Zehse's Cuttings
Letter in Longevity Report 18
Mike Zehse sent in a few letters and an amazing number of newspaper cuttings to Longevity Report over issues 18 to 39, inclusive. They are grouped together below.
I hope you noticed the Star article on Deprenyl amongst the cuttings that I sent you recently. Many thanks for Longevity Report no 17. Re the Status Report - as I mentioned before my own copy of Longevity Report is always passed on to someone who might conceivably be interested. I heartily agree with the astute judgement of Miss F. Davis (para 4), tho' I wish I had a way with money instead! (My way with words ain't marketable : wish it was.) [Are you sure - have you tried? I have heard that many successful writers receive many rejection slips before they strike it rich. - ed]
Can A.N. Blackall substantiate his allegation that Hydergine has been unofficially blacklisted by the NHS? I can vouch for the rapacity of some chemists:
I used to obtain Ritalin on a private prescription and paid a few pounds in Boots for the pharmacist to dispense it. Eventually the manufacturers ceased to distribute this drug except on a "named patient" basis - where the doctor has to negotiate each individual allocation with the manufacturer. The pharmacist in Boots told me he couldn't get them anymore though I might be able to get the last remaining stock from another chemist. I trudged around several chemists until I found one who had some Ritalin. This was an up market pharmacy in Baker Street. The smug manager informed me that as he only had a few left he intended to charge me #80 for 80 pills, that's #1 per tablet! I said I thought this was a bit excessive when I'd only been paying three or four pounds in Boots. "Take it or leave it!" was his response.
[I looked it up. Ritalin is a central nervous system stimulant indicated for functional behavioral problems in children (minimal brain dysfunction, hyperkinesis) and narcolepsy. (Uncontrollably dropping into a deep sleep). Both were treated in my schooldays at public (ie private) schools by hitting the child with a piece of wood, usually bamboo, until he pulled himself together and behaved himself. Those suffering from narcolepsy in Latin classes received their treatment in front of the class. As far as I know no prescription was required for the bamboo.
To be serious, the contra-indications and effects are worrying, especially in view of Mr Zehse's subsequent case history. Included in a long list are angina pectoris, tachyarrythmias, and dependency on drugs or alcohol. Extreme caution in prescription is urged, as the drug can cause dependence, abnormal behaviour and frank psychotic episodes. The drug is on the Home Office list. Frankly I think the pharmacist who tried to rip off Mr Zehse was in reality doing him a favour. If readers refer to his previous accounts of his escapades, when the "abnormal behaviour" appears to present itself, and his account of his subsequent heart condition leading to surgery, then they may conclude that these events have been aggravated by his time on Ritalin. In short, based on the correspondence I have received, it looks like a promising life afflicted by Ritalin, and I am not surprised it is no longer manufactured. Mr Zehse may like to have a word with the doctor who first prescribed it. - ed] What a depressing letter from Susan Blackmore. It's not even cogent.
The sanctity of ground rents: I suppose England has got continuity of tradition tho' I'm not sure I'd rely on continuance continuing. [Property ownership could be beyond anyone resurrected from cryonic suspension because although artifacts such as computers, and the equipment to perform the resurrections, will be dirt cheap the price of property will be set by the number of people wanting it. Therefore if there is some way they can take property with them this ought to be tried. -ed]
Can you explain your jest re Dr James Robertson? [Surely you have heard of James Robertson Justice, who plays the bad tempered surgeon and similar characters? - ed]
Mr John Taylor said "I'd rather not be brought back than find I'm not the person I thought I was." How would he know?
I have an idea re the membrane hypothesis of ageing, page 6. If one were to topically apply mashed banana to the scalp every night and morning, would this have a salutary effect? Where on earth does Steve Gallant consult all those esoteric references?
Linda Chamberlain is merely updating Pascal's Wager. The French mathematician and philosopher, when taxed with his decision to invest faith in God, retorted that it was a worthwhile gamble. If wrong, it would have been a harmless diversion: if right, he would gain the possibility of eternal life.
I don't blame Mike Darwin from changing his name from Federowicz. What a disgusting moniker. If I ever met someone with such an obscene name I ... [Karen insisted I edit this bit out - ed] ... I'd helpfully suggest an immediate name change. I suppose I shall have to contemplate a name change myself if names of foreign extraction are to be verboten. [It was suggested by Rita Aero in The Complete Book of Longevity (regretfully not available from us) that those whose names begin with the letters S to Z have more health problems than those whose names begin with A to R, and the former perished 12 years earlier than the average. People with strange names often do badly at school, and are persecuted by the teachers and fellow pupils. Ms Aero suggests that an unusual name may be life shortening. Mr Zehse makes lots of jokes about contributors' names which I usually edit out. -ed]
Bad Karma (redacted by R.E. Lane): Evil and negative people don't usually have much of a conscience. I'm not convinced that people always get their just desserts. [Quite so, but the longer they live the more chance there is that they'd get the just desserts. - ed]
Re Benjamin Best's letter: There's an interesting article on body water in The Sciences, journal of the NY Academy of Sciences. I've just sent this to Mike Price and will ask him to send it to you to send to Mr Best. $35,000 seems a lot for PCI. I have to endorse Mr Best's defusion of your enthusiasm re Mensa (why are you displaying it?) [Exercise for the readership - is it enthusiasm or satirisation? -ed] In general, Mensans tend to be (like me) self selecting failures: people who can't hack it in real life and use Mensa membership as a psychological crutch, although there are exceptions. Symbolic dexterity in IQ tests doesn't necessarily equate with developing intelligence in any real or meaningful case. On the rare occasion when I have attended a Mensa meeting I'm often repelled by an aura of simpering self-congratulation and complacency: based on the great achievement of joining Mensa. Theoretically 2% of the population would be able to score at or above the entry level for Mensa. I think the current British membership is about 38,000 out of a potential 1.2 million. (2% of 60 million UK population approx.)
