The Salk Institute, www.biology.ucsd.edu, 2001-2008

[6] Elizabeth Gould, Department of Psychology, Princeton University, www.princeton.edu

[7] Life and Discoveries of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Marina Bentivoglio, www.nobelprize.org,
1998

[8] Adult stem cells activated in mammalian brai, Jennifer Fitzenberger, GEN, 24.07.2008
[9] The brain's reserve cells can be activated after stroke, Physorg.com, 23.02.2009

[10] Aerobic exercise grows brain cells, Lin Edwards, Physorg.com, 20.01.2010

[11] Brain Stem Cells Can Be Awakened, Say Scientists, ScienceDaily, 09.06.2008

[12] Stem-Cell Repair Kit for Stroke, Michael Day, Technology Review, 09.03.2009

[13] A 'fountain of youth' for stem cells?, Physorg.com, 28.12.2009

[14] Universal Gene Signaling Mechanism Identified by UB Molecular Researchers University

at Buffalo, Health News Digest, 14.08.2008

[15] New Ways to Boost Memory, Emily Singer, Technology Review, 2008

[16] Blocked Enzyme Reverses Schizophrenia-like Symptoms, Science Daily, 20.03.2009

[17] Der Hirnzellen-Numerator, Bild der Wissenschaft, 06.10.2009

[18] New Discovery Could Rejuvenate the Brain, PhysOrg, 2008

[19] World First For Glasgow University As Stem Cell Therapy Trials Are Approved,
Medical News, 03.02.2009

[20] BCI-540, BCI-632, Braincells Inc. www.braincellsinc.com

[21] Human Central Nervous System Stem Cells (HuCNS-SC™), StemCells Inc.
www.stemcellsinc.com, 2000-2008

[22] Sending Genes into the Brain, More-invasive therapies show promise for treating
Parkinson's, Emily Singer, Technology Review, 20.05.2009

Chapter II.3

[1] SENS Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, Methuselah Mouse Foundation,
www.mfoundation.org, 2003-2008

[2] Discussion with Aubrey de Grey, Pensions Radio, 2008

[3] Methuselah Mouse Rejuvenation Prize, www.mprize.org

[4] First Methuselah Mouse Rejuvenation 'M Prize' Awarded, Bill Christensen, Live Science,
www.livescience.com, 2004

[5] Research Interests, About Dr. Ames, www.bruceames.org

[6] Human Genome Sciences, www.hgsi.com, 1992-2008

[7] Geron Corporation, www.geron.com, 1990-2008, Advanced Cell Technology Corp.,

www.advancedcell.com, 1994-2008, BioTime Inc., www.biotimeinc.com
[8] Sierra Sciences, LLC, Reno, Nevada, www.sierrasci.com, 1999-2008

[9] Judith Campisi, PhD, The Campisi Lab, Buck Institute for Age Research, Novato,
California, www.buckinstitute.org, 1999-2008

[10] Michael Fossel, Countdown to Telomerase Therapy, David Jay Brown, 2005

[11] Teenage 'baby' may lack master ageing gene, Andy Coghlan, NewScientist, 25.06.2009

[12] Medical Research Spending Doubled Over Past Decade, Neil Osterweil, MedPage Today,
2005

[13] Secret to long life? Not so simple, scientists say, 114-year-old man takes keys to longevity
to the grave, msnbc, 08.05.2008

[14] Why females live longer than males: is it due to the father's sperm?, Pysorg.com,
01.12.2009

[15] A Conversation With Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Finding Clues to ageing in the Fraying
Tips of Chromosomes, Claudia Dreifus, New York Times, 2007

[16] 'Elixir of youth' drug could fight HIV and ageing, Linda Geddes, New Scientist, 2008

[17] The Kenyon Lab, Hillblom Center for the Biology of ageing, University of California San
Francisco, www.kenyonlab.ucsf.edu

[18] Longevity tied to genes that preserve tips of chromosomes, Pysorg.com, 11.11.2009

[19] Lenny Guarente Lab, MITBiology, www.mit.edu/biology/guarente

[20] Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Inc., www.sirtrispharma.com

[21] Secrets of the centenarians: Life begins at 100, Ed Yong, NewScientist, 07.10.2009

[22] David A. Sinclair and Lenny Guarente, Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity Genes,
Scientific American, 2006

[23] David Ewing Duncan, The Enthusiast, Technology Review, 2007

[24] Nicholas Wade, Hoping Two Drugs Carry a Side Effect: Longer Life, New York Times,
2008

