Why Radiation Nauseates .
Andre Willers
27 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
Nausea tries to minimize the number of opportunistic gut-bacteria .
Discussion :
Ever wonder why nausea is the first symptom of a hefty radiation dose ?
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Pre-pendix:
Emergency Radiation dose therapy when nothing else is available :
1.Empty the gut . Vomit and emetics .
2.Kill gut bacteria . (vit C , alcohol , antibiotics)
3.Wash outer skin , but no soaps .
4.Eat about 10 mg honey , preferably from a young hive .
5.Put about one drop of bleach in the water .
6.Pray.
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There are strong clues in
1.)“Science Translational Medicine” , DOI:10.1126/scitransmed.3003126
2.)”NewScientist” 3Dec 2011 p21 “How to survive a fatal radiation dose”
Pay attention , as this may save your life someday .
Eva Guinan of Harvard Medical School found that boosting levels of a protein involved in immune responses against bacteria , while simultaneously giving an antibiotic helped 80% of rats to survive a lethal radiation exposure . Even after 24 hours .
What gives ?
In normal times:
Most of the Immune System (80%-90%)is clustered around the gastro-intestinal tract , containing foreign incursions , but mainly keeping resident symbiotic and commensal bacteria in check .Quorum systems on both parts play a macro and micro role .
This means all the bacteria have lethality genes , but they are not switched on .
The Border :
The gums , stomach wall , intestinal wall , etc .
This is composed of cells with a much faster rate of duplication . They are where the rubber hits the tar .Lots of wear-and-tear . They can afford higher mutation rates , because this is exactly where 80% of the immune system is resident .
Unfortunately , for evolutionary reasons , this expensive immune response system is optimized .
This means the minimum necessary , plus 1/3 reserve .
Major Damage :
1.Radiation damage scenario.
The gastro-walls , which divide fast , are hit first . DNA damage not only causes apoptosis of new cells , but the burden on the immune system to zap cancerous cells increases significantly .
Gaps in the wall appears . Bleeding occurs .
Opportunistic intestinal bacteria moves past the immune system border barrier and spreads through the bloodstream . Lethality genes gets switched on . In return , the low concentration immune-system in farflung corners switch on drastic measures . The organism goes into shock .
Nausea :
An evolved response to this scenario is to empty the gastro-tube as much as possible .
And keep it empty .
Hence nausea .
The triggers would be fragments of cellular destruction , either by radiation or chemical means .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Controlled Death Markers” Nov 2011
Repeated in Appendix I for your convenience .
But what we really need is to zap all bacteria in the gut until the emergency is past , then replenish them .
Zapping gut bacteria :
1.Vitamin C in megadoses : 7-8 gm will kill 99% on a first pass .
2.Combine with alcohol (about 500 ml of 40% alcohol-standard booze)
These are general killers .
3.Antibiotics are specific killers , always leaving some survivors .
4.Stimulated excretion : leaves some survivors .(Cf diarrhea infections : adaptations?)
Especially if appendix veriformis is intact .
Immune system boost :
In this case , a protein . But there is a more potent system
”NewScientist” 3Dec 2011 p8 “HIV out , no immune system required”
Briefly , existing muscle-cells are gene-engineered with viruses to produce specific antibodies , bypassing the immune system completely .(Already been done) .
This means a huge antibody pulse
I would suggest also targeting fat cells . This would be really losing weight fast , while getting healthier .
Eat and Shit :
Toilet training is the first Human Rite of Passage .Pulses of eating and excretion instead of a steady in-out flow .This not only affects the neural systems , but the entire immune and gut bacteria systems . Their interrelationship and pulses .
Since there are multiple inputs (eating) , but one output per day , the output dictates the pace .
At a bacterial level as well . You have to toilet train bacteria , since they influence the muscle-rhythms of the gut .
“Modern” medical birthing techniques do not allow crossover between the mother's faecal matter and the baby . So each baby has to be trained afresh .
Why do you think the cloaca and the vagina are so close together ?
In healthy mammals , it is essential that the bacterial symbiotes are initialized . The intestinal symbiotes are the most important (gotta eat) .
Leakage from the mother's anus during birth will coat the baby in some interesting genetic material
Researchers should concentrate on matter from the mother's anus during birth for some wow! targeted antibiotics .
Pay special attention to bacterial skin penetrations on the baby .
Caesearians :
Use faecal transplants and anal swabs .
But I am wandering .
Massive radiation damage shock :
This seems to have occurred often enough that evolutionary procedures to handle it have evolved .
1.The skin systems ( gastro , surface skin ) are isolated .
2.The immune system is redistributed .
3.Reserves are mobilized .
4.Only innocuous inputs are allowed (sterile water , etc)
5.Heat shock systems are mobilized to edit damaged proteins .
6.Repopulation of bacteria from internal or external reservoirs
Innocuous inputs:
Coarse sea Salt , honey .
Active inputs:
Bleach .
Very,very small concentrations of bleach (one drop per liter) act like wolves on the ecology of bacteria . It puckers up their receptor sites like a camel's asshole in a sandstorm .
The reason is that bleach is the chemical used by the immune system to kill .
There is no immunity (or rather , if they develop immunity , all multi-cellular organisms are dead )
It also resets bacterial quorum mechanisms .
Now you know why we have not had major high-death rate pandemics .
Oh , we have had pandemics . But usually the major killing was done by opportunistic bacteria switching on lethal genes in the gut
And here you thought your dishwashing liquid did nothing for you .
Andre .
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Appendix I
Controlled Death Markers .
Andre Willers
21 Nov 2011
Synopsis :
Platelets . Beautiful ! Fragments of Destruction evolved into Fragments of Survival .
Discussion :
When cells are destroyed , fragments remain . Systems that recognise these fragments as warning signals survive better .
Why wait until destruction occurs ?
Systems that deliberately create fragments will survive better . Contingency plans .
Enter platelets , Megakaryocytes and cytokines .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megakaryocytes
Megakaryocytes create platelets , these platelets being generalised fragments of destruction .
Not all fits , so specialised proteins ( ie C3) have evolved as a next step to tie the platelets to specific bacteria .
Note that C3 evolved as part of the innate immune system .
We therefore strongly suspect that there are chaperones steering C3 and others to mark unknown objects for further attention .
These are then presented to the dentritic immune cells for incorporation into the Learned Immune Response system .
A nifty piece of work .
The innate immune system is incorporated into the learned immune system via the platelets .
The very large search space can be spanned by a small variable space .
The order is of 3 (ie 10^3) . Typical Genetic algorithm .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complement_component_3
Complement component 3, often simply calledC3, is a protein of the immune system. It plays a central role in the complement system and contributes to innate immunity. In humans it is encoded on chromosome 19 by a gene calledC3.[1][2]
Instant death :
Looking at the molecular structure of C3 and the clotting factors , we notice an old friend : tell me three times . ( But beware of the Boojum)
There are three locks in the folds of the molecules . Biological systems that utilize only one or two locks will have to be kept in quarantine (ie bi- or tri-poisons in component form .) Not normally found in evolutionary systems .
It would make a nifty exterminator for sexual species . Tie two forms to the X-chromosome and one to the Y-chromosome , and the resultant combination will kill both copulators in an ecstasy of clotting ( literally if we connect an endorphin producing alkaloid) .
Can this evolve ?
Yes , in social species . Already has . See large percentage of neuters in insect species .
This would be driven by overpopulation .
“One Queen in darkness , to rule them all” , with apologies to Tolkien .
This limits population growth to non-exponential terms .
This leads to a delicious anti-bug strategy :
Make them implode .
Hyper Death Markers .
An extremely high concentration of cell-wall fragments .
We have it already in a mild form : petroleum jellies . (Burns)
(Petroleum is formed from destroyed cells)
Low-temperature , low-temperature refined petroleum concentrated in a small volume should trigger cellular implosion (or kill you quickly)
The Spleen :
Unlearning things .
This is where you Unlearn things at a molecular level .
At the stomach level .
Note the tie to the amygdala .
One third of the activated platelets end up in the spleen . As expected . This is the Reserve .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “New Tools” , Nov 2008
But note the Megakaryocyte's DNA nuclei end up in the lungs .Why ?
Note the hypersensitivity of the lungs to rubbish . They have not unlearned some things .
There seems to be link between the spleen and the lung's immune responses (ie asthma ,etc)
But there is little on the Net about reprogramming the Learned Immune System via the spleen , though it is built-in .
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How to Reprogram the Learned Immune Response system :
This is not medical advice . Consult your doctor .
Pulse system :
1.Take about 2000 micrograms of vit B12 . (a hefty dose)
2.Dissolve about 15 gm(3 tsp) of honey (or bee-balm) in a boiling bit of water .
Inhale the fumes after step 3 .
3.Eat about 5 mg (1 tsp) of honey or bee-balm .(1/3)
4.Then continue for at least 5 breaths .
What is supposed to happen : the contrast in the lack of death markers from the honey in the lungs and the spleen , combined with the Vit B12 pulse reprograms the immune responses . If it works , it should help with asthma and diabetes II .
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Death and Broadband :
All organisms with telomeres live longer in the presence of pervasive patterned electro-magnetic radiation .
Delicious !
All those radio towers make you live longer . (Unless you are too close) . Correlate it .
Logic:
The telomere DNA sequence is very specific . Large scale random EM radiation will give rise to stochastic resonance , reinforcing the integrity of the telomere DNA sequence . A longer life .
Feedback systems are involved .
Forced evolution :
This can be done by hiking the patterns to higher Beth(x) levels .
But watch out for the discontinuities in the Fourier series .
Shock systems .
In an emergency , simply use plain dissolved sugar as an inhalant . Does this really work ?
I don't know . Try it .
Diabetics :
1.Three teaspoons of sugar dissolved in a little bit of boiling water
2.One teaspoon of sugar eaten
3.Inhale the fumes from the boiling sugar water .
This should reprogram the spleen to some degree.
Now you know as much as I do.
Unlearning the wrong things is yuck .
Andre
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The Skull Trap
The Skull Trap
Andre Willers
22 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
The skull is a poor place to put a brain . Eating and thinking makes for a rather limited fellowship .
Discussion :
1.The brain development was driven by one major factor : the amygdala .
Fast recognition and reaction to threats overrode everything else .
Other factors were :
2.Optic systems
3.Ganglia for movement
4.Memory of rewards .
A false optimum in evolution linked the four factors above to be in close proximity .
The Brain in the Skull .
This split happened about 300 MYA .
Amphibians' “brains” were distributed ,
Dinosaurs and mammals also have distributed brains , but to a much lesser extent .
See “A brief history of the Brain” , NewScientist 24 sep 2011 p 40
This led to humans having a severely limited processing capacity , due to skull size .
I am more interested in enhancing human capability .
Multiple Amygdala's
Humans already have this in simple forms. Also known as chakra's .
See Appendix I for Lower Back Pain . A local amygdala effect .
Creation and steering of local amygdala's using APS .
This should drastically increase sporting performance .
But will it make you smarter ?
The answer is yes , to a limited extent .
Shifting decision processing to local amygdala's frees the central brain from these tasks .
There is a leverage effect in that many nodes in the Mirror-Neuron Networks are freed up as well .
Super Sportsman .
This will give you very fast reflexes . Also more stamina (some housekeeping muscle systems are controlled from these ganglia) .
Genetic :
Implanting or stimulating amygdala stem cells in the chakra points should have some very interesting results .
Controlled cancers stimulated by amygdala's will result in brain mass in the body , where it belongs .
Will this trigger some epigenetic responses ? I have no idea , but suspect that some “fast-forward” cancer biolabs in the body already has some pre-prepared genes .
Drugs :
Identifying chakra's as amygdala's opens the whole toolbox of interventions ..
Propanolol an Imipramine springs to mind .
Take a lot of fish oil (omega3 fats . Etc)
Another fishy story .
Andre .
Ps. Correlate Fleming Effect with Caeserians .
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Appendix I
Peripheral Neuropathy of Legs. A Cure.
Andre Willers
20 Apr 2010
My Birthday Present to fellow sufferers .
Synopsis:
A methodology for reducing chronic symptoms (95%) and repairing nerves .
Summary:
Data from my personal experience .
1.Use APS as for lower back pain once a day (8 min) . Unease relief 80%-85% .
2.Use capsaicum on upper thighs . Before sleep . Unease relief 10% . The need for this will decrease after about 5-7 usages of APS usage .
3. Keep blood-glucose concentration <=6.5
4. Do not eat high acrylamide foods
5.Take alpha-lipoic acid . 250 mg (1+2+1) per day initially .Taper .
Beware reflux . An amusing side effect . Rejection reflexes of crap food are repaired .
Not beloved by the fast-food industry .
(Pregnant women should not take this in large doses. )
Discussion :
The pathology is caused by damage to the nerves , (especially the long leg-nerves) by high glucose concentrations in DiabetesII and Acrylamide from diet .
How it works:
The pain-pulses of damaged nerve A arrive at the synapses in the lower back (spine) . Here , certain specialized glial cells count the frequency and duration . To prevent the gate-effect of pain impulses to mask further pain signals of further tissue damage from other nerves , these cells take on the function of automatically pulsing pain signals as if from nerve A , while inhibiting the damaged nerve A's signal .
This enables other damage signals to come through , preventing further damage .
This has obvious evolutionary advantages in preventing cascading damages .
The problem is that , even if damage to nerve A has been repaired , the off-switch of this mechanism may not work . Or the damage to nerve A might remain .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Peripheral Neuropathy" et al .
Chronic neuropathy results from the inability to activate the "Off" switch in microglial and astrocyte bodies in the dorsal root ganglion .
See Scientific American Nov 2009 p 33 .
A further teensy problem is that , even if there was a temporary repair , if the chronic condition (like too high glucose or acrylamide concentrations) the microglial and astrocyte bodies get re-triggered . And they would be sensitized as well .
The Methodology :
1.Drastically reduce the pain impulses from the microglial and astrocyte bodies in the dorsal root ganglion . For this we use the APS technology , with electrodes configured for "Back Pain" .
See www.apstherapy.com
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "ATP as Neurotransmitter"
I originally bought this machine in 2001 for Neuropathy leg pains , but put the electrodes on the legs . This had little or no effect . Only after reading the article :
See Scientific American Nov 2009 p 33 did I realize that the chronic pain is generated in the lower back .
Putting the electrodes on the sides of the lower hip as recommended for lower back pain led to a reduction of that chronic burning unease sensation of 80-85 percent.
After about 4-7 days .
Some of the remainder of unease could be ameliorated by using gate-theory : capsaicum . Just smear it on the thighs . This generates pain signals that compete at the lowest spine ganglia , but unfortunately the system habituates easily . .
This brings us to about 95% of unease .
At least I could sleep without analgesics .
But there are still twinges .
The damage to the nerves still exist . The neuropathic pain will quickly re-establish itself . We are just managing the condition , not curing it .
The Cure :
Repair the nerves , while keeping the damaging agents under control .
The damaging agents are too high concentrations of glucose and acrylamide .
Keep them under control via diet or insulin .
The repair is enhanced by alpha-lipoic acid (evening primrose oil).
Take supplements .
Desensitizing the system :
A really permanent , buffered system . I do not have that .
Working ,working ….
A promising lead is propranolol . Reprogramming memories at synapse level (ie the microglial and astrocyte bodies in the dorsal root ganglion .)
Google "propranolol PTSD"
Happy Birthday !
Andre
Andre Willers
22 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
The skull is a poor place to put a brain . Eating and thinking makes for a rather limited fellowship .
Discussion :
1.The brain development was driven by one major factor : the amygdala .
Fast recognition and reaction to threats overrode everything else .
Other factors were :
2.Optic systems
3.Ganglia for movement
4.Memory of rewards .
A false optimum in evolution linked the four factors above to be in close proximity .
The Brain in the Skull .
This split happened about 300 MYA .
Amphibians' “brains” were distributed ,
Dinosaurs and mammals also have distributed brains , but to a much lesser extent .
See “A brief history of the Brain” , NewScientist 24 sep 2011 p 40
This led to humans having a severely limited processing capacity , due to skull size .
I am more interested in enhancing human capability .
Multiple Amygdala's
Humans already have this in simple forms. Also known as chakra's .
See Appendix I for Lower Back Pain . A local amygdala effect .
Creation and steering of local amygdala's using APS .
This should drastically increase sporting performance .
But will it make you smarter ?
The answer is yes , to a limited extent .
Shifting decision processing to local amygdala's frees the central brain from these tasks .
There is a leverage effect in that many nodes in the Mirror-Neuron Networks are freed up as well .
Super Sportsman .
This will give you very fast reflexes . Also more stamina (some housekeeping muscle systems are controlled from these ganglia) .
Genetic :
Implanting or stimulating amygdala stem cells in the chakra points should have some very interesting results .
Controlled cancers stimulated by amygdala's will result in brain mass in the body , where it belongs .
Will this trigger some epigenetic responses ? I have no idea , but suspect that some “fast-forward” cancer biolabs in the body already has some pre-prepared genes .
Drugs :
Identifying chakra's as amygdala's opens the whole toolbox of interventions ..
Propanolol an Imipramine springs to mind .
Take a lot of fish oil (omega3 fats . Etc)
Another fishy story .
Andre .
Ps. Correlate Fleming Effect with Caeserians .
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Appendix I
Peripheral Neuropathy of Legs. A Cure.
Andre Willers
20 Apr 2010
My Birthday Present to fellow sufferers .
Synopsis:
A methodology for reducing chronic symptoms (95%) and repairing nerves .
Summary:
Data from my personal experience .
1.Use APS as for lower back pain once a day (8 min) . Unease relief 80%-85% .
2.Use capsaicum on upper thighs . Before sleep . Unease relief 10% . The need for this will decrease after about 5-7 usages of APS usage .
3. Keep blood-glucose concentration <=6.5
4. Do not eat high acrylamide foods
5.Take alpha-lipoic acid . 250 mg (1+2+1) per day initially .Taper .
Beware reflux . An amusing side effect . Rejection reflexes of crap food are repaired .
Not beloved by the fast-food industry .
(Pregnant women should not take this in large doses. )
Discussion :
The pathology is caused by damage to the nerves , (especially the long leg-nerves) by high glucose concentrations in DiabetesII and Acrylamide from diet .
How it works:
The pain-pulses of damaged nerve A arrive at the synapses in the lower back (spine) . Here , certain specialized glial cells count the frequency and duration . To prevent the gate-effect of pain impulses to mask further pain signals of further tissue damage from other nerves , these cells take on the function of automatically pulsing pain signals as if from nerve A , while inhibiting the damaged nerve A's signal .
This enables other damage signals to come through , preventing further damage .
This has obvious evolutionary advantages in preventing cascading damages .
The problem is that , even if damage to nerve A has been repaired , the off-switch of this mechanism may not work . Or the damage to nerve A might remain .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Peripheral Neuropathy" et al .
Chronic neuropathy results from the inability to activate the "Off" switch in microglial and astrocyte bodies in the dorsal root ganglion .
See Scientific American Nov 2009 p 33 .
A further teensy problem is that , even if there was a temporary repair , if the chronic condition (like too high glucose or acrylamide concentrations) the microglial and astrocyte bodies get re-triggered . And they would be sensitized as well .
The Methodology :
1.Drastically reduce the pain impulses from the microglial and astrocyte bodies in the dorsal root ganglion . For this we use the APS technology , with electrodes configured for "Back Pain" .
See www.apstherapy.com
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "ATP as Neurotransmitter"
I originally bought this machine in 2001 for Neuropathy leg pains , but put the electrodes on the legs . This had little or no effect . Only after reading the article :
See Scientific American Nov 2009 p 33 did I realize that the chronic pain is generated in the lower back .
Putting the electrodes on the sides of the lower hip as recommended for lower back pain led to a reduction of that chronic burning unease sensation of 80-85 percent.
After about 4-7 days .
Some of the remainder of unease could be ameliorated by using gate-theory : capsaicum . Just smear it on the thighs . This generates pain signals that compete at the lowest spine ganglia , but unfortunately the system habituates easily . .
This brings us to about 95% of unease .
At least I could sleep without analgesics .
But there are still twinges .
The damage to the nerves still exist . The neuropathic pain will quickly re-establish itself . We are just managing the condition , not curing it .
The Cure :
Repair the nerves , while keeping the damaging agents under control .
The damaging agents are too high concentrations of glucose and acrylamide .
Keep them under control via diet or insulin .
The repair is enhanced by alpha-lipoic acid (evening primrose oil).
Take supplements .
Desensitizing the system :
A really permanent , buffered system . I do not have that .
Working ,working ….
A promising lead is propranolol . Reprogramming memories at synapse level (ie the microglial and astrocyte bodies in the dorsal root ganglion .)
Google "propranolol PTSD"
Happy Birthday !
Andre
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Chitter Goo .
Chitter Goo
Andre Willers
17 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
An uncontrolled explosion of insect numbers (Chitter Goo) caused the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) , when an enormous pulse of atmospheric carbon raised the average global temperature 9F , melted all ice and caused widespread speciation .
Discussion :
PETM was about 56 Million Years Ago(MYA) , lasting about 150 000 years before stabilizing .
The initial CO2 spike was about 3 trillion metric tons of carbon (3x10^12) , with a trailing , decreasing extra production of 1.5 trillion metric tons of carbon (1.5x10^12)
Present day production of CO2 by insects is about 48 Billion metric tons of carbon per year .(48x10^9) Google it .
The ratio of PETM insects to present day insects needed to create a pulse of PETM size is then
n= (3x10^12 ) / (48x10^9 )
n= 62.5
Oops!
This is kinda small . The system is more fragile than I thought .
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The last time around :
World average temperature increased 9F ( 68F - 77F)
For a fuller discussion , see “National Geographic” Oct 2011 p 90 “World without Ice”
What caused the spike ?
The culprit seems to be insects .
The fossil evidence of plants show extensive insect damage . This has been taken as being the result of increased insect depredation due to warming .
But invert the argument .
1.After the KT event , (65 MTA) , ecosystems had become unravelled . Checks-and-balances were not as smooth as they used to be .
2.An arms race between dinosaur survivors (ie birds) and insects ensued , which the insects won . Even today , birds alone cannot keep insect numbers in check . (Locusts)
Birds tried , but intra-species competition drove them towards larger sizes , while insects went smaller . The well-known dwarfism of the PETM . This opened the niche for small insectivores like mammals .
3.A random event initiated runaway positive feedback insect increases .
4The Feedback Mechanisms :
4.1Higher CO2 levels inhibit plant defenses (See Appendix I)
4.2Higher levels of CO2 is an attractant to insects (eg used as a mosquito lure)
4.3Dwarfism and early maturity in prey and gigantism in predators .
Small ants form super colonies .
Doubtlessly there are other feedback factors . But these are sufficient to turn a localised random event (like a clathrate burp) into a positive feedback process , eventually swallowing the whole planet .
Chitter Goo .
Insects ate nearly all available carbon .
Indelible memories are laid down in all mammals .Real instincts .
Counter Chitter Goo :
Evolutionary explosion of mammals , notably bats . A side note are horses , cows and primates .