Perhaps Steve Whitrow should submit his latest screed to Running magazine, tho' they might cavil at the brand names.
The latest Lancet reports a 30% differential study of second fatal heart attacks, between those taking fatty fish oils after a first heart attack and those not taking the fish after a first heart attack. A startling statistic! Both cohorts adopted a sensible low-fat diet and were otherwise matched. Fish eating seemed to prove its worth. I'm reporting this from radio news - I haven't read the article.
What's the Foresight Institute? Chris Peterson: My grandmother's name was Peterson. I sent a recent Times technology article (Sept 14) on Nanotechnology and "picotechnology" to Garret Smyth and have asked him to forward copies to you and Chris. [The Foresight Institute, of Box 61058, Palo Alto, California 94306, USA publish a newsletter about Nanotechnology. It was founded to further the ideas of Eric Drexler, writer of Engines of Creation. They don't state a proper price for their newsletter, but ask for donations in excess of $25 per year. They stress that they require substantial donations from residents of overseas countries to pay postage and the hassle of sending overseas. A lot of money appears to have been put into producing a professional looking newsletter, unless someone "does it at work." -ed]
In regard to the siting of cryonic facilities, the greenhouse effect may cause sea levels to surge: London and Los Angeles may be flooded. Evidently, the possibility of drastic climatological change needs to be borne in mind.
The Voyager probe recently confirmed the state of Triton, satellite of Neptune, as being composed largely of frozen nitrogen. An ideal place for a major Mizar facility? Or perhaps the original occupants of the outer planets are already there, frozen in situ, awaiting resurrection?
Comment
As I have written before, the difficulties of a serious rise in sea levels would be apparent to the individual and to cryonics groups long before the actual water did any harm. The economic and politic disruption would result in much tighter government control around the world, and it may well be impossible to practise any form of immortalism. Even if direct legal intervention was slight, loss of personal freedom through vastly increased direct and indirect taxation and inflation would be substantial.
Yet I am more optimistic than most. It is notable that some people predict heating, and others cooling. They can't both be right, and the sum total may well be just life as we know it going on for the few hundred more years needed to develop the nanotechnology that will make immortalism possible. After that, the Earth can do what it likes. If we don't like it, nanotechnology may give us the power to change it, or alternatively leave the planet altogether.
It amuses me how conservationists like to preserve the status quo regardless of how sensible it is. Here they are mad keen on preserving heathlands or downs, consisting of heather and gorse. I am happy with that as I like heather and gorse, but this environment only exists because earlier generations cut down the trees that used to grow here. It could be regarded as the result of their "pillaging the environment". The atmosphere of this entire planet could be regarded as a polluted one on the basis that before life arose we had a Jovian type ammonia and methane atmosphere. This was changed (polluted?) to the present nitrogen and oxygen one by the action of life.
Burial on Triton is a nice idea, if it weren't so expensive to get there! If Garret Smyth finds the north of England or Scotland cold and miserable, I don't think he would take kindly to your idea if it meant him living on Triton. Some space travel enthusiasts are predicting that a successor to the rocket needs to be found before the space frontier is opened up to a mass exodus. It is likely that nanotechnology may produce such a vehicle at some point, and maybe this'll be after it has revived the cryonic patients anyway.
Many thanks for Longevity Report 18. Each issue gets better and better. (I don't say that just because you're kind enough to print my letters: in fact I'm always surprised to see them reproduced at such full length.)
I'm glad that my vital point about Louisiana hit home. I can almost hear Mr Haines whining in pain and disbelief. He tries to cover his humiliation with a rather laboured air of exasperation but I think we know who came out the winner in that little battle! [Well, Mr Haines of course!!!-ed].
I assume I'm among the folk who need to take a little advice before rushing into print, but Mr Haines doesn't say from whom I should take "a little advice". I could approach a down and out on the Embankment or stop a stronger in the street, or does he mean I should take advice from him? Presumably you also need advice as you share some responsibility in seeing our erroneous effusions make their way from manuscript to printed page. [I hope the readers find your arguments with Mr Haines amusing reading - ed.]