[25] Nicholas Wade, Couch Mouse to Mr. Mighty by Pills Alone, New York Times, 2008

[26] Cancer Drug Delays Aging in Mice, Brandon Keim, Wired Science, 08.07.2009

[27] Dieting Monkeys Offer Hope for Living Longer, Nicholas Wade, NYT, 09.07.2009

[28] Amino acid recipe could be right for long life, Tina Hesman Saey, ScienceNews,
02.12.2009

[29] Stem cell researchers give old muscle new pep, Science Daily, 2008
[30] Genetic Fountain of Youth, Jocelyn Rice, Technological Review, 01.10.2009

[31] 'Don't fall for the cult of immortality', S. Jay Olshansky, BBC News, 2004

[32] Experts say slowing ageing is way to fight diseases in 21st century, University of Illinois at
Chicago, 2008

[33] S. Jay Olshansky, Ph.D., Leonard Hayflick, Ph.D., Bruce A. Carnes, Ph.D.Position
Statement on Human ageing, Quackwatch, 2004

Chapter II.4

[1] Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Fibroblasts by Defined Factors,
Cell, 2007

[2] Stem cell approval cheered in California, Bernadette Tansey, San Francisco Cronicle,
10.03.2009

[3] Gina Kolata, Man Who Helped Start Stem Cell War May End It, The New York Times,
2007

[4] Researchers uncover new links between stem cells, aging and cancer, PhysOrg, 2008

[5] Forscher schaffen die saubere Stammzelle, Jens Lubbadeh, Der Spiegel, 23.04.2009

[6]Patient-ready iPS cells?, Elie Dolgin, The Scientist, 28.05.2009

[7] Canadians make stem-cell breakthrough, Anne McIlroy, The Globe and Mail, 10.04.2009

[8] Researchers May Have Found Equivalent of Embryonic Stem Cells, Rob Stein,
Washington Post, 24.07.2009

[9] Constance Holden, Stem Cell Lines Mark Birth of New Field, ScienceNOW Daily News,
2008
[10] Medicine's New Toolbox, Lauren Gravitz, Technology Review, 01.07.2009

[11] In vivo reprogramming of adult pancreatic exocrine cells to β-cells, Nature, 2008

[12] Andy Coghlan, First red blood cells grown in the lab, NewScientist.com, 2008

[13] Irina Klimanskaya, Young Chung, Sandy Becker, Shi-Jiang Lu, Robert Lanza, Human
embryonic stem cell lines derived from single blastomeres, Nature, 2006

[14] Ex vivo generation of fully mature human red blood cells from hematopoietic stem cells,
Nature Biotechnology, 2004

[15] Provoking Our Inner Stem Cells, A startup aims to spur the body's native stem cells to
heal disease, Lauren Gravitz, Technology Review, 17.07.2009

[16] Gene therapy promises one-shot treatment for HIV, Andy Coghlan, NewScientist,
18.02.2009
[17] Human Heart Grows New Cells, Nora Schultz, Technology Review, 02.04.2009

[18] Making Heart Cells, Karen Hopkin, Technology Review, 27.04.2009

[19] Células madre contra la esclerosis múltiple, Jaime Prats, El Pais, 03.07.2009

[20] Spinal Cord Stem Cells May Act as Nerve Repair System, Forbes, 21.07.2008

[21] hESC-Derived Oligodendrocytes – GRNOPC1, Geron Corp., www.geron.com

[22] Geron’s Setback with Testing Its hESC Therapy in Humans Points to FDA’s Continued
Cautionary Stance, Patricia F. Dimond, Genetic Engineering & Biotech News, 28.08.2009

[23] Researchers Generate Functional Neurons From Engineered Stem Cells, ScienceDaily,
2009

[24] Scientists Reach Stem Cell Milestone, Alice Park, Time, 2008

[25] Anemic lab mice cured by own blood produced from stem cells, RIKEN Press Release,
www.riken.jp, 2008

[26] Kathleen Gilbert, Pentagon Invests $250 Million in Adult Stem Cell Research,
LifeSiteNews, 2008

[27] Jeanna Bryner, How Salamanders Sprout New Limbs, LiveScience, 2007

[28] Salamander Discovery Could Lead to Human Limb Regeneration, Brandon Keim, Wired
01.07.2009