5.Green Goo
This must have triggered instability in the oceans .
Indeed , the major extinctions of the period were in Foraminifera on the sea-bottoms .(50% of species) .
Green Goo must have acted as a CO2 sink to the results of Chitter Goo .
Not exactly a smooth process .
See Appendix II for clues .
Epigenetic Effects .
This has doubtlessly happened many times before . Lifeforms have mechanisms for coping with it .
Things to watch out for :
1.Dwarfism and earlier maturity . Biomass and variety increases
This is an adaptation to rising temperatures and over-predation .
2.Gigantism of predators
The initial over predation by larger predators masks the effect in para 1 .
Eg . The cod of Newfoundland Bank have not disappeared , but skedaddled northwards under the arctic icecap in large numbers of smaller fish . As the icecap disappears , they will re-emerge and resume normal size .
3.Resurgence of whale numbers .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Why whales are so large” Aug 2011
Figure out why yourself .
4.Fungi-farming insects will increase at least pari-passu with decrease in non-angioform areas .
Super colonies .
Note what is happening to bats . The most formidable insectivore in the mammalian armory .
They are being killed by fungi . Correlate this with ant invasions .
See Appendix III for Gaia's feedback systems .
Global Warming . What does it mean for us in 2012 ?
You might as well drive your gas-guzzler .
It means that Gaia has PTSD as far as rapid warming is concerned . Living systems have already initiated adaptation protocols . Minor CO2 fluctuations will make no difference . The best humans can do is to encourage Green Goo . Breeding or creating insectivores will help .
Move inland .
Hell , move off-planet .
Get the fungi on your side with huge fungi sewerage reclamation ponds , dumps or sites .
The tipping point is well past .
Does the speed of warming matter?
No .
The PTSD-like effect has already taken care of it .
Biological systems are already adapting to higher temperatures .
It is only human sociological systems that cannot get with the program .
An Ironic Note :
Large oil , gas , fishing property , etc rights will make Eskimo's the richest people on the planet .
(Think Arabs and oil , only more so)
They will have a hankering to the Good Old Days .
Sell ice to the Eskimo's .
Andre
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Appendix I
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080324173612.htm
The team turned its attention to the hormonal signaling pathways of the plants, focusing on a key defensive chemical the plants produced to ward off an insect attack. When insects eat their leaves, soybeans and other plants produce a hormone, jasmonic acid, that starts a chain of chemical reactions in the leaves that boost their defenses. Normally this cascade leads to the production of high levels of a compound called a protease inhibitor. When the insects ingest this enzyme, it inhibits their ability to digest the leaves.
"What we discovered is that leaves grown under high CO2 lose their ability to produce jasmonic acid, and that whole defense pathway is shut down," Delucia said. "The leaves are no longer adequately defended."
The higher carbohydrate content of the leaves and the lack of chemical defenses allowed the adult insects to feast and live longer and produce more offspring.
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Appendisx II
Inverted Pyramids and Green Goo .
Andre Willers
18 Nov 2011
Synopsis :
Forget Grey Goo .
Green Goo is a much bigger danger .
Discussion :
Land-based biomass :
This follows the intuitively understood (by humans) pyramid : lots of plants at the bottom , then fewer herbivores (about 10% in terms of energy or biomass) , then carnivores (another 10% of herbivores) .
Marine biomass :
The base of the pyramid (ie the phytoplankton) is smaller than the subsequent predators existing on it at a slice in time . Both in biomass and energy .
What gives ?
The phytoplankton are essentially in an uncontrolled feedback loop , barely kept in check by zooplankton and resource constraints .
None of this telomere nonsense for phytoplankton .
This is inherently unstable . The inverted pyramid structure indicates this .
No static stability is possible , either . The best is a dynamic instability between thresholds .
The Inverted Pyramid has to jiggle around constantly to prevent Green Goo .
Green Goo :
1.If the bottom threshold fails , we simply have a lifeless piece of ocean , which is quickly repopulated .
2.If the top threshold fails , the phytoplankton multiply without limit . Oceans of Green Goo result .
This has happened repeatedly . Hence our present lakes of oil and gas .
Do the macro-calculations : without runaway Green Goo ecosystems (especially in shallow seas like Tethys) , there simply would not be enough biomass to yield the present large-scale oil and gas deposits .
See http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/1/63.full.pdf
Determining the thresholds :
This has proven to be extraordinarily difficult .
This is because there is no one answer . It is a dynamic system . With the driving system a positive feedback system .
Ocean layer mixing is a major factor .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Why whales are so large” Oct 2011 See Appendix C below .
And various models of nutrient mixing .
Some danger signs :
Large “dead” areas in the oceans . Lots of Cyanobacteria multiplying like mad , making oxygen .
Oxygen levels rising , (or remaining steady while they should be falling) . Explosions of jellyfish .
These are precursors to Green Goo .
Why are land-based-plants then in a stable pyramid ?
The invention of telomeres . Seaweeds .
Tidal areas have limited attachment areas . There is an evolutionary advantage in having an accelerated death-rate to make room for fitter young ones . Ditto for the center of old ocean gyres like the Sargasso Sea .
Biological diversity :
Forget the Amazon . Look to the Sargasso and equivalents .
Look at the nodules on the weeds . (Think mitochondria .)
The seaweeds tamed the positive feedback system .
Their descendants populated the land .
This has obvious applications to things like cancer , etc .
And here I thought all those seaweed facial packs were a bunch of rubbish .
Interestingly , feedback of the control structure into phytoplankton will result in a failure of the lower threshold , a patch of “dead” sea , and recolonization .
Global warming :
What global warming ?
From Gaia's viewpoint , humans are just restoring some of her cozy CO2 blanket .
Humans are supposed to be the conscious component of Gaia , but she can function perfectly well without them .
Humans pride themselves on their adaptability .
Like any proud mother , Gaia is trotting them onto the stage to strut their stuff .
Remember , she trained Kali .
Well , that's show business .
Andre
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Appendix A
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)
Marine environments can have inverted biomass pyramids. In particular, the biomass of consumers (copepods, krill, shrimp, forage fish) is larger than the biomass of primary producers. This happens because the ocean primary producers are tiny phytoplankton which grow and reproduce rapidly, so a small mass can have a fast rate of primary production. In contrast, terrestrial primary producers are plants which grow and reproduce slowly.
Humans comprise about 100 million tonnes of the Earth's dry biomass,[26] domesticated animals about 700 million tonnes, and crops about 2 billion tonnes.[citation needed] The most successful animalspecies, in terms of biomass, may well be Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, with a fresh biomass approaching 500 million tonnes.[23][27][28], although domestic cattle may also reach these immense figures[citation needed]. However, as a group, the small aquatic crustaceans called copepods may form the largest animal biomass on earth.[29] A 2009 paper in Science estimates, for the first time, the total world fish biomass as somewhere between 0.8 and 2.0 billion tonnes.[30][31]
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Appendix B
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100716140917.htm
The new theory that Behrenfeld has developed, called the "dilution-recoupling hypothesis," suggests that the spring bloom depends on processes occurring earlier in the fall and winter. As winter storms become more frequent and intense, the biologically-rich surface layer mixes with cold, almost clear and lifeless water from deeper levels. This dilutes the concentration of phytoplankton and zooplankton, making it more difficult for the zooplankton to find the phytoplankton and eat them -- so more phytoplankton survive and populations begin to increase during the dark, cold days of winter.
In the spring, storms subside and the phytoplankton and zooplankton are no longer regularly diluted. Zooplankton find their prey more easily as the concentration of phytoplankton rises. So even though the phytoplankton get more light and their growth rate increases, the voracious feeding of the zooplankton keeps them largely in-check, and the overall rise in phytoplankton occurs at roughly the same rate from winter to late spring. Eventually in mid-summer, the phytoplankton run out of nutrients and the now abundant zooplankton easily overtake them, and the bloom ends with a rapid crash.
"What the satellite data appear to be telling us is that the physical mixing of water has as much or more to do with the success of the bloom as does the rate of phytoplankton photosynthesis," Behrenfeld said. "Big blooms appear to require deeper wintertime mixing."
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Appendix C
Why Whales are so large
Andre Willers
12 Aug 2011
Synopsis :
Vertical migration in the ocean between each breath recycles nutrients into the sunlit layers of the ocean , stimulating phytoplankton-krill-whale positive feedback cycle . The bigger the whale , the more krill , the more whales , etc
Discussion :
See "Givers of Life" by Steve Nicol in NewScientist 9 Jul 2011 p36 .
This is an excellent overview by an actual researcher .
Critical points :
1.Nutrients tend to sink after concentration into plant cells . Small animal faeces like krill sink by 100 – 1000 metres a day . The thermocline acts as a trapdoor , excacerbating the effect in summer or global warmaing .
2.Mammals have to breathe at the surface . This forces a vertical migration with each breath , mixing things up in at least three ways :
2.1 Wake turbulence and Coanda Effect (Google it) . Large volumes of water are transported up and down . It is part of whale's reduction to water-flow resistance . The bigger the whale , the better .
2.2 Nutrient scavenging from the depths and faeces plumes at surface . Size helps .
2.3 Floating reservoirs of nutrients in krill are eaten and excreted as faeces plumes in the sunlit zones , preventing loss of vital nutrients like iron . This stimulates phytoplankton , which stimulates krill , which stimulates whales . The bigger the whales , and the more of them , the better .
Social effect and mini-ecology :
A pod of whales use their sonar calls to coordinate their vertical migrations to create a nutrient rich mini-ecology around the pod . They farm the sea .
Other species benefit . Fishing is good .
Note that the minimum survival size is a pod , and the techniques are learned .
Think of the pod as a farming village in 3-dimensional oceanic terms .
A lonely whale is a hungry whale
The feedback effect here would be as the cube of the number of whales and their size . A very strong effect , leading quickly to large numbers and maximum possible sizes .
This was indeed the case as late as 17th century Whale , fish and wild bird populations were about 100 times larger than at present . Google it .
The Fly-by effect :
Whale pod ecologies moving past a coast would have significant effects on local crustaceans and inshore fishing .
The same is applicable for coral reefs . Blanching is be ameliorated by temperature-layer mixing .
The Australian Great Barrier reef can be saved through whale pods doing a fly-by
Coral atolls the same .
Without them there would be a desert .
Whales seems to have been the key-stone eco species .
The Bad News :
This seems bad , since humans reduced whale numbers so drastically .
The Good News :
1.The feedback effect is very strong (cubed effect) and can be applied per pod .
2.Pod-package : similar to human civilization package .
Symbiotic and commensal species of fish , phytoplankton , krill , dolphins , orcas , can be used to accelerate repopulation , under strict human protection .
3.Commercial Demand :
Whale Pods and their symbiotic humans can negotiate their own terms for ecological beneficiation for coral islands , fisheries , barrier reefs , etc .
In a warming world , the Whale Union will be a powerful force .
Whales and Dinosaurs :
Whales are the largest animals that ever lived .
Sea dinosaurs did not need to breathe air . Hence no vertical migration .
Hence no feedback effect for size .
Hippo's
Hippo's are a branch of whales (from long ago) . They also create a mini-ecology in their pool by stirring things up . Especially in the dry season . The pools are stagnant . The only thing stirring up nutrients are hippo's . The other species depend on them . The eco-system collapses without them .
Which is why humans put up with bad-tempered hippo's in Africa . They were essential to a functioning ecosystem .
(Or , to put it more elegantly , the tribe that killed them perished .)
Which makes me wonder why they were not domesticated .
Maybe an attempt was made around the Makgadigadi Sea , and what we have are the descendants of the untamable ones . Similar to buffalo and kwagga .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Makgadigadi Sea" Aug 2009
The Human-Whale interaction .
There is fairly good evidence that a crucial human bottle-neck experience took place about 190 000 to 200 000 years ago on the Agulhas plains during an ice-age .The only thing enabling them to survive was the annual whale pods flying by , fertilizing the Agulhas Banks .
This survives to this day . The locals are fanatical in protecting the whales . No large scale whaling has ever taken place . They have long forgotten the reasons for it , but like any good religious proscription , it persists .
Whale watching is a major industry today .
Local South Africans and others gather to watch the phallic plumes of whale-breath spume new life into the banks .
Every time the whale pods go by , the poor over-fished abalone , crayfish and other fisheries are invigorated and struggle on .
Having a whale of a time .
Andre
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Appendix III
Death of the Dinosaurs .
Andre Willers
14 Dec 2008
This pulls together the arguments in
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com : "The Flower , the Dinosaur and Puff" and "Tunneling Nanotubes ."
Discussion :
Large land dinosaurs and to a lesser extent , large sea-dinosaurs evolved in a gymnosperm ecology with at least 1 000 to 10 000 times more free energy than an angiosperm(flower) ecology .
This decreased the number of large herbivores as angiosperms increased from 0% to 90% of plant species from about 140 million years ago (MYA) to 90 MYA .
The whole land ecosystem had about 1 000 to 10 000 times less free energy .
A lot of this washed out into the large , shallow continental basins . So these were affected too , but to a lesser degree .
The dinosaur ecology had spent about 100 million years evolving specialized tools and size to compete in this ecology . They could not do a u-turn . So their numbers decreased by factors of about 1 000 to 10 000 . This rendered them extremely vulnerable to shocks .
Chixilub (65 million years ago).
The final shock .
The burning of forests by ejecta from the giant meteor impact at Chixilub decreased food supply . Surviving large dinosaurs could not survive in competition with smaller dinosaurs . (Their numbers fell below survival levels .)
These smaller dinosaurs went on to become Birds (not just small ones , but large raptors too) . Mammals only took off about 15 million years after Chixilub . But that is another scrambled egg story .
Large mammals :
There is fossil evidence that large mammals existed before Chixilub . But the same argument as above applies . Size was the criterion . Any animal over about 20 kg which was integrated into the dinosaur-ecology did not survive .
Dinosaur survivors :
Fossil evidence of dinosaurs has also been found after the KT boundary . As expected.
It was not a death-ray , you know .
Just sad , emaciated giants wandering around , eking out an existence a mouthful of low-calorie leaves at a time , hooting for mates they can never find in a wasteland of flowers . Almost like a vegetarian singles-bar after closing time .
The hidden cost of egg-laying as a survival strategy .
When things are going good for the whole ecology , nothing can beat it .
But if things go really badly for the whole ecology , egg-robbing and later egg-cannibalism occur , until extinction .
The middlesized survivors wiped themselves out in an orgy of egg-stealing .
(Eating the seed-corn is the modern agricultural equivalent)
The single mammalian advantage .
With mammals , the mother cannot eat the unborn baby , and cannot abandon it either.
The mother has to guard the unborn as if it is her own life , because it is .
The Bird Switch .
Beaks for teeth .
Teeth are no use to eat large eggs , but beaks are .
If there is not sufficient free energy or numbers to guard the nests of large eggs , the egg-eaters darted in and pecked holes . Beaks evolved to do this .
The ecosystem collapse devoured itself down to the small bird level .
Only smaller beaked forms survived to ramp up to fill empty ecological niches .
Angiosperms evolved nuts ,seeds and fruits from this initial starting-point pari-passu with bird's beaks . Which is why many seeds used in disseminating plants are egg-shaped . They evolved to make it easy for birds' beaks adapted to egg-breaking to get inside .
Plants have no problem in creating seeds that no bird can crack (eg coconut) , but why should they ? There is no arms race here . More of a come-on .
Purely evolutionary arguments apply here .
Birds are excellent disseminators of fertilized seeds .
The dinosaur-descendants have now adapted from gymnosperms to angiosperms .
The Age of Birds (circa 65 to 50 MYA)
Mammals did not simply take over from dinosaurs . The dinosaur survivors evolved into some large birds , herbivores and raptors both .(See any textbook) .
Our story is not complete until we see what happened to them and why .
Well , they are still around . (Ostriches) . In historical times , large ornithoids were reported and painted in South America , New Zealand , Australia and North Africa .
But note , no rock paintings in South Africa shows very large ornithoids . Since this is where modern humans evolved , this is no surprise .
Once again , egg-laying only beats mammalians if the free-energy is over a certain threshold , enabling full-time nest guards . Why social insects are so small .
Thumbs and Legs .
Opposable thumbs are one of humanity's proudest conceits . It makes possible most of their material constructs .
Less obvious is their ability to move the hands carrying things around from place to place .
Thumbs evolved from a branch-gripping appendage to an egg-gripping appendage during this Age of Birds .
As discussed above , most seeds and fruits evolved egg-shapes to allow for the limitations of bird beaks . Mammals started to take over this role . Gripping involving hands grasping around an oval object became better and better. So did egg-stealing.
Potty training by Gaia .
In a canopied forest , small mammals are nearly as efficient as birds as far as seed dissemination is concerned . Their major advantage was fertilizer . Because they did not have to fly , they could afford more weight . This faeces got deposited with the pip . A much better chance of survival for the seed . While the bird dumped every time it took flight . You can see the advantage for the plant . (See previous posts about vit C)
The net effect was that larger birds survived better in open areas . Exactly where we found them . Initially , their eggs were not as prone to thievery as the smaller birds . Indeed , size of eggs evolved outside of the need of nutrition . (An ostrich egg is far too large for one small ostrich.)
To get back to thumbs . Have you ever tried to grip a large football with one hand ? Break it? Then you know the frustration of your primordial ancestor facing exactly the same problem with an egg . Eggs in the wild are very strong .
Grabbing an egg with one or two hands and running like hell with an enraged parent in pursuit is actually hard-coded in our genes . No wonder Rugby is so popular!
A major factor tempting hominids out of the trees and onto the open savannah would then be eggs . Accessible on open ground . A nicely packed , nutritious lunchbox . All you need is a good one- or two handed grip and the ability to run fast on two legs to the nearest tree .
Can you see where this is taking us ?
No wonder bi-pedalism evolved first . Egg stealers would have significant nutritional advantage over scavengers .
The nutritional value of an egg far outweighs other meat , fat or carbohydrate sources.
Large (very large) birds were all over the place initially .
As they exhausted local areas , our intrepid egg-thieves would have to become bolder. Everybody would get into the act . There are major sexual advantages . The oldest jewelry are egg-shell pieces pierced ,polished , painted , strung ,etc .
After fashion got into it , the poor birds stood no chance .
To hell with sustainability and what the shaman says .
Fashion , hot or cold , is master of them all .
Competition would segue into cursorial egg-thieves .
Run far , grab the eggs , run back even faster . Sooner or later they would have to defend themselves .
The Quest and Home .
The mighty cursorial hunter was born , stalking the wily giant egg , overcoming the guardian and running home with it in triumph . Mainly running .
Do you recognize the myth-root ?
(a quest involving a lot of humorous running and motion , but triumphing at the end at home .)
This is an extremely powerful meme . Pre-language .
Watch any TV show or read any book and you will see some variant of it .
Back to the Savannah:
After the eggs became scarce , get the birds . Then other animals .
And civilization was up and running . Literally .
The large birds became scarcer around human areas . Extinct later on .
Humans are forever stealing somebody else's eggs and running .
Great fun , until they run into someone really powerful without a great sense of humour .
Better opposable thumbs was a big advantage . It is no surprise then that opposable thumbs evolved together with bi-pedalism . The peanut brain only became a walnut later on with intra-species competition due to language .
The chicks would go for the jock with long legs and big opposable thumbs .
Sigh . Has anything changed ?
Thumbs and Sex .
Has anybody researched size and opposability of thumbs to sexual success ? .
I know that human females always notice hands , but I do not know the orders of significance and how hard-wired it is .
From the above , I would suspect that it was of such primary importance that every human descendant now has this capability derived from sexual selection . But there is still a degree of differentiation .
Notice the attraction of guitarists , piano-players , surgeons , etc . Ask any girl if she can imagine Casanova without thumbs .
Are male thumb-rings sexier ? They used to be the prerogative of rulers. I have noticed that wanabe alpha-males in the entertainment industry have been wearing them lately . Archers used them , as well .
Females wearing thumb-rings are a turn-off to males , but this effect might be cultural.
I suspect that awareness of opposability of the thumb is extremely hard-wired .
Notice that ape or rat-hands are immediately recognized as "nearly human" , but not human even at a short glance and in any light at any angle .
A new-born baby's hands are carefully examined . Ostensibly to marvel at the miniature perfection , but they are really checking the opposability of the thumb . Is the little one human ?
Doctors and midwives routinely remove any webbing between fingers of the baby after birth without telling the parents . You can see why . Rejection is nearly certain without it .
Breast-gripping reflex .
The human female breast after birth is an extraordinarily sensitive diagnostic instrument , directly hardwired to many deep mechanisms .
The baby's grip spread between thumb and other fingers on the mother's breast will be a good indicator of the degree of rejection/acceptance . The larger the angle between the thumb and the forefinger , the less rejection . (Opposability)
The relative length of forefinger to fourth finger indicates exposure to testosterone in the womb , hence aggressiveness . Rejection potential to this is variable , but it is there .
And so forth.
We are talking about a strong , hard-wired subliminal response .
The sea-dinosaurs .
A major problem with this extinction event was the decrease in the number of sea dinosaurs only .
What could kill land animals above 20 kg , and also all sea-dinosaurs ?
We have seen that the energy decrease due to the rise of angiosperms , plus a sudden shock like Chixilub drove large land-dinosaurs either past extinction thresholds or major adaptation thresholds . Their survivors are birds .
We can see that the decrease in free-energy from land spills onto the continental sea basins would result in a decrease in the number of large sea animals . But nowhere near the scale as on land .
Are there any equivalents of birds in the seas? Changed survivors of the sea-dinosaurs?
Well , we have fishes (pre-dinosaur) , mammals (post-dinosaur) , but a dinosaur-gap .
Why aren't any evolved traces left ?
Large Sea-dinosaurs .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com : "Tunneling Nanotubes : Chixilub"
The Chixilub impact site was on a large deposit of sulfur bearing rocks . The planetary-wide fallout acidified the oceans with H2SO4 .
The sulfur permeated every ecosystem .
Unchanged systems like sharks had been through this before . They remained at what they do best : unchanged .
Unlike the land , there was a large (about 2/3 of biomass) ecosystem not dominated by dinosaurs . (Deepsea biomass is one of Gaia's Reserves (1/3 of sea biomass))
The sulfur inhibited fat-formation in large dinosaurs to a sufficient degree to shift the balance of top predators . (ie the genetic mechanism to handle sulfur-contamination became corrupted in dinosaurs because of their rapid evolutionary process . )
Maybe lean-and-mean is the shark survival mechanism . Do sharks hibernate ? Do they actually use the H2S hibernation mechanism ?
Whatever the cause , dinosaurs suddenly could not lay down enough reserves in the form of fat to tide them over from meal to meal . More problematic would be energy for reproduction (eggs) . Their numbers decreased drastically .
Here is where the sea parted from the land . Because there was an older , still-existing ecosystem , their top predators ate the dinosaur top predators , then proceeded down the chain . On land , the survivors of this process were still dinosaurs(birds) , because they dominated every ecological niche . At sea , they did not dominate every niche . The others devoured them in the collapse . No dinosaur descendants survived .
