Are we organisms or living ecosystems?

Did you know that there is more bacteria in your body than there is, well, anything else? Well it’s true: they’re in our digestive tract, all over our skin, in our teeth, on our tongue, and have even fathered 40 of our own human genes.

Leading scientists are already on the case to learn more about the interdependencies between our body’s inhabitants, and our bodies. In 2008, several countries launched the International Human Microbiome Consortium (IHMC), “an effort that will enable researchers to characterize the relationship of the human microbiome in the maintenance of health and in disease.

VIDEO | Lecture: Outwitting Bacteria’s Wily Ways – Dr. Brett Finlay illustrates the clever tactics bacteria use to infect our bodies and survive in hostile places.

READ | SEED Magazine: The Body Politic

READ | Scientific American: Humans Carry More Bacteria Cells Than Human Ones

The food industry is in on this too with a new buzz word: probiotics.

The World Health Organization and the United Nations say in a 2002 report:

Probiotics are living microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host

According to Danone’s dedicated site to this movement (leading maker of probiotic yoghurts):

Probiotics are living microorganisms, usually lactic acid bacteria, that when consumed in sufficient numbers can provide health benefits that go beyond basic nutrition. The benefits are due, in large part, to the effects of these so-called “friendly” bacteria on different intestinal functions. But benefits may also include removing harmful substances from the body or countering some of their effects.

Reviewing Our Relationship With Bacteria & Planet Earth

Emerging evidence has suggested that human beings and these organisms have evolved together; in fact, a modern human being could not survive without the essential contribution that many of these cultures make to the benefit of the host.

A big part of living healthily seems to involve helping oneself manage the ecosystem of bacteriological cultures in one’s body, in line with the functional requirements of the host. But what of the relationship between more ‘advanced’ cultures, such as humans, and their host planet? It seems that, in recent years, the Earth has found it difficult to regulate its own ecosystem. Perhaps humans could collectively apply a similar model in assessing their contribution to this planet.

Related Articles

• Is yogourt really a digestive cure-all? (nationalpost.com)
• Bacteria Offers Insight Into Health (findmeacure.com)
• Gut Bacteria Affect Almost Everything You Do (wired.com)
• Darwin still making waves 200 years later (cnn.com)
• Biodiversity Is Always a Goal, Right? (freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Basics: Bone, a Masterpiece of Elastic Strength (nytimes.com)
• Breakthrough in the treatment of bacterial meningitis (scienceblog.com)

The Final Frontier: Will the search for alien life be over by 2025?

For years, Star Trek and other sci-fi gadgets have lept out of the screen and into our lives. But while mobile phones, video-conferencing, real-time systems monitoring and online collaboration are now staples of modern life,  alien life has remained a fixture in the sci-fi closet.

A growing community of scientists and explorers with ever more sophisticated technology are looking to change that in our lifetime. Since the 1990’s, they have already identified over 300 extrasolar planets – planets revolving around stars other than our own – and some of them are said to contain water. Even Jupiter is said to have contained water at some point in its existence.

Read these great articles on the search for alien life:

Discover Magazine: A Scientists Guide to Alien Life: Where, When, and in What Universe?

National Geographic: Alien Life? Astronomers Predict contact by 2025

BBC | Horizon Documentary: Are We Alone in the Universe?

More Video:

NOVA | PBS: The Search for ET (Documentary)

Do We Already Have Evidence of Intelligent Alien Life?

At a recent conference in Washington, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell called on the US government to release what it knows about extra-terrestrial life:

“We are being visited….It is now time to put away this embargo of truth about the alien presence. I call upon our government to open up … and become a part of this planetary community that is now trying to take our proper role as a spacefaring civilisation.”

A 2008 interview with Edgar Mitchell:

Government secrecy has always been a problem for conspiracy theorists, so why not release all the documentation surrounding contentious incidents such as Roswell and Rendelsham Forest? Perhaps our populace is not ready for such a paradigm shift; then again, perhaps we’ve just making a mountain out of a molehill.

