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Category Archives: Technology and Society
More Stem Cell Advances
This stuff really is moving along at a good clip:
“Our reprogrammed human skin cells were virtually indistinguishable from human embryonic stem cells,” said Plath, an assistant professor of biological chemistry, a researcher with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research and lead author of the study. “Our findings are an important step towards manipulating differentiated human cells to generate an unlimited supply of patient specific pluripotent stem cells. We are very excited about the potential implications.”
The UCLA work was completed at about the same time the Yamanaka and Thomson reports were published. Taken together, the studies demonstrate that human iPS cells can be easily created by different laboratories and are likely to mark a milestone in stem cell-based regenerative medicine, Plath said.
Repeatability–one of the hallmarks of solid science. Of course, they always have the standard caveat:
“It is important to remember that our research does not eliminate the need for embryo-based human embryonic stem cell research, but rather provides another avenue of worthwhile investigation.”
I think that, at some point, the embryo work will be abandoned, because even for many researchers, it’s ethically problematic. But they will have to do a lot of correlation and validation before they can get to that point.
In any event, stuff like this brings us much closer to escape velocity.
[Via Fight Aging]
Obsolete
It’s the end of an era. Polaroid is ceasing production of instant film. I hadn’t noticed, but they stopped manufacturing the cameras a couple years ago.
I remember back in the sixties when we got one. It seemed pretty cool at the time, but it’s not a technology that could survive the digital era. I’m actually a little surprised that it lasted as long as it did.
Progress In Longevity
I don’t know if there’s much point to living ten times as long if you’re a nematode, but if it works for us, too, Methuselah, here we come.
Size Does Matter
Half of UK men would give up sex for six months for a fifty-inch television.
You know, if that’s the deal, considering the first twenty years of my life, someone owes me a screen the size of a drive-in theater.
Amazing Photo
Blogging The Chicago Auto Show
…as only Iowahawk can.
Disappearing Art
We’re losing our movies:
The report’s authors state the data explosion could turn into digital movie extinction, unless the studios push the development of storage standards and data management practices that will guarantee long-term access of their content.
As the report points out, even if a 100-year black box were invented that “read data reliably without introducing any errors, required no maintenance and offered sufficient bit density at an affordable price,” there would be nobody alive capable of repairing it if that box were to fail at 99 years. In the real world of data management, digital assets are stored on media with longevities much less than 100 years, vulnerable to temperature changes, humidity and static electricity. It can be misidentified, inadequately indexed and difficult to track.
Also, whereas a well-preserved 35mm negative has traditionally contained enough information to fulfill any requirement for ancillary markets, there’s a question in the minds of some industry observers about whether the quality of masters archived in digital formats will be sufficient for quality duplication. In an age when home movie systems can often provide a better experience than some commercial theaters, that’s not an unimportant concern.
This is a problem that cryonicists face as well. How do you preserve the data that defines your life and identity over an indefinite period of time? No static media can be relied on–they all deteriorate eventually. I know that I have lots of floppies from the eighties that are probably unreadable now.
Data is going to have to be stored dynamically, and continually moved to new systems as the technology evolves. It will also have to be stored holographically, and distributed. Fortunately, the costs of digital data storage are plunging, with terabyte drives now available for the cost of multi-megabytes twenty years ago, and that trend is likely to continue as we get into molecular storage.
Quad Cores For Everyone!
But no ponies. A look at the near future of microprocessors.
I find it amusing that so many people will be using quad-core machines for word processing and email. On the other hand, we’ll probably need that kind of processing power to filter all the spam.
No Ten-Year Plans
Ron Bailey has some thoughts on top-down government-driven technology programs:
The motivation behind the Apollo moon shot program was largely geopolitical. The Soviets had launched the first artificial satellite in 1957 and orbited the first man around the planet in 1961. As a NASA history explains, “First, and probably most important, the Apollo program was successful in accomplishing the political goals for which it had been created. Kennedy had been dealing with a Cold War crisis in 1961 brought on by several separate factors–the Soviet orbiting of Yuri Gagarin and the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion only two of them–that Apollo was designed to combat.” The Apollo program cost $25.4 billion (about $150 billion in current dollars) to land just 12 astronauts on the moon. It is curious that Shellenberger and Nordhaus cite the Apollo program as an example of transformative technologies since it was basically a technological dead end.
Yes, and one that NASA seems determined to repeat.