ecoli

Then I guess the question is - does the flow of ionic current have a connection to brain waves? Such as alpha, beta, etc. Thank you for the link

Basically yes, but not exclusively. Coordination of chemical, electrical synapses, as well as action potential in individual axons result in neural oscillations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_oscillation

 

 

Strap a bomb to the car and blow it up whenever.

Or better yet, a pizza and deliver it here.

Fyi, one of the authors of the paper is answering questions in this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/5m11tu/new_study_confirms_that_global_warming_never/

Neuronal synapses can produce currents in either direction, so the electromagnetic field associated with neuronal activity cannot be said to be produced by DC or AC, which typically refer to engineered systems. Perhaps variable current is the most accurate.

Histidine is an amino acid with natural affinity for nickel, so peptides with polyhistadine residues (i.e. introduced with the his tag). The wording of your question (what you mean by 'natural') is ambiguous.

Electrical synapses exist in the brain, which are neurons linked by gap junctions. However, electrons aren't transferred directly, rather ions flow through gap junction channels.

For details and diagrams, see:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11164/

When someone becomes religious when he's dying, is that because he's afraid of dying and wants to live forever?

If that is a belief that your immortal soul will persist forever in heaven...? Yes, I'd call that living forever.

Implicit in this statement and the thread title is the idea that theology lacks the critical thinking that is the hallmark of science. It's not an uncommon meme here. The faithful seem content to accept science until they perceive it to contradict this or that article of their faith and the facts be damned.

That's a bit harsh. "Natural philosophy" was once the domain of theologians only. That modern evangelicals are not great at critical thinking has more to do with education than 'religiosity' itself. We shouldn't be discouraging a group/person trying to do better!

I tie it to a desire to experience certain events more than a desire to survive some arbitrary number of days.

 

By example, I don't crave another 100 or 200 or even 300 years, but do desire seeing my kids graduate, fall in love, do interesting things with their lives, meet my grandchildren, watch humanity break its addiction to fossil fuels, eradicate cancer and Alzheimer's, move beyond a scarcity based economy, expand farther into the cosmos, and similar things.

 

I want to experience those things far more than I want to count more cycles around our sun, infinite or otherwise.

 

For somebody who is in depression and saying so on Internet forum/profile, and receiving comments like above, there is no difference..

I would never encourage someone to commit suicide...and since I'm the one advocating for everyone's immortal here, interpreting my comment that way is, I believe, disingenuous.

I have lost several friends to suicide, which has contributed to my beliefs that people should strive for immortality. And, no, talking about immortality with my one friend who was interested in this possibility did not drive him to it.

I don't read it this way at all. One can simultaneously have a desire to live longer than they already have as of today without in parallel wishing to live indefinitely.

I agree in principle, yet people are still reluctant to put an upper bound on how long they think is really enough life and then commit to calling it quits after that time (given a hypothetical scenario where you can live without degrading the quality of life/health). This suggests to me an innate preference for indefinitely prolonging life.

...

Of course this is an argument based on extrapolation, I'm not pretending otherwise.

You didn't ask if people wanted to live longer than currently possible by a few decades or even a couple of centuries. You asked why people who are ok with dying eventually don't just kill themselves right now.

The implication being that people generally have a preference for life over death over any time scale.

Forever is a very, very long time. When people say they want to live forever, I think they are considering living for centuries and not considering way the experience of living for the next ten billion years would be like.

 

I don't imagine that would be particularly pleasant, frankly, and so I'm not interested.

If your brain can't comprehend living for billions of years, then you can't possibly imagine that it will be unpleasant. So you've talked your way out of your own argument.

And even then... so what? I'm not taking away the option of calling it quits after a few centuries, I'm arguing that you guys eagerly looking forward to death after less than a century (and possibly tomorrow) is a product of social brainwashing.

When asking the Gods for eternal life, it's a big mistake if you forget to ask for eternal youth as well. Tithonous could tell you about that.

I haven't assigned an arbitrary upper limit, just a burning candle, if it happens to be a short one, long one or is extinguished early is not for me to decide, just fate really.