Related Articles

• Aliens exist and UFOs are coveredup by US government says exastronaut (telegraph.co.uk)
• Life on other planets? You bet, says SETI pioneer (seattlepi.com)
• Nasa launches Kepler rocket into space ‘to search for world’s like ours’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• Planet-hunting spacecraft launches (msnbc.msn.com)

Transcendent Man: Kurzweil outlines the future in his first documentary film

By the time Al Gore released his Oscar winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth“, few skeptics were left that the world’s climate was changing. Now, Ray Kurzweil – one of the most prolific inventors of the 20th century -  is releasing an eminent documentary of his own.

Many futurists, including a growing band of leading scientists predict that by 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence of the human-machine civilization a billion-fold and reached the Singularity.

Whereas personal computers, videogames and cellphones were the emerging technologies of the 1970’s and 1980’s, today’s include mind-reading headsets, organic computing and nanotechnology.

When I was a student at MIT, we all shared a computer and it took up a whole building. The computer in your cellphone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand more powerful… What fits in your pocket, 25 years from now will fit in a blood cell.

Here’s a trailer for Ray Kurzweil’s upcoming film Transcendent Man:

And a video of a recent interview:

Part 2

Lists graphed from leading sources account for events only so far back as our civilization has the power to rationalize. In order to appreciate the grander scheme of things, reason must be flexed. If there is an asymptotic relationship between the end and the extreme beginning of the greater trend, this may infer two separate possibilities: our relative destruction of and departure from this planet, after which a seed sample of genetic material will prevail to begin a new era of biological evolution; or an ascension of another kind in which our solar system has its reset button pressed.

Singularity University

This year, Kurzweil launched the Singularity University. The idea? To assemble graduate students and those already working in various scientific fields, with the belief that advances come more easily when experts in different fields work together.

This multidisciplinary approach is designed to create the futurist of the future. A graduate student in nanotechnology, for instance, would receive expert briefings in future studies and forecasting up to 10 disciplines including biotechnology, finance and entrepreneurship networks and computer systems.

With Google and NASA as major backers, we should expect to hear more from the Transcendent Man.

More: The Rise of Transhumanists

Riding on the slipstream of the Singularity is another, more shocking term: transhumanism. Transhumanists support the use of science and technology to improve human physical and mental capabilities. Again, this movement is spearheaded by leading scientists from Oxford University and beyond.

In an interview with New Scientist, Kurzweil responds to our natural concerns about this trend:

People say they don’t want to change themselves, but then when they get a disease they will do whatever they can to overcome it. We’re not going to get from here to the world of 2030 or 2040 in one grand leap; we’re going to get there through thousands of little steps. Put these steps together and ultimately the world is a different place.

Related Articles

• Singularity U.: No Frats, Just Breakthroughs (businessweek.com)
• Hub Exclusive – Interview With Transcendent Man Producer Barry Ptolemy (video) (singularityhub.com)
• ‘The future is going to be very exciting’ (guardian.co.uk)
• New school unites Google, Nasa – and a plan for immortality (guardian.co.uk)

Single Payer supporters & doctors excluded from a Senate finance committee 'roundtable' on healthcare reform.

The healthcare industries – insurance and pharmaceutical companies – have enjoyed similar successes to the auto, food, oil and financial industries in lobbying publically elected representatives to remove legislation that provides value and protection to consumers.

But once again, the US government turned to the corporations and their lobbies in an effort to seek answers to the healthcare crisis that they all helped create. No supporters of single payer healthcare systems were involved in the discussions, nor were any patient representatives invited to the discussion.

Twisted Facts By Elected Representatives

Senator Jim Bunning (2008 campaign contributions):

When I look at Sweden, look at Canada and look at the United Kingdom, where we have government single payer we have a tax rate of 60% or higher in those countries.

What was the value to insured and uninsured US patients of unchecked assertions such as these?

Taxes paid by a single average worker compared with the implied total labour cost for the employer. This "tax wedge" measure is said to represent the extent to which the tax system discourages employment.

Corporate Lobbyists Dominate Public Policy

Watch this video by ANP on corporate lobbyists at government scientific discussions for school food programs.

Congress and the Department of Agriculture approve what foods can (and can’t) be served to over 30 million American school children who get daily meals from the National School Lunch Program.

