Although we've done numerous small dispatches in the interrum, this is our first full-blown Better All the Time in four months. The good news has been really piling up, so let's get started

Today's Good Stuff:

The World Transformed Quote of the Day Stem Cells Made Easy Solar Women The Omega Solution Electro Bikes to Save the World Breathe Yourself Thin Rubik's Robo-Stuff Handy Gene Fixes Space Elevator Lite Getting Busy and Staying Busy

  The World Transformed

This week, FastForward Radio kicks off a landmark 10-part series, The World Transformed. Imagine a world in which poverty has been eliminated, human aging is as treatable as heartburn, and imagination itself becomes reality. It may sound like fantasy, but the reality of the future that is upon is more amazing than any fantasy. Tune in all summer long as we talk about the amazing transformations our world is experiencing with the people who are making these transformations happen, including Ray Kurzweil, Aubrey de Grey, John Smart, Natasha Vita-More, J. Storrs Hall, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Philippe Van Nedervelde, Ben Goertzel, Reichart Von Wolfsheild, George Dvorsky, David Brin and many other leading futurists.
1. Our Thinking Transformed : Imagination, Creativity, and a World Transformed June 23 2009 2. Mortality Transformed (I): The Era of Indefinite Lifespan June 30 2009 3. The Material World Transformed: The Nanotechnology Revolution July 7 2009 4. Humanity Transformed: Reworking the Human Architecture July 14 2009 5. Intelligence Transformed: Achieving Friendly Artificial Intelligence July 21 2009	6. Society Transformed (I): Risks, Dystopia, and Unsettling Futures July 28 2009 7. Mortality Transformed (II): Virtual Worlds and the Future of Personality August 4 2009 8. Society Transformed (II): The End of Scarcity and the Age of Abundance August 11, 2009 9. The Future Transformed (I): The Technological Singularity August 18, 2009 10. The Future Transformed (II): Acceleration, Convergence, and Human Destiny August 25 2009

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Quote of the Day

A successful person isn't necessarily better than her less successful peers at solving problems; her pattern-recognition facilities have just learned what problems are worth solving.

Ray Kurzweil

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Item 1
Stem cell breakthrough gets closer to the clinic

This was a much-needed development:

The technology for versatile, grow-in-a-dish transplant tissue took a step toward clinical use Thursday when researchers announced they have found a safe way to turn skin cells into stem cells.

Researchers say the method is so promising they hope to apply for approval to begin clinic trials by the middle of next year.

"This is the first safe method of generating patient specific stem cells," said study author Robert Lanza, the chief scientific officer at Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine International.

The Good News

Item 2
India's Electrifying Women

In India, teams of "barefoot solar engineers" are bringing electricity to rural villages. The project -- part of a larger campaign to help Indian villagers be self-sufficient -- trains women to build and maintain solar energy units.

The Good News

It remains to be seen whether the future model for energy distribution will be one of radical centralization or one of radical decentralization. (Of course, a middle path is possible, too.) For the closely related question of how material goods will be produced, a decentralized model, wherein small communities or even families -- or even possibly individuals -- have the capability to produce whatever goods they need is an attractive model both because of it sustainability from the standpoint of resource use as well as the individual freedom such a model ensures.

These women may well represent the future of energy distribution for this planet. And even if a widely decentralized model doesn't take hold, teh work they're doing helsp to prepare these communities for wahtever the future of energy will be.

And at the same time, of course, they're bringing the benefits of electricity to people who otherwise would not have had it.

Item 3
Omega fatty acid balance can alter immunity and gene expression

Randall Parker reports:

For the past century, changes in the Western diet have altered the consumption of omega-6 fatty acids (w6, found in meat and vegetable oils) compared with omega-3 fatty acids (w3, found in flax and fish oil). Many studies seem to indicate this shift has brought about an increased risk of inflammation (associated with autoimmunity and allergy), and now using a controlled diet study with human volunteers, researchers may have teased out a biological basis for these reported changes.

