Monthly Archives: January 2005

Stillness Part VI, Chapter 59

“So you’re saying that all these other versions of me, living in all these parallel dimensions, are in some kind of competition with me? Is that the idea?”

I look down. My coffee cup is nearly empty. For the third time.

Three cups in one sitting is a bit much for me, even when I’m not feeling jittery. And, as I may have mentioned, this Marco Polo whatever the hell his name is makes me more than just a little jittery.

But let’s be accurate. It’s really more like two and half cups of coffee, seeing as I spilled about half of my first cup. And to tell you the truth, I’m not really feeling all that jittery now. Or at least I think it’s fair to say that the jitteriness I am experiencing is almost completely caffeine-induced. Sure, this guy is way beyond creepy. Not just the way he looks and talks, but something about the way he moves and, even worse, the way he just kind of is even when he’s not moving.

The man is not right.

But, hey, that could be said of a lot of people. Why, I could take the elevator down to the ground level, walk out of this building, and within a few blocks find a half dozen people just as delusional as he is.

Some probably even more delusional.

But why bother going all that distance? Right here in this building, certainly among the worker bees down below — but every bit as certainly among the queen bees up here at altitude — the place is crawling with hang-ups, phobias, idiosyncrasies, night terrors, oddities, paranoid delusions, and myriad other conditions both certifiable and un. Even my own dear wife has a kind of crazy side to her. (Albeit lovable. Sort of. Once you get used to it.) But just because somebody is a little off, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily dangerous.

I’ve decided that, owing to the fact that he apparently jumped off the screen from a David Cronenberg movie right here into real life, my guest exudes a kind of sinister air which causes one to mistake him for a dangerous individual — and it doesn’t help when he says things like it wouldn’t have been “practical” to kill me, especially as convincingly as he says it — but, come on, the guy can’t really be a threat.

Not really.

And yet, having come to that conclusion…what? A cup and a half ago? I still have done nothing to remove him from my presence. I still sit here talking to the man as though it were a good use of my time. As though his issues really are important.

As though I really don’t dare say anything about his leaving for fear that he’ll get mad and hurt me.

And so the chat continues. It’s kind of interesting, anyway.

Targeting Cancer

FuturePundit Randall Parker has the scoop on a new gene therapy that selectively kills only cancer cells:

This approach is important because cancer can not be cured without the development of therapeutic agents that have far greater ability than current conventional chemical chemotherapy agents to selectively target cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. The use of molecular switches that will flip on to deliver therapies only in cancer cells is going to be one of the major ways that cancer is going to be defeated and perhaps even ultimately the best way. There are two parts to such a therapy. The first is the switching part that detects unique signature patterns in cancer cells to know to activate. The other part is what will get done once the activation of the switch has happened. There are many possibilities for the second part. Imagine, for example, an enzyme that gets synthesized in cancer cells that can metabolize inert chemotherapy compounds into toxic forms. Or imagine a protein made from the switch that effectively punches a hole in a cell. Or perhaps the switch would turn on a bigger package of genes that would restore normal cell division regulation. The gene package could include a replacement non-mutated p53 cell divisiion regulating gene to replace the mutated p53 genes found in many types of cancer.

Cool. That reference to a “molecular switch” makes me wonder whether some kind of nanotech/gene therapy hybrid might prove effective in fighting cancer. Step One: gene therapy treatment induces throwing of molecular switch to identify cancer cells. Step Two: nanodevice applies gold nanoshell or other destructive treatment to cancer cells, leaving healthy cells completely unharmed.

Might be a winning combination.

Nanotechnology Timeline

Mike Treder, Executive Director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology has given us permission to republish this thought-provoking essay on how soon we can expect to see molecular manufacturing. How does 20 years sound? Too long? How about 10? Many recent developments, including the progress that Stephen has been tracking in the development of “fab labs” (here and here) makes me optimistic that the 10-year time-frame might be the realstic one. But as Mike points out, looking for a quick arrival of true nanotechnology might be less a matter of optimism and more a matter of being careful what you wish for. We shall see.

Based on our research, CRN believes that general-purpose molecular manufacturing (MM) could be (not will be, but could be) developed successfully within the next ten years, and almost certainly will be developed within twenty years at most.

Why is our timeline more aggressive than most? In part, because the incentive for development is so great.

