What We Now
Know
Week of
9/27/05
IN THIS
ISSUE
Science of Cold Heats Up Trust in
Bottles A Flat-Out Success Reader
Feedback
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Science of Cold Heats Upby Brian Wowk,
PhD
Half a century ago, it was discovered that single
cells could survive freezing if protected by a glycerol solution.
Although there have been isolated successes in freezing tissue and
even some organs such as intestines and ovaries, generally success
at freezing organs has been elusive. While it’s commonly believed
that freezing causes cells to burst, this is an urban myth. Slow
cooling actually causes ice to grow between cells, and this ice
disrupts delicate cell-to-cell connections necessary for survival of
organized tissue.
In the early 1980s, Dr. Gregory Fahy
suggested a new approach to low-temperature preservation while
working at the American Red Cross. Instead of freezing during
cooling, special chemicals would make the water inside tissue become
thicker and thicker until at temperatures below -120ºC, it becomes
an unchanging glassy solid. This technology is called
“vitrification”, which means to become glass.
Today Dr. Fahy
works as Chief Scientific Officer at a company called 21st Century
Medicine, where the vitrification approach is beginning to bear
fruit. Last year, he published a paper in the journal
Cryobiology, reporting routine recovery of rabbit kidneys
after cooling them to -45ºC (-50ºF) using vitrification chemicals to
prevent freezing. At the 2005 meeting of the Society for Cryobiology
held in Minneapolis in July, he also reported long-term survival of
a transplanted kidney cooled all the way to -135ºC (-211ºF) and
back. Banking of human organs at those temperatures could
revolutionize the field of transplantation.
Vitrification was
initially plagued by problems of chemical toxicity and an associated
need for high cooling rates. However, within the last decade new
preservation solutions have been devised for vitrification that are
much less toxic and more effective at preventing ice formation at
slow cooling rates. A growing variety of tissues can now be
reversibly vitrified—including pancreatic islets, ovarian tissue,
skin, vascular grafts, and now kidneys.
One organ that
doesn’t get much attention in cryobiology is the brain. Partially
successful brain freezing experiments were first reported in a 1966
issue of Nature by Isamu Suda. Follow-up work demonstrated
weak recovery of brain electrical activity from a cat even after
seven years of frozen storage. Experiments such as these helped
motivate the nascent field of cryonics—the practice of freezing
terminally ill people after the heart stops in hope of future
resuscitation.
Cryonicists argue that adequate brain
preservation is the minimum requirement for cryonics to work since
all other tissues can theoretically be regenerated around the brain
with sufficiently advanced control over growth and development.
Until relatively recently, direct evidence of good brain
preservation in cryonics was lacking. The first study showing good
structural preservation of brain tissue using contemporary cryonics
methods was privately published by Mike Darwin and collaborators in
1995.
In 2004, the cryonics organization Alcor Life
Extension Foundation published a paper in the Annals of the New
York Academy of Sciences, showing for the first time that a
whole brain could be vitrified. Their brain results were obtained
using the same chemical solution, called M22, that 21st Century
Medicine used in their kidney preservation experiments. Unlike
Suda’s experiments, no functional measurements were made. However,
excellent preservation of brain cell structure without ice damage
was documented after rewarming.
Currently, large animals can
be held in “suspended animation” near 0ºC (+32ºF) for up to five
hours and still recover. Reversible brain preservation at very low
temperatures is a necessary first step to extend this time
indefinitely. Demonstrated structural preservation of the brain by
vitrification is promising, but much work remains to be done.
In the meantime, cryonicists look toward advanced
nanotechnology for repairing cellular and biochemical damage that
still happens with today’s preservation technology. Nanotechnology
expert Ralph Merkle has argued that cryonics is at worst a
cryptography problem that involves inferring and restoring a healthy
tissue state based on detailed analysis of preserved injured tissue.
This only becomes impossible when so much information is lost due to
injury that “information-theoretic death” has occurred, and there is
inadequate information to restore the original patient. This
perspective suggests that almost everyone declared dead today
doesn’t really die until several hours later.