I think engineering technology as espoused by Buckminster Fuller will soon put paid to work. The resources of the Earth and space will sustain us all without Brian's concern about freeloaders. Alas the halcyon era may come too late to ensure my own survival. [Caution - similar things were said when steam energy first appeared - writers said it hailed the end of work. Nevertheless I am myself optimistic about nanotechnology. But will we all have to still work like stink to pay the needs of lawyers and accountants? Land can't be made by nanotechnology, and we will still have to have some upon which to set our nanotechnological housebuilders to work. The trend to cheapness in manufactured goods already exists -but what about services? If you think you can get by without services, then remember that 30% of MPs are in the legal or accounting "industries" and they will pass laws to see that their friends on the outside get plenty of work. For example, wills and probate, conveyancing (I know its been made a wider market, but they haven't made a house as easy to buy as a car, even though they could cost the same. New car = 5000 = terraced house in Northern England)-ed.]
My Life! It is indisputably true that my life has been (irreparably?) blighted by many things but fortunately my "promising life" has not been affected by Ritalin. I only ever took this drug recreationally, experimentally or occasionally. [Maybe so, but how do you know it's effects aren't long lasting and pervasive? - ed.]
I saw a poster up on a board at St Thomas' Hospital asking for volunteers to test a new skin cream. I wondered whether this may be Retin A and sure enough it is. And one gets paid 75 in three instalments. [Mr Zehse sent me a copy of the form. The treatment lasts for at least six months, during which the participant gets some cream to use on face, hands and forearms. This may either be a placebo or Retinyl Ester, which is hoped to be as good as Retin A without the side effects. Women have been known to threaten suicide if their doctors won't prescribe Retin A, a POM, for facial wrinkles. The participant has to undergo skin elasticity tests, and donate a 4mm, length or width unspecified, piece of skin from the forearm three or four times during the six months, leaving a small scar. Not so good if you're getting the placebo! -ed]
[second letter]
What the hell's going on! on an earlier occasion you deliberately downgraded my post code from 6 to 5: now you're tampering with the letters -H transmuted to T. Is it merely a fetishistic need to fidget around post codes or is it some deeper Freudian malaise? [Neither, just a simple shortage of time. I try to answer letters quickly, but Mike Zehse sends in so many that it is often necessary to put them to one side in order to deal with other enquiries. However he is to be assured that I always have a good laugh at his jokes and appreciate the newspaper cuttings he sends. In general, the length of reply and attention a correspondent gets is inversely proportional to the amount of other stuff that comes in on the same day.]
[Mike Zehse recently ordered a subscription to Lifequest from the proceeds of payment for a Retin A trial he has joined at St Thomas' Hospital. He sent us this review of the first five issues of Lifequest.]
I enjoyed the Lifequests. A Place by the Sea (issue 2) was particularly impressive; it was so powerful and mesmerising one almost got the impression of reading the same pages twice over. Are the Rockwells of defense technology fame? [No. They are pen names. -ed] Leigh could consider submitting Save the Whales (issue 3) (possibly re-titled A Christmas Story?) to a cat fancying magazine if she could find one where the editor had a good sense of humour. (Apparently cat magazines have a surprisingly large circulation!) or some more general pet magazine, circulation ditto.
As a firm chipmunk supporter I was delighted to read Grandpa Chippers (issue 2). Wasn't there a 1950s pop group called The Chipmunks? If this sentimental story was ever serialised on the radio they could use their music as background.
Have you upgraded your WP equipment. [Yes - ed] Your letter has a clean crisp effect. I note that you also failed to sign it. Further evidence of secret antagonism towards me or a cunning ruse to deny authorship if we subsequently become involved in acrimonious dispute? [No - it was unintentionally left out in the rush of time.]
Being busy travelling is surely no excuse for not dealing with an "interesting idea" (Bishop of Durham). The early church was founded on peripatetic dialectical activity.
Who's responsible for those witty illustrations in Longevity Report? I like them. [They are stock drawings for desk top publishers. I have now got a scanner, so if there is anyone out there who would like to produce a series of drawings or cartoons with an immortalist bent, I would be keen to add them to the stock. I could possibly publish them worldwide on the public domain computer software system. This could result in increased readership for Longevity Report and interest in immortalism. - ed]
Ted Bell is probably correct in his view of Karate (Longevity Report 18.11) People who are innately unpleasant seem attracted to it. I recall a famous Japanese instructor telling me how the floor was "velly slippely with blood" when he fought some championship in Hong Kong. I think there's usually something suspect in the psychopathology of men who want to learn a fighting art. Tho' it may be that if one is violent, attendance at Karate classes helps one to channel and control that aggression then it fulfils some purpose.
I think Akaido is probably the best martial art. The practitioners I've met seem reasonably sane. The emphasis is (or should be) on developing skill, technique and inner strength (ki) with respect and gratitude to your opponent for allowing you to practise your skills.
I note that the man who battered his 5 year old daughter to death in Bristol was an exponent of Tae Kwan Do. Like most child batterers he had been brutalised himself as a child, and has internalised a warped, sick regard for macho violence.