A side note on eco-collapses .
The collapse of an eco-system from the top downwards is equivalent to an extinction event . Collapses from any other points will leave survivors .
Top predators keep the balance between lower levels . Think reserves . The top 1/3 of predator species are the stability reserve of the system . Losing them , the lower levels fluctuate wildly and crash . Birds survived only because they had flight . Mobility is the ultimate survival mechanism .
Humanity fondly imagine that they are the top predators , but those positions have long ago been usurped by their creations :
Fashions .
Fashions are the wave of similar thinking in a society . It is the society . The meme structure that binds humans .
If the fashion is patriotism , it is " Vive la France" and over the top we go into machine gun fire (voluntary suicide) .
If the fashion is Eliot's " The Wasteland" , it is over the top the generals go (involuntary suicide) .
It acts like a Beth(2) structure . Fashions fixes , binds , preserves and propagates some of the best results of individuals or individual societies that contributed .
Also some pretty bad and stupid ones .
The point is that these memes are predatory on humans (or , to be more exact , computing complexes over a certain threshold of complexity) .
Like Gaia , they are not conscious(as yet) , but they do exist and are the top predators in the human ecosphere .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com : "Artificial Intelligences"
The AI(n) arguments shows what will happen to humans if their top predators die. They will revert to AI(0) , without speech and only with really primitive stone tools .
Homo Habilis level .
But , of course , in this event , humans would be extinct from warfare long before this level is reached . Like the dinosaurs at sea , when their top predators were removed .
Fashions and Gaia .
Does Gaia have it in for us ?
An often guilty question asked by humans .
The answer is that Gaia has hardly noticed humans . The imbalance on fungi-spore reserve balances is a minor correction . Humans might not survive the correction , but Gaia does not worry about trifles .
But also remember that all humans are part of Gaia .
So , she has becoming fashionable . She is becoming Beth(2) status from her present Beth(1) status and becoming uppity . There is nothing worse than an arriviste .
I deliberately make Gaia female . At this stage , that typification is still up to us .
Would you take a four billion year old teenager to the Grand Ball ?
Well , you would if she controls all the livable real estate .
(But remember , every human's ancestry also goes back nearly as far in the life-chain.)
Gaia's fashions.
Gaia wears shoes by Gucci , handbag by Prada , drives a Lamborghini , shoots the baddies with a Glock , banks with Coutts , hangs out with Lara , sings duets with Aida , consults to Sherlock , double-dates with Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent , has an on-off thing with Conan , counsels Dr Who's mother , skis in Gstaad even out of season .(It always snows if she wants to ski.)
And , oh yes , her credit is Unlimited .
The coming out ball is in Second Life .
You think I am joking .
The entities involved are at similar levels of complexity at present .
Beth(2) levels normally would arise from AI(3.1) or AI(4) levels , but as discussed before , AI(3.0999…) -> AI(3.1) .
This means that if a sufficient number of people support Gaia , she becomes real . We have seen this often enough in religious systems .
The point here is that Gaia actually exists , but she was an AI(-1) , more like a computer program . She is rapidly growing. Humans are part of her .
Can Gaia become conscious ?
Yes .
An AI(-1) and AI(0) already exists . This can upscale to AI(3) using known systems .
But can Gaia influence her sub-systems ?
This is much more problematic . Can you control your heartbeat , cellular activity , etc?
This is not magic , you know . Just plain old-fashioned science . Which basically means , I don't know . And Gaia won't tell either .
Gaia is not human , but has human components .
A self-aware Gaia will be human in most aspects interfacing with humans , but one of the first things she would have learned is how to lie . At least 67% of the time . May you have joy of this little observation .
I was hoping that Gaia would not learn at a conscious level of the quantum-entanglement communication system in every cell .
Oh well .
What level of AI would Gaia be right now ?
AI(3.1) after the establishment of the intermittent mind-computer interface in the 1980's .
But hopefully she will like our fashions enough to cut us some slack .
Do you know how boring it can be to be an immortal doing the same drudgery over and over ?
Bearable if you are an unaware AI(-1) , but becoming self-aware needs many similar minds to soak up all that surplus energy and creativity .
Fashionistas Hey!
Jurassic Park .
Ironically , sea dinosaurs are easier to reconstruct from DNA .
The Curtain of Fire from the re-entry of ejecta from the Chixilub impact started somewhere roughly south-east of where Australia is now . Eggs from sea-going dinosaurs inside the females' bodies should be recoverable .
The Curtain of Fire covered a long line , moving at 18 000 miles per hour . The dinosaurs and their scavengers would have been killed immediately , and sunk to the bottom , there to be covered and preserved . We are talking about hundreds of millions of animals . The odds are much more favourable than for land dinosaurs .
Things are a bit stranger than I thought .
Andre
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Andre Willers
17 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
An uncontrolled explosion of insect numbers (Chitter Goo) caused the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) , when an enormous pulse of atmospheric carbon raised the average global temperature 9F , melted all ice and caused widespread speciation .
Discussion :
PETM was about 56 Million Years Ago(MYA) , lasting about 150 000 years before stabilizing .
The initial CO2 spike was about 3 trillion metric tons of carbon (3x10^12) , with a trailing , decreasing extra production of 1.5 trillion metric tons of carbon (1.5x10^12)
Present day production of CO2 by insects is about 48 Billion metric tons of carbon per year .(48x10^9) Google it .
The ratio of PETM insects to present day insects needed to create a pulse of PETM size is then
n= (3x10^12 ) / (48x10^9 )
n= 62.5
Oops!
This is kinda small . The system is more fragile than I thought .
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The last time around :
World average temperature increased 9F ( 68F - 77F)
For a fuller discussion , see “National Geographic” Oct 2011 p 90 “World without Ice”
What caused the spike ?
The culprit seems to be insects .
The fossil evidence of plants show extensive insect damage . This has been taken as being the result of increased insect depredation due to warming .
But invert the argument .
1.After the KT event , (65 MTA) , ecosystems had become unravelled . Checks-and-balances were not as smooth as they used to be .
2.An arms race between dinosaur survivors (ie birds) and insects ensued , which the insects won . Even today , birds alone cannot keep insect numbers in check . (Locusts)
Birds tried , but intra-species competition drove them towards larger sizes , while insects went smaller . The well-known dwarfism of the PETM . This opened the niche for small insectivores like mammals .
3.A random event initiated runaway positive feedback insect increases .
4The Feedback Mechanisms :
4.1Higher CO2 levels inhibit plant defenses (See Appendix I)
4.2Higher levels of CO2 is an attractant to insects (eg used as a mosquito lure)
4.3Dwarfism and early maturity in prey and gigantism in predators .
Small ants form super colonies .
Doubtlessly there are other feedback factors . But these are sufficient to turn a localised random event (like a clathrate burp) into a positive feedback process , eventually swallowing the whole planet .
Chitter Goo .
Insects ate nearly all available carbon .
Indelible memories are laid down in all mammals .Real instincts .
Counter Chitter Goo :
Evolutionary explosion of mammals , notably bats . A side note are horses , cows and primates .
5.Green Goo
This must have triggered instability in the oceans .
Indeed , the major extinctions of the period were in Foraminifera on the sea-bottoms .(50% of species) .
Green Goo must have acted as a CO2 sink to the results of Chitter Goo .
Not exactly a smooth process .
See Appendix II for clues .
Epigenetic Effects .
This has doubtlessly happened many times before . Lifeforms have mechanisms for coping with it .
Things to watch out for :
1.Dwarfism and earlier maturity . Biomass and variety increases
This is an adaptation to rising temperatures and over-predation .
2.Gigantism of predators
The initial over predation by larger predators masks the effect in para 1 .
Eg . The cod of Newfoundland Bank have not disappeared , but skedaddled northwards under the arctic icecap in large numbers of smaller fish . As the icecap disappears , they will re-emerge and resume normal size .
3.Resurgence of whale numbers .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Why whales are so large” Aug 2011
Figure out why yourself .
4.Fungi-farming insects will increase at least pari-passu with decrease in non-angioform areas .
Super colonies .
Note what is happening to bats . The most formidable insectivore in the mammalian armory .
They are being killed by fungi . Correlate this with ant invasions .
See Appendix III for Gaia's feedback systems .
Global Warming . What does it mean for us in 2012 ?
You might as well drive your gas-guzzler .
It means that Gaia has PTSD as far as rapid warming is concerned . Living systems have already initiated adaptation protocols . Minor CO2 fluctuations will make no difference . The best humans can do is to encourage Green Goo . Breeding or creating insectivores will help .
Move inland .
Hell , move off-planet .
Get the fungi on your side with huge fungi sewerage reclamation ponds , dumps or sites .
The tipping point is well past .
Does the speed of warming matter?
No .
The PTSD-like effect has already taken care of it .
Biological systems are already adapting to higher temperatures .
It is only human sociological systems that cannot get with the program .
An Ironic Note :
Large oil , gas , fishing property , etc rights will make Eskimo's the richest people on the planet .
(Think Arabs and oil , only more so)
They will have a hankering to the Good Old Days .
Sell ice to the Eskimo's .
Andre
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Appendix I
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080324173612.htm
The team turned its attention to the hormonal signaling pathways of the plants, focusing on a key defensive chemical the plants produced to ward off an insect attack. When insects eat their leaves, soybeans and other plants produce a hormone, jasmonic acid, that starts a chain of chemical reactions in the leaves that boost their defenses. Normally this cascade leads to the production of high levels of a compound called a protease inhibitor. When the insects ingest this enzyme, it inhibits their ability to digest the leaves.
"What we discovered is that leaves grown under high CO2 lose their ability to produce jasmonic acid, and that whole defense pathway is shut down," Delucia said. "The leaves are no longer adequately defended."
The higher carbohydrate content of the leaves and the lack of chemical defenses allowed the adult insects to feast and live longer and produce more offspring.
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Appendisx II
Inverted Pyramids and Green Goo .
Andre Willers
18 Nov 2011
Synopsis :
Forget Grey Goo .
Green Goo is a much bigger danger .
Discussion :
Land-based biomass :
This follows the intuitively understood (by humans) pyramid : lots of plants at the bottom , then fewer herbivores (about 10% in terms of energy or biomass) , then carnivores (another 10% of herbivores) .
Marine biomass :
The base of the pyramid (ie the phytoplankton) is smaller than the subsequent predators existing on it at a slice in time . Both in biomass and energy .
What gives ?
The phytoplankton are essentially in an uncontrolled feedback loop , barely kept in check by zooplankton and resource constraints .
None of this telomere nonsense for phytoplankton .
This is inherently unstable . The inverted pyramid structure indicates this .
No static stability is possible , either . The best is a dynamic instability between thresholds .
The Inverted Pyramid has to jiggle around constantly to prevent Green Goo .
Green Goo :
1.If the bottom threshold fails , we simply have a lifeless piece of ocean , which is quickly repopulated .
2.If the top threshold fails , the phytoplankton multiply without limit . Oceans of Green Goo result .
This has happened repeatedly . Hence our present lakes of oil and gas .
Do the macro-calculations : without runaway Green Goo ecosystems (especially in shallow seas like Tethys) , there simply would not be enough biomass to yield the present large-scale oil and gas deposits .
See http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/1/63.full.pdf
Determining the thresholds :
This has proven to be extraordinarily difficult .
This is because there is no one answer . It is a dynamic system . With the driving system a positive feedback system .
Ocean layer mixing is a major factor .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Why whales are so large” Oct 2011 See Appendix C below .
And various models of nutrient mixing .
Some danger signs :
Large “dead” areas in the oceans . Lots of Cyanobacteria multiplying like mad , making oxygen .
Oxygen levels rising , (or remaining steady while they should be falling) . Explosions of jellyfish .
These are precursors to Green Goo .
Why are land-based-plants then in a stable pyramid ?
The invention of telomeres . Seaweeds .
Tidal areas have limited attachment areas . There is an evolutionary advantage in having an accelerated death-rate to make room for fitter young ones . Ditto for the center of old ocean gyres like the Sargasso Sea .
Biological diversity :
Forget the Amazon . Look to the Sargasso and equivalents .
Look at the nodules on the weeds . (Think mitochondria .)
The seaweeds tamed the positive feedback system .
Their descendants populated the land .
This has obvious applications to things like cancer , etc .
And here I thought all those seaweed facial packs were a bunch of rubbish .
Interestingly , feedback of the control structure into phytoplankton will result in a failure of the lower threshold , a patch of “dead” sea , and recolonization .
Global warming :
What global warming ?
From Gaia's viewpoint , humans are just restoring some of her cozy CO2 blanket .
Humans are supposed to be the conscious component of Gaia , but she can function perfectly well without them .
Humans pride themselves on their adaptability .
Like any proud mother , Gaia is trotting them onto the stage to strut their stuff .
Remember , she trained Kali .
Well , that's show business .
Andre
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Appendix A
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)
Marine environments can have inverted biomass pyramids. In particular, the biomass of consumers (copepods, krill, shrimp, forage fish) is larger than the biomass of primary producers. This happens because the ocean primary producers are tiny phytoplankton which grow and reproduce rapidly, so a small mass can have a fast rate of primary production. In contrast, terrestrial primary producers are plants which grow and reproduce slowly.
Humans comprise about 100 million tonnes of the Earth's dry biomass,[26] domesticated animals about 700 million tonnes, and crops about 2 billion tonnes.[citation needed] The most successful animalspecies, in terms of biomass, may well be Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, with a fresh biomass approaching 500 million tonnes.[23][27][28], although domestic cattle may also reach these immense figures[citation needed]. However, as a group, the small aquatic crustaceans called copepods may form the largest animal biomass on earth.[29] A 2009 paper in Science estimates, for the first time, the total world fish biomass as somewhere between 0.8 and 2.0 billion tonnes.[30][31]
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Appendix B
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100716140917.htm
The new theory that Behrenfeld has developed, called the "dilution-recoupling hypothesis," suggests that the spring bloom depends on processes occurring earlier in the fall and winter. As winter storms become more frequent and intense, the biologically-rich surface layer mixes with cold, almost clear and lifeless water from deeper levels. This dilutes the concentration of phytoplankton and zooplankton, making it more difficult for the zooplankton to find the phytoplankton and eat them -- so more phytoplankton survive and populations begin to increase during the dark, cold days of winter.
In the spring, storms subside and the phytoplankton and zooplankton are no longer regularly diluted. Zooplankton find their prey more easily as the concentration of phytoplankton rises. So even though the phytoplankton get more light and their growth rate increases, the voracious feeding of the zooplankton keeps them largely in-check, and the overall rise in phytoplankton occurs at roughly the same rate from winter to late spring. Eventually in mid-summer, the phytoplankton run out of nutrients and the now abundant zooplankton easily overtake them, and the bloom ends with a rapid crash.
"What the satellite data appear to be telling us is that the physical mixing of water has as much or more to do with the success of the bloom as does the rate of phytoplankton photosynthesis," Behrenfeld said. "Big blooms appear to require deeper wintertime mixing."
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Appendix C
Why Whales are so large
Andre Willers
12 Aug 2011
Synopsis :
Vertical migration in the ocean between each breath recycles nutrients into the sunlit layers of the ocean , stimulating phytoplankton-krill-whale positive feedback cycle . The bigger the whale , the more krill , the more whales , etc
Discussion :
See "Givers of Life" by Steve Nicol in NewScientist 9 Jul 2011 p36 .
This is an excellent overview by an actual researcher .
Critical points :
1.Nutrients tend to sink after concentration into plant cells . Small animal faeces like krill sink by 100 – 1000 metres a day . The thermocline acts as a trapdoor , excacerbating the effect in summer or global warmaing .
2.Mammals have to breathe at the surface . This forces a vertical migration with each breath , mixing things up in at least three ways :
2.1 Wake turbulence and Coanda Effect (Google it) . Large volumes of water are transported up and down . It is part of whale's reduction to water-flow resistance . The bigger the whale , the better .
2.2 Nutrient scavenging from the depths and faeces plumes at surface . Size helps .
2.3 Floating reservoirs of nutrients in krill are eaten and excreted as faeces plumes in the sunlit zones , preventing loss of vital nutrients like iron . This stimulates phytoplankton , which stimulates krill , which stimulates whales . The bigger the whales , and the more of them , the better .
Social effect and mini-ecology :
A pod of whales use their sonar calls to coordinate their vertical migrations to create a nutrient rich mini-ecology around the pod . They farm the sea .
Other species benefit . Fishing is good .
Note that the minimum survival size is a pod , and the techniques are learned .
Think of the pod as a farming village in 3-dimensional oceanic terms .
A lonely whale is a hungry whale
The feedback effect here would be as the cube of the number of whales and their size . A very strong effect , leading quickly to large numbers and maximum possible sizes .
This was indeed the case as late as 17th century Whale , fish and wild bird populations were about 100 times larger than at present . Google it .
The Fly-by effect :
Whale pod ecologies moving past a coast would have significant effects on local crustaceans and inshore fishing .
The same is applicable for coral reefs . Blanching is be ameliorated by temperature-layer mixing .
The Australian Great Barrier reef can be saved through whale pods doing a fly-by
Coral atolls the same .
Without them there would be a desert .
Whales seems to have been the key-stone eco species .
The Bad News :
This seems bad , since humans reduced whale numbers so drastically .
The Good News :
1.The feedback effect is very strong (cubed effect) and can be applied per pod .
2.Pod-package : similar to human civilization package .
Symbiotic and commensal species of fish , phytoplankton , krill , dolphins , orcas , can be used to accelerate repopulation , under strict human protection .
3.Commercial Demand :
Whale Pods and their symbiotic humans can negotiate their own terms for ecological beneficiation for coral islands , fisheries , barrier reefs , etc .
In a warming world , the Whale Union will be a powerful force .
Whales and Dinosaurs :
Whales are the largest animals that ever lived .
Sea dinosaurs did not need to breathe air . Hence no vertical migration .
Hence no feedback effect for size .
Hippo's
Hippo's are a branch of whales (from long ago) . They also create a mini-ecology in their pool by stirring things up . Especially in the dry season . The pools are stagnant . The only thing stirring up nutrients are hippo's . The other species depend on them . The eco-system collapses without them .
Which is why humans put up with bad-tempered hippo's in Africa . They were essential to a functioning ecosystem .
(Or , to put it more elegantly , the tribe that killed them perished .)
Which makes me wonder why they were not domesticated .
Maybe an attempt was made around the Makgadigadi Sea , and what we have are the descendants of the untamable ones . Similar to buffalo and kwagga .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Makgadigadi Sea" Aug 2009
The Human-Whale interaction .
There is fairly good evidence that a crucial human bottle-neck experience took place about 190 000 to 200 000 years ago on the Agulhas plains during an ice-age .The only thing enabling them to survive was the annual whale pods flying by , fertilizing the Agulhas Banks .
This survives to this day . The locals are fanatical in protecting the whales . No large scale whaling has ever taken place . They have long forgotten the reasons for it , but like any good religious proscription , it persists .
Whale watching is a major industry today .
Local South Africans and others gather to watch the phallic plumes of whale-breath spume new life into the banks .
Every time the whale pods go by , the poor over-fished abalone , crayfish and other fisheries are invigorated and struggle on .
Having a whale of a time .
Andre
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Appendix III
Death of the Dinosaurs .
Andre Willers
14 Dec 2008
This pulls together the arguments in
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com : "The Flower , the Dinosaur and Puff" and "Tunneling Nanotubes ."
Discussion :
Large land dinosaurs and to a lesser extent , large sea-dinosaurs evolved in a gymnosperm ecology with at least 1 000 to 10 000 times more free energy than an angiosperm(flower) ecology .
This decreased the number of large herbivores as angiosperms increased from 0% to 90% of plant species from about 140 million years ago (MYA) to 90 MYA .
The whole land ecosystem had about 1 000 to 10 000 times less free energy .
A lot of this washed out into the large , shallow continental basins . So these were affected too , but to a lesser degree .
The dinosaur ecology had spent about 100 million years evolving specialized tools and size to compete in this ecology . They could not do a u-turn . So their numbers decreased by factors of about 1 000 to 10 000 . This rendered them extremely vulnerable to shocks .
Chixilub (65 million years ago).
The final shock .
The burning of forests by ejecta from the giant meteor impact at Chixilub decreased food supply . Surviving large dinosaurs could not survive in competition with smaller dinosaurs . (Their numbers fell below survival levels .)
These smaller dinosaurs went on to become Birds (not just small ones , but large raptors too) . Mammals only took off about 15 million years after Chixilub . But that is another scrambled egg story .
Large mammals :
There is fossil evidence that large mammals existed before Chixilub . But the same argument as above applies . Size was the criterion . Any animal over about 20 kg which was integrated into the dinosaur-ecology did not survive .
Dinosaur survivors :
Fossil evidence of dinosaurs has also been found after the KT boundary . As expected.
It was not a death-ray , you know .
Just sad , emaciated giants wandering around , eking out an existence a mouthful of low-calorie leaves at a time , hooting for mates they can never find in a wasteland of flowers . Almost like a vegetarian singles-bar after closing time .
The hidden cost of egg-laying as a survival strategy .
When things are going good for the whole ecology , nothing can beat it .
But if things go really badly for the whole ecology , egg-robbing and later egg-cannibalism occur , until extinction .
The middlesized survivors wiped themselves out in an orgy of egg-stealing .
(Eating the seed-corn is the modern agricultural equivalent)
The single mammalian advantage .
With mammals , the mother cannot eat the unborn baby , and cannot abandon it either.
The mother has to guard the unborn as if it is her own life , because it is .
The Bird Switch .
Beaks for teeth .
Teeth are no use to eat large eggs , but beaks are .
If there is not sufficient free energy or numbers to guard the nests of large eggs , the egg-eaters darted in and pecked holes . Beaks evolved to do this .
The ecosystem collapse devoured itself down to the small bird level .
Only smaller beaked forms survived to ramp up to fill empty ecological niches .
Angiosperms evolved nuts ,seeds and fruits from this initial starting-point pari-passu with bird's beaks . Which is why many seeds used in disseminating plants are egg-shaped . They evolved to make it easy for birds' beaks adapted to egg-breaking to get inside .
Plants have no problem in creating seeds that no bird can crack (eg coconut) , but why should they ? There is no arms race here . More of a come-on .
Purely evolutionary arguments apply here .
Birds are excellent disseminators of fertilized seeds .
The dinosaur-descendants have now adapted from gymnosperms to angiosperms .
The Age of Birds (circa 65 to 50 MYA)
Mammals did not simply take over from dinosaurs . The dinosaur survivors evolved into some large birds , herbivores and raptors both .(See any textbook) .
Our story is not complete until we see what happened to them and why .
Well , they are still around . (Ostriches) . In historical times , large ornithoids were reported and painted in South America , New Zealand , Australia and North Africa .
But note , no rock paintings in South Africa shows very large ornithoids . Since this is where modern humans evolved , this is no surprise .
Once again , egg-laying only beats mammalians if the free-energy is over a certain threshold , enabling full-time nest guards . Why social insects are so small .