In August,
Alcor announced that they will begin using M22 vitrification
solution to attempt to vitrify all their cryonics cases. Although
the procedure is still far from reversible, it appears that M22 will
preserve more cell structure and biochemistry than previously
possible. Under ideal circumstances, the process can be started
within the first 4 to 6 minutes after the heart stops, allowing the
brain to remain viable by contemporary criteria during the early
stages of the procedure.
Alcor members typically arrange for
cryonics through life insurance. More information is available on
the Alcor Foundation website http://www.alcor.org.
Dr. Brian Wowk is
a Senior Scientist at 21st Century Medicine, Inc., in Rancho
Cucamonga, California (http://www.21cm.com). He was originally trained as
a medical physicist, but has spent most of the last decade working
on chemical and engineering problems of transplantable tissue
preservation. He has been a close observer of the controversial
field of cryonics for two decades.
*** Brian Wowk is another of the fascinating
speakers at the 2005 Eris Conference—together with other scientific
visionaries like Aubrey de Grey, the “Prophet of Immortality,”
aviation pioneer Paul MacCready, and robotics expert Robert
Doornick… with luminaries like well-known Congressman Ron Paul
(R-Texas)… and oddballs like Art Goodtimes, first and only Green
county commissioner in the Inner Basin West, professed poet,
political activist, and organizer of the annual Telluride Mushroom
Festival.
The wealth of ingenious ideas and creative thoughts
accumulating at the annual conference of Doug Casey’s Eris
Society—now in its 25th year—is second to none. And today, for the
first time ever, you can hear what these outstanding freethinkers
have to say.
Click here to learn more.
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Trust in BottlesWhat kind of investor are you –
the happy-go-lucky, trusting type, or the guarded, overly suspicious
kind? Your answer may have to do less with your upbringing or
personal investment philosophy than with your chemical
makeup.
Swiss researchers from the University of Zurich have
recently found the substance of gullibility: Oxytocin, a hormone
that is known to induce labor in pregnant women, that makes cows
give more milk, and whose levels peak during orgasm. In fact, sex
therapists often warn their clients not to hop into bed too quickly
with a new flame because the generated oxytocin can render them
blind to their lover’s potential character flaws.
In the
study, 200 male university students were asked to use an
oxytocin-containing nasal spray (half of the group received a
placebo). Afterwards, the group was divided into “investors” and
“trustees” and the former were being handed 12 “monetary units” to
invest.
“Investors were given the option of placing none,
one-third, two-thirds or all of their money with the trustee, who
promised to share whatever returns resulted,” the Canadian Globe
and Mail described the test “Nearly half (45 per cent) of the
oxytocin group forked over all of t= heir money, compared with only
one-fifth (21 per cent) of the placebo group.”
The trustees’
trustworthiness, however, was not affected by the oxytocin.
After the “investments” were tripled and the trustees given free
reign to distribute gains as they saw fit, cheating the investors
out of their fair share occurred as often in the oxytocin as in the
placebo group.
To make sure it was really trust and not
merely a willingness to take higher risks that was influenced by the
hormone, the scientists removed the human element and let the
investors make their speculations per computer. Here, both the
oxytocin and the placebo group fared equally well.
As funny
as it sounds, these results could open up a possibility for chilling
Orwellian scenarios, say prominent experts like Dr. Michael Kosfeld,
leader of the research team. While oxytocin may have a positive
impact on certain mental and social disorders, it could also “be
misused to induce trusting behaviors that selfish actors
subsequently exploit.”
For example, said University of Iowa
neurologist Antonio Damasio in Nature, “some may worry about
the prospect that political operators will generously spray the
crowd with oxytocin at rallies of their candidates.
"The
scenario may be rather too close to reality for comfort, but those
with such fear should note that current marketing techniques… may
well exert their effects through the natural release of molecules
such as oxytocin in response to well-crafted stimuli."
So the
next time you suddenly feel complete faith in someone you don’t know
very well, look out for the mini-spray bottle in their
hands.