There seems to be a lot of unresolved conflict and anger with contributors to Longevity Report sniping at each other in its columns. [Mike Zehse then goes on to give a graphic fictional account of a Karate contest between readers. Garret Smyth and Mike Price are high on his list of Zen style retribution for failing to answer letters.]
Wonderful news! Mizar received a mention in LBC last Saturday (30 Dec) - synopsis of Medical Matters in 1989. Recollected from memory. "January - A firm headed by a London estate agent offers to freeze people and subsequently bring them back from the dead. A cut price rate is offered for heads only." [Hardly an understanding mention, I'd have thought -ed]
Zehse's Cuttings
reviewed by John de Rivaz
Mike Zehse continues to send in cuttings of newspapers that he says he finds in London's dustbins! From a recent batch, we include the following items, listed in no particular order:
Today of February 19 printed a misleading article about vitamin overdoses. Mentioning the genuine effects of vitamin D and B6 overdoses, it went on to condemn all vitamins, including vitamin C. It suggested that the rebound effect, known to those ignorant of the need to gradually reduce vitamin C doses, was a reason to avoid vitamin C. This sort of ignorant mis-reporting will undoubtedly cause some people to ignore genuine warnings about the increasingly sophisticated range on nutritional supplements available.
The Sunday Express on 18 February described an American operation at replaces all the digestive organs with those form a donor in cases of cancer. Known as a "cluster transplant", this surgery had been given to ten patients at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Two died as a result of the surgery, but the remaining eight left hospital after six weeks functioning well.
Cancer recurs after about a year in liver transplanted patients, but it is hoped that by removing more organs its spread can be prevented. My uneducated comment is that transplant surgery involves immune suppression, and an immune suppressed patient is more likely to develop carcinomas.
An undated issue of The Daily Star mentions research by the Glaxo company on drugs that they have found help people get off addictions, from alcohol through tranquilisers to heroin. Ondansatron was developed for cancer treatment, and they hope it will be given medical approval for this purpose early this year. At present they are testing it on lung smokers to see if it stops their craving for nicotine.
It reacts with 5-HT which moves messages around the brain, according to the newspaper. Glaxo think it might work on the reward mechanism which leads to craving.
Another drug, sumatriptan, used by Glaxo for migraines, has also been found to be of benefit in these cases. Previously, Bristol Myers Squibb's Buspar was found to be effective in some instances only, notably those who haven't had a wide range of drugs before and who haven't had valium.
The Evening Standard mentioned an article in my regular column in Funeral Service Journal on cryonic suspension. This was part of a general feature on the costs of dying. Entitled appropriately RIP plus VAT, the article says that the average cost of a funeral has risen from 586 in 1968 to nearly 1000 now.
Unfortunately the review described suspension as macabre, and said that dignity is what the deceased wanted to buy. Britain had the second worst cremation statistic ((70%) after Japan's 99%. It also stated that crematoria do not burn the coffin. Therefore presumably all that expense you pay for a coffin is merely to hire it, and the government gets its VAT over and over again on the same item!
I must say that I feel it is in execrable taste if funeral bills do include VAT as an "extra". No one paying for a funeral is likely to be registered for VAT in their capacity as next of kin, and indeed with a little thought it may even be possible for a small funeral director to arrange his business not to be VAT registered. This would avoid the client having to pay VAT on the labour employed for the funeral, which must be the biggest item. As VAT is a turnover tax, the funeral director could merely act as the client's agent in collecting the money for disbursements, and charge only his time directly. This would minimise the taxation to those items that are produced by large firms, such as the timber and fitments for the coffin (or whole coffin if it is bought in).
This comment is in line with my philosophy that any business should minimise its clients' costs and provide good value. Stating VAT as an extra on any retail bill or where it is known the client is not registered is attempting to pass the buck. I hope that readers interested in Cryonics and Life Extension will continue to support Longevity Report as the only immortalist publication that maintains the view that businesses have a responsibility to clients' costs.
The Mail on Sunday January 14 had a sad little tale of peoples' gullibility and credulity.
Preacher Dick Taylor had a "divine revelation" that his wife would die in 1990. When they told his children they were upset at first, but now they understand that it if God's will, they are quite happy.
Un undated issue of The Sunday Correspondent had an interesting item reviewing a book available from the Clinical Press, Redland Green, Bristol BS6 6HF for 12. Entitled Evolution in Dental Care it contains contributions from more than 50 experts that maintain that within 35 years most dental treatment will be a do it yourself activity with fluorides, sealants and remineralising agents. The new philosophy will be to let dental decay heal itself, rather than drilling every cavity.
Because of previous abuses of the payment by fillings, British dentists will be paid on a per patient basis like doctors, at least as far as children are concerned, from October. Presumably the government feels that adults can look after themselves, so when your dentists wants to do a filling, caveat emptor!
The Sun on 1 February reported that a private hospital bill of 50,000 for unspecified treatment included individual charges as follows:
1 cotton wool swab 102.00
1 Aspirin tablet 1.00
1 1" plaster 7.00
1 disposable razor 6.75
1 pr surgeon's gloves 4.00
Maybe the total charge was justified, but this is taking people for fools. As most people are paying through insurance, possibly they don't care about such costs. But everyone who buys insurance is paying through their premiums.