Let’s look at what’s required: Maybe a hundred or so mechanochemical reactions to build the parts; some basic robotics and structural design for the fabricators and the nanofactory; a really advanced CAD program and training to design nanoscale machinery; and a nano-lithography or nano-assembly system that can build the first crude fabricator. All of this is engineering, with no need for unpredictable scientific breakthroughs.

Many of these capabilities are being developed rapidly in other nanotechnologies. Some costs are decreasing exponentially every year or two, like computers to do simulations. We don’t know whether it would take a billion, ten billion, or a hundred billion dollars to do it by 2010, but almost certainly by 2020 it will be less than a billion dollars. And general-purpose molecular manufacturing, even in 2020, would be worth hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe trillions. Someone somewhere will find a way to fund it.

It appears quite possible that MM will arrive suddenly, perhaps within the next ten years, and almost certainly within the next twenty. If it takes the world by surprise, we will not have systems in place that can deal with it effectively. No single organization or mindset can create a full and appropriate policy — and inappropriate policy will only make things worse. A combination of separate policy efforts will get in each other’s way, and the risks will slip through the cracks.

By the time this technological capability arrives, we must have accomplished several things that each will take significant time. First, we must understand the risks. Second, make policy. Third, design institutions. Fourth, create the institutions — at all levels including international levels, where things move slowly. This could easily take twenty years. If advanced nanotechnology could arrive in ten or fifteen years, then we’d better get to work.

Stillness Part VI, Chapter 58

Sybil was surprised when she got up to find breakfast waiting for her. It was
getting late by the time she made her appearance, so I left the two of them
to have their breakfast in the little nook in the back of the kitchen where
we had our family meals. Having already eaten, I went to work preparing the
diner for opening. We still had half an hour, and I could have lingered at the
table for a while if I had chosen to do so. I told myself that I was just giving
Sybil and Jerry some time alone together — which was true as far as it
went — but the reality was that I was avoiding any more discussion of my
dream.


Opening the diner was not a monumental task. I moved a working quantity of
eggs, bacon, and sausage from the main refrigerator to the smaller cooling unit
next to the grill. I left the beef and ham steaks, which tended to be ordered
much less frequently, in the freezer. In a pitcher, I mixed up a batch of pancake
batter and put it with the other food. I turned the toaster on and added a half
stick of butter to the warming bowl beside it, then set a clean brush next to
the bowl. Every slice of bread got brushed with a healthy slathering of butter
before being set on the toaster’s miniature conveyor belt.


With the kitchen finished, I went to work on the counter area. I put a big
paper filter on either side of the coffee machine, scooping grounds of regular
into one of them and decaffeinated into the other. But I wouldn’t press the
brew button until five minutes before I unlocked the double glass front door
and turned on the Open sign. That way, our first few customers would get a fresh
cup. There was no preparation to make for the milk or orange juice dispensers.
I just checked to make sure that there were enough trays of cups and glasses
to get us through the morning.


I noticed that there were six trays of coffee cups, with nine missing from
the top tray for a total of 141. There were four trays of juice glasses, with
eight missing from the top tray for a total of 72. Each cup tray held 25 cups;
each glass tray held 20 glasses.


As I started putting out paper placemats and silverware, I thought about these
numbers. The number of juice glasses, 72, was equal to the combined ages of
my friends at the time I left the home. The eight empty spaces were equal to
my age when I left. The number of coffee cups, 141, was equal to the combined
difference in age in all of us between then and now, 120, added to Sybil’s
age at the time I left, 21. That number, 141, was also the room number of the
hotel where Sybil and I stayed in Las Vegas all those years ago.


But that was only the beginning. I’ve tried to train myself, over the years,
not to notice numbers. At least, not to notice them too much. The numbers
72 and 141 weren’t really significant for any particular reason. The truth is,
we all encounter the same numbers over and over again every day of our lives.
Most people just don’t notice them. I suffer from not only noticing, but
remembering every number I come into contact with. It seems they all
just lie there, the numbers, waiting for the chance to wake up and take me out
of the world for a while.


And I was only getting started with these two.

The Perfect Shape, Part 2

See, I told you this was a good idea. And what a great name…Rotundus. Actually, that’s kind of what I feel like after a little too much holiday indulgence.

Spherical security robots are a good idea, but I hope they stick with the shiny metallic ones as shown in the linked article. I, for one, would be wary of any soft, bubbly implementation of the same idea.

(via GeekPress)