Despite the enormous nutritional and financial stakes at play, ANP was the only media to cover a recent panel set up to discuss the school menu. While nutritionists outnumbered the press, corporate lobbyists outnumbered everyone.

Related articles

• Protesters Disrupt Health Care Hearing (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Order in the Senate! Single-Payer Advocates Disrupt Hearing (blogs.wsj.com)
• New Report Examines Public Plan Option (medicalnewstoday.com)

Digital news is a classic case of disruptive innovation – Arianna Huffington, May 2009

There was a time when newspapers were at the pinnacle of information technology. The influence of the newspaper on the evolution of human consciousness is not to be underestimated; for a start, its ability to be rewritten every day helped dilute the power and finality of the book to shape and transport human constructs of the world.  Despite intense lobbying from established news organizations, the information technology revolution will leave behind what is now an antiquated method for transporting the latest world happenings into the human mind.

How can incumbent news organizations compete for attention when the very nature of generation and consumption of information is in flux?

As bloggers gain traction, some papers seem to be aptly positioned to navigate the migration to a new paradigm -  The Economist, for example, has increased US circulation by over 150% in the last 10 years (50%+ is Europe) -  while other news organizations are lobbying for restrictions on internet access and bandwidth.

WATCH:

Arianna Huffington Testimony on the Future of Journalism, May 2009 (VIDEO)

This creative commons documentary on the history of news technology is in itself an example of the challenges facing traditional news media:

Future News Technology

Sony’s work on flexible display technology:

The Amazon Kindle 2.0 allows you to subscribe to several newspapers, though news organizations are reluctant to accept a reported 70%-30% (Amazon-Newspaper) split in revenues:

E-Paper demo:

Related articles

• Rumors of a Big Screen Kindle (mediabistro.com)
• Will Amazon’s Kindle Rescue Newspapers? (time.com)
• Giant Kindle targets commuters and students (geeksaresexy.net)

Many religious organizations, and their political devotees, prefer to pontificate that ancient documents — themselves politically commissioned — supercede the knowledge attained by our ever broadening consciousness since they were written.

Perhaps what these institutions lack is the very product they pretend to foster: Belief. Belief that their god, their beliefs, are not going to be compromised by a clearer understanding of how humans came to be and what lies ahead. They see false dichotomies that those who seek to expand their consciousness discard as unscientific: right/wrong, good/bad, religion/science.

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge” or “knowing”) is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works.

The religious organizations that fail to embrace evolution, are likely to be left behind by natural selection.

Related articles

• Mike Pence Descends Into Jibberish After Evolution Questioning From Chris Matthew (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Pence: I’m Not ‘Anti-Science’…But I Don’t Believe In Global Warming, Stem Cell Research, Or Evolution (thinkprogress.org)
• Playing Darwin with Creation (guardian.co.uk)

Originally built by the US military, the internet is now an essential element of the developed world.

The EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, the EU’s Internet chief, called for the severing of links between ICANN and the U.S. government.

Currently ICANN operates under an agreement with the Commerce Department, and the United States is the only government with oversight of ICANN, which assigns Internet addresses used by more than 1.5 billion Internet users around the world.

“I believe that the U.S., so far, has done this in a reasonable manner. However, I also believe that the Clinton administration’s decision to progressively privatize the Internet’s domain name and addressing system is the right one. In the long run, it is not defendable that the government department of only one country has oversight of an Internet function which is used by hundreds of millions of people in countries all over the world.”

This will not only be a test of President Obama’s foreign policy, but also his belief in roles and responsibilities of the United Nations. Obama must juggle the emerging principles of global democracy with the security interests of the United States, as weapons of mass destruction become ever more digital.

The National Research Council is calling for a open national debate on the technological, policy, legal, and ethical issues of cyberwarfare, said the committee that wrote the report.

Insight into Cyber Attacks

Russia combined cyber attacks with military operations in its invasion of Georgia:

Background on the Internet

Related articles

• US needs ‘digital warfare force’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
• EU urges US to drop ICANN (theregister.co.uk)
• EU to ICANN: ditch the US gov ties and become more global (arstechnica.com)
• Europe looks to wrest control ofthe web away from the US (guardian.co.uk)

The NFL shares revenues and allows weaker teams pick new young players first.