... If I was hit by the truck though, I would rather that be it, instead of getting up the next day for my original reasons of immortality not being for me.

DNA sequencing technology is changing rapidly. The "standard method" is Sanger sequencing which would require a functional molecular lab. Most next generation methods would be cost and expertise prohibitive for a layperson with no training. One technique that may be approaching user friendliness attainable by a skilled citizen scientist is the Oxford Nanopore minION sequencer - but this still requires access to pipettes and for paired end sequencing, a thermocycler.

OP seems to be asking about codon translation, not about sequencing. The algorithmic analogy would be a hash function. The 'God' part of the question is confusing, seems nonsensical so I will ignore it.

Electromagnetic radiation is standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation

ecoli, I don't want to live forever, not to say I don't want to live. I want to experience life while I have it, go through what I have been given while I can and then be happy knowing my atoms will merge their ways into all sorts of organisms and minerals etc C; (yes I am aware it's kind of happening on a small scale now).

So what arbitrary upper bound have you assigned to life?

For example, lets say you can backup your consciousness today and download it into a brand new, identical body tomorrow after you got hit by a truck crossing the street? Would you go for that or have you decided that you've lived enough to this point?

I would seriously suggest doing some research into the results that modern artificial neural networks are getting right now. They're loosely modeled on the networks of neurons in the brain, and can be taught to perform tasks that were thought to be difficult or impossible for machines to do on a human level.

* very loosely. Attempts to obtain AI by closely emulating brain behavior have been less successful than developing theory, independently, for NNs.

To people in this thread who claim they do not want to live forever... what is stopping you from killing yourself right now?

You can use wolframalpha to visualize the function, fyi:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=((x(sqrt(x%2B2)))%2Fsqrt(x%2B1))-x

I'm just saying persuasive politicians can and will do this no matter what side of the aisle they are on. Trump happens to be really good at it.

If anyone wants a pretty good explanation of why conservatives won't be swayed by a debate, this book is a pretty good read,

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Republican-Brain-Science-Science-Reality/dp/1118094514

 

Much of the current research us discussed, and debating or arguing with conservatives tends to strengthen their beliefs, not moderate them. I struggle with this, because I tend to focus on evidence. Presenting good evidence is a losing strategy in this case though.

This is human nature. Republicans are particularly stubborn on climate change, but it is hard for anyone to actually change their mind.

Then use your votes, not your bullets. If your arguments cannot convince enough people to vote the same way you do, then perhaps you need better arguments or to alter your position.

I meant gun owners perceive Obama as taking away an unalienable right to bear arms... which is untrue except at the margins.

I would personally never recommend taking up arms against a legitimate gov't, but when human rights are assailed by a tyrannical force, and diplomacy fails, taking up arms is an acceptable recourse. This is how it was done in 1776 (the musical).

ESS is based on game theory: the most stable strategies are likely to be selected.

Consider the case of a pathogen infecting a host. Being highly virulent is a bad/unstable strategy for a pathogen that wants to use the human body to replicate because if the host gets killed, the pathogen cannot replicate. Similarly, a hyperactive immune response to pathogen is bad from the host perspective because sustained immune responses can result in tissue damage, autoimmunity and death of the host. Therefore it is in the best interest of both parties to adapt to stable relationships; the host gives up some of its fitness to the pathogen, the pathogen gives up some of its virulence (and thus replication potential) both both organisms get to persist.

This kind of thing is pretty common in biology, particularly in infectious diseases.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17943121

The reason ESS probably evolve in biology (unlike in classical game theory where its people making decisions) is that cheaters get punished when destabilizing systems reaching a new 'equilibrium' (death) and therefore only stable equilibria survive.

One interesting side effect is that modern medicine and social behaviors (air travel, etc) could be perturbing these stable equilibria in unintended ways, resulting in new emerging disease.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIID3Bottlenecks.shtml

An interesting interview with the WBC by Russel Brand. Probably the best, least offensive way they can be presented: