Radical thinking

There was a full house for the penultimate HILL lecture about the general election - and a certain jitteriness in the room, on this day before the election itself, which our lecturer sought to allay.

The media is enjoying the narrative that the election is too close to call.  However, statistical analysis of the polls (by Nate Silver and others) suggests it's not quite that close, and that Obama should win. 

In my head I feel somewhat reassured, but my heart is superstitious so just in case I'm going to keep my fingers crossed until the results are squarely in.  This makes typing the blog rather challenging, so I will hand over to the Man who has also been to a lecture today...

The Man adds...the lecture I attended was part of the NANOvember (gedit?) public lecture series at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.  Around 100 people (mainly seniors) gathered to listen to Dr Andres Melendez discuss how nanotechnology could be used to halt the aging process.

The argument goes as this: aging is caused (at least in part) by free radicals (highly reactive ions) and slowed by antioxidants. Studies where people have taken large amounts of Vitamins A and E have been unsuccessful in prolonging life because the antioxidant has to be targetted. Therefore the aim is to develop nanoparticles that release antioxidants in the exact location where free radicals are being generated.

The idea seems fairly speculative at this stage. The only study cited was one where feeding rats with olive oil and buckyballs doubled their lifespan. But Dr Melendez added that feeding the rats just olive oil had almost the same effect. As did putting them on a low calorie diet...

There is also a proposal for us all to have a microchip implanted that can then continuously transmit all our body's parameters and state of health over the internet to a physician. Clearly there would have to be some pretty strong data privacy safeguards.