Upon taking over in 1960, Pete Rozelle persuaded NFL team owners — most notably Carroll Rosenbloom of the Colts, and George Preston Marshall of the Redskins — to agree to share revenues between teams. His business model was essentially a system that benefited all teams equally, from revenue sharing to the player draft.

Whenever you buy an NFL licensed product, say a San Francisco 49ers jersey, the revenue is distributed evenly between all members teams. The worst performing teams of the previous season get to pick first when the wealth of college talent becomes available for the new season. There are revenues that teams get to keep for themselves, particular stadium revenue.

Few sports fans are likely to argue for a change of such policies. This system, along with the salary cap have contributed to competitive balance. By contrast, European soccer is now facing facing a growing imbalance between high-revenue and low-revenue teams, to the extent that, but for a few exceptions, the same top teams are qualifying for the Champions League cash cow (Europe’s top club football prize) every year.

Short Definitions of Socialism

Socialism – The set of beliefs which states that all people are equal and should share equally in the wealth of the country, or the political systems based on these beliefs  (Cambridge Dictionary)

Socialism – a political theory advocating state ownership of industry. (Princeton Dictionary)

The US Declaration of Independence states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

The preamble to the Constitution states:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Questions

• Is any government, especially one that lauds it’s pioneering founding documents -  and since it represents the interests of all its citizens – by definition, a socialist entity?
• Is the choice between socialism and capitalism a false dichotomy?

Unfortunately for 1 billion humans, regulation has failed. But is this just down to individual choices, or is the food industry in need of better regulation?

The WHO suggests that creating supportive population-based environments through public policies that promote the availability and accessibility of a variety of low-fat, high-fibre foods, and that provide opportunities for physical activity.

David A. Kessler, MD, former FDA commissioner, suggests that food consumers and food producers share the responsibility:

Back 50 years ago, the tabacco industry in face of evidence that tabacco caused cancer, denied it, deceived the American public. Leave aside what the food industry has known.. there’s a responsibility on the part of the food industry, on the part of government, but just because you’re being stimulated constantly doesn’t mean you don’t have a responsibility to deal with that yourself.

The obesity epidemic of the last 30 years illustrates the difficulty that humans have had in coming to terms with the changes involved in the socio-economic revolution of the 20th century. Self-regulation may be the first step, but if humans are interested in sticking around, the subsequent steps of upgrading our institutions (education, food standards, advertising standards & healthcare systems) will surely be just as critical.

Obesity Facts

World Health Organization (WHO):

• Globally, there are more than 1 billion overweight adults, at least 300 million of them obese.
• Obesity and overweight pose a major risk for chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, and certain forms of cancer.
• The key causes are increased consumption of energy-dense foods high in saturated fats and sugars, and reduced physical activity.

Centers for Disease Control (US Government):

35.3% of adults & 15% of children (5-19 years old) are overweight.

Centers for Disease Control: Obesity Trends 1985-2007

Stanford School of Medicine:

Related articles

• People of higher socioeconomic status choose better diets — but pay more per calorie (scienceblog.com)
• Teen Girls Catching Up To Boys In Prevalence Of Metabolic Syndrome (medicalnewstoday.com)
• One third of Americans have high triglycerides (cnn.com)
• 10 nutrition myths: balanced eating tips (cbc.ca)
• Fast Food Restaurants and Obesity (wine-econ.org)
• Obesity Epidemic “Astronomical” (WebMD)

During World War II, the Japanese tortured US soldiers in the fear that America was going to drop the Atomic bomb on their cities. After this war, Japanese soldiers were prosecuted for the same acts that the Bush administration endorsed.

Do you think it would save people from being raped, from being murdered, from being hurt by torturing everyone that is in a prison in the United States? And every person that we suspect might have an idea to commit a crime? – Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart went on to suggest that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were criminal acts, though he later retracted his assertions.

But Jon Stewart raises an interesting point:

Should our governments be permitted to commit acts of aggression that their own citizens would be prosecuted for?

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