In an unspecified cutting, Dr Neville W. Gordon of Southmead Hospital, Bristol hits out at do gooders who try to stifle research by recycling arguments about right to life, re genetic screening. Many of these people refer to the new medicine as the slippery slope to the undesirable excesses of National Socialism. Dr Goodman states that what stops us sliding down that slope is common sense and humanity.
He points out that whilst one can always quote a few isolated cases where the arrival of a handicapped child has a "happy outcome", in the majority of cases it splits families and has repercussions well beyond the individual child concerned.
He calls for the new techniques to be discussed in a rational and non emotional manner.
Mike Zehse's Surgeon "Villain" in News Story
Mike Zehse's operation was performed by Mr Bryn Williams - Mr Neville being the "registrar" who did what Mr Zehse described as the "donkey work." He was branded by the Sunday Times as a the villain of a piece on surgeons who do both private and public work. In typical newspaper fashion, they referred to him as "Williams" in the article, without even a Mr, as if he was some petty criminal guilty of shop lifting or exceeding the speed limit by 10%. They claimed that the public (NHS) patients are often kept waiting for appointments inordinately long times whilst the surgeon isn't even in the hospital as he is away working in a private clinic. The article harps upon Mr Williams' trappings of wealth, his car, expensive home address etc., and said that sometimes people who expected to see him on the NHS found themselves facing a junior substitute.
This obviously raises a serious dilemma for the public health service. Should they ban people like Mr Williams from combining private and public work? If they do, it is fairly obvious that he would chose the private option, and the standards in public healthcare would take a further fall.
Undoubtedly some effort should be made to treat patients with more respect, and if this can have legal force in both sectors equally, then it should solve the problem.
Mike Zehse's London dustbin paper recycling has revealed a number of items about Elizabeth Taylor this time. Some mention the possibility of her suspension, others don't. My own feeling is that she has probably left it too late if she was serious. Undoubtedly the press will latch on to something like that and make it grow beyond reality in its importance. Naturally I hope that she has made arrangements, as obviously this will benefit the movement enormously. But I shall not believe that it has happened until I read about it in the cryonics press rather than the daily papers.
On 21 May the Daily Mirror and others were reporting her plea to die at home and an attempted escape from hospital. Whether this was connected with that particular hospital's unwillingness to cooperate with suspension arrangements I would doubt. The Sunday Mirror reported that she was suffering from candida albicans, and would have to undergo a painful five weeks of intravenous therapy. However the paper said she did not have cancer or AIDS. The Daily Express reported her to be extremely low after weeks of extensive tests, and the same paper on 14 May repeated the cryonics story.
The Star of 18 June stated that she had viral pneumonia, suffered kidney failure and needed a respirator to survive. But she has now gone home on the arm of boyfriend Larry Fortensky. Her bill, paid by the insurers of the Screen Actors' Guild, came to $0.8 million. She is quoted as saying "Throughout this experience I have learned how precious life is, how much I love it and yearn to live more of it."
An unspecified paper said that she had received death threats and installed four security men with machine guns outside her room. Some workers at the hospital said she was "cranky as hell". Another is quoted as saying "She must be getting better - she is sounding off all the time."
Her first engagement after her illness was to fly 400 miles to unveil plans at a San Francisco AIDS conference for an international AIDS research fund - against her personal physician's advice. She has raised money for this subject since her friend Rock Hudson's death through the disease. About a quarter of a million homosexuals were said to have attended the conference.
Reports that she had a 23 year old "toy-boy" were exposed as a hoax. The man was reported to be capable of imitating a spokeswoman's voice and had fooled many newspapers into publishing the story as a publicity stunt. Legal action is being taken against him.
Whilst underoing treatment for a suspected heart attack, Michael Jackson is reported in The News of the World of 10 June to have had an aid request the Alcor team to stand by. However the paper reports that "an offical" refused to confirm or deny the call. They didn't say whether the official was of Alcor or the hospital. It turned out in the end that Mr Jackson had a bad attack of shingles, a herpes related disease aggravated by stress. The paper also printed a denial of earlier reports that he had planned suicide. I would recommend Wipe out Herpes with BHT as the start in a search for a solution to the problem of shingles. As BHT is extremely cheap, no medical professional is likely to recommend it to someone as wealthy as Mr Jackson! We can supply this book for 4.40 post paid, and it is also available in America from the MegaHealth Society, PO Box 60637, Palo Alto, California 94306.
The Selfish Gene Battles Life Extenders
The central theme of Dr Paul Segall and Carol Kahn's book Living Longer, Growing Younger is the production of cloned organs and even complete bodies as a surgical treatment for ageing and other diseases. The production of a child in order to provide a bone marrow transplant for a dying older child was headlined Frankenstein debate rages around US baby in the Sunday Times of April 1.
Mary and Abe Ayala have chosen to have a second child after being unable to find a bone marrow donor for their 17 year old daughter. Mr Ayala, who runs a speedometer repair shop in Los Angeles, had his vasectomy reversed in order to impregnate his wife. He was told the chances were only one in four of the baby having matching bone marrow.
The case has provided a field day for ethicists, enabling them to debate such questions as why we bring children into the world. Is it ethical to do this for just one purpose, even if it is to save another's life? The baby will donate the bone marrow at age six months, at which it will be unable to give informed consent to what is a painful and slightly risky procedure.
Fears have been voiced that cancer centres will work with fertility centres to produce tissue matched embryos for their patients. Remarks were passed about a cannibalistic older generation feeding on spare parts from the younger generation. At least the writer didn't drag in Count Dracula! I suppose blood donation is more accepted as an older practise.
The use of fetal tissue for Parkinson's disease treatment gives rise to the possibility of conceiving a fetus and aborting it so that the relevant tissue is available.
The selfish gene is undoubtedly going to fight anyone who tries to use the reproductive process to extend life. But the fact remains that we contain a nano-machine capable of growing a new body but cannot use it to restore our own. If we can apply our brains and tools to make this possible, are there ethical reasons why we should not? Even if as individuals we feel the issue is irrelevant, society as a whole certainly won't, so it will have to be discussed.
My own view is that any ultimate responsibility for what happens lies with whatever is responsible for the fact that we grow old and die.
The sooner we develop a nanotechnology capable of repairing our own bodies, the sooner we won't need to use these other techniques. Also, such a technology will bring to an end the production of animals for slaughter and much of the suffering that is innate in the universe as it stands. If there are forces for good and evil in any schizophrenic master the universe may have, the force for evil will undoubtedly be troubled by the dramatic changes introduced by the technology necessary for the abolition of death.
An unattributed cutting states that comedian Bob Hope is having frequent check-ups because he is haunted by dread of cancer.
A hospital spokesman in Los Angeles said the 86-year old British born comic fears that he has a malignancy. He says he loves life so much, he's not ready to give it up.
Has anyone told him about cryonics?
Another unattributed cutting from a paper dated 15 March suggests that the renunciation of old age disturbs the ancient rhythms of life. Those who choose to remain healthy and young looking in old age are described as mutants, and are said to be hated by the young.
The article was inspired by the announcement that the mothers of Sylvester Stallone and Cher were to pose for Playboy. Jackie Stallone is quoted as saying she is in better condition at 66 than she was at 20, and Georgina Holt, 62, made a quote in a similar vein.
The Daily Mail of 28 May reports on work at Guy's Hospital, London, on orally administered insulin. Tests are also being performed in Ohio, and Australia. However it claims that specialists believe the treatment will be limited to those who find injections difficult, such as the blind. Why so limited, I wonder?
There are problems to be overcome, such as dosage levels, and the problems that would be caused to diabetics by vomiting diseases which would prevent them getting their insulin.
The same paper mentions a Yale University report that massive doses of the steroid drug methylprednisolone given within eight hours of spinal injury reduced the risk of paralysis. The dose was said to be 100 times the normal dose for shock.
Evening Standard Announces Alcor UK
The mid day edition of The Evening Standard, London's "local" paper, carried a full page report detailing Alan Sinclair's expenditure of a quarter of a million pounds on setting up Alcor UK. It pictured him beside the equipment which it said he had just received from Alcor in the USA, and with which he would remove heads for neuropreservation. There was also extensive quotations from Garret Smyth, described as a "volunteer" (rather than client) for the new process. The afternoon edition had reduced this to a single column with no pictures, and most of Garret Smyth's bit was cut out. The stories that displaced it - 20 column inches on a car that parked on a Thames slipway and was covered by the tide, 14 column inches on underfunding in government schools, seven column inches on a television charity marathon to raise money for children, and ironically, seven column inches on wasted good ideas. The final edition didn't carry the story at all!
A Norwegian disk jockey, Rolf Olsen, was banned from broadcasting for life and may be the subject of litigation following an allegedly spoof broadcast to listeners in Bergen to the effect that a deadly amoeba was infecting people in the area. It was stated in The Sport of 6 June that eight people killed themselves and hundreds of others had heart attacks. However the paper went on to say that amoebae are one celled animals that are harmless and are found everywhere.
I must say that I thought that certain kinds did cause dysentery.
Jane Fonda's Immortalist Statement
The Sun of 11 June reported, as part of a story concerning the actress' plastic surgery to remove two ribs, Jane Fonda as saying that she doesn't want to die gracefully. She'll be kicking and screaming all the way.
Cadaver Bone Transplants - A New Threat to Cryonics?
The Independent recently reported that Mrs Hilda Read, 75, received a bone transplant from a cadaver after three artificial hip operations failed. She was described as an "ideal patient".
The operation took five hours, and has the advantage that the transplant and the patient's own bone will bond where they meet.
Surgeons at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, who performed the operation, said the operation was rare at present, but exciting. They appealed to people to donate their bones after death.
The problem that I see here is that surgeons will be highly motivated to do this operation as fee income will be good, and the operation should be popular as results appear to be good. They may feel threatened by cryonics as a possible obstacle. (Although in reality the numbers make this an unlikely proposition for the foreseeable future.)
John Evans' 112 years are over
An unspecified paper reported on the death of John Evans, for whom the universe ended 112 years after it started. Mr Evans was also the oldest person to receive a heart pacemaker, at 108. He left hospital three days after surgery.
The story provided some interesting data for people interested in longevity. His longevity was surpassed by four British women of whom only Miss Charlotte Hughes, 112 now survives. The world's oldest living person is Mrs Carrie White, 115, from Florida. (I wonder if she takes Life Extension Mix.) The absolute longevity record is held by a Japanese, Shigechiyo Izumi, who perished in 1986, 120 years and 237 days after his birth.
Mrs Etty Heaton of Saffron Walden celebrated her 107th birthday recently. According to an unspecified cutting, she put her longevity down to a daily bowl of oatmeal porridge and a good laugh.
The question we ask, of course, is life meaningful if it is finite regardless of how long it is?
The Independent of 8 July carried the story that a cabbage rich diet may help to protect against breast cancer. This is not new, of course - the benefits of cabbage have been mentioned in health books for many years. Freeze dried raw cabbage forms part of Life Extension Mix, as the Life Extension Foundation have evidence that it has special properties when freeze dried.
The story goes into the matter in some detail. Scientists at the Institute of Hormone research in New York say a compound in cabbage causes the breakdown of a female sex hormone linked with breast cancer. The compound, indole-3-carbinol accounts for 1% of the dry weight of a cabbage.
People who eat 1lb of cabbage per day show an increase of a key enzyme in the body that breaks down the sex hormone oestrogen.
Dr Leon Bradlow said he plans further studies, and is interested to see the effects on men when fed large amounts of the substance.
My thoughts are that men probably have some oestrogen in their bodies, and its reduction may make them more "masculine" looking. But whether the oestrogen balances out some of the undesirable health effects of testosterone, such as baldness or susceptibility to male cancers, I don't know. If it does, then its reduction may not be beneficial form a longevity point of view, even if it is cosmetically attractive.
There are undoubtedly many benefits in cabbage, and I would doubt that eating large quantities of cabbage would affect oestrogen levels in men. However if they were given large doses of the isolated compound, then results would certainly be interesting. But I would not advise anyone to volunteer to try it out.
Another unspecified cutting detailed the introduction of "Inhalatoriums" in Budapest, capital of Hungary. Customers queue up for 15 minute turns in kiosks supplied with cleaned air. A good business idea for any city, I should have thought.
A medical research in Nigeria is reported in the Guardian of 10 July as having developed a vaccine against death. Dr Jorn Bazim Nwanze, of the Mayfield Foundation, which has offices in Maida Vale, London and Port Harcourt, Nigeria, says the vaccine (DV-90) tends to increase lifespan 10 to 15 years. In a few years time it thinks it will be able to produce a new version, (DV-99) that will suspend death indefinitely. The article, like me, is sceptical.
Growth Hormone Receives Major Coverage
Various newspapers are picking up the story about Professor Peter Sonksen's experiment at London's St Thomas's Hospital with human growth hormone as an anti aging substance. The Sun of July 16 says a year's supply will cost about $5,500.
It is claimed the treatment will fight middle age spread, anxiety and lost sex drive.
The Mirror of 16 July also ran the story and said that 12 men in Wisconsin USA had developed physiques of men 20 years younger under the treatment. The Mirror's cartoon is reproduced below.
[Mirror article & cartoon found by Karen Griffin - not in a dustbin, in a neighbour's house.]
The Sunday Mirror of 22 July reported that the pharmaceutical giants are reluctant to pay for research in GH because of the risk that there could be harmful side effects. Professor Ian Cooke of Sheffield University said that no one knows what may happen in the long run. The British department of health has been asked to pay for more research.
The Mail On Sunday carried a long article on Dr Daniel Rudman's experiments at the Milwaukee Veterans Affairs Medical Centre, near Chicago. The trials involved 21 healthy men aged 61 to 81. Extensive medical tests were carried out on the volunteers, particularly to weed out any who has signs of cancer. (Growth hormone also makes cancers grow - the reason it declines with age may be to deter development of cancers.)
Dr Rudman believes that the use of the hormone may make old people live with a better quality of life, but not extend maximum lifespan. He says that elderly people presently lying in nursing homes or wheel chairs will be able to get up, go home, and lead an ordinary life.
But regretfully no-one will benefit for a long time, as he fears that the FDA will require many years before it can be accepted for general use.
Dr Rudman has ceased to be at home to the telephone since hundreds of people have tried to get the treatment after the story was released to the press. According to The Evening Standard one caller even wanted to know whether it could be given to his dog. But Dr Rudman said that even if Howard Hughes was alive and asked for it, it could not be delivered until the regulations permit it.
I would advise anyone trying to get it abroad to remember that bit about cancer. Also the treatment is not oral, it is by injection three times a day. Dr Rudman's patients were instructed to administer their own injections.