[29] Emily Singer, A Blueprint to Regenerate Limbs, MIT Technolgy Review, 2008

[30] Doris Taylor, Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair, University of Minnesota,
www.stemcell.umn.edu

[31] Growing Body Parts in the Lab Becomes Reality, Red Orbit, 2008

[32] Ann Parsona, Tissue Engineer Sows Cells and Grows Organs, New York Times, 2006

[33] Muscular blob shows new direction for tissue engineering, MacGregor Campbell,
NewScientist, 20.08.2009

[34] Pigs offer new stem cell source, BBC, 03.06.2009

[35] Tom Simonite, Lab-grown cartilage fixes damaged knees, New Scientist, 2006

[36] Alexis Madrigal, Organ 'Printing' Creates Beating Heart Cells, Wired, 2007

[37] Organogenesis, www.organogenesis.com

[38] A Moment Of Tooth, Joel Garreau, Washington Post, 2009

[39] Scientists Program Blood Stem Cells To Become Vision Cells, ScienceDaily, 03.08.2009

[40] Study suggests hESCs could serve as a safe source of cells to treat diseases of the eye,
Kathy Singh, GEN, 11.06.2009

[41] StemCells, Inc.`s Neural Stem Cells Show Promise for Treating Age-Related Macular
Degeneration, Reuters, 19.10.2009

[42] Stem cell research into blindness given boost by drug company, Richard Alleyne,
Telegraph, 24.04.2009

[43] Contact lens stem cell sight aid, BBC, 28.05.2009

[44] Discovery pinpoints new connection between cancer cells and stem cells, Pysorg.com,
01.07.2009

[45] A History Lesson for Stem Cells, James M. Wilson, Science, 08.05.2009

Chapter II.5

[1] Professor Sequences His Entire Genome At Low Cost, With Small Team, ScienceDaily,
11.08.2009

[2] First complete cancer genome sequenced, Laura Sanders, Science News, 2008

[3] Delivery Approaches for RNAi-Based Drugs, James Netterwald, Genetic Engineering &
Biotechnolgy News, 01.06.2009

[4] Master Gene That Switches On Disease-fighting Cells Identified, By Scientists,

ScienceDaily, 14.09.2009

[5] UNC Researchers Decode Structure of an Entire HIV Genome, The Body, 05.08.2009

[6] Changing A Cell's Biological Battery, Lauren Gravitz, Technology Review, 26.08.2009

[7] Scientists Cure Color Blindness In Monkeys, ScienceDaily, 16.09.2009

[8] Know a gene's 'parent' to improve disease prediction, NewScientist, 16.12.2009

[9] Google-Backed 23andMe Seeks Parkinson’s Patients Spit, Rob Waters, bloomberg.com,
12.03.2009

[10] 'Protect consumers from gene tests', Ainsley Newson, BBC, 08.06.2009

Chapter II.6

[1] Microchip can detect type and severity of cancer, Elaine Smith, Pysorg.com, 28.09.2009

[2] Nano-scale Drug Delivery Developed For Chemotherapy, ScienceDaily, 01.11.2009

[3] New ‘nanoburrs’ could help fight heart disease, Anne Trafton, MIT News, 19.01.2010
[4] Gold, Laser und Doxorubicin: Wie Nanoforscher Krebs besiegen wollen, Deutsches
Ärzteblatt, 06.01.2010

[5] Anticancer Nanotech: Protein Can Be Used To Carry Radioactive Isotopes To Cancerous
Tumor, ScienceDaily, 21.09.2009

[6] Jennifer West, Rice University, Houston,

http://bioe.rice.edu/FacultyDetail.cfm?RiceID=495

[7] Better living through plasmonics, Jenny Lauren Lee, ScienceNews, 07.11.2009

[8] Mit Winzlingen dem Tumor einheizen, Kai Kupferschmidt, Der Tagesspiegel, 19.03.2009

Chapter II.7

[1] Skeptical Hypotheses and the Skeptical Argument, from Brain in a Vat, Tony Brueckner,
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2004.