Anthropological evidence suggests that human ancestors maintained a 2:1 w6/w3 ratio for much of history, but in Western countries today the ratio has spiked to as high as 10:1. Since these omega fatty acids can be converted into inflammatory molecules, this dietary change is believed to also disrupt the proper balance of pro- and anti- inflammatory agents, resulting in increased systemic inflammation and a higher incidence of problems including asthma, allergies, diabetes, and arthritis.

Floyd Chilton and colleagues wanted to examine whether theses fatty acids might have other effects, and developed a dietary intervention strategy in which 27 healthy humans were fed a controlled diet mimicking the w6/w3 ratios of early humans over 5 weeks. They then looked at the gene levels of immune signals and cytokines (protein immune messengers), that impact autoimmunity and allergy in blood cells and found that many key signaling genes that promote inflammation were markedly reduced compared to a normal diet, including a signaling gene for a protein called PI3K, a critical early step in autoimmune and allergic inflammation responses.

This study demonstrates, for the first time in humans, that large changes in gene expression are likely an important mechanism by which these omega fatty acids exert their potent clinical effects.

 

The Good News

First off, the bad news is inflammation. In addition to the maladies listed above, inflammation is closely associated with obesity and aging. In fact, there are some who would argue that both aging and obesity are just specialized forms of inflammation gone wild.

So the good news here is that we can take a significant positive step healthwise just by working out that ratio between omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids. Not only can we potentially ward of the damaging effects of diabetes, arthritis, and allergies, we stand a good chance of staying thinner and living longer if we can just get these numbers into the right relationship.

So, how to increase omega 3 levels? A few ideas:

Eat fish, especially cold water fish (AKA slamon)

Take fish oil supplements

Eat ground flax seed and add flax seed oil to your diet

Eat eggs provided by chickens who have been fed flax seed

Eat meat provided by grass-fed livestock

Eat nuts

How, then to decrease omega 6 levels? That part is easy, just eat fewer fat sources that aren't a good source of omega 3.

Item 4
Electric Motorcycles Gain Traction

Here's a neat story:

Get ready for an American motorcycle revolution. That deep Harley rumble and the siren call of the Suzuki whine will soon be sharing the road with silent bikes. A slew of sleek, lightweight machines, either fully electric or hybrid, is making its debut and signaling a paradigm shift in both motorcycle culture and green transportation.

The $9,950 Zero S will go on sale this spring, one of the first plug-in motorcycles widely available in the U.S. Weighing in at just 225 pounds, this bike is made by former NASA engineer Neal Saiki and his three-year-old Santa Cruz, Calif., start-up.

Electric bikes’ biggest draw is the fact they cost less than 1 cent per mile to drive; Saiki's Zero S goes 60 miles on one charge and can hit 60 miles per hour at top speed.

The Good News:

The good news here is very simple. Saving energy doesn't have to be an exercise in dour self-sacrifice and relinquishment. Here's how you sell a low-carbon footprint. You make it sleek, you make it powerful, you make it fun. (Is that so hard?)

Of course, not everyone is going to be willing to make the switch from SUV to electric mototrcycle. But there are interesting options in between. This is one of my personal favorites.

Item 5
Making Fat Disappear

Engineering mice with a fat-burning strategy from bacteria keeps the animals thin.

Can burning excess fat be as easy as exhaling? That's the finding of a provocative new study by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), who transplanted a fat-burning pathway used by bacteria and plants into mice. The genetic alterations enabled the animals to convert fat into carbon dioxide and remain lean while eating the equivalent of a fast-food diet.

The feat, detailed in the current issue of Cell Metabolism introduces a new approach to combating the growing obesity problem in humans. Although the proof-of-concept study is far from being tested in humans, it may point to new strategies for borrowing biological functions from bacteria and other species to improve human health.

To create the fat-burning mice, the researchers focused on a metabolic strategy used by some bacteria and plants called the glyoxylate shunt. James Liao, a biomolecular-engineering professor at UCLA and a senior author of the study, says, "This pathway is essential for the cell to convert fat to sugar" and is used when sugar is not readily available or to convert the fat stored in plant seeds into usable energy. Liao also says that it's not known why mammals lack this particular strategy, although it may be because our bodies are designed to store fat rather than burn it.

The glyoxylate shunt is composed of just two enzymes. The researchers first introduced genes for these enzymes from E. coli bacteria into cultured human cells and found that they increased the metabolism of fats in the cells. But surprisingly, rather than converting the fat into sugar as bacteria do, the cells burned the fat completely into carbon dioxide. The scientists analyzed gene expression in the cells and found that the new pathway promoted cellular responses that led the cells to metabolize fats rather than sugar.

The Good News

We have bodies designed to store fat in the face of frequent fasts and famines but we live in a time of plenty. Well, most of us do, anyway. Certainly, this is a time of unprecendented abundance for all those folks worldwide who struggle with obesity.

Being able literally to breathe the fat away would be a godsend for those who face that struggle, helping them to live onger and healthier lives.

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Item 6
Universal Rubik's Cube Could Become Pentagon Shapeshifter

Even by the standards of the Pentagon fringe science arm, this project sounds far-out: "programmable matter" that can be ordered to "self-assemble or alter their shape, perform a function and then disassemble themselves." But researchers backed by Darpa are actually making progress on this incredible goal, Henry Kenyon at Signal magazine reports.

One day, that could lead to "morphing aircraft and ground vehicles, uniforms that can alter themselves to be comfortable in any climate, and ’soft’ robots that flow like mercury through small openings to enter caves and bunker complexes." A soldier could even reach into a can of unformed goop, and order up a custom-made tool or a "universal spare part."

One team from Harvard is working on a kind of "generalized Rubik's Cube" that can fold into all kinds of shapes. Another is trying to order large strands of synthetic DNA to bind together in a "molecular Velcro." An MIT group is building "self-folding origami" machines that "use specialized sheets of material with built-in actuators and data. These machines use cutting-edge mathematical theorems to fold themselves into virtually any three-dimensional object."

The Good News:

Of course, all of this research is just a precursor to the development of utility fog, AKA the Handiest Stuff in the Universe. Rememer how George Jetson used to arrive at work, whip out a remote, and turn his flying car into a briefcase with the push of a button? Imagie being able to turn that briefcase into any other model of car, a bicycle, a speedboat, a couch and TV, a refrigerator, or a robot pal.

We had the definitive discussion on that subject not too long ago.

Item 7
Now Your DNA Can Be Used For Machine Parts

We're closer than ever to turning our bodies into computers. A study published this week in Science demonstrates how to turn DNA into a simple counter. That means your DNA could eventually be reprogrammed with a shut down command.

One of the many features of DNA is that it responds to signals over time. It interacts with molecules and enzymes in the cell which often tell it to do something later, after it has received several other chemical signals - or to react instantly when in the presence of certain proteins. The fact that DNA responds predictably to certain signals means that it could be turned into a counter that measures time via regularly delivered molecular signals. So if you built a biological machine that needed to count particulate matter in the air, DNA would be the perfect mechanism to use. Just a reengineer it to emit a particular protein after it had encountered, say, 10 particles of a toxin - then create a device that rings a bell when it sees the protein. Poof - you've got a biological machine that rings a bell when dangerous toxins are in the air.

The Good News

Just about everythin that goes on in our bodies is a chemical reaction of some kind.. Any measure of control thatwe can get over the molecular reactions ocuring within our cells is a positive step. Eventually, this programming capability might be extended to enable us to figt infection or combat cancer, to encourage muscle growth and inhibit fat, or to reverse the cellular damage associated with aging.

Inflatable tower could climb to the edge of space

A GIANT inflatable tower could carry people to the edge of space without the need for a rocket, and could be completed much sooner than a cable-based space elevator, its proponents claim.

Inflatable pneumatic modules already used in some spacecraft could be assembled into a 15-kilometre-high tower, say Brendan Quine, Raj Seth and George Zhu at York University in Toronto, Canada, writing in Acta Astronautica (DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.02.018). If built from a suitable mountain top it could reach an altitude of around 20 kilometres, where it could be used for atmospheric research, tourism, telecoms or launching spacecraft.
Pneumatic modules already used in some spacecraft could be assembled into a 15-kilometre-high tower

The team envisages assembling the structure from a series of modules constructed from Kevlar-polyethylene composite tubes made rigid by inflating them with a lightweight gas such as helium. To test the idea, they built a 7-metre scale model made up of six modules (see image). Each module was built out of three laminated polyethylene tubes 8 centimetres in diameter, mounted around circular spacers and inflated with air.

The Good News

Not only is this an intriguing indea, it's exciting to see that the notion of a tower or other structure reaching into space has gained so much acceptance that alternatve methods of how to achieve it are now being offered. Blogger Brian Wang points out that this lightweight inflatable contruction methodology might enable J. Storrs Hall's idea of a space pier -- which doesn't take you straight from earth to orbit the way a space elevator does, but which woud certainly make the process of getting there a lot easier and cheaper.

Inexpensive, safe, and frequent access to outer space is on its way.

Item 9

Good sex makes you better at your job: study

The Good News

Sometimes the headline says it all. Come on people, we all want to be beter, more productive employees, don't we?

Let's get busy.

Better All The Time was compiled by Phil Bowermaster. Live to see it!

I know. That's like saying that Santa hates reindeer, but this comes straight from the man himself. And he lists some pretty good reasons for feeling the way he does.

Moreover, he points out an unfortunate general tendency:

Some widespread ideas about research objectives

* are bad
* seem absurd to most scientists
* are inconsistent with my ideas and publications
* are nonetheless widely attributed to me

Drexler's blog is a great read. When he's not busy setting the record straight, he takes the time to explain things like how to understand everything.

Very useful!

Joe Gavin, director, Apollo Lunar Module Program, Grumman Aerospace Corporation.

The concept of a networked brain isn't so different from the transportation grids used by cars and planes, says Martijn van den Heuvel, a neuroscientist at Utrecht University Medical Center who led the new study.

"If you're flying from New York to Amsterdam, you can do it in a direct flight. It's much more effective than going from New York, then to Washington, and then to Amsterdam. It's exactly the same idea in the brain," he says.

Per this model, intelligence is a factor not of the number of connections inside the brain, but the efficiency with which those connections are wired together. Apparently the arrangement of non-nueron-carrying white matter is also a major factor. Seeing as this basic plumbing ought to be reasonably reconfigurable -- once we know how -- this research begins to look like something that might push us towards greater than human intelligence in a fairly straightforward way.

But let's not plan those The Singularity Is Here parties quite yet.

For one thing, as the article points out:

The first order of business will be to determine what physical and biochemical properties create more efficient brain network

Well, that's a fairly tall first order of business, now isn't it? First we have to figure out what those properties are, then we have to figure out how we can manipulate them. It may well all be doable, but a lot of heavy spade work lies ahead. And that's not the only difficulty. Alvis Brigis argues pretty convincingly that we don't yet have a precise and mutually agreed upon definition of what we mean by "intelligence."

Back when I used to lead process improvement teams for the product engineering and development group at U S WEST Advanced Technologies, we had a saying -- "You can't improve what you can't measure." In retrospect, this is not entirely true. I believe something like "reliably" or "consistently" belongs in there between the "can't" and the "improve." And if we can't reliably improve something that we can't measure, it seems equally axiomatic that we can't measure what we haven't properly defined.

Not to be a buzzkill, I'm just saying that a little progress in this area is still a long way from any of us dropping by the clinic for a quick brain reconfiguration and an additional 60 IQ points. But still, it could very well be (early and embryonic) progress in exactly that direction.