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A Flat-Out SuccessIn America, the flat tax is a
joke. So much so that an obscure TV journalist named Bernard
Goldberg could launch a best-selling book career with Bias, in which the centerpiece story (told
and re-told) is about how one of his CBS colleagues poked some
on-air fun at Steve Forbes, the last serious presidential candidate
to make a flat tax part of his platform.
In Estonia, however,
Goldberg would probably have to find a different second
career.
It’s likely that most Americans couldn’t locate
Estonia—one of the former Soviet Baltic satellites—on a map. Yet
what happened there has caught the attention of Europe and is
beginning to pique a little interest here as well.
Estonia,
when it finally cast off its Soviet chains, was as impoverished as
any of the Republics. That was fourteen years ago, when the people
elected Mart Laar as their prime minister. Laar was only 32, a
scraggly-bearded history teacher who dressed in T-shirts and black
chinos and loved to listen to Guns ’n Roses.
From the
beginning, Laar thought outside the box—in part because he was
unencumbered by previous political experience, in part because he’d
only read a single book on economics in his life, and in part
because he was young and idealistic in the first heady days of
freedom. Today he’s considered a prophet, and is consulted by
politicians and economists from countries around the world.
Excluding ours.
Under Laar’s leadership, Estonia enacted a
26% flat tax on income in 1994. No loopholes, no exemptions. It also
instituted 0% inheritance taxes and, to encourage reinvestment, no
tax on corporate profits until they are distributed as
dividends.
Last April—as Laar celebrated the 25th anniversary
of Solidarity with Lech Walesa, and met with Cuban opposition
leaders to plot out how to change their country after Fidel
passes—he recalled the resistance he faced: “Most experts advised
against it, and said it was a stupid idea. My finance minister said
don’t do it, the IMF said don’t do it. But it’s not very easy to
convince a young person that he is wrong and I was that type of
young person. So I did it.”
Estonia was quite fortunate he
was that type of young person. Inflation, then running at 1,000% per
year, dropped to 2.5%. Unemployment plunged from 30% to 6%. As a
flood of foreign investment buoyed the economy, growth reached
double digits in 1997. Even after the worldwide slump of 2000, it
leveled off at 6% per year.
Laar is a bit bemused by his
canonization as the father of the flat tax. “My main ‘problem’ was I
was not an economist but a historian,” he says.
That one
economics text he had read? Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose. After reading it, he just
assumed it represented mainstream Western thought, and that
Friedman’s theories were standard practice. He hardly expected to be
hailed as a pioneer. It was just that “a flat tax seemed to be very
logical and very fair,” he says. “I didn’t have the smallest clue I
would be the first.”
Laar explains the logic and simplicity
of his system: “The same rate of tax for everybody, or no rate at
all. There is a minimum level at which it kicks in. There’s no point
wasting state money collecting tax from the very poor… [and] rich
people are paying significantly more tax even with the same
percentage… It is [also] very efficient in destroying the black
market, [being] very easy to collect and control.” Overall, “In a
highly progressive tax system there is no incentive to work: the
harder you work, the sooner you get to the next, higher tax level. A
flat tax generates more growth and therefore more revenue for the
government.”
The results seem to bear him out. General
government revenues, 39.4% of GDP in 1993, were 39.6% in 2002. This
has been sufficient to allow the tax to be lowered to 23%, with a
further cut to 20% scheduled for next year.
Estonia’s
neighboring Republics, Latvia (25%) and Lithuania (33%), established
their own flat taxes by 1995, and by 2005 most of eastern Europe had
fallen in line, as Russia (13%), Serbia (14%), Ukraine (13%),
Georgia (12%), and Romania (16%) followed suit. Slovakia went to a
19% flat rate in 2004 and, counter to the Estonian model, decided to
encourage savings by taxing corporate profits (at the same 19%) but
not dividends.
Russia’s experience may be the most
instructive. At the turn of the century, the government was bankrupt
and had to do something. Its radical reorganization included a 2001
overhaul that consolidated 12%, 20% and 30% progressive tax bands
into one 13% flat tax. The following year, there was a general
economic rebound that saw a healthy 12% growth in wages. Yet
government revenues jumped more than twice as much, by 26% (they
went on to double by 2005).
Why the disparity? Laar and
other flat-tax advocates would say that disincentives to work had
been removed. Maybe. But a study authored by Anna Ivanova and
Michael Keen of the IMF, along with Alexander Klemm of London’s
Institute of Fiscal Studies, argues otherwise. These economists
found little evidence that Russians were working harder, which is
unsurprising since those who had previously inhabited the 12%
bracket were actually paying more in taxes. What they did find is
that the former members of the two higher brackets reported 68% of
their income in 2001, under the flat tax, vs. only 52% the year
before.
This suggests that the flat tax’s primary attraction
might be that it simplifies, something to keep in mind when
considering the situation in the U.S. In a typical year, the IRS
estimates that for every dollar it collects, about 20 cents is owed
but not paid. The Economist addressed that issue in a recent
article: “In part, the tax system is burdensome because people dodge
it. Every loophole that is exploited must be plugged. Every blurry
line that is crossed must be sharpened. But Messrs [Jeffrey] Owens
and [Stuart] Hamilton [of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development] worry that the tax-codifiers and the tax-dodgers
are locked in a mutually destructive ‘arms race’. The code is made
more complex, because of tax wheezes. More people then seek to avoid
taxes. The best way to fight tax avoidance, then, is with
simplicity.”
As the highly taxed citizens of Western Europe
grow increasingly restive, their systems have come under examination
as well. Because it’s such an explosive issue in a union of welfare
states, the flat tax is probably not coming anytime soon.
Nevertheless, France and Spain are reducing the number of brackets
and lowering their top rates; Greece is poised to adopt similar
changes; Britain’s Conservative Party has a commission studying flat
taxation; and Angela Merkel, vying to become Germany’s next
chancellor, has a flat-tax advocate as one of her top economic
advisors.
The bottom line isn’t fairness, it’s
competitiveness, says Paul Mylonas, chief economist at the National
Bank of Greece. “Our neighboring countries are reducing taxes, which
provides them with a more attractive business climate.”
Not
everyone is sold on the idea, of course. Critics question how much
of Estonia’s robust revenues are due to the flat tax, since it still
levies an 18% VAT on most sales, and collects a hefty social
security/pension/health insurance tax. Each of these contributes
more to general revenues than the income tax.
But such
criticisms don’t attack the fundamentals. Almost no one—short of
those philosophically wedded to soak-the-rich progressive
taxation—is suggesting that a flat income tax would be worse than
one that relies on more than 60,000 pages of code (up 50% in just
the past ten years) and a vast, universally despised enforcement
bureaucracy. The IRS now has 115,000 employees, more than EPA, OSHA,
FBI, DEA, FDA, and BATF combined. It seems tax reform is
clearly something that should be put to a full debate here at
home.
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Reader FeedbackLet’s start with a passionate
response to last week’s article “Jesus Saves, But Americans Don’t”
from Ron G.:
I think you're way off the mark regarding
the US savings rate. Firstly, most people begin to seriously save in
their 50's; the majority of savings are generated from this group.
This group for the first time in recorded history will have an
incredible transfer of wealth from their WWII generation parents...
and for most it will be tax free! This generation also has 401Ks,
two payments from Social Security because for the first time couples
have now worked a lifetime and are eligible for social security
payments that are material. They also have homes that have
appreciated materially over their lifetimes. The way you and others
are depicting Americans is that all of them are free-spending
hedonistic, depraved individuals who are spending today, with no
hope of getting out of debt in the future.. you are absolutely
wrong!!! Rather than looking at stats that only te= ll part of the
picture, see how most Americans live and you will be surprised that
they are positioned to deal with retirement... being from their
savings or from other sources.
The world is not that dark
when you travel throughout this great country and see that Americans
do struggle and do worry about their future... but relative to other
countries we're doing fine!!! In Europe the savings rate may be
higher because they know that their socialist system will eventually
collapse and they will truly need their savings to survive.
*** Last week, we asked our readers for advice
to protect yourself from Internet spies. Some of them offered
concrete software solutions, a few of which you see below. Please
note that we don’t have the resources to test and evaluate the
mentioned software, therefore we cannot guarantee its quality and/or
efficiency and are not to be held liable for same.