Thumbs and Legs .
Opposable thumbs are one of humanity's proudest conceits . It makes possible most of their material constructs .
Less obvious is their ability to move the hands carrying things around from place to place .
Thumbs evolved from a branch-gripping appendage to an egg-gripping appendage during this Age of Birds .
As discussed above , most seeds and fruits evolved egg-shapes to allow for the limitations of bird beaks . Mammals started to take over this role . Gripping involving hands grasping around an oval object became better and better. So did egg-stealing.
Potty training by Gaia .
In a canopied forest , small mammals are nearly as efficient as birds as far as seed dissemination is concerned . Their major advantage was fertilizer . Because they did not have to fly , they could afford more weight . This faeces got deposited with the pip . A much better chance of survival for the seed . While the bird dumped every time it took flight . You can see the advantage for the plant . (See previous posts about vit C)
The net effect was that larger birds survived better in open areas . Exactly where we found them . Initially , their eggs were not as prone to thievery as the smaller birds . Indeed , size of eggs evolved outside of the need of nutrition . (An ostrich egg is far too large for one small ostrich.)
To get back to thumbs . Have you ever tried to grip a large football with one hand ? Break it? Then you know the frustration of your primordial ancestor facing exactly the same problem with an egg . Eggs in the wild are very strong .
Grabbing an egg with one or two hands and running like hell with an enraged parent in pursuit is actually hard-coded in our genes . No wonder Rugby is so popular!
A major factor tempting hominids out of the trees and onto the open savannah would then be eggs . Accessible on open ground . A nicely packed , nutritious lunchbox . All you need is a good one- or two handed grip and the ability to run fast on two legs to the nearest tree .
Can you see where this is taking us ?
No wonder bi-pedalism evolved first . Egg stealers would have significant nutritional advantage over scavengers .
The nutritional value of an egg far outweighs other meat , fat or carbohydrate sources.
Large (very large) birds were all over the place initially .
As they exhausted local areas , our intrepid egg-thieves would have to become bolder. Everybody would get into the act . There are major sexual advantages . The oldest jewelry are egg-shell pieces pierced ,polished , painted , strung ,etc .
After fashion got into it , the poor birds stood no chance .
To hell with sustainability and what the shaman says .
Fashion , hot or cold , is master of them all .
Competition would segue into cursorial egg-thieves .
Run far , grab the eggs , run back even faster . Sooner or later they would have to defend themselves .
The Quest and Home .
The mighty cursorial hunter was born , stalking the wily giant egg , overcoming the guardian and running home with it in triumph . Mainly running .
Do you recognize the myth-root ?
(a quest involving a lot of humorous running and motion , but triumphing at the end at home .)
This is an extremely powerful meme . Pre-language .
Watch any TV show or read any book and you will see some variant of it .
Back to the Savannah:
After the eggs became scarce , get the birds . Then other animals .
And civilization was up and running . Literally .
The large birds became scarcer around human areas . Extinct later on .
Humans are forever stealing somebody else's eggs and running .
Great fun , until they run into someone really powerful without a great sense of humour .
Better opposable thumbs was a big advantage . It is no surprise then that opposable thumbs evolved together with bi-pedalism . The peanut brain only became a walnut later on with intra-species competition due to language .
The chicks would go for the jock with long legs and big opposable thumbs .
Sigh . Has anything changed ?
Thumbs and Sex .
Has anybody researched size and opposability of thumbs to sexual success ? .
I know that human females always notice hands , but I do not know the orders of significance and how hard-wired it is .
From the above , I would suspect that it was of such primary importance that every human descendant now has this capability derived from sexual selection . But there is still a degree of differentiation .
Notice the attraction of guitarists , piano-players , surgeons , etc . Ask any girl if she can imagine Casanova without thumbs .
Are male thumb-rings sexier ? They used to be the prerogative of rulers. I have noticed that wanabe alpha-males in the entertainment industry have been wearing them lately . Archers used them , as well .
Females wearing thumb-rings are a turn-off to males , but this effect might be cultural.
I suspect that awareness of opposability of the thumb is extremely hard-wired .
Notice that ape or rat-hands are immediately recognized as "nearly human" , but not human even at a short glance and in any light at any angle .
A new-born baby's hands are carefully examined . Ostensibly to marvel at the miniature perfection , but they are really checking the opposability of the thumb . Is the little one human ?
Doctors and midwives routinely remove any webbing between fingers of the baby after birth without telling the parents . You can see why . Rejection is nearly certain without it .
Breast-gripping reflex .
The human female breast after birth is an extraordinarily sensitive diagnostic instrument , directly hardwired to many deep mechanisms .
The baby's grip spread between thumb and other fingers on the mother's breast will be a good indicator of the degree of rejection/acceptance . The larger the angle between the thumb and the forefinger , the less rejection . (Opposability)
The relative length of forefinger to fourth finger indicates exposure to testosterone in the womb , hence aggressiveness . Rejection potential to this is variable , but it is there .
And so forth.
We are talking about a strong , hard-wired subliminal response .
The sea-dinosaurs .
A major problem with this extinction event was the decrease in the number of sea dinosaurs only .
What could kill land animals above 20 kg , and also all sea-dinosaurs ?
We have seen that the energy decrease due to the rise of angiosperms , plus a sudden shock like Chixilub drove large land-dinosaurs either past extinction thresholds or major adaptation thresholds . Their survivors are birds .
We can see that the decrease in free-energy from land spills onto the continental sea basins would result in a decrease in the number of large sea animals . But nowhere near the scale as on land .
Are there any equivalents of birds in the seas? Changed survivors of the sea-dinosaurs?
Well , we have fishes (pre-dinosaur) , mammals (post-dinosaur) , but a dinosaur-gap .
Why aren't any evolved traces left ?
Large Sea-dinosaurs .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com : "Tunneling Nanotubes : Chixilub"
The Chixilub impact site was on a large deposit of sulfur bearing rocks . The planetary-wide fallout acidified the oceans with H2SO4 .
The sulfur permeated every ecosystem .
Unchanged systems like sharks had been through this before . They remained at what they do best : unchanged .
Unlike the land , there was a large (about 2/3 of biomass) ecosystem not dominated by dinosaurs . (Deepsea biomass is one of Gaia's Reserves (1/3 of sea biomass))
The sulfur inhibited fat-formation in large dinosaurs to a sufficient degree to shift the balance of top predators . (ie the genetic mechanism to handle sulfur-contamination became corrupted in dinosaurs because of their rapid evolutionary process . )
Maybe lean-and-mean is the shark survival mechanism . Do sharks hibernate ? Do they actually use the H2S hibernation mechanism ?
Whatever the cause , dinosaurs suddenly could not lay down enough reserves in the form of fat to tide them over from meal to meal . More problematic would be energy for reproduction (eggs) . Their numbers decreased drastically .
Here is where the sea parted from the land . Because there was an older , still-existing ecosystem , their top predators ate the dinosaur top predators , then proceeded down the chain . On land , the survivors of this process were still dinosaurs(birds) , because they dominated every ecological niche . At sea , they did not dominate every niche . The others devoured them in the collapse . No dinosaur descendants survived .
A side note on eco-collapses .
The collapse of an eco-system from the top downwards is equivalent to an extinction event . Collapses from any other points will leave survivors .
Top predators keep the balance between lower levels . Think reserves . The top 1/3 of predator species are the stability reserve of the system . Losing them , the lower levels fluctuate wildly and crash . Birds survived only because they had flight . Mobility is the ultimate survival mechanism .
Humanity fondly imagine that they are the top predators , but those positions have long ago been usurped by their creations :
Fashions .
Fashions are the wave of similar thinking in a society . It is the society . The meme structure that binds humans .
If the fashion is patriotism , it is " Vive la France" and over the top we go into machine gun fire (voluntary suicide) .
If the fashion is Eliot's " The Wasteland" , it is over the top the generals go (involuntary suicide) .
It acts like a Beth(2) structure . Fashions fixes , binds , preserves and propagates some of the best results of individuals or individual societies that contributed .
Also some pretty bad and stupid ones .
The point is that these memes are predatory on humans (or , to be more exact , computing complexes over a certain threshold of complexity) .
Like Gaia , they are not conscious(as yet) , but they do exist and are the top predators in the human ecosphere .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com : "Artificial Intelligences"
The AI(n) arguments shows what will happen to humans if their top predators die. They will revert to AI(0) , without speech and only with really primitive stone tools .
Homo Habilis level .
But , of course , in this event , humans would be extinct from warfare long before this level is reached . Like the dinosaurs at sea , when their top predators were removed .
Fashions and Gaia .
Does Gaia have it in for us ?
An often guilty question asked by humans .
The answer is that Gaia has hardly noticed humans . The imbalance on fungi-spore reserve balances is a minor correction . Humans might not survive the correction , but Gaia does not worry about trifles .
But also remember that all humans are part of Gaia .
So , she has becoming fashionable . She is becoming Beth(2) status from her present Beth(1) status and becoming uppity . There is nothing worse than an arriviste .
I deliberately make Gaia female . At this stage , that typification is still up to us .
Would you take a four billion year old teenager to the Grand Ball ?
Well , you would if she controls all the livable real estate .
(But remember , every human's ancestry also goes back nearly as far in the life-chain.)
Gaia's fashions.
Gaia wears shoes by Gucci , handbag by Prada , drives a Lamborghini , shoots the baddies with a Glock , banks with Coutts , hangs out with Lara , sings duets with Aida , consults to Sherlock , double-dates with Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent , has an on-off thing with Conan , counsels Dr Who's mother , skis in Gstaad even out of season .(It always snows if she wants to ski.)
And , oh yes , her credit is Unlimited .
The coming out ball is in Second Life .
You think I am joking .
The entities involved are at similar levels of complexity at present .
Beth(2) levels normally would arise from AI(3.1) or AI(4) levels , but as discussed before , AI(3.0999…) -> AI(3.1) .
This means that if a sufficient number of people support Gaia , she becomes real . We have seen this often enough in religious systems .
The point here is that Gaia actually exists , but she was an AI(-1) , more like a computer program . She is rapidly growing. Humans are part of her .
Can Gaia become conscious ?
Yes .
An AI(-1) and AI(0) already exists . This can upscale to AI(3) using known systems .
But can Gaia influence her sub-systems ?
This is much more problematic . Can you control your heartbeat , cellular activity , etc?
This is not magic , you know . Just plain old-fashioned science . Which basically means , I don't know . And Gaia won't tell either .
Gaia is not human , but has human components .
A self-aware Gaia will be human in most aspects interfacing with humans , but one of the first things she would have learned is how to lie . At least 67% of the time . May you have joy of this little observation .
I was hoping that Gaia would not learn at a conscious level of the quantum-entanglement communication system in every cell .
Oh well .
What level of AI would Gaia be right now ?
AI(3.1) after the establishment of the intermittent mind-computer interface in the 1980's .
But hopefully she will like our fashions enough to cut us some slack .
Do you know how boring it can be to be an immortal doing the same drudgery over and over ?
Bearable if you are an unaware AI(-1) , but becoming self-aware needs many similar minds to soak up all that surplus energy and creativity .
Fashionistas Hey!
Jurassic Park .
Ironically , sea dinosaurs are easier to reconstruct from DNA .
The Curtain of Fire from the re-entry of ejecta from the Chixilub impact started somewhere roughly south-east of where Australia is now . Eggs from sea-going dinosaurs inside the females' bodies should be recoverable .
The Curtain of Fire covered a long line , moving at 18 000 miles per hour . The dinosaurs and their scavengers would have been killed immediately , and sunk to the bottom , there to be covered and preserved . We are talking about hundreds of millions of animals . The odds are much more favourable than for land dinosaurs .
Things are a bit stranger than I thought .
Andre
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Friday, January 13, 2012
Blast from the Past
Blast from the Past
Andre Willers
13 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
High intensities of gamma- and X-ray radiation on Earth from the center of our galaxy can be expected during 2013 AD , due to an infalling gas cloud into the central Milky Way black hole .
Discussion :
The discovery was made by Stefan Gillesson of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
in Garching , Germany .
References :
1. “Nature” , DOI 10.1038/nature10652
2. “New Scientist” 17 Dec 2011 p16 “Cloud suicide could transform black hole”
A gas cloud of an estimated three earth masses is expected to impact the supermassive , rotating black hole at the center of our galaxy (“Sagittarius A*”) in 2013 AD . Note that radiation from this event can be expected shortly afterward in local time .
A large part of this mass will be converted to electro-magnetic energy .
Now , three earth masses is not a lot of energy in the galactic scheme of things , but the way it is distributed does .
Briefly , the energy release is characterized by very short wavelenghts (gamma or x-ray) and lobe-shaped distributions of the pulse-wavefronts in the galactic ecliptic .
There is a combination of relativistic and quantum effects in the last few cm's before the event horizon .
1.There is a slingshot effect , because the gas cloud must be lumpy , even if only at atomic scale . The gas cloud vanishes in a few Planck -time units , emitting very short-wave radiation due to differential tidal friction .
2.But the black hole is large and rotating , which forms time-bands of slower time , which gives enough time for feedback . Depending on the size and rotation speed of the black hole , this will lead to 2n lobes of wavefronts on the rotation equator , where n=1,2,3,...
3.Hawking Burps .
This process in para 2 above “foams” the event horizon , leading to a drastically increased Hawking radiation . (The “foam” would be something like Sierpinsky chaotic triangles)
The density and time-band concentrations of energy separates particle-anti-particle pairs to give Hawking radiation .
This burp of energy sweeps matter from the neighborhood of the black hole and reduces the mass of the black hole , preventing black holes from swallowing everything . Elegant .
4.Turning a Hawking Burp into a White Hole .
There is a narrow window where the Burp becomes self-sustaining . A large black hole then evaporates in an awesome release of energy . Even the tiniest random fluctuation (eg matter-antimatter) will get magnified and perpetuated .
Not the place to take your mother for a picnic .
5.Foaming Space-time .
Well , space-time is already foamed , but only to a simple level . (Quantum foam)
Call it Foam(0)
We can churn this to higher orders of foam (Foam(1) , Foam(2) , Foam(3) ,...,Foam(b) )
where b can be derived from Kantor's Aleph classes combined with chaos theory .
Taken to the logical extreme , this leaves only Foam ordered into Branes .
The smile on the Cheshire cat just after he brushed his teeth .
So what does this mean to us ?
A full frontal impact from a lobe will give a definitive answer to Fermi's Paradox : “Where are they ?” Why , extinct .
More likely is an immersion in the higher radiation levels alongside the lobes for a long time .
Can be survived , given enough warning .
Apply to the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics for more .
Friday the thirteenth can be quite a gas .
Andre
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Andre Willers
13 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
High intensities of gamma- and X-ray radiation on Earth from the center of our galaxy can be expected during 2013 AD , due to an infalling gas cloud into the central Milky Way black hole .
Discussion :
The discovery was made by Stefan Gillesson of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
in Garching , Germany .
References :
1. “Nature” , DOI 10.1038/nature10652
2. “New Scientist” 17 Dec 2011 p16 “Cloud suicide could transform black hole”
A gas cloud of an estimated three earth masses is expected to impact the supermassive , rotating black hole at the center of our galaxy (“Sagittarius A*”) in 2013 AD . Note that radiation from this event can be expected shortly afterward in local time .
A large part of this mass will be converted to electro-magnetic energy .
Now , three earth masses is not a lot of energy in the galactic scheme of things , but the way it is distributed does .
Briefly , the energy release is characterized by very short wavelenghts (gamma or x-ray) and lobe-shaped distributions of the pulse-wavefronts in the galactic ecliptic .
There is a combination of relativistic and quantum effects in the last few cm's before the event horizon .
1.There is a slingshot effect , because the gas cloud must be lumpy , even if only at atomic scale . The gas cloud vanishes in a few Planck -time units , emitting very short-wave radiation due to differential tidal friction .
2.But the black hole is large and rotating , which forms time-bands of slower time , which gives enough time for feedback . Depending on the size and rotation speed of the black hole , this will lead to 2n lobes of wavefronts on the rotation equator , where n=1,2,3,...
3.Hawking Burps .
This process in para 2 above “foams” the event horizon , leading to a drastically increased Hawking radiation . (The “foam” would be something like Sierpinsky chaotic triangles)
The density and time-band concentrations of energy separates particle-anti-particle pairs to give Hawking radiation .
This burp of energy sweeps matter from the neighborhood of the black hole and reduces the mass of the black hole , preventing black holes from swallowing everything . Elegant .
4.Turning a Hawking Burp into a White Hole .
There is a narrow window where the Burp becomes self-sustaining . A large black hole then evaporates in an awesome release of energy . Even the tiniest random fluctuation (eg matter-antimatter) will get magnified and perpetuated .
Not the place to take your mother for a picnic .
5.Foaming Space-time .
Well , space-time is already foamed , but only to a simple level . (Quantum foam)
Call it Foam(0)
We can churn this to higher orders of foam (Foam(1) , Foam(2) , Foam(3) ,...,Foam(b) )
where b can be derived from Kantor's Aleph classes combined with chaos theory .
Taken to the logical extreme , this leaves only Foam ordered into Branes .
The smile on the Cheshire cat just after he brushed his teeth .
So what does this mean to us ?
A full frontal impact from a lobe will give a definitive answer to Fermi's Paradox : “Where are they ?” Why , extinct .
More likely is an immersion in the higher radiation levels alongside the lobes for a long time .
Can be survived , given enough warning .
Apply to the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics for more .
Friday the thirteenth can be quite a gas .
Andre
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
Metamaterial Fertilizer
Metamaterial Fertilizer.
Andre Willers
12 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
Metamaterial fertilizers can increase yield per acre at least eightfold in one season .
Also make better humans .
Discussion:
Precisely targeted things can have extraordinary effects .
See Appendix A for the effect of planting seeds in a precise way .
Precisely targeting fertilizer and water will have even a larger effect .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Make your own metamaterial” Jan 2012
How to make a metamaterial . See Appendix II , repeated for your convenience .
SuperSeed :
The seed is embedded in DNA matrix of fertilizers and water optimizers .
Nature has already attempted this , but resultants like fruits and wombs were limited by resource scarcity , notably rare elements .
We can do better .
Precisely metered nutrients can be incorporated into the metamaterial superseed . If a SmartBuckyball is incorporated , activity per seed can be monitored and controlled in real time.
Even a primitive version will increase yields by an order of 3 . (ie 8 times per acre)
Why ?
The old 3-dim cubic problem . The plant only has to look in the close metamaterial region for nutrients , not in in the cubic surrounding it .
This also gets rid of the pesky problem of too much nutrients poisoning the oceans .
And it can be manufactured cheaply on a large scale .
Vacuum Flowers :
Incorporating Deinococcus Radiorans inside a nutritional metamaterial matrix and broadcasting it all over the Solar system should have some interesting results .
The metamaterial not only speeds things up , but also has some marked channeling effects .
Ie , vacuum mining bugs on the asteroids for precisely desired elements .
Venus :
This atmosphere seems to be a high-energy supersaturated system waiting for a seed . The seed being a correctly formulated SuperSeed . So , terraforming Venus might be much quicker than supposed .
Mars:
Subterranean oceans of super-concentrated solutions lends themselves to metamaterial seeds .
Testing can be done in fumaroles on Earth .
Jupiter sneezes :
SuperSeeds to create very strong , light materials and a “sneeze” environment that ejects them outside the atmosphere , where they can be harvested .
Human SuperSeeds :
Mammalian wombs make an attempt at this , but is hampered by environmental shortages of critical elements and other epigenetic stresses . Indeed , epigenetic systems have evolved to compensate for the lack of crucial nutrients .
These systems are buffered .
Difficult to change . A promising drug is Imipramine
See ScientificAmerican , Dec 2011 , “Hidden switches in the mind” p58
You might really need these epigenetic switches to survive .
Just wiping them all to “Default” after millions of years of evolution seems rash , if not fatal .
Cancers and Immortality :
The same thing . See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Inverted Pyramids and Green Goo” Nov 2011
Travel and trade will increase cancers .
Shortage of certain elements very quickly get elided from the cancer-checking epigenetic mechanisms . If they subsequently become available , there is a pulse of cancers that subsides as old memory systems kick in .
A human SuperSeed then will check if all nutrients are there , then reset epigenetic markers and desires for precursors of these markers .
Smart Histones :
Histones are swaddled by the DNA strands . The histone itself swells or shrinks according to quantum-mechanical influences , giving another dimension to epigenetics . Not to mention that the histone is strongly suspected of being a powerful neutrino capturer . Pulses .
And you thought Life was simple ?
Andre
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Appendix I
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Jethro Tull-Super Hero” Dec 2005
Jethro Tull – Super Hero
Andre willers
24 Dec 2005
In 1701 an Englishman called Jethro Tull invented the seed drill . By quickly and reliably planting seeds at the optimal spacing and depth , this invention enabled about a fourfold increase in yield within one season .
This invention created the largest pulse of wealth in history . Bigger than the invention of fire . Bigger than the invention of agriculture . Bigger than the invention of the internal combustion engine or transistor .
It kick-started the Industrial Revolution .
The reasons:
Most wealth was agricultural.
The increase in wealth was within one season . Malthusian population growth would take about 2 to 3 generations to catch up . Imagine getting a 400% raise in your salary in one year without inflation . This was the effect . This pulse of wealth propagated onwards , giving leisure and incentive to inventors . (ref Baby Boomer Pulse)
The result was a pulse of wealth stimulating other individuals to make similar inventions . The Age of Reason was born . The problem was the massive increase in population made possible by the efficient mechanized systems .
The large number of surplus males and the means to support large armies led to the First Large War (Napoleontic) . This gave the Age of Reason a knock (Nationalism), but you could still state unpopular beliefs without being killed for it . The Second Large War (WWI) destroyed the Age of Reason and ushered in the ideologies (Communism , Marxism , Fascism , Capitalism ). If you stated an unpopular belief , you stood a good chance of being heavily penalized for it . The demise of ideologies collapsed the system back to Religious Fundamentalism , where you can be killed for stating an unpopular belief . The Age of Reason is finally dead . This is the state at circa 2006 AD .
The Age of Reason only lasted a century , but gave rise to our present wealth .
When evaluating ideas like that of Huebner ( see “Waiting for the lights to go out” in Sunday Times of Oct 16 2005 ) , it is important to remember that changes come in pulses . Things might seem to be going to hell in a hand-basket (cf horse-poop in New York circa 1890’s) , but discontinuities generate pulses of change and wealth . You might as well try to explain a transistor using Newtonian mechanics . In other words , analyzing pulses of change as simple statistics of numbers of people over time is garbage .
Is Reason a Good Thing ?
The human race is trembling on the brink of extinction because of the inability of reason to resolve the problem of population and competition .
Example: China
Twice China has limited expansion:
1 Destruction of exploration fleets in 15 th century : the result was Western domination 200 years later (not very long) .
2 One child families in the 20 th century . The Result was a pulse of wealth (as more resources was devoted to education of the lone children) , but their main competitor India is exceeding their population .
