Mercurial > thoughts
diff org/ideas.org @ 137:8bf12217d0fa
immunoincompatibility.
author | Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu> |
---|---|
date | Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:03:48 -0700 |
parents | 46bc0f596b91 |
children | 98ba603e251a |
line wrap: on
line diff
1.1 --- a/org/ideas.org Sun Sep 07 21:35:52 2014 -0700 1.2 +++ b/org/ideas.org Fri Oct 24 09:03:48 2014 -0700 1.3 @@ -31,6 +31,69 @@ 1.4 getting credit. 1.5 #+end_quote 1.6 1.7 +- immunoincompatibility :: take the human genome, and refactor it so 1.8 + that it doesn't use a particular codon at all. Then remove the 1.9 + support from our ribosomes for that codon. What does this do for 1.10 + us? It makes us immune to almost all viruses! 1.11 + 1.12 +- life cycle :: it's called a cycle, right? So, the thing that repeats 1.13 + itself over and over, right? Not much of a cycle if 1.14 + you don't come back after you die, if you ask me! 1.15 + 1.16 +- car with no blind spots :: use some cameras in the back of the car 1.17 + to augment the rear-view mirror so that you never have to turn 1.18 + around in order to lane change. 1.19 + 1.20 +- partial cell death :: you freeze a set of cells using some cryo 1.21 + protocol and 60% survive. How can this be explained? It seems to 1.22 + me that if the cells are the same, and the conditions 1.23 + homogoneous, then all the cells should either die or 1.24 + live. However, suppose that there is a metabolic cycle that needs 1.25 + to be in a certain phase for the cell to survive. If the cells 1.26 + are asynchronous, then you might end up with some cells dying 1.27 + because there were in the wrong part of their cycle. This implies 1.28 + that you might be able to cryoprotect cells by causing them to 1.29 + enter a certain metabolic mode before freezing. 1.30 + 1.31 +- cryonics color appeal :: perfusate used by cryonics companies should 1.32 + have red food coloring in it. It's just a nice touch so that the 1.33 + cryonics patient looks more life-like than with clear CPAs, and 1.34 + hopefully might get treated with more respect. 1.35 + 1.36 +- paramagnetic CPA :: you take a CPA that can be influenced by 1.37 + magnetic fields so that its degrees of freedom are limited. Then, 1.38 + you release the field, instantaly increasing the size of the 1.39 + state space of the system and dramatically decreasing the 1.40 + temperature enough to plunge the system past homogenous 1.41 + nucleation temperature and directly to the glass transition 1.42 + temperature, creating a doubly unstable glass at much lower CPA 1.43 + concentrations than possible at conventional CPA concentrations. 1.44 + 1.45 +- room temp noodles :: how does the physics of cooking noodles work? 1.46 + Could you use a vacuum instead of heat to force water into the 1.47 + noodle? 1.48 + 1.49 +- personal carbon offset :: feel bad about contribuiting to global 1.50 + warming by using electricity / driving a car? Forget trying to 1.51 + "conserve" or "minimize your carbon footprint". Follow the 1.52 + Platinum rule -- make the world BETTER off than you found it! 1.53 + This would be a small, self contained system that sucks C02 out 1.54 + of the air. It uses electricity, but it's so efficient at 1.55 + removing CO2 that it more than offsets the CO2 produced by even a 1.56 + coal plant to produce that electricity. This way, you can still 1.57 + drive even a gas guzzler, but have a net negative carbon 1.58 + footprint! Maybe something cool could be done with the carbon as 1.59 + well. Use as much electricity as you want, but negate the damage 1.60 + to the enviroment with more technology. 1.61 + 1.62 +- undoing spermogenesis :: with enough sperm, you can derive the 1.63 + donor's entire genome. You gain more confidence in the alleles 1.64 + for a particular gene the more sperm you have. Each additional 1.65 + sperm gives you the same sort of information you'd get flipping a 1.66 + coin and trying to decide whether the coin is H/T of H/H. Is 1.67 + there enough sperm in the the average load for you to be as 1.68 + confident as mitosis? 1.69 + 1.70 - mars life :: we could engineer life that could survive on mars 1.71 (probably some non-vascular photosynthetic 1.72 poikilohydric creature like a lichen) by taking an