Spyware
(and viruses) seem to target Windows systems. My advice is to find a
Linux enthusiast and make the move to a more secure operating system
as I did 5 years ago. Security is just one advantage; cost, freedom
from lock-in, plus the increasing availability of FOSS applications
are other reasons to dump Windows.
(David N.)
*** I've been in the computer field since early
1980 and my first computer. I've designed systems for myself, my own
business and consulted and worked for Fortune 100
companies.
Since even before then, the operative key phrase
in computer security is "defense in depth" and it compares well to
portfolio diversification in the investing field. The only other key
is that it has always been impossible to have 100% perfect computer
security... or anything else for that matter. The current best
answer can certainly involve only keeping very critical data on a
computer that has no or minimal connection to any others and I do
that, but its not practical for day-to-day work.
Effectively,
it’s just a matter of multiple layers of security. I do most of my
work on a computer that has some critical and private data, and that
computer has many "layers" of security. It’s just too much of a pain
to always be typing my address and most passwords, etc. into web
forms The layers currently include: .
- A good Internet service provider that's not one of the big
ones—they pay much better attention to what's really going on and
the bad guys have a tougher time with their networks.
- A hardware router/firewall with something called "Statefull
Packet Inspection", a really nerdy term that just means it stops
more suspicious network communications than normal
router/firewalls.
- An up-to-date software firewall that filters and protects both
ways—Microsoft's built-in, for example, does not prevent "nasties"
from phoning home if one gets infected. I use Zonealarm.
- An up-to-date anti-virus package, not always from one of the
well-recognized names. AVG and AntiVir are quite good
products.
- An always resident anti-spyware solution. Microsoft's
AntiSpyware or Counterspy are good selections.
- Other anti-spyware solutions to pick up the stuff that others
miss—Spybot and AdAware are good examples. I run them every
weekend to clean up minor stuff that the others miss.
- A current version of the operating system—whether its Windows,
or a Mac on Linux. Mistakes get made in design and programming,
and the newest versions almost always have the best
security.
- I don't do silly stuff like opening email about free stuff
I've won or how my eBay password is expiring and I need to do
something now or else
.
- I actually back up my data frequently too. If something ever
does get in, I can just erase & restore. Yes, it took about
$300 including software, and about 3 hours to set up and test...
and it’s just like the insurance I have on my car too. The car
would be a whole lot easier to replace than my computer,
especially without backups. The operative phrase here is: "Hard
drives wear out and go bad--it's not 'if', it's 'when'".
- Last but not least, a really geeky piece of software called an
IDS, which stands for an Intrusion Detection System. It’s called
PrevX, and is simply a "last resort" if everything else misses
something trying to install itself without my
permission.
With these and a few others things in place
like increased browser security, I have never been infected in the
last 25 years in any way other than the occasional innocuous
tracking cookie that gets deleted during my normal weekly check.
Yes, it does take time to keep them as well as my knowledge current,
but it also takes time to get my car maintained—I rely on my
computer more than my car, although they're both
necessary.
Do note that every single one of the types of
software I mentioned are available in free versions too. […] P.S. I
don't work for nor am paid by any of the companies I
mentioned.
(Bart)
*** I have been using a Mac since 1989 and I
never experience the problems you and every other Microsoft OS
experience. There might just be a message there if someone took the
time to look and do some research. FYI, I don't have anything to do
with Apple. I am just a very satisfied customer for about 16 years.
I got several of my friends to switch over the years and they are so
glad they did. They were just fed up with all the crashes, viruses,
worms, thieves, etc. al. Now, that doesn't happen to them
anymore.
I will say I am a little concerned since Apple went
to OS X and they are utilizing a more common OS program. Only time
will tell if it is as safe as everything up to and including OS
9.2.
(Scott
H.)
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End Quote“How do you balance the budget, cut
taxes and increase defense spending at the same time? It’s very
simple. You do it with mirrors.”
--John B. Anderson, former
U.S. Representative (R-Ill.) and independent presidential candidate
in the 1980
elections
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