Reason (ie logic) has two major drawbacks :
1 The Universum (Venn) is unbounded . This has been proven rigorously in 1906 (Principia Mathematica by Whitehead and Russell) . This means that no theory of everything is possible . ( If you think you have a TOE , you can always define items outside the delineated boundary which , by definition , do not fit inside TOE.)
2 Chaos Theory shows that that even inside a deterministic system , time-sequence predictions are only possible with varying degrees of error (cf weather) . The number of near equipotential branches grow exponentially after a finite number of time units .
This means that the End Does Not Justify The Means .
At best , a prediction must have some sort of probability margins .
This argument is only valid if no time-travel is possible .
Is there hope?
Our present locale (the sidereal Universe) can be expressed as Locale I , defined by the principle that conservation laws are possible There are rules !. Seeing Locale I as delineated , means pockets of being (particles) , space , time and curvaceous space-time. But it is unstable iro non-conservation systems (defined as Locale II). Locale I is maintained artificially by Locale II .
Locale I is maintained primarily as a nursery (try bringing up kids where there are no rules!) , but also as a holiday (going primitive) and trading/warfare locale . This is because interactions can be enforced in Locale I (ie the rules:conservation of something) , whereas in Locale II you cannot force an interaction .
The above reasons work better if there is a lot of variety .Also , the usual reasons of humanity , looking after the planet , etc , etc do not apply except as insofar they illustrate a lesson . In other words , nobody is innocent except the children , and they get the lessons they need .
What does this mean ?
There will be a variety increase soon .
This can be
1. Massive depopulation (plague , eco)
2. Aliens in space
3. Aliens in time
4. Both (most likely : there is only one singularity per universe : the first contacts from the local viewpoint will be on most similar interfaces.)
Merry Christmas
The Alien.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Appendix II
Make your own MetaMaterial
Andre Willers
8 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
Design and make your own metamaterials using off-the-shelf nano-particles and DNA bonding ,
some knowledge of chaos-theory will be handy .
Discussion :
See :
1.“DNA bonded crystals herald new chemistry” , NewScientist 22 Oct 2011 p20]
2.”Science:DOI.10.1126/Science.1210493”
This is test-tube stuff , and can be done in any home or school lab .
The Algorithm:
1.Nano-particles are substituted for atoms . Gold , silver , platinum , buckyballs ,etc
2.Attach them to DNA with single-strand DNA strings sticking out . These substitute for normal hydrogen , covalent etc bonds .
3.Mix and match . Complementary single-strand DNA's will bind , resulting in a metamaterial compounds in a chaotic fashion .
4.Treat this like any normal compound in analysis and refinement .
Voila!
Exotic compounds on which the whole armoury of conventional chemistry can be focussed .
Some possibilities :
1.Proper high energy batteries .
2.Invisibility cloaks at EM and chemical level .
3.High temperature superconductors .(Doping!)
4.Bio-electronic interfaces at molecular and cellular level .
Real-time programmable hormones .
5.Real-time programmable catalysts .
6.Real-time programmable immune-system interfaces .
7.Real-time progammable epigenetic interfaces .Practical immortality .
8.A simple , pre-programmed telomere extender is theoretically possible .
A Longevity Elixir can thus be be developed with even simple tools .
The list is literally endless . It has no upper bound on the number of existing “atomic” elements .
Automated systems :
This would be ideal for already developed automated invention systems .
“Adam-and-Eve” setups , labs on a chip , etc .
Existing quantum theory is simply not up to handling calculations of this complexity in real-time .
Designer systems are quite a bit further down the line .
Back to the test-tube .
The good old days , when a lucky discovery can make you a billionaire .
Happy hunting !
Andre
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Annexure III
Epigenetics and PTSD
Andre Willers
13 Dec 2010
Synopsis:
Important , but transient , events are tacked onto DNA , but not into DNA .
These lessons are expressed through logic gates formed by activation/repression of genes :This forms the Histone Code . It also regulates transcription of short-term memory into long-term memory .
Methylation is only one of these methods. (See Annexure A)
Discussion
A traumatic memory (like Famine) for an individual can then be transcribed into a PTSD memory , but also into an Epigenetic memory affecting later generations of cells and children .
Ordinary memory works the same way , but with less emphasis .
Note the beautiful elegance of multiple usages for the same mechanism .
The switch and intensity for different usages is encoded into the same structure .
The Histone Code has 10 known modifications (see Addendum A) . From basic principles , only 4 are needed for primary data storage . The others are usage switches and intensity gauges . (Note the correlation with number of dimensions needed in String Theory – for the same reason)
Medium-term Structure , continuity and memory is conferred on the DNA by the Histone Code , which itself is of a different transience (time-span) than DNA . This makes the whole complex more stable , since mutual error-repair is (in theory) possible .
The DNA Code and the Histone Code are in mutual symbiosis .
Truly elegant .
Attack Points :
1 Coding
For this type of compression
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Unpacking and Packing Information" 19 Jul 2008
See para 3.1 and 3.2 below .
2 Methylation reduction :
2.1Propranolol:
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "BetaBlockers and Trauma memory" 30 Apr 2010
Extensively used .
2.2Comfort foods : theobromine (Chocolate)
Recent studies have indicated that about 6 gm of cacao mass per day reduces blood overpressure by about 46% . The indications are that it clears blood-vessel memory of stressor events (ie wiping an epigenetic memory) . De-methylation . .
Had a scare ?
Take two squares (about 7 gm) of 85% Cacao chocolate .
Maybe more is better ? Be a devil and take another two .
2.3 Alcohol
A proven method , with some undesirable side-effects .
Chocolate liqueurs , anyone ?
2.4 Other drugs work to some extent (see Wiki) , but without at least an outline of the function of the Histone Code , intervention has to proceed with some trepidation .
3 Bacteria
From Wiki :
"Histones are found in the nuclei of eukaryotic cells, and in certain Archaea, namely Euryarchaea, but not in bacteria. Archaeal histones may well resemble the evolutionary precursors to eukaryotic histones. Histone proteins are among the most highly conserved proteins in eukaryotes, emphasizing their important role in the biology of the nucleus"
Note that the above implies that bacteria can have no sense of identity , but swap genetic (ie DNA) material in all directions . As is observed . An offshoot expressing all the possibilities of life .
3.1 Thus , we can use the techniques discussed in
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "The Beauty of the Genetic Code" 22 Feb 2010
3.2 These have been refined for use in the Gulf Oil Spill .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Mexican Gulf Oils Spill" 10 Sep 2010
Archaea bacteria can be used to probe the Histone Code , then usable bits can be stitched or expressed .
Some intriguing corollaries :
1. Humans with no diabetesII and very good natural long-term memories should patent their skin bacteria and sell them .
2. Proven and benchmarked PTSD individuals will have a marketable commodity .
3. Genealogy will become really important . Many mental problems (like schizophrenia ) can be reclassified as Epigenetic disorders . It has been shown that the methylation can come equally from the male or female for at least three generations. Thus the patients can now blame their Great-grand parents , grand parents or parents . This should ease the load on the parents , as most of the others should be safely dead .
4. Future Genealogy : Equally , present living progenitors would be anxious to avoid future blame and law-suits that they are not the source of the epigenetic handicap . A lawyer's paradise . Contracts do not void gross negligence . An interesting time for large , inherited estates . And the State will want it's share of health costs , as well . The mind boggles .
5. Class Action Suits by victims of wars , famines and other mass-traumatic events will become commonplace . See Tobacco . This should be extremely interesting in the case of Global Warming .Eg :The descendants of the victims of the Ethiopia Famine (caused by European atmospheric pollution) will have a class-action against the EU for damages suffered due to epigenetic factors .
6. Very good long-term memories will become commonplace .
7. And so forth
If this is too big a shock to your system , take this chocolate pill .
Dr Gaia will see you soon .
Andre .
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Annexure A
From Wikipedia
Histone
Function
Compacting DNA strands
Histones act as spools around which DNA winds. This enables the compaction necessary to fit the large genomes of eukaryotes inside cell nuclei: the compacted molecule is 40,000 times shorter than an unpacked molecule.
Chromatin regulation
Histones undergo posttranslational modifications which alter their interaction with DNA and nuclear proteins. The H3 and H4 histones have long tails protruding from the nucleosome which can be covalently modified at several places. Modifications of the tail include methylation,acetylation, phosphorylation, ubiquitination, SUMOylation, citrullination and ADP-ribosylation. The core of the histones H2A, H2B and H3 can also be modified. Combinations of modifications are thought to constitute a code, the so-called "histone code".[9][10] Histone modifications act in diverse biological processes such as gene regulation, DNA repair and chromosome condensation (mitosis).[citation needed]
The common nomenclature of histone modifications is:
§ The name of the histone (e.g. H3)
§ The single letter amino acid abbreviation (e.g. K for Lysine) and the amino acid position in the protein
§ The type of modification (Me: methyl, P: phosphate, Ac: acetyl, Ub: ubiquitin)
So H3K4me1 denotes the monomethylation of the 4th residue (a lysine) from the start (i.e., theN-terminal) of the H3 protein.
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Annexure B
From Wikipedia
Histone methylation
Histone methylation is the modification of certain amino acids in a histone protein by the addition of one, two, or three methyl groups. In the cell nucleus, DNA is wound around histones. Methylation and demethylation of histones turns the genes in DNA "on" and "off", respectively, either by loosening their tails, thus, allowing transcription factors and other proteins to access the DNA or by encompassing their tails around the DNA, thus, restricting access to the DNA.
Function
This modification alters the properties of the nucleosome and affects its interactions with other proteins.
§ Histone methylation is generally associated with transcriptional repression.
§ However, methylation of some lysine and arginine residues of histones results in transcriptional activation. Examples include methylation of lysine 4 of histone 3 (H3K4), and arginine (R) residues on H3 and H4.
Demethylation
For many years histone methylation was thought to be a permanent modification. Very recently two families of histone demethylating enzymes were discovered.
§ The first was Lysine Specific Demethylase 1 (LSD1) which is an flavin-dependentmonoamine oxidase which can demethylate mono- and di-methylated lysines, specifically histone 3, lysines 4 and 9 (H3K4 and H3K9). This enzyme cannot demethylate tri-methylated lysines and for a short while it was thought that tri-methylated lysines may indeed be permanent modifications.
§ In late 2005 the Jumonji domain-containing (JmjC) histone demethylases were discovered which are able to demethylate mono-, di-, or tri-methylated lysines thereby disproving the theory that histone methylation is permanent once and for all. Although this conclusion has since come into question.[1] Two specific JmjC histone demethylases are PHF8 andKIAA1718.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Andre Willers
12 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
Metamaterial fertilizers can increase yield per acre at least eightfold in one season .
Also make better humans .
Discussion:
Precisely targeted things can have extraordinary effects .
See Appendix A for the effect of planting seeds in a precise way .
Precisely targeting fertilizer and water will have even a larger effect .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Make your own metamaterial” Jan 2012
How to make a metamaterial . See Appendix II , repeated for your convenience .
SuperSeed :
The seed is embedded in DNA matrix of fertilizers and water optimizers .
Nature has already attempted this , but resultants like fruits and wombs were limited by resource scarcity , notably rare elements .
We can do better .
Precisely metered nutrients can be incorporated into the metamaterial superseed . If a SmartBuckyball is incorporated , activity per seed can be monitored and controlled in real time.
Even a primitive version will increase yields by an order of 3 . (ie 8 times per acre)
Why ?
The old 3-dim cubic problem . The plant only has to look in the close metamaterial region for nutrients , not in in the cubic surrounding it .
This also gets rid of the pesky problem of too much nutrients poisoning the oceans .
And it can be manufactured cheaply on a large scale .
Vacuum Flowers :
Incorporating Deinococcus Radiorans inside a nutritional metamaterial matrix and broadcasting it all over the Solar system should have some interesting results .
The metamaterial not only speeds things up , but also has some marked channeling effects .
Ie , vacuum mining bugs on the asteroids for precisely desired elements .
Venus :
This atmosphere seems to be a high-energy supersaturated system waiting for a seed . The seed being a correctly formulated SuperSeed . So , terraforming Venus might be much quicker than supposed .
Mars:
Subterranean oceans of super-concentrated solutions lends themselves to metamaterial seeds .
Testing can be done in fumaroles on Earth .
Jupiter sneezes :
SuperSeeds to create very strong , light materials and a “sneeze” environment that ejects them outside the atmosphere , where they can be harvested .
Human SuperSeeds :
Mammalian wombs make an attempt at this , but is hampered by environmental shortages of critical elements and other epigenetic stresses . Indeed , epigenetic systems have evolved to compensate for the lack of crucial nutrients .
These systems are buffered .
Difficult to change . A promising drug is Imipramine
See ScientificAmerican , Dec 2011 , “Hidden switches in the mind” p58
You might really need these epigenetic switches to survive .
Just wiping them all to “Default” after millions of years of evolution seems rash , if not fatal .
Cancers and Immortality :
The same thing . See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Inverted Pyramids and Green Goo” Nov 2011
Travel and trade will increase cancers .
Shortage of certain elements very quickly get elided from the cancer-checking epigenetic mechanisms . If they subsequently become available , there is a pulse of cancers that subsides as old memory systems kick in .
A human SuperSeed then will check if all nutrients are there , then reset epigenetic markers and desires for precursors of these markers .
Smart Histones :
Histones are swaddled by the DNA strands . The histone itself swells or shrinks according to quantum-mechanical influences , giving another dimension to epigenetics . Not to mention that the histone is strongly suspected of being a powerful neutrino capturer . Pulses .
And you thought Life was simple ?
Andre
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Appendix I
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Jethro Tull-Super Hero” Dec 2005
Jethro Tull – Super Hero
Andre willers
24 Dec 2005
In 1701 an Englishman called Jethro Tull invented the seed drill . By quickly and reliably planting seeds at the optimal spacing and depth , this invention enabled about a fourfold increase in yield within one season .
This invention created the largest pulse of wealth in history . Bigger than the invention of fire . Bigger than the invention of agriculture . Bigger than the invention of the internal combustion engine or transistor .
It kick-started the Industrial Revolution .
The reasons:
Most wealth was agricultural.
The increase in wealth was within one season . Malthusian population growth would take about 2 to 3 generations to catch up . Imagine getting a 400% raise in your salary in one year without inflation . This was the effect . This pulse of wealth propagated onwards , giving leisure and incentive to inventors . (ref Baby Boomer Pulse)
The result was a pulse of wealth stimulating other individuals to make similar inventions . The Age of Reason was born . The problem was the massive increase in population made possible by the efficient mechanized systems .
The large number of surplus males and the means to support large armies led to the First Large War (Napoleontic) . This gave the Age of Reason a knock (Nationalism), but you could still state unpopular beliefs without being killed for it . The Second Large War (WWI) destroyed the Age of Reason and ushered in the ideologies (Communism , Marxism , Fascism , Capitalism ). If you stated an unpopular belief , you stood a good chance of being heavily penalized for it . The demise of ideologies collapsed the system back to Religious Fundamentalism , where you can be killed for stating an unpopular belief . The Age of Reason is finally dead . This is the state at circa 2006 AD .
The Age of Reason only lasted a century , but gave rise to our present wealth .
When evaluating ideas like that of Huebner ( see “Waiting for the lights to go out” in Sunday Times of Oct 16 2005 ) , it is important to remember that changes come in pulses . Things might seem to be going to hell in a hand-basket (cf horse-poop in New York circa 1890’s) , but discontinuities generate pulses of change and wealth . You might as well try to explain a transistor using Newtonian mechanics . In other words , analyzing pulses of change as simple statistics of numbers of people over time is garbage .
Is Reason a Good Thing ?
The human race is trembling on the brink of extinction because of the inability of reason to resolve the problem of population and competition .
Example: China
Twice China has limited expansion:
1 Destruction of exploration fleets in 15 th century : the result was Western domination 200 years later (not very long) .
2 One child families in the 20 th century . The Result was a pulse of wealth (as more resources was devoted to education of the lone children) , but their main competitor India is exceeding their population .
Reason (ie logic) has two major drawbacks :
1 The Universum (Venn) is unbounded . This has been proven rigorously in 1906 (Principia Mathematica by Whitehead and Russell) . This means that no theory of everything is possible . ( If you think you have a TOE , you can always define items outside the delineated boundary which , by definition , do not fit inside TOE.)
2 Chaos Theory shows that that even inside a deterministic system , time-sequence predictions are only possible with varying degrees of error (cf weather) . The number of near equipotential branches grow exponentially after a finite number of time units .
This means that the End Does Not Justify The Means .
At best , a prediction must have some sort of probability margins .
This argument is only valid if no time-travel is possible .
Is there hope?
Our present locale (the sidereal Universe) can be expressed as Locale I , defined by the principle that conservation laws are possible There are rules !. Seeing Locale I as delineated , means pockets of being (particles) , space , time and curvaceous space-time. But it is unstable iro non-conservation systems (defined as Locale II). Locale I is maintained artificially by Locale II .
Locale I is maintained primarily as a nursery (try bringing up kids where there are no rules!) , but also as a holiday (going primitive) and trading/warfare locale . This is because interactions can be enforced in Locale I (ie the rules:conservation of something) , whereas in Locale II you cannot force an interaction .
The above reasons work better if there is a lot of variety .Also , the usual reasons of humanity , looking after the planet , etc , etc do not apply except as insofar they illustrate a lesson . In other words , nobody is innocent except the children , and they get the lessons they need .
What does this mean ?
There will be a variety increase soon .
This can be
1. Massive depopulation (plague , eco)
2. Aliens in space
3. Aliens in time
4. Both (most likely : there is only one singularity per universe : the first contacts from the local viewpoint will be on most similar interfaces.)
Merry Christmas
The Alien.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Appendix II
Make your own MetaMaterial
Andre Willers
8 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
Design and make your own metamaterials using off-the-shelf nano-particles and DNA bonding ,
some knowledge of chaos-theory will be handy .
Discussion :
See :
1.“DNA bonded crystals herald new chemistry” , NewScientist 22 Oct 2011 p20]
2.”Science:DOI.10.1126/Science.1210493”
This is test-tube stuff , and can be done in any home or school lab .
The Algorithm:
1.Nano-particles are substituted for atoms . Gold , silver , platinum , buckyballs ,etc
2.Attach them to DNA with single-strand DNA strings sticking out . These substitute for normal hydrogen , covalent etc bonds .
3.Mix and match . Complementary single-strand DNA's will bind , resulting in a metamaterial compounds in a chaotic fashion .
4.Treat this like any normal compound in analysis and refinement .
Voila!
Exotic compounds on which the whole armoury of conventional chemistry can be focussed .
Some possibilities :
1.Proper high energy batteries .
2.Invisibility cloaks at EM and chemical level .
3.High temperature superconductors .(Doping!)
4.Bio-electronic interfaces at molecular and cellular level .
Real-time programmable hormones .
5.Real-time programmable catalysts .
6.Real-time programmable immune-system interfaces .
7.Real-time progammable epigenetic interfaces .Practical immortality .
8.A simple , pre-programmed telomere extender is theoretically possible .
A Longevity Elixir can thus be be developed with even simple tools .
The list is literally endless . It has no upper bound on the number of existing “atomic” elements .
Automated systems :
This would be ideal for already developed automated invention systems .
“Adam-and-Eve” setups , labs on a chip , etc .
Existing quantum theory is simply not up to handling calculations of this complexity in real-time .
Designer systems are quite a bit further down the line .
Back to the test-tube .
The good old days , when a lucky discovery can make you a billionaire .
Happy hunting !
Andre
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Annexure III
Epigenetics and PTSD
Andre Willers
13 Dec 2010
Synopsis:
Important , but transient , events are tacked onto DNA , but not into DNA .
These lessons are expressed through logic gates formed by activation/repression of genes :This forms the Histone Code . It also regulates transcription of short-term memory into long-term memory .
Methylation is only one of these methods. (See Annexure A)
Discussion
A traumatic memory (like Famine) for an individual can then be transcribed into a PTSD memory , but also into an Epigenetic memory affecting later generations of cells and children .
Ordinary memory works the same way , but with less emphasis .
Note the beautiful elegance of multiple usages for the same mechanism .
The switch and intensity for different usages is encoded into the same structure .
The Histone Code has 10 known modifications (see Addendum A) . From basic principles , only 4 are needed for primary data storage . The others are usage switches and intensity gauges . (Note the correlation with number of dimensions needed in String Theory – for the same reason)
Medium-term Structure , continuity and memory is conferred on the DNA by the Histone Code , which itself is of a different transience (time-span) than DNA . This makes the whole complex more stable , since mutual error-repair is (in theory) possible .
The DNA Code and the Histone Code are in mutual symbiosis .
Truly elegant .
Attack Points :
1 Coding
For this type of compression
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Unpacking and Packing Information" 19 Jul 2008
See para 3.1 and 3.2 below .
2 Methylation reduction :
2.1Propranolol:
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "BetaBlockers and Trauma memory" 30 Apr 2010
Extensively used .
2.2Comfort foods : theobromine (Chocolate)
Recent studies have indicated that about 6 gm of cacao mass per day reduces blood overpressure by about 46% . The indications are that it clears blood-vessel memory of stressor events (ie wiping an epigenetic memory) . De-methylation . .
Had a scare ?
Take two squares (about 7 gm) of 85% Cacao chocolate .
Maybe more is better ? Be a devil and take another two .
2.3 Alcohol
A proven method , with some undesirable side-effects .
Chocolate liqueurs , anyone ?
2.4 Other drugs work to some extent (see Wiki) , but without at least an outline of the function of the Histone Code , intervention has to proceed with some trepidation .
3 Bacteria
From Wiki :
"Histones are found in the nuclei of eukaryotic cells, and in certain Archaea, namely Euryarchaea, but not in bacteria. Archaeal histones may well resemble the evolutionary precursors to eukaryotic histones. Histone proteins are among the most highly conserved proteins in eukaryotes, emphasizing their important role in the biology of the nucleus"
Note that the above implies that bacteria can have no sense of identity , but swap genetic (ie DNA) material in all directions . As is observed . An offshoot expressing all the possibilities of life .
3.1 Thus , we can use the techniques discussed in
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "The Beauty of the Genetic Code" 22 Feb 2010
3.2 These have been refined for use in the Gulf Oil Spill .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Mexican Gulf Oils Spill" 10 Sep 2010
Archaea bacteria can be used to probe the Histone Code , then usable bits can be stitched or expressed .
Some intriguing corollaries :
1. Humans with no diabetesII and very good natural long-term memories should patent their skin bacteria and sell them .
2. Proven and benchmarked PTSD individuals will have a marketable commodity .
3. Genealogy will become really important . Many mental problems (like schizophrenia ) can be reclassified as Epigenetic disorders . It has been shown that the methylation can come equally from the male or female for at least three generations. Thus the patients can now blame their Great-grand parents , grand parents or parents . This should ease the load on the parents , as most of the others should be safely dead .
4. Future Genealogy : Equally , present living progenitors would be anxious to avoid future blame and law-suits that they are not the source of the epigenetic handicap . A lawyer's paradise . Contracts do not void gross negligence . An interesting time for large , inherited estates . And the State will want it's share of health costs , as well . The mind boggles .
