Showing posts with label Bacteria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bacteria. Show all posts

Friday, July 03, 2015

Longer, Healthier Life

Human genome
Human genome (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I think I would like to live past 100. What about you? I have seen pictures in newspapers of people who have done it without any Singularity type help. All of them were slim though.

If you do exercise, you can be as vibrant at 80 as you are at 40, almost.

How Computers Will Crack the Genetic Code and Improve Billions of Lives
Machine learning and data science will do more to improve healthcare than all the biological sciences combined. ..... the most epic challenge — extending the healthy human lifespan ..... Your genome consists of approximately 3.2 billion base pairs (your DNA) that literally code for "you." ..... Your genes code for what diseases you might get, whether you are good at math or music, how good your memory is, what you look like, what you sound like, how you feel, how long you'll likely live, and more. ..... Each person's genome produces a text file that is about 300 gigabytes. ...... The genome of the 100 trillion + microorganisms living in our bodies. There are 10 times as many microbial cells than human cells, and their effects on our bodies are enormous and massively understudied........ With millions and millions of documents/websites/publications online that were already translated, and a crowd of 500 million users to correct and "teach" the algorithm, GT can quickly and accurately translate between 90 different languages.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Clean Water, Obesity

Technology Review: Clean Water For The Developing World: Cotton fabric treated with nano inks produces a water filter that's efficient and needs little power to work...... kills bacteria with electrical fields but uses just 20 percent of the power required by pressure-driven filters ..... At least a billion people have access only to water contaminated by pathogens or pollution. ..... There are two major chemical methods: adding chlorine to the water to kill the bacteria, or adding iron, which causes the bacteria to clump so it's easily removed. ..... Filtration, in contrast, is attractive because it's simple. .... other low-power solutions take too long or are too complex.

Obesity is to America what water is to the Global South. So much of health care costs would evaporate if most Americans lost weight. So many of the diseases in the Global South would go away if everyone had access to clean drinking water.

Some say we already have the knowledge for both and I am not so sure. One of my insights from volunteering for Obama 08 was that Americans don't socialize enough. They don't meet each other in person enough. Their overeating has a direct relationship to their emotional malnutrition.

It is not true we know all we need to know about clean water. Obviously the water cleaning technologies we have are not cheap enough, not simple enough. Obviously. There has to be relentless innovation to reach the masses.

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