[2] The Golden Book of Russia, Sergei S. Bryukhonenko, 2000

[3] The Brain Research Laboratory at the Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and Case
Western Reserve University, Franklin C. Wagner Jr., Neurosurg, 2004

[4] Isolation of the Monkey Brain: In vitro Preparation and Maintenance, Robert J. White,
Maurice S. Albin, Javier Verdura, Nature, 1963

[5] White's Anatomy, Cleveland's Most Respected Neurosurgeon Reflects On Life,

Love and Monkey Head Transplants, James Renner, Free Times, 2007

[6] Dr Robert White, The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, David Bennun, 2000

[7] 'Brain' In A Dish Acts As Autopilot, Living Computer, Science Daily, 2004

[8] Free-flying cyborg insects steered from a distance, Ewen Callaway, NewScientist,
01.10.2009

[9] Neurally-Controlled Animat, Potter Group, NeuroLab, Georgia Tech University,

www.neuro.gatech.edu, Steve Potter, 2008

[10] Architecture for Neuronal Cell Control of a Mobile Robot, Kevin Warwick, Springer,
2008

[11] Miguel A. L. Nicolelis, Neurobiology, Duke University, www.neuro.duke.edu, 2008

[12] Living Model Of Basic Units Of Human Brain Created, Science Daily, 22.03.2009

[13] Georg Haas (1886–1971):The Forgotten Hemodialysis Pioneer, Dobrin N. Paskalev,

Dialysis & Transplantation, University of Giessen, 2001

[14] see: Molecular Adsorbent Recirculating System (MARS), Single Pass Albumin Dialysis
(SPAD), Prometheus system
[15] Young to test artificial pancreas, BBC, 2006

[16] Scientists create 'portable lung', BBC, 09.03.2009

Chapter II.8

[1] Memory Loss & the Brain, Glossary, Anterograde Amnesia,

www.memorylossonline.com/glossary/anterogradeamnesia.html, 2008

[2] Restoring Lost Cognitive Function, Hippocampal-Cortical Neural Prostheses, IEEE

Engeniering in Medicien and Biology, Vol. 24, 2005

[3] Stephen Handelman, The Memory Hacker, 2007

[4] Theodore Berger, Almaden Institute, Conference on Cognitive Computing, 2006

Chapter III

[1] Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación, www.bsc.es,

2008

[2] Top 500 Supercomputer Sites, www.top500.org, 2009

[3] Hans Moravec, When will computer hardware match the human brain?, Robotics
Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 1997

Chapter III.1

[1] Jonah Lehrer, Misreading the Mind, Los Angeles Times, 2008

[2] Blue Brain Project, bluebrain.epfl.ch

[3] World-record Supercomputer Mimics Human Sight Brain Mechanisms, ScienceDaily,

2008

[4] Out of the Blue, Jonah Lehrer, Seed Magazine, 2008

[5] Simulated brain closer to thought, Jason Palmer, BBC, 22.04.2009

[6] Dentro del proyecto internacional 'Cajal Blue Brain', Europa Press, 05.2009]

[7] Spain to pioneer the application of a nanotechnology microscope, for brain studies, Science
Centric, 22.05.2009

[8] Mapping the Brain’s Highways, Azeen Ghorayshi, Seed Magazine, 11.08.2009

[9] Building a Brain on a Silicon Chip, Duncan Graham-Rowe, Technology Review,

25.03.2009

[10] IBM wins funding for 'brainy' computer, NYT, 20.09.2008

[11] IBM Cat Brain Simulation Dismissed as 'Hoax' by Rival Scientist, Jon Brodkin, NYT,
24.11.2009

[12] Brains in Silicon, www.stanford.edu/group/brainsinsilicon

Chapter III.2

[01] Chemical computer that mimics neurons to be created, Jason Palmer, BBC, 11.01.2010

[02] IBM Scientists Build Computer Chips From DNA, PCWorld, Agam Shah, 17.08.2009

[03] Paul W.K. Rothemund, California Institute of Technology, www.dna.caltech.edu/~pwkr,

2009

[04] DNA Origami Nanoscale Breadboards Developed For Carbon, Nanotube Circuits,
ScienceDaily, 10.11.2009

[05] After the Transistor, a Leap Into the Microcosm, John Markoff, NYT, 31.08.2009

[06] Researchers grow nanowire crystals for 3-D microchips, 26.08.2009, Pysorg.com

[07] Scientists create world's first molecular transistor, Physorg.com, 23.12.2009

Chapter IV

Chapter IV.1

[1] World Transhumanist Association, www.transhumanism.org

[2] Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, www.ieet.org

Chapter IV.2

[1] The Hastings Center, www.thehastingscenter.org, 1969-2008

[2] Daniel Callahan, Nature knew what it was doing, Do We Need Death? The Consequences
of Radical Life Extension, Cato Unbound, 2007