5. Class Action Suits by victims of wars , famines and other mass-traumatic events will become commonplace . See Tobacco . This should be extremely interesting in the case of Global Warming .Eg :The descendants of the victims of the Ethiopia Famine (caused by European atmospheric pollution) will have a class-action against the EU for damages suffered due to epigenetic factors .
6. Very good long-term memories will become commonplace .
7. And so forth
If this is too big a shock to your system , take this chocolate pill .
Dr Gaia will see you soon .
Andre .
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Annexure A
From Wikipedia
Histone
Function
Compacting DNA strands
Histones act as spools around which DNA winds. This enables the compaction necessary to fit the large genomes of eukaryotes inside cell nuclei: the compacted molecule is 40,000 times shorter than an unpacked molecule.
Chromatin regulation
Histones undergo posttranslational modifications which alter their interaction with DNA and nuclear proteins. The H3 and H4 histones have long tails protruding from the nucleosome which can be covalently modified at several places. Modifications of the tail include methylation,acetylation, phosphorylation, ubiquitination, SUMOylation, citrullination and ADP-ribosylation. The core of the histones H2A, H2B and H3 can also be modified. Combinations of modifications are thought to constitute a code, the so-called "histone code".[9][10] Histone modifications act in diverse biological processes such as gene regulation, DNA repair and chromosome condensation (mitosis).[citation needed]
The common nomenclature of histone modifications is:
§ The name of the histone (e.g. H3)
§ The single letter amino acid abbreviation (e.g. K for Lysine) and the amino acid position in the protein
§ The type of modification (Me: methyl, P: phosphate, Ac: acetyl, Ub: ubiquitin)
So H3K4me1 denotes the monomethylation of the 4th residue (a lysine) from the start (i.e., theN-terminal) of the H3 protein.
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Annexure B
From Wikipedia
Histone methylation
Histone methylation is the modification of certain amino acids in a histone protein by the addition of one, two, or three methyl groups. In the cell nucleus, DNA is wound around histones. Methylation and demethylation of histones turns the genes in DNA "on" and "off", respectively, either by loosening their tails, thus, allowing transcription factors and other proteins to access the DNA or by encompassing their tails around the DNA, thus, restricting access to the DNA.
Function
This modification alters the properties of the nucleosome and affects its interactions with other proteins.
§ Histone methylation is generally associated with transcriptional repression.
§ However, methylation of some lysine and arginine residues of histones results in transcriptional activation. Examples include methylation of lysine 4 of histone 3 (H3K4), and arginine (R) residues on H3 and H4.
Demethylation
For many years histone methylation was thought to be a permanent modification. Very recently two families of histone demethylating enzymes were discovered.
§ The first was Lysine Specific Demethylase 1 (LSD1) which is an flavin-dependentmonoamine oxidase which can demethylate mono- and di-methylated lysines, specifically histone 3, lysines 4 and 9 (H3K4 and H3K9). This enzyme cannot demethylate tri-methylated lysines and for a short while it was thought that tri-methylated lysines may indeed be permanent modifications.
§ In late 2005 the Jumonji domain-containing (JmjC) histone demethylases were discovered which are able to demethylate mono-, di-, or tri-methylated lysines thereby disproving the theory that histone methylation is permanent once and for all. Although this conclusion has since come into question.[1] Two specific JmjC histone demethylases are PHF8 andKIAA1718.
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Friday, January 06, 2012
Make your own MetaMaterial .
Make your own MetaMaterial
Andre Willers
8 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
Design and make your own metamaterials using off-the-shelf nano-particles and DNA bonding ,
some knowledge of chaos-theory will be handy .
Discussion :
See :
1.“DNA bonded crystals herald new chemistry” , NewScientist 22 Oct 2011 p20]
2.”Science:DOI.10.1126/Science.1210493”
This is test-tube stuff , and can be done in any home or school lab .
The Algorithm:
1.Nano-particles are substituted for atoms . Gold , silver , platinum , buckyballs ,etc
2.Attach them to DNA with single-strand DNA strings sticking out . These substitute for normal hydrogen , covalent etc bonds .
3.Mix and match . Complementary single-strand DNA's will bind , resulting in a metamaterial compounds in a chaotic fashion .
4.Treat this like any normal compound in analysis and refinement .
Voila!
Exotic compounds on which the whole armoury of conventional chemistry can be focussed .
Some possibilities :
1.Proper high energy batteries .
2.Invisibility cloaks at EM and chemical level .
3.High temperature superconductors .(Doping!)
4.Bio-electronic interfaces at molecular and cellular level .
Real-time programmable hormones .
5.Real-time programmable catalysts .
6.Real-time programmable immune-system interfaces .
7.Real-time progammable epigenetic interfaces .Practical immortality .
8.A simple , pre-programmed telomere extender is theoretically possible .
A Longevity Elixir can thus be be developed with even simple tools .
The list is literally endless . It has no upper bound on the number of existing “atomic” elements .
Automated systems :
This would be ideal for already developed automated invention systems .
“Adam-and-Eve” setups , labs on a chip , etc .
Existing quantum theory is simply not up to handling calculations of this complexity in real-time .
Designer systems are quite a bit further down the line .
Back to the test-tube .
The good old days , when a lucky discovery can make you a billionaire .
Happy hunting !
Andre
Andre Willers
8 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
Design and make your own metamaterials using off-the-shelf nano-particles and DNA bonding ,
some knowledge of chaos-theory will be handy .
Discussion :
See :
1.“DNA bonded crystals herald new chemistry” , NewScientist 22 Oct 2011 p20]
2.”Science:DOI.10.1126/Science.1210493”
This is test-tube stuff , and can be done in any home or school lab .
The Algorithm:
1.Nano-particles are substituted for atoms . Gold , silver , platinum , buckyballs ,etc
2.Attach them to DNA with single-strand DNA strings sticking out . These substitute for normal hydrogen , covalent etc bonds .
3.Mix and match . Complementary single-strand DNA's will bind , resulting in a metamaterial compounds in a chaotic fashion .
4.Treat this like any normal compound in analysis and refinement .
Voila!
Exotic compounds on which the whole armoury of conventional chemistry can be focussed .
Some possibilities :
1.Proper high energy batteries .
2.Invisibility cloaks at EM and chemical level .
3.High temperature superconductors .(Doping!)
4.Bio-electronic interfaces at molecular and cellular level .
Real-time programmable hormones .
5.Real-time programmable catalysts .
6.Real-time programmable immune-system interfaces .
7.Real-time progammable epigenetic interfaces .Practical immortality .
8.A simple , pre-programmed telomere extender is theoretically possible .
A Longevity Elixir can thus be be developed with even simple tools .
The list is literally endless . It has no upper bound on the number of existing “atomic” elements .
Automated systems :
This would be ideal for already developed automated invention systems .
“Adam-and-Eve” setups , labs on a chip , etc .
Existing quantum theory is simply not up to handling calculations of this complexity in real-time .
Designer systems are quite a bit further down the line .
Back to the test-tube .
The good old days , when a lucky discovery can make you a billionaire .
Happy hunting !
Andre
Monday, January 02, 2012
Genghis Khan and Ostrum.
Genghis Khan and Ostrum
Andre Willers
2 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
The Steppe can be seen as a Commons , analogous to a fishing bank or aquifer .
A Tragedy of the Commons ensues when resources are consumed faster than the Commons can replenish them and humans scramble for the scraps .
Genghis Khan created the Yasa , which was basically a recipe for breaking out of the tragedy of the Commons . But also a detailed , step-by-step manual on how to weld nomads together .
The Yasa is essentially the Ostrum Principles , with secret additions .
Discussion:
Surviving fragments of the Yasa (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasa ) can easily be matched to the Ostrum principles as set out below (Appendix A) , except for problems with Ostrum Principle number 8 .
Why only surviving fragments of the Yasa?
1.Large parts of the Yasa was kept secret . Hence the Chinese suspicion that these meme's targeted everyone except Tibet . Note extremely large transfers of wealth from China to Tibetan Lamasaries during Mongol reign of China . One of the main causes of the Ming rebellion .
2.Because the Ming Chinese assiduously tracked down and destroyed any full copies of such a pernicious recipe , culminating in the occupation of Tibet and the purging of the Lamasary's libraries . (China always blamed Tibet for the Mongols , because of the Tibetan empire circa 800 – 1100 AD and their propensity for meme-warfare .)
Note that a Buddhist can gain merit by fighting and killing Demons , said Demons being defined as such by the Hierarchy . See the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
So much for their pacifism .
Did Genghis Khan create it all himself ?
Doubtful . He was an extremely intelligent individual who made his own rules , but then stuck to them .
Hence the Yasa . I do not know of any appeal process , except to Genghis himself .
But he used all and any advisors .
Were there Mongol lawyers ?
A valid question , since in early stages of the Ostrum process there is not much room for lawyers .
Conflict resolution is done by local structures (see paras 3,4,5,6 in Appendix A)
Can the Yasa be reconstructed ?
Yes , the non-secret parts have already been reconstructed in the Ostrum principles .
But I doubt that Ms Ostrum need to be concerned that some ancient Ming secret society will target her .
Unless , of course , she has a full copy of the Yasa . I doubt if anyone who has such a copy is safe .
One can graft on memes from Gang-cultures (eg Bloods , Crypts , etc) or Nazi memes to get an approximation , but the noosphere has built up a hard-won immunity to these memes .
This means that the full Yasa would be fairly innocuous by today's terms . But it would still be potent after a collapse of civilization (ie Tragedy of the Commons) . The originators would have known this , and hidden it .
Hiding things in Deep Time has it's own constraints . A hole in the ground does not suffice . The memes have to be decoded . Several levels of hiding are indicated . Admiral He found and exterminated most in the Malaysian archipelagoes and Indian continent .
Ethiopia remains . Where religions go to die or be reborn .
I would look in Ethiopia for a full copy of the Yasa .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Mongols of the Serengeti.” Mar 2008 . They must have known about the Serengeti . A detachment with a Yasa copy could have sneaked through , secreted it . Their descendants are probably still there , traceable by genetic analysis .
Oh shit !
The meme might have been activated , looking at the history of the various Mahdi's in the Sudan .
Islamic fundamentalism stems directly from there .
Some serious inquiry is in order .
History can be a bit too exciting .
Andre
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Appendix A
“ Ostrom identifies eight "design principles" of stable local common pool resource management:[10]
1. Clearly defined boundaries (effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties;
2. Rules regarding the appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions; (Equal sharing of debts and rewards)
3. Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process; (Consensus decisions-no leveraged hierarchies)
4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators; (Policing)
5. A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules; (Opportunity to learn from mistakes )
6. Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access; (Fair and Fast Justice . See how Inquisitorial Justice systems like Chinese , French or Sharia does it.)
7. Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities; (Autonomy within clearly defined levels . Something like a Federation.)
8. In the case of larger common-pool resources,organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level. (Clear and quick relations with others. A potential sticky point with states.)
Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action Ostrom, Elinor, Cambridge University Press, 1990 “
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Andre Willers
2 Jan 2012
Synopsis:
The Steppe can be seen as a Commons , analogous to a fishing bank or aquifer .
A Tragedy of the Commons ensues when resources are consumed faster than the Commons can replenish them and humans scramble for the scraps .
Genghis Khan created the Yasa , which was basically a recipe for breaking out of the tragedy of the Commons . But also a detailed , step-by-step manual on how to weld nomads together .
The Yasa is essentially the Ostrum Principles , with secret additions .
Discussion:
Surviving fragments of the Yasa (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasa ) can easily be matched to the Ostrum principles as set out below (Appendix A) , except for problems with Ostrum Principle number 8 .
Why only surviving fragments of the Yasa?
1.Large parts of the Yasa was kept secret . Hence the Chinese suspicion that these meme's targeted everyone except Tibet . Note extremely large transfers of wealth from China to Tibetan Lamasaries during Mongol reign of China . One of the main causes of the Ming rebellion .
2.Because the Ming Chinese assiduously tracked down and destroyed any full copies of such a pernicious recipe , culminating in the occupation of Tibet and the purging of the Lamasary's libraries . (China always blamed Tibet for the Mongols , because of the Tibetan empire circa 800 – 1100 AD and their propensity for meme-warfare .)
Note that a Buddhist can gain merit by fighting and killing Demons , said Demons being defined as such by the Hierarchy . See the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
So much for their pacifism .
Did Genghis Khan create it all himself ?
Doubtful . He was an extremely intelligent individual who made his own rules , but then stuck to them .
Hence the Yasa . I do not know of any appeal process , except to Genghis himself .
But he used all and any advisors .
Were there Mongol lawyers ?
A valid question , since in early stages of the Ostrum process there is not much room for lawyers .
Conflict resolution is done by local structures (see paras 3,4,5,6 in Appendix A)
Can the Yasa be reconstructed ?
Yes , the non-secret parts have already been reconstructed in the Ostrum principles .
But I doubt that Ms Ostrum need to be concerned that some ancient Ming secret society will target her .
Unless , of course , she has a full copy of the Yasa . I doubt if anyone who has such a copy is safe .
One can graft on memes from Gang-cultures (eg Bloods , Crypts , etc) or Nazi memes to get an approximation , but the noosphere has built up a hard-won immunity to these memes .
This means that the full Yasa would be fairly innocuous by today's terms . But it would still be potent after a collapse of civilization (ie Tragedy of the Commons) . The originators would have known this , and hidden it .
Hiding things in Deep Time has it's own constraints . A hole in the ground does not suffice . The memes have to be decoded . Several levels of hiding are indicated . Admiral He found and exterminated most in the Malaysian archipelagoes and Indian continent .
Ethiopia remains . Where religions go to die or be reborn .
I would look in Ethiopia for a full copy of the Yasa .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Mongols of the Serengeti.” Mar 2008 . They must have known about the Serengeti . A detachment with a Yasa copy could have sneaked through , secreted it . Their descendants are probably still there , traceable by genetic analysis .
Oh shit !
The meme might have been activated , looking at the history of the various Mahdi's in the Sudan .
Islamic fundamentalism stems directly from there .
Some serious inquiry is in order .
History can be a bit too exciting .
Andre
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Appendix A
“ Ostrom identifies eight "design principles" of stable local common pool resource management:[10]
1. Clearly defined boundaries (effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties;
2. Rules regarding the appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions; (Equal sharing of debts and rewards)
3. Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process; (Consensus decisions-no leveraged hierarchies)
4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators; (Policing)
5. A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules; (Opportunity to learn from mistakes )
6. Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access; (Fair and Fast Justice . See how Inquisitorial Justice systems like Chinese , French or Sharia does it.)
7. Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities; (Autonomy within clearly defined levels . Something like a Federation.)
8. In the case of larger common-pool resources,organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level. (Clear and quick relations with others. A potential sticky point with states.)
Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action Ostrom, Elinor, Cambridge University Press, 1990 “
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Itarin Update
Itarin Update .
Andre Willers
2 Jan 2012
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen” Thomas Gray
Synopsis :
You can now buy an iPhone App that helps train the eye to see better by compensating for presbyopia in the retina-brain . See Appendix A below .
Discussion :
The idea has been around since biofeedback became known .
I wrote and successfully used a program “Itarin” (see Appendices D,C,B in chronological order)
It never took off , though I tried in a desultory fashion .
The reasons why not says a lot about our civilization .
Primary reasons:
1.There is tremendous competition from various memes via internet and media .
2.The end-user has to rely on some fairly trustworthy agency (eg FDA) to do the evaluations he cannot .
3.Agencies like these do not even consider ideas coming from outside the academic establishment .
4.The academic establishment does not even consider ideas coming from outside the academic establishment .
5.This leaves only commercial interests pushing for innovation , and only if there is enough money to be made .
6.Even academic innovators get frustrated and go the commercial route .
7.Look at the pricing in Appendix A . It should be cheap , but it is being marketed for all the traffic can bear . The same for vaccines , etc .
8.An ironic example is the cancellation of the Very Large Collider by the US Congress . The unintended consequence was the collapse of the US financial system . All those physicists ended up working for Hedge Funds as “quants” , greatly exacerbating the complexity of the system beyond human control .
9.Exceptions :
9.1Charitable Foundations (Gates , Rockefeller , etc)
9.2The Wright Proof . Incontestable and visible proof .
9.3Ostrum Systems (see http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “The Ostrum Game” Oct 2011)
10.Drivers.
Sadly , all the systems above except the Ostrum system requires a “Driver” . An individual without whom nothing happens . The Boss , the CEO , the Fuehrer , the Vodzh . Etc
Innovation then just swaps bosses .
Except for the Ostrum System . This works by internal self-regulation .
Sigh . There is a teensy-weensy problem in the recovery from a “Tragedy of the Commons” collapse via the Ostrum System . The system can segue into Empire , and the cycle repeats .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Genghis Khan and Ostrum” Jan 2012
On a clear night , you can see forever .
Andre
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Appendix A
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2011/09/29/5814468.htm
App for sore eyes
(New Scientist of 1 Oct 2011 p21 Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
Improve your vision with an app . A system that trains your brain to overcome degrading vision as you age will soon be available as an iPhone app . An iPhone app could teach your brain to overcome ageing's effect on eyesight WE HAVE gotten used to the idea that smartphone apps can substitute for devices like GPS navigation systems or portable music players. But the latest item on the list may come as a surprise: reading glasses.
Early next year, a company called Ucansi will launch GlassesOff, an iPhone app that could help older people shed their reading glasses for at least part of the time?- and may allow others to carry on reading without optical aids for years longer than would otherwise be possible.
The app helps people compensate for deterioration in their eyes' ability to focus on nearby objects by training the brain to process the resulting blurred images. "We're using the brain as glasses," says Uri Polat of Tel Aviv University in Israel, and co-founder of Ucansi.
As we get older, the lenses in our eyes become less elastic, and so can't readily be adjusted to focus on nearby objects. Known as presbyopia, the condition is almost ubiquitous among people in their early fifties and older. In addition to the obvious reading problems, symptoms include tired eyes and headaches.
Polat's software trains users to detect patterns called Gabor patches?- blurry lines created by varying a grey background. In a typical training session, the user fixates on a white circle, which then gives way to a rapid succession of images. Some are blank, but others show Gabor patches at different places on the screen, one of which will appear where the circle was (see diagram).
Users must determine when in the sequence the pattern appeared at the target position. As they become better at the task, the software adapts to alter the orientation of the patterns, place them closer to the target, or speed up the sequence.
At last week's meeting of the Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society in San Francisco, Polat's team described tests of the software that Dennis Levi ran in his lab at the University of California, Berkeley. After 40 training sessions, volunteers averaging 51 years of age showed impressive gains in contrast sensitivity, measured by similar tests with Gabor patches.
This translated into real-world improvements in vision. After training, the volunteers were able to read more than two lines further down an optical chart held 40 centimetres from their eyes?- corresponding to a reduction in "eye age" from 50.5 to 41.9 years. Reading speed increased by about 4 seconds per sentence, which would cut the time to read a page of The New York Times without glasses by an average of 5.3 minutes from the pre-training performance of more than 12 minutes.
As expected, there were no differences in the eyes' ability to focus after the training. "Every single change is in the brain," says Polat.
Although Levi's experiments were run using a PC, the first product will be an iPhone app because of the convenience of the device and its high-quality screen. The cost of the app is expected to be around $95, covering an initial training period of about three months during which users will train for 15 minutes, three times a week. After that there will be a small monthly fee for less-intensive "maintenance" training.
Given that our eyes eventually lose their ability to focus on close objects, the app is unlikely to be a panacea for presbyopia. But Lee Duffner, an opthalmologist in Hollywood, Florida, who serves as a clinical expert for the American Academy of Opthalmology, suggests that it might delay the need to adopt reading glasses. "I think they're probably on to something," he says.
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Appendix B
Itarin v12
Andre Willers
20 May 2010
Synopsis :
Optimization of visual modalities using lenses .
Discussion :
Previous Itarin discussions involved training the normal eye's retinal neural networks to compensate for eye-lens and corneal defects using Itarin v1-v11 . This was useful for about 10 years , but now external lenses have to be used .
Multifocals :
I was handed a pair of multi-focals (after paying a small fortune) , with the blithe assurance that I would adapt to it within about two weeks .
1.This adaptation is by the retina-mind complex .
2.This adaptation is sub-optimal , by definition . A hit-or-miss affair .
What is needed is a theory and a training program .
Theory :
See previous Itarin documentation . But we expand it to include different modalities of retina neural-network processing . One for each set of lenses .
There has been hints of it . Training processed faster and better by alternating glasses and unaided vision .
1.Are the retinal neurons complex enough to handle multiple modalities ?
Yes . See work done on single-neuron recognition of faces .
2.Automatic switching .
Portions of the network would change between modalities with very little training .
This is inherent in the nature of neural networks .
This surfaces as "bleedthrough" . A gestalt effect . All modalities get better .
3.How many modalities are minimum necessary sufficient ?
From previous dimensional systems work , four .
Unaided vision , Multifocal lenses usually includes 2 new focals . An extra pair of cheap reading glasses makes four .
4.Diet .
Initially , the training process would require the formation of extra connections and maybe neurons in the retina-brain . Brain food like essential fatty acids (cod liver oil , flaxseed oil) and perhaps HGH promoters will help .
5.Time required:
Long-term neural potentiation thresholds (about 5 minutes) have to reached and slightly exceeded for optimal effect . The boring bit .
Once a day for about a week .
Then once a month.
Research is needed .
6.Subjective experiences :
Even a short training session gives a feeling of relaxation and stress relief . This is because of unconscious squinting and facial muscle tensing relaxing as vision improves .
Natural vision improves because of "bleedthrough" effect . The training has to be carried through , as this short-term relief will probably lead to relapse of training . A common enough problem . Taper off and have a refresher training session about once a month .
The Training Systems .
1.Each session has to be about 5 minutes per set of glasses (multifocal , reading) and unaided vision (ie normal lenses) .
Fifteen minutes in all . Boring .
2. Itarin v1 to v11 can be used . Some quick results .
3.Itarin v12 .
Populate the screen of a spreadsheet (like Excel) from a master cell (like "B") .
"B" gives the most bang for a buck in terms of visual training (curve , line, corner)
Squash the Column Width ("Format-Column-Autofit Selection") to minimum size .
The Trick : The Modified Owl Maneuvre (MOM) .
1.Look at the centre . Move the center of your gaze in an infinity figure . ("8" on it's side)
2.Do the same with the "8" upright .
3. Do the same with the "8" tilted 45 degrees to the right .
4. Do the same with the "8" tilted 45 degrees to the left .
5.Repeat for five minutes for all 4 (1.25 mins for each rotation)
6.Then repeat for each set of lenses . Use a kitchen timer .
7.That’s it .
You will find items (3 and 4) quite difficult initially .
Why the modified Owl Maneuvre ?
The owl only needs to calibrate two eyes in two dimensions (+) , ie up and down , right and left , as it has nearly no visual defects like astigmatism . An astigmatic owl is a dead owl .
With visual defects , an entity has to have loops around the ends of the crucifix figure. Hence the "8" rotated around at 45 degree angles .
The end result :
You should end up with a unaided visual system suitable for most tasks . The lenses would still be needed for training or tasks at the extremes .
We cannot dispense with the lenses , but can expand the useful boundaries of unaided vision .
Here's looking at you , kid .
Andre
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Appendix C
Itarin 2
Andre Willers
14 May 2007
Synopsis :
Very large amounts of pre-processing is done in the retina by neural networks . These networks are trainable .
See:
“Scientific American” p55 “The Movies in our eyes”.
“Parallel processing in Retina Ganglion Cells” by B. Roska et al. in Journal of Neurophysiology , vol95 p3810-3822 2006
Cellular Neural Network (artificial retina chip) , L Chua , UCAL
www.sciam.com/ontheweb
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Itarin” etc
Discussion:
To those who sneered at Itarin , I take great pleasure in saying :
“I told you so. So wheh !”
Some familiarity with neural networks is assumed .
The Retinal Network consists of :
Rod or Cones to capture light (in a 2 dimensional square )
Two types of dopsins (chemicals sensitive to certain frequencies of light.)
The Neural Network :
1. Input . Bipolar cellbodies of ( at least 10 types ) . Excitatory .
2. Intermediate .Amacrine cell bodies ( at least 27 types , in 10 layers (the plexiform layer) . Inhibitory .
3. Output : Ganglion cell (12 types) to brain .
The output forms a streaming video of each of the 12 pictures (ie contrasts , edges , shadows , highlights,becoming brighter , becoming darker,etc.
This is assembled in the brain .
Data missing or fuzzy in the retina stage cannot be compensated for in the brain (except for context guessing or dithering) .
But , the retinal network can be retrained .
The retinal network is ridiculously overpowered for only rod and/or cone input . Evolutionary , insects , dinosaurs and very early mammals had another dopsin than was receptive to ultra-violet . This was lost by mammals . Birds and insects live in another dimension of colour that enhances their experience of their environment by an order of magnitude . We cannot imagine what it is to see like an insect or bird , as little as a colour-blind person can imagine blue , green or the whole colour spectrum .
During mammal babyhood , as sight is trained , the neural connexions in the retinal neural network (and especially the plexiform layer) are pared away to a very simplified form . But the complex number of neural network analysis layers are retained . The UV analysis can be excised , but to reduce the number of neuronal network layers would necessitate re-evolution of the whole business . This was simply too complex an endeavour for modest gains . So the layers remained .
However , the retina and iris still retain a large number of stem cells .
Retraining the plexiform layer that already has a memory of the shape of a letter would then be a simple matter of shifting “weights” in an already existing neuronal configuration . Itarin can easily compensate for this . ( Distortion due to myopia ,etc)
If the original pattern was distorted by something like astygmatism , then new neuron connexions would have to formed . (There is no original pattern.) This will take longer .
How much longer ?
The visual system has top priority in body . Hence the few cancers in a system loaded with stem cells . Daily for 3 months should do the trick (trimester) .
Top up as needed . The learned system is dual , so alternate with glasses/without glasses .
Metamaterial :
The 10 x 27 plexiform layer is more than sufficient to enable metamaterial and stochastic resonance effects .
Example : Hold the page at an angle to a single-point light . The micron-small elevations of the print will cause slight shadows and highlights , which your eye can recognize as patterns . The reason : the metamaterial effect enables you to see little bumps smaller than the wavelength of the light .
Waving the page slightly will cause stochastic resonance , which biological systems are really good at interpreting . (Look it up.)
This is not trivial , since it means that certain fonts are easier to read than others .
And a book is always better .
An optimal font has not yet been constructed . It would involve shadings and highlights in the letters themselves . A single letter (by inkjet , for example) would be constructed of a bold , delineated left half , a middling half and shaded right half for left-to-right readers .
As it is , you will be able to read better if your reading light is to the left of the page at about a 45 degree angle (If you read left to right)
This is also why reading from the screen or palm-books never took off .
There is no shadow .
And only the Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men .
Andre .
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Appendix D
Itarin Theory
The site for the discerning extropian is
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com
What they said :
“Obvious “ Buddha
“Too much blood between the lines. “ Genghis Khan
“Needs some more dimensions” Gauss
Itarin v9 .
Dated 10 th May 2006
By Andre Willers .
This is voetstoots . Any possible usage is at the user’s risk only .
Do not use the program if in physical , psychological or spiritual trauma .
See Trauma over-write in para’s 4 and 16 below .
What , When , Who , Where and Why ?
Itarin is an anagram of “ITRAIN” . The core program was developed during the period 1994 – 2003 in Cape Town , South Africa , to remedy the increasingly poor vision in the author ( Andre Willers , born 1949 ) caused by increasing age .
See Personal Experience : does it really work ? at the end of this document.
Theory :
This program trains the retina and brain to perceive a sharp image .
This program works primarily via neural-network programming and multi-channel redundancy .
But a number of other factors are involved . See Important points to consider below .
The program:
A character is presented in the center of the screen . This is the focus character . The same character is flashed around the screen as per the parameters of the program . These are the peripheral characters .
The user focuses on the central focus-character only , while the same character is flashed around the screen , but not followed by the eyes . The central focus-character must be seen clearly , as this is the target part of the neural-network . Wear glasses if necessary . The central image must be sharp .
The default setting of the program is that the peripheral character images are in a rotating circle around the central-focus character . See the Owl-Maneuver in para 6 below .
The retina-brain is then retrained to use the extra information supplied by the peripheral character images on the retina to form the perception of the focus-character .
This is the neural-network part .
The multiple images are analogous to multi-channel information transfer . The multiple redundancies in pattern recognition are used to sharpen the end out-put .
The net effect is to train the whole retina to see your critical set of images , even when not wearing glasses .
When not wearing the glasses , all the images , central as well as peripheral , might be fuzzy , but together they give a sharp image to the brain . This is what you see. This is ITARIN .
But read the following :
Important points to consider :
1. Single neurons can do quite sophisticated pattern-recognition . (ie fMRI has shown that recognizing a celebrity faces in humans fires up only one neuron , bees have been trained to recognize human faces ) . Hence , retraining neurons to recognize peripheral retinal patterns to complement the central focus pattern should not strain the system .
2. Stochastic resonance effect :
The neurons co-ordinating the peripheral and focusing patterning neurons will see poor information (eg lack of focus , astigmatism) as random fluctuations in information . Using this optimization method is a deep-rooted , essential mechanism in the body . (Cf foot-soles and balance).
3. Potentiating short-term memory to long-term memory.
A learning-stimulus to a neuron is only translated to long-term memory if the same stimulus is presented after 10 minutes . Before ten minutes , it seems to remain short term memory .
This means that the ideal ITARIN training period should last longer than 10 minutes , but less than 20 minutes .
4 . Furthermore , presentation of a primary trauma-stimulus resets the potentiating mechanism in the neuron .. See Trauma Overwrite in para 16 below .
This is based on experimental evidence .
This means that learning a better way can overwrite previous bad ways .
This is the basis of present interventions using some beta-blockers , VR therapy , psycho-babble analyses , etc .
Here it means that visual systems that were effective for youthful acuity , but no longer cut mustard , can be overridden to compensate for old-age hardware defects in the eye-brain .
An added plus is that poor reading skills due to bad or traumatic training can be painlessly bettered.
5.Reading speed increases.
To be expected . In normal reading , the brain scans the retinal images to the sides , top and bottom of the fovea ( focus point ) . The better the pattern recognition from these areas , the faster the shift in focus can move . Hence an increase in reading speed . There should be a slight increase in comprehension as well , as previous characters are better recognized without retracing the eye-scan.
6.The Owl Maneuver.
Depth effects cannot be really mimicked on a flat screen . But the head can be moved .
Owls increase their depth perception by moving their heads from side-to-side , while keeping their eyes in the same plane (like an Egyptian dancer) . This can be done on the vertical dimension as well . It has the added advantage of reducing tension in the neck-muscles and frontalis muscles . The head should also be moved back and forth to change the focus of the eyes .
This is very relaxing if you spend a long time in front of a screen .
7. Subliminals .
This whole process as described above is essentially subliminal , since the user focuses on central focus-character and does not pay any attention to the peripheral characters . Since only characters ( not words or phrases ) are used , only potentiated time-sigma sequences need to be considered for abuse . Hence the random sequence of characters . The potential for mischief seems limited , especially in an environment of high-density advertisements .
8. Chirp
Humans have powerful recognition systems for patterns in short-term frequency change . Notice the tonal effects in languages , alarms signals in birds and animals . Very old and very smooth . Chirping the cycle presentations in Fibonacci-patterns should tweak powerfully . ( Golden ratio)
8. Learning new alphabets.
Neuronal paring down in childhood means adults have problems learning an alphabets like Greek , Arabaic etc.
If a Latin-alphabet trained person has to learn to read the Greek , Arabic , Chinese , etc writing he has a major problem . But , if the focus character in Itarin is Latin and the peripherals are (say ) Greek , and it is chirped , learning capability can be drastically bettered .
You can learn to use it like a well-educated native (see arguments above ).
Note the argument that a character-set with a long history (like the Roman alphabet , Chinese characters , etc ) have been subject to strong selection pressures to be easily identified in their distinctness by the human eye-brain system . Each set forms an optimally selected group of images as far as edges , curves , lines and other primitive visual elements are concerned .
This is why ASCII chars are used . These are the set of edges , curves , lines , etc that people in the West have trained on since childhood .
9. Sleep.
After an Itarin session , sleep . I have found that the major effects are found after a night’s sleep . The neuronal learning systems have to have a chance to do their thing .
10. Testing
No testing system is included . A self-testing system of this nature is worthless . Either see dramatically better or see your oculist . Also , see the caveats and the potential drawbacks below . The system is surprisingly difficult to misuse , but someone will manage .
11. Underwater.
Humans have trained themselves to see well underwater without artificial aids . See the Thai divers that have trained western children to see clearly underwater without goggles . This can be mimicked in Itarin by showing the focus-character clear and the peripherals as if they underwater .
Try water filled goggles with a air-bubble over the central target ? Research needed .
12. Stem cells
The rim of the iris is pure stem cells . All this activity in the area will have unknown effects on the expression factors controlling the stem-cell genes . I suspect that it will have a rejuvenating effect on the iris and cornea systems . The hippocampus might well be involved , since learned-helplessness is so heavily expressed in visual systems . More research is needed .
13. Colour perception.
I refer to the experiments where it has been shown that speakers of languages ( like English ) , which differentiate between light-blue and light-green , lose this differentiation when put under left-brain processing stress . In other words , the language we speak can even influence the colour we perceive .
Using different lenses for each eye , and Itarin , we should be able to influence colour perception . Inversely , it might help colour blind people . The shades of gray in a person lacking the necessary colour receptors might be trained to perceive the actual colour ( by stimulating the brain-area identified by fMRI )
On the darker side , soldiers with infra-red or ultra-violet sensitive eye-enhancements can be taught to use the new colours .
14 . Rhodopsin stimulated endorphin release (RSER)
Another dark side . Itarin by it’s very nature causes stimulated rhodopsin release . Rhodopsin release stimulates endorphin release . By saving the most successful programs , a user will tend to breed the parameters with the highest endorphin release .
Idoru (super images) have thus far been limited to the human-biosphere . (ie female shape , etc) . Itarin combined with fMRI will enable an automated Idoru generation system . This is a virgin field . Do we really want AE van Vogt’s Rull–type compulsive images ? Can we avoid them ?
15. Nerve Foods.
All this extra activity requires more than normal resources . Energy and nerve foods .
Suggestions are welcome .
16 . Further research on all the above is needed :
ITARIN v9 does not support Chirping or other alphabets than Roman .
Since the visual system is so central in humans , immune-system effects and stress-effects should be explored . It is a non-invasive system to make major alterations in the human nervous system . Since the immune system uses the same synapse-chemistry as the nervous system , this gives us a further method of influencing that .
Persistence of the effect varies . Research needed!
Would it work better with a monocle over the target char and rest natural ? My guess is that it would , the degree depending on the factors above . Research needed .
Diabetes and other degenerative diseases . Effect unknown . The mobilization of the iris’s stem cells might have some effect . Research needed.
Trauma over-write : as far as I know , the system learns new complementary sets of characters , but does not over-write unless some trauma-memory re-initializes the long-term potentiating effect (see para 4 above ) . Do not use the program if in physical , psychological or spiritual trauma . You might run the risk of unlearning .
17. Peripheral vision.
The program should enhance peripheral vision highly above normal . Remember , normal vision is a haphazard affair , not using the information processing capabilities of the eye-brain to anywhere it’s capacity . ITARIN trains edge , curve , and other primitive recognition visuals at the sides of the retina in a systematic way .
18.Spinning balls .
The human eye-brain has had no evolutionary history to force an ability to predict the trajectory of a spinning ball . ( ie it does not have a primitive center for spin trajectories. But we can create one) We can make one that acts at a retina-lower brain level fast enough to be useful in real life . ITARIN can do this easily enough .
At first , put identifiable markers on the balls , spin them at slowly increasing speed and vary thair trajectories as per aerodonamics (ie rule based) . Start with zero spin ( straightforward trajectories ) , then increase spin .
The low-level eye-brain (equivalent to a primitive complex in the brain ) can thus be trained . Later on , the markers on the balls might be removed and the system must work only on the fraction of the trajectory observed .
This brings us to
19. New and Enhanced Primitives.
A primitive is defined as clump of cells in the brain that does certain very basic functions very quickly .
Examples of existing primitives are counting ( 1,2,3) , trajectories , language , core mammalian postures involving domination , submission , co-operation , writing . Without them , the organism cannot function in reality or a society .
Note that all of them involve a visual element that we can influence using some element in ITARIN .
The exception is sound without visuals : radio or Greek chorus or Kabuki ( Voices with masks . Ancient radio).Humans have no primitives for this . A TV show with masked performers should be very unsettling .
Aargh!! This means TV makes lying more easily detectible . Radio only societies ( like the 1920-1940 ones) cannot easily tell if someone is lying because they lack the visual cues . They are more unstable . Hence , Mussolini , Hitler , and Rooseveldt .
Training in existing Trajectories , as well as a new primitive (see para 18 above ) has been shown .
Training in existing languages (lip and facial movements) are rather ho-hum . You do them .
Mammalian postures I think should be a co-operative effort . You do them.
Counting can be improved upon . At present , only idiot-savants seem to have primitives better than 1,2,3 . While limitation of this talent has virtues as far as abstraction is concerned , counting 123 rapidly has sort of reached a sell-by-date . The thing is to ask why . Why don’t we have it ? The answer is , of course , that we do have it . The problem is that we cannot integrate it into our sensorium . And the reason for that was that it was not necessary for our survival . But now it is . This is where ITARIN can help .
Feedback ? Required . I am watching the freeloaders .
20 Sports.
All visual sports can benefit by increasing sharpness of vision and peripheral vision .
Reaction speeds should be higher too , as clutter is cleared up in the visual processing .
The most interesting sport is chess . Since most of the processing in a good chess player’s mind is done on the mind-eye level below conscious perception , just cleaning up some the clutter should improve the player . (It does – AW)
More interesting is to have a chess-board as a visual field , and to have the target the checkmate position , and the start flash at various removes .
This would put a strong bias on the player to make the correct move .
This is also applicable to any sport (like baseball ,rugby , soccer , etc) , where split-second decisions are applicable and the results are based on such complicated factors that steered chaos is the only way to describe it .
Spin primitives ( see para 18) alone should give an unbeatable initial advantage .
After a while , everybody will be doing it and the competitive advantage will disappear .
Personal Experience :
Does it really work ?
Yes .
The answer is that it works for me . Without extensive testing of other people , I cannot give any other answer .
I developed the initial program in 1991 to counteract blurry vision caused by age (I was 42) .
I got glasses , but couldn’t see why all that fancy wetware could not compensate for a relatively mild aberration . So I wrote the first program , and got it right accidentally .
It was supposed to be only a neural network program , but the flashing of the same training character all over the visual field gave rise to the most powerful feature : the multiple , parallel processing of the same character recognized in different parts of the retina . The neural-network trained them to be processed into one brain-image . The redundancy gave a very sharp image . But I didn’t know this until much later .
Initially , I used it without glasses , since I was afraid that otherwise I would be training bad vision .
I used it daily for about 5 mins till about 2001 ( I didn’t know about long-term potentiating then ) . Then , in typical human fashion , I neglected it . No problems for a while.
Till about 2004 (age 45) things went fine , but by middle 2005 I noticed that things were getting blurry. I ran the program , but the improvement was not great . Placebo effect sprang to mind .
Horrors!
Was I wrong ? The whole thing a boondoggle?
I thought , what the hell , tried running it for a few minutes with glasses , then without glasses . The improvement was immediately noticeable , even more so after a night’s sleep .
This caused a deep problem . The program was doing what it supposed to do , but much better than it should . I was not learning to see worse without glasses , but much better . A purely neural-network should not be able to do this .
Luckily , by now I knew about the huge neuronal capacity for pattern recognition . The retina can easily have clumps of neurons trained to recognize the small set (+- 200) of characters all over the retina . Their output can be trained to combine to present a sharp ,processed and cleaned-up image to the brain .
Why release it now ?
I have no pressing need to prove myself or make a lot of money . On the contrary , the knowledge and program is free , and I have to square any misuses with my conscience . I am not a believer in “the end justifies the means “ . It didn’t work for the Jesuits ( who were extreme practitioners ) , or Machiavellians . Human systems are too chaotic .
Blame my nephew , Eben Swart . He highlighted the importance of diversity in the survival of meme-groups important to me . The probability of any small element groupings in a meme-gene discontinium surviving is greater if the diversity is greater .
In other words , diversity is a positive feedback system . An interesting corollary is that systems like empires , globalization , etc are doomed .They are essentially restrictive systems competing with an open-ended positive feedback system .
Therefore it behooves me to release this . Nothing much will change initially , but anybody not using the systems in about 10 to 15 years time will be at a distinct disadvantage .
As far as I can see , it is far too late for things like sustainable development , cutting down on greenhouse-gasses , etc to save the memes on the planet .
Besides which , Gaia depends on humans to save her from the fate of solar over-heating .
In other words , Humans are screwed unless they go the hitech route . If they don’t they are screwed too , as Gaia has reached the end of her adaptability to rising solar temperatures . ( See “Orion , Gaia needs you “)
So , while I under no illusions as far as the probability of survival of any of my gene or meme groupings are concerned , I suppose I can stir a finger or two to promote the survival of anything above the level of an amoeba .
But it is not a very strong urge .
Your choices are simple :
Write your own programs ( the relative sports advantages are great enough to ensure this)
Ask me for the program . This has to be explicit .
Tell me how to send the Itarin.exe via MS . It won’t let me send an exe . Precisely the nannyware I am talking about . But if you humans want it that way…I don’t care .
Yours indifferently
Andre Willers
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Andre Willers
2 Jan 2012
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen” Thomas Gray
Synopsis :
You can now buy an iPhone App that helps train the eye to see better by compensating for presbyopia in the retina-brain . See Appendix A below .
Discussion :
The idea has been around since biofeedback became known .
I wrote and successfully used a program “Itarin” (see Appendices D,C,B in chronological order)
It never took off , though I tried in a desultory fashion .
The reasons why not says a lot about our civilization .
Primary reasons:
1.There is tremendous competition from various memes via internet and media .
2.The end-user has to rely on some fairly trustworthy agency (eg FDA) to do the evaluations he cannot .
3.Agencies like these do not even consider ideas coming from outside the academic establishment .
4.The academic establishment does not even consider ideas coming from outside the academic establishment .
5.This leaves only commercial interests pushing for innovation , and only if there is enough money to be made .
6.Even academic innovators get frustrated and go the commercial route .
7.Look at the pricing in Appendix A . It should be cheap , but it is being marketed for all the traffic can bear . The same for vaccines , etc .
8.An ironic example is the cancellation of the Very Large Collider by the US Congress . The unintended consequence was the collapse of the US financial system . All those physicists ended up working for Hedge Funds as “quants” , greatly exacerbating the complexity of the system beyond human control .
9.Exceptions :
9.1Charitable Foundations (Gates , Rockefeller , etc)
9.2The Wright Proof . Incontestable and visible proof .
9.3Ostrum Systems (see http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “The Ostrum Game” Oct 2011)
10.Drivers.
Sadly , all the systems above except the Ostrum system requires a “Driver” . An individual without whom nothing happens . The Boss , the CEO , the Fuehrer , the Vodzh . Etc
Innovation then just swaps bosses .
Except for the Ostrum System . This works by internal self-regulation .
Sigh . There is a teensy-weensy problem in the recovery from a “Tragedy of the Commons” collapse via the Ostrum System . The system can segue into Empire , and the cycle repeats .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Genghis Khan and Ostrum” Jan 2012
On a clear night , you can see forever .
Andre
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Appendix A
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2011/09/29/5814468.htm
App for sore eyes
(New Scientist of 1 Oct 2011 p21 Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
Improve your vision with an app . A system that trains your brain to overcome degrading vision as you age will soon be available as an iPhone app . An iPhone app could teach your brain to overcome ageing's effect on eyesight WE HAVE gotten used to the idea that smartphone apps can substitute for devices like GPS navigation systems or portable music players. But the latest item on the list may come as a surprise: reading glasses.
Early next year, a company called Ucansi will launch GlassesOff, an iPhone app that could help older people shed their reading glasses for at least part of the time?- and may allow others to carry on reading without optical aids for years longer than would otherwise be possible.
The app helps people compensate for deterioration in their eyes' ability to focus on nearby objects by training the brain to process the resulting blurred images. "We're using the brain as glasses," says Uri Polat of Tel Aviv University in Israel, and co-founder of Ucansi.
As we get older, the lenses in our eyes become less elastic, and so can't readily be adjusted to focus on nearby objects. Known as presbyopia, the condition is almost ubiquitous among people in their early fifties and older. In addition to the obvious reading problems, symptoms include tired eyes and headaches.
Polat's software trains users to detect patterns called Gabor patches?- blurry lines created by varying a grey background. In a typical training session, the user fixates on a white circle, which then gives way to a rapid succession of images. Some are blank, but others show Gabor patches at different places on the screen, one of which will appear where the circle was (see diagram).
Users must determine when in the sequence the pattern appeared at the target position. As they become better at the task, the software adapts to alter the orientation of the patterns, place them closer to the target, or speed up the sequence.
At last week's meeting of the Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society in San Francisco, Polat's team described tests of the software that Dennis Levi ran in his lab at the University of California, Berkeley. After 40 training sessions, volunteers averaging 51 years of age showed impressive gains in contrast sensitivity, measured by similar tests with Gabor patches.
This translated into real-world improvements in vision. After training, the volunteers were able to read more than two lines further down an optical chart held 40 centimetres from their eyes?- corresponding to a reduction in "eye age" from 50.5 to 41.9 years. Reading speed increased by about 4 seconds per sentence, which would cut the time to read a page of The New York Times without glasses by an average of 5.3 minutes from the pre-training performance of more than 12 minutes.
As expected, there were no differences in the eyes' ability to focus after the training. "Every single change is in the brain," says Polat.
Although Levi's experiments were run using a PC, the first product will be an iPhone app because of the convenience of the device and its high-quality screen. The cost of the app is expected to be around $95, covering an initial training period of about three months during which users will train for 15 minutes, three times a week. After that there will be a small monthly fee for less-intensive "maintenance" training.
Given that our eyes eventually lose their ability to focus on close objects, the app is unlikely to be a panacea for presbyopia. But Lee Duffner, an opthalmologist in Hollywood, Florida, who serves as a clinical expert for the American Academy of Opthalmology, suggests that it might delay the need to adopt reading glasses. "I think they're probably on to something," he says.
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Appendix B
Itarin v12
Andre Willers
20 May 2010
Synopsis :
Optimization of visual modalities using lenses .
Discussion :
Previous Itarin discussions involved training the normal eye's retinal neural networks to compensate for eye-lens and corneal defects using Itarin v1-v11 . This was useful for about 10 years , but now external lenses have to be used .
Multifocals :
I was handed a pair of multi-focals (after paying a small fortune) , with the blithe assurance that I would adapt to it within about two weeks .
1.This adaptation is by the retina-mind complex .
2.This adaptation is sub-optimal , by definition . A hit-or-miss affair .
What is needed is a theory and a training program .
Theory :
See previous Itarin documentation . But we expand it to include different modalities of retina neural-network processing . One for each set of lenses .
There has been hints of it . Training processed faster and better by alternating glasses and unaided vision .
1.Are the retinal neurons complex enough to handle multiple modalities ?
Yes . See work done on single-neuron recognition of faces .
2.Automatic switching .
Portions of the network would change between modalities with very little training .
This is inherent in the nature of neural networks .
This surfaces as "bleedthrough" . A gestalt effect . All modalities get better .
3.How many modalities are minimum necessary sufficient ?
From previous dimensional systems work , four .
Unaided vision , Multifocal lenses usually includes 2 new focals . An extra pair of cheap reading glasses makes four .
4.Diet .
Initially , the training process would require the formation of extra connections and maybe neurons in the retina-brain . Brain food like essential fatty acids (cod liver oil , flaxseed oil) and perhaps HGH promoters will help .
5.Time required:
Long-term neural potentiation thresholds (about 5 minutes) have to reached and slightly exceeded for optimal effect . The boring bit .
Once a day for about a week .
Then once a month.
Research is needed .
6.Subjective experiences :
Even a short training session gives a feeling of relaxation and stress relief . This is because of unconscious squinting and facial muscle tensing relaxing as vision improves .
Natural vision improves because of "bleedthrough" effect . The training has to be carried through , as this short-term relief will probably lead to relapse of training . A common enough problem . Taper off and have a refresher training session about once a month .
The Training Systems .
1.Each session has to be about 5 minutes per set of glasses (multifocal , reading) and unaided vision (ie normal lenses) .
Fifteen minutes in all . Boring .
2. Itarin v1 to v11 can be used . Some quick results .
3.Itarin v12 .
Populate the screen of a spreadsheet (like Excel) from a master cell (like "B") .
"B" gives the most bang for a buck in terms of visual training (curve , line, corner)
Squash the Column Width ("Format-Column-Autofit Selection") to minimum size .
The Trick : The Modified Owl Maneuvre (MOM) .
1.Look at the centre . Move the center of your gaze in an infinity figure . ("8" on it's side)
2.Do the same with the "8" upright .
3. Do the same with the "8" tilted 45 degrees to the right .
4. Do the same with the "8" tilted 45 degrees to the left .
5.Repeat for five minutes for all 4 (1.25 mins for each rotation)
6.Then repeat for each set of lenses . Use a kitchen timer .
7.That’s it .
You will find items (3 and 4) quite difficult initially .
Why the modified Owl Maneuvre ?
The owl only needs to calibrate two eyes in two dimensions (+) , ie up and down , right and left , as it has nearly no visual defects like astigmatism . An astigmatic owl is a dead owl .
With visual defects , an entity has to have loops around the ends of the crucifix figure. Hence the "8" rotated around at 45 degree angles .
The end result :
You should end up with a unaided visual system suitable for most tasks . The lenses would still be needed for training or tasks at the extremes .
We cannot dispense with the lenses , but can expand the useful boundaries of unaided vision .
Here's looking at you , kid .
Andre
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Appendix C
Itarin 2
Andre Willers
14 May 2007
Synopsis :
Very large amounts of pre-processing is done in the retina by neural networks . These networks are trainable .
See:
“Scientific American” p55 “The Movies in our eyes”.
“Parallel processing in Retina Ganglion Cells” by B. Roska et al. in Journal of Neurophysiology , vol95 p3810-3822 2006
Cellular Neural Network (artificial retina chip) , L Chua , UCAL
www.sciam.com/ontheweb
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Itarin” etc
Discussion:
To those who sneered at Itarin , I take great pleasure in saying :
“I told you so. So wheh !”
Some familiarity with neural networks is assumed .
The Retinal Network consists of :
Rod or Cones to capture light (in a 2 dimensional square )
Two types of dopsins (chemicals sensitive to certain frequencies of light.)
The Neural Network :
1. Input . Bipolar cellbodies of ( at least 10 types ) . Excitatory .
2. Intermediate .Amacrine cell bodies ( at least 27 types , in 10 layers (the plexiform layer) . Inhibitory .
3. Output : Ganglion cell (12 types) to brain .
The output forms a streaming video of each of the 12 pictures (ie contrasts , edges , shadows , highlights,becoming brighter , becoming darker,etc.
This is assembled in the brain .
Data missing or fuzzy in the retina stage cannot be compensated for in the brain (except for context guessing or dithering) .
But , the retinal network can be retrained .
The retinal network is ridiculously overpowered for only rod and/or cone input . Evolutionary , insects , dinosaurs and very early mammals had another dopsin than was receptive to ultra-violet . This was lost by mammals . Birds and insects live in another dimension of colour that enhances their experience of their environment by an order of magnitude . We cannot imagine what it is to see like an insect or bird , as little as a colour-blind person can imagine blue , green or the whole colour spectrum .
During mammal babyhood , as sight is trained , the neural connexions in the retinal neural network (and especially the plexiform layer) are pared away to a very simplified form . But the complex number of neural network analysis layers are retained . The UV analysis can be excised , but to reduce the number of neuronal network layers would necessitate re-evolution of the whole business . This was simply too complex an endeavour for modest gains . So the layers remained .
However , the retina and iris still retain a large number of stem cells .
Retraining the plexiform layer that already has a memory of the shape of a letter would then be a simple matter of shifting “weights” in an already existing neuronal configuration . Itarin can easily compensate for this . ( Distortion due to myopia ,etc)
If the original pattern was distorted by something like astygmatism , then new neuron connexions would have to formed . (There is no original pattern.) This will take longer .
How much longer ?
The visual system has top priority in body . Hence the few cancers in a system loaded with stem cells . Daily for 3 months should do the trick (trimester) .
Top up as needed . The learned system is dual , so alternate with glasses/without glasses .
Metamaterial :
The 10 x 27 plexiform layer is more than sufficient to enable metamaterial and stochastic resonance effects .
Example : Hold the page at an angle to a single-point light . The micron-small elevations of the print will cause slight shadows and highlights , which your eye can recognize as patterns . The reason : the metamaterial effect enables you to see little bumps smaller than the wavelength of the light .
Waving the page slightly will cause stochastic resonance , which biological systems are really good at interpreting . (Look it up.)
This is not trivial , since it means that certain fonts are easier to read than others .
And a book is always better .
An optimal font has not yet been constructed . It would involve shadings and highlights in the letters themselves . A single letter (by inkjet , for example) would be constructed of a bold , delineated left half , a middling half and shaded right half for left-to-right readers .
As it is , you will be able to read better if your reading light is to the left of the page at about a 45 degree angle (If you read left to right)
This is also why reading from the screen or palm-books never took off .
There is no shadow .
And only the Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men .
Andre .
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Appendix D
Itarin Theory
The site for the discerning extropian is
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com
What they said :
“Obvious “ Buddha
“Too much blood between the lines. “ Genghis Khan
“Needs some more dimensions” Gauss
Itarin v9 .
Dated 10 th May 2006
By Andre Willers .
This is voetstoots . Any possible usage is at the user’s risk only .
Do not use the program if in physical , psychological or spiritual trauma .
See Trauma over-write in para’s 4 and 16 below .
What , When , Who , Where and Why ?
Itarin is an anagram of “ITRAIN” . The core program was developed during the period 1994 – 2003 in Cape Town , South Africa , to remedy the increasingly poor vision in the author ( Andre Willers , born 1949 ) caused by increasing age .
See Personal Experience : does it really work ? at the end of this document.
Theory :
This program trains the retina and brain to perceive a sharp image .
This program works primarily via neural-network programming and multi-channel redundancy .
But a number of other factors are involved . See Important points to consider below .
The program:
A character is presented in the center of the screen . This is the focus character . The same character is flashed around the screen as per the parameters of the program . These are the peripheral characters .
The user focuses on the central focus-character only , while the same character is flashed around the screen , but not followed by the eyes . The central focus-character must be seen clearly , as this is the target part of the neural-network . Wear glasses if necessary . The central image must be sharp .
The default setting of the program is that the peripheral character images are in a rotating circle around the central-focus character . See the Owl-Maneuver in para 6 below .
The retina-brain is then retrained to use the extra information supplied by the peripheral character images on the retina to form the perception of the focus-character .
This is the neural-network part .
The multiple images are analogous to multi-channel information transfer . The multiple redundancies in pattern recognition are used to sharpen the end out-put .
The net effect is to train the whole retina to see your critical set of images , even when not wearing glasses .
When not wearing the glasses , all the images , central as well as peripheral , might be fuzzy , but together they give a sharp image to the brain . This is what you see. This is ITARIN .
But read the following :
Important points to consider :
1. Single neurons can do quite sophisticated pattern-recognition . (ie fMRI has shown that recognizing a celebrity faces in humans fires up only one neuron , bees have been trained to recognize human faces ) . Hence , retraining neurons to recognize peripheral retinal patterns to complement the central focus pattern should not strain the system .
2. Stochastic resonance effect :
The neurons co-ordinating the peripheral and focusing patterning neurons will see poor information (eg lack of focus , astigmatism) as random fluctuations in information . Using this optimization method is a deep-rooted , essential mechanism in the body . (Cf foot-soles and balance).
3. Potentiating short-term memory to long-term memory.
A learning-stimulus to a neuron is only translated to long-term memory if the same stimulus is presented after 10 minutes . Before ten minutes , it seems to remain short term memory .
This means that the ideal ITARIN training period should last longer than 10 minutes , but less than 20 minutes .
4 . Furthermore , presentation of a primary trauma-stimulus resets the potentiating mechanism in the neuron .. See Trauma Overwrite in para 16 below .
This is based on experimental evidence .
This means that learning a better way can overwrite previous bad ways .
This is the basis of present interventions using some beta-blockers , VR therapy , psycho-babble analyses , etc .
Here it means that visual systems that were effective for youthful acuity , but no longer cut mustard , can be overridden to compensate for old-age hardware defects in the eye-brain .
An added plus is that poor reading skills due to bad or traumatic training can be painlessly bettered.
5.Reading speed increases.
To be expected . In normal reading , the brain scans the retinal images to the sides , top and bottom of the fovea ( focus point ) . The better the pattern recognition from these areas , the faster the shift in focus can move . Hence an increase in reading speed . There should be a slight increase in comprehension as well , as previous characters are better recognized without retracing the eye-scan.
6.The Owl Maneuver.
Depth effects cannot be really mimicked on a flat screen . But the head can be moved .
Owls increase their depth perception by moving their heads from side-to-side , while keeping their eyes in the same plane (like an Egyptian dancer) . This can be done on the vertical dimension as well . It has the added advantage of reducing tension in the neck-muscles and frontalis muscles . The head should also be moved back and forth to change the focus of the eyes .
This is very relaxing if you spend a long time in front of a screen .
7. Subliminals .
This whole process as described above is essentially subliminal , since the user focuses on central focus-character and does not pay any attention to the peripheral characters . Since only characters ( not words or phrases ) are used , only potentiated time-sigma sequences need to be considered for abuse . Hence the random sequence of characters . The potential for mischief seems limited , especially in an environment of high-density advertisements .
8. Chirp
Humans have powerful recognition systems for patterns in short-term frequency change . Notice the tonal effects in languages , alarms signals in birds and animals . Very old and very smooth . Chirping the cycle presentations in Fibonacci-patterns should tweak powerfully . ( Golden ratio)
8. Learning new alphabets.
Neuronal paring down in childhood means adults have problems learning an alphabets like Greek , Arabaic etc.
If a Latin-alphabet trained person has to learn to read the Greek , Arabic , Chinese , etc writing he has a major problem . But , if the focus character in Itarin is Latin and the peripherals are (say ) Greek , and it is chirped , learning capability can be drastically bettered .
You can learn to use it like a well-educated native (see arguments above ).
Note the argument that a character-set with a long history (like the Roman alphabet , Chinese characters , etc ) have been subject to strong selection pressures to be easily identified in their distinctness by the human eye-brain system . Each set forms an optimally selected group of images as far as edges , curves , lines and other primitive visual elements are concerned .
This is why ASCII chars are used . These are the set of edges , curves , lines , etc that people in the West have trained on since childhood .
9. Sleep.
After an Itarin session , sleep . I have found that the major effects are found after a night’s sleep . The neuronal learning systems have to have a chance to do their thing .
10. Testing
No testing system is included . A self-testing system of this nature is worthless . Either see dramatically better or see your oculist . Also , see the caveats and the potential drawbacks below . The system is surprisingly difficult to misuse , but someone will manage .
11. Underwater.
Humans have trained themselves to see well underwater without artificial aids . See the Thai divers that have trained western children to see clearly underwater without goggles . This can be mimicked in Itarin by showing the focus-character clear and the peripherals as if they underwater .
Try water filled goggles with a air-bubble over the central target ? Research needed .
12. Stem cells
The rim of the iris is pure stem cells . All this activity in the area will have unknown effects on the expression factors controlling the stem-cell genes . I suspect that it will have a rejuvenating effect on the iris and cornea systems . The hippocampus might well be involved , since learned-helplessness is so heavily expressed in visual systems . More research is needed .
13. Colour perception.
I refer to the experiments where it has been shown that speakers of languages ( like English ) , which differentiate between light-blue and light-green , lose this differentiation when put under left-brain processing stress . In other words , the language we speak can even influence the colour we perceive .
Using different lenses for each eye , and Itarin , we should be able to influence colour perception . Inversely , it might help colour blind people . The shades of gray in a person lacking the necessary colour receptors might be trained to perceive the actual colour ( by stimulating the brain-area identified by fMRI )
On the darker side , soldiers with infra-red or ultra-violet sensitive eye-enhancements can be taught to use the new colours .
14 . Rhodopsin stimulated endorphin release (RSER)
Another dark side . Itarin by it’s very nature causes stimulated rhodopsin release . Rhodopsin release stimulates endorphin release . By saving the most successful programs , a user will tend to breed the parameters with the highest endorphin release .
Idoru (super images) have thus far been limited to the human-biosphere . (ie female shape , etc) . Itarin combined with fMRI will enable an automated Idoru generation system . This is a virgin field . Do we really want AE van Vogt’s Rull–type compulsive images ? Can we avoid them ?
15. Nerve Foods.
All this extra activity requires more than normal resources . Energy and nerve foods .
Suggestions are welcome .
16 . Further research on all the above is needed :
ITARIN v9 does not support Chirping or other alphabets than Roman .
Since the visual system is so central in humans , immune-system effects and stress-effects should be explored . It is a non-invasive system to make major alterations in the human nervous system . Since the immune system uses the same synapse-chemistry as the nervous system , this gives us a further method of influencing that .
Persistence of the effect varies . Research needed!
Would it work better with a monocle over the target char and rest natural ? My guess is that it would , the degree depending on the factors above . Research needed .
Diabetes and other degenerative diseases . Effect unknown . The mobilization of the iris’s stem cells might have some effect . Research needed.
Trauma over-write : as far as I know , the system learns new complementary sets of characters , but does not over-write unless some trauma-memory re-initializes the long-term potentiating effect (see para 4 above ) . Do not use the program if in physical , psychological or spiritual trauma . You might run the risk of unlearning .
17. Peripheral vision.
The program should enhance peripheral vision highly above normal . Remember , normal vision is a haphazard affair , not using the information processing capabilities of the eye-brain to anywhere it’s capacity . ITARIN trains edge , curve , and other primitive recognition visuals at the sides of the retina in a systematic way .
18.Spinning balls .
The human eye-brain has had no evolutionary history to force an ability to predict the trajectory of a spinning ball . ( ie it does not have a primitive center for spin trajectories. But we can create one) We can make one that acts at a retina-lower brain level fast enough to be useful in real life . ITARIN can do this easily enough .
At first , put identifiable markers on the balls , spin them at slowly increasing speed and vary thair trajectories as per aerodonamics (ie rule based) . Start with zero spin ( straightforward trajectories ) , then increase spin .
The low-level eye-brain (equivalent to a primitive complex in the brain ) can thus be trained . Later on , the markers on the balls might be removed and the system must work only on the fraction of the trajectory observed .
This brings us to
19. New and Enhanced Primitives.
A primitive is defined as clump of cells in the brain that does certain very basic functions very quickly .
Examples of existing primitives are counting ( 1,2,3) , trajectories , language , core mammalian postures involving domination , submission , co-operation , writing . Without them , the organism cannot function in reality or a society .
Note that all of them involve a visual element that we can influence using some element in ITARIN .
The exception is sound without visuals : radio or Greek chorus or Kabuki ( Voices with masks . Ancient radio).Humans have no primitives for this . A TV show with masked performers should be very unsettling .
Aargh!! This means TV makes lying more easily detectible . Radio only societies ( like the 1920-1940 ones) cannot easily tell if someone is lying because they lack the visual cues . They are more unstable . Hence , Mussolini , Hitler , and Rooseveldt .
Training in existing Trajectories , as well as a new primitive (see para 18 above ) has been shown .
Training in existing languages (lip and facial movements) are rather ho-hum . You do them .
Mammalian postures I think should be a co-operative effort . You do them.
Counting can be improved upon . At present , only idiot-savants seem to have primitives better than 1,2,3 . While limitation of this talent has virtues as far as abstraction is concerned , counting 123 rapidly has sort of reached a sell-by-date . The thing is to ask why . Why don’t we have it ? The answer is , of course , that we do have it . The problem is that we cannot integrate it into our sensorium . And the reason for that was that it was not necessary for our survival . But now it is . This is where ITARIN can help .
Feedback ? Required . I am watching the freeloaders .
20 Sports.
All visual sports can benefit by increasing sharpness of vision and peripheral vision .
Reaction speeds should be higher too , as clutter is cleared up in the visual processing .
The most interesting sport is chess . Since most of the processing in a good chess player’s mind is done on the mind-eye level below conscious perception , just cleaning up some the clutter should improve the player . (It does – AW)
More interesting is to have a chess-board as a visual field , and to have the target the checkmate position , and the start flash at various removes .
This would put a strong bias on the player to make the correct move .
This is also applicable to any sport (like baseball ,rugby , soccer , etc) , where split-second decisions are applicable and the results are based on such complicated factors that steered chaos is the only way to describe it .
Spin primitives ( see para 18) alone should give an unbeatable initial advantage .
After a while , everybody will be doing it and the competitive advantage will disappear .
Personal Experience :
Does it really work ?
Yes .
The answer is that it works for me . Without extensive testing of other people , I cannot give any other answer .
I developed the initial program in 1991 to counteract blurry vision caused by age (I was 42) .
I got glasses , but couldn’t see why all that fancy wetware could not compensate for a relatively mild aberration . So I wrote the first program , and got it right accidentally .
It was supposed to be only a neural network program , but the flashing of the same training character all over the visual field gave rise to the most powerful feature : the multiple , parallel processing of the same character recognized in different parts of the retina . The neural-network trained them to be processed into one brain-image . The redundancy gave a very sharp image . But I didn’t know this until much later .
Initially , I used it without glasses , since I was afraid that otherwise I would be training bad vision .
I used it daily for about 5 mins till about 2001 ( I didn’t know about long-term potentiating then ) . Then , in typical human fashion , I neglected it . No problems for a while.
Till about 2004 (age 45) things went fine , but by middle 2005 I noticed that things were getting blurry. I ran the program , but the improvement was not great . Placebo effect sprang to mind .
Horrors!
Was I wrong ? The whole thing a boondoggle?
I thought , what the hell , tried running it for a few minutes with glasses , then without glasses . The improvement was immediately noticeable , even more so after a night’s sleep .
This caused a deep problem . The program was doing what it supposed to do , but much better than it should . I was not learning to see worse without glasses , but much better . A purely neural-network should not be able to do this .
Luckily , by now I knew about the huge neuronal capacity for pattern recognition . The retina can easily have clumps of neurons trained to recognize the small set (+- 200) of characters all over the retina . Their output can be trained to combine to present a sharp ,processed and cleaned-up image to the brain .
Why release it now ?
I have no pressing need to prove myself or make a lot of money . On the contrary , the knowledge and program is free , and I have to square any misuses with my conscience . I am not a believer in “the end justifies the means “ . It didn’t work for the Jesuits ( who were extreme practitioners ) , or Machiavellians . Human systems are too chaotic .
Blame my nephew , Eben Swart . He highlighted the importance of diversity in the survival of meme-groups important to me . The probability of any small element groupings in a meme-gene discontinium surviving is greater if the diversity is greater .
In other words , diversity is a positive feedback system . An interesting corollary is that systems like empires , globalization , etc are doomed .They are essentially restrictive systems competing with an open-ended positive feedback system .
Therefore it behooves me to release this . Nothing much will change initially , but anybody not using the systems in about 10 to 15 years time will be at a distinct disadvantage .
As far as I can see , it is far too late for things like sustainable development , cutting down on greenhouse-gasses , etc to save the memes on the planet .
Besides which , Gaia depends on humans to save her from the fate of solar over-heating .
In other words , Humans are screwed unless they go the hitech route . If they don’t they are screwed too , as Gaia has reached the end of her adaptability to rising solar temperatures . ( See “Orion , Gaia needs you “)
So , while I under no illusions as far as the probability of survival of any of my gene or meme groupings are concerned , I suppose I can stir a finger or two to promote the survival of anything above the level of an amoeba .
But it is not a very strong urge .
Your choices are simple :
Write your own programs ( the relative sports advantages are great enough to ensure this)
Ask me for the program . This has to be explicit .
Tell me how to send the Itarin.exe via MS . It won’t let me send an exe . Precisely the nannyware I am talking about . But if you humans want it that way…I don’t care .
Yours indifferently
Andre Willers
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