What ever happened to that injection by compressed air we heard so much about at one time? It wasn't just on Star Trek.
I did see a documentary many years ago about the method being used to inoculate people in developing nations.
Could it be that the authorities don't want it to become known about and abused by drug addicts? Or was there some side effect?
The other possibility worth looking at it whether growth hormone could be administered with DMSO.
The Sun on 6 July in a tiny story on the subject mentioned that growth hormones don't stop brain cells aging. The obvious thing, of course, is to put the people onto Deprenyl as well.
I suspect that growth hormone has a good future, provided that
1 It can be mixed with something that gets over the cancer problem.
2 An oral version can be found, or compressed air injection can be re-introduced.
3 It can be mixed with Deprenyl (or something similar) with no ill effects.
Death apologist Dr Myles Harris, writing in The Evening Standard, reviewed the growth hormone situation, and said "Buying extra years is a mindless occupation with is bound to end in tears."
Dr Harris says that human greed and commercial pressures are likely to accelerate progress into curing aging, but if man is going to engineer his life totally he will have to engineer his death also.
He predicts that the drug companies will make vast profits in what he describes as a medical Klondyke. Who, he asks, is going to be allowed to buy and for how long, these drugs? Who is going to stop using them?
He favours the government installing radio controlled devices in people that deliver the drugs slowly, but end theirlives after random periods selected by a device similar to state lottery machines!
And he calls himself a doctor!
Family Values - Some Home Truths.
The Mail On Sunday of 22 July castigates those that complain of progress such as eugenic screening against inherited diseases, describing such advances as Nazi.
Judy Burchill says that untold misery is prevented by screening out these illnesses. Ms Ann Winterton, MP, is reported as complaining that the process is the beginning of eugenics, and that we will eventually all breed tall intelligent people, and describes such a possibility as a danger.
Ms Burchill asks what is wrong with people being born the best they can be? Are short stupid people happy? A lot of human misery has been caused by short stupid people who are determined to ruin other lives because they have been dealt such a raw hand by nature.
Eugenics does not mean concentration camps any more than legal abortion means government squads roaming around thinning out the population by random gunfire.
In fact, the more murderous and authoritarian the regime, the more it opposes abortion, for example, Dr Ceausescu's Romania.
The Nazis supported the idea of the family, and of women being nothing more than wives and mothers. It is just as valid to scream "Nazi" at those who support "family values" as those who support eugenics.
Ms Burchill concludes by asking the true motives of a lobby that supports the idea of a raped woman being forced to carry a pregnancy through to birth yet condemns the idea of a married couple producing a perfect child through technological intervention.
She doesn't answer the question, but I cannot help wonder whether it is a case of the natural selection of memes favouring one that brutalises people and makes them more vulnerable to the meme's authority.
Actress Chooses Alternative Medicine
The Sunday Mirror of 15 July chronicles the ordeal of actress Amanda Donohoe who became ill after hospital investigations following a positive cancer smear test. She asked the doctor how cervical cancer arose, and she was incensed by the (none the less accurate) reply: "All I can tell you is that virgins don't get cervical cancer."
Following a more detailed examination she suffered an infection that left her in agony and unable to walk for two weeks. She claimed that the government doctors spent so little time and made so little effort to help her that she went to an accupcuncturist. He sent her to a homoeopathic doctor who cured her of the infection.
She now claims to be cured and refuses further tests. "I am not going to let some twit in a white coat delve around me any more. I've had enough" she is reported to have said. Pathologist Dr Robert Yule is quoted as saying "I hope other women will not follow this young lady's example." (As well as performing autopsies, it is within the duties of a pathologist to examine and diagnose test samples.)
Fourth Cat Autopsied and Found to Have Perished from BSE
The Daily Telegraph of 28 June reported that the fourth cat that was autopsied was found to have perished from BSE, or "Mad Cow Disease." Mike Darwin, writing in Cryonics said that BSE is "British AIDS" and rightly states it to be a more serious problem.
The British government has now offered to fund research intro BSE. They express doubts that the cat disease is related to BSE, but will perform tests to ascertain whether it is.
It may be possible that these virion brain diseases were created a very long time ago and are present in many species, but have only come to light as modern farm practises amplified their effects in cattle.
It could well be that many patients diagnosed as having died from Alzheimer's disease could in fact have been a victim of one of these virion diseases.
Apart from the obvious, the other threat to cryonicists is that the authorities around the world may use more state violence in insisting that brains be cut up on death in order to research the progress and natural history of these diseases.
Although not relevant to our subject, I though I ought to mention Mike's letter in Now!, a newspaper published by Voice Communications Group. Quite correctly, he castigated those who complained about women breast feeding their offspring in public places on the basis that society permits the display of photographs of women's mammary organs in newspapers and advertisements.
Brakemanesque Statement in The Times
[Brakemanesque = profound unintended (comment, event, statement, lifestyle etc.,) re death or immortalism! Regular readers of immortalist publications will have seen some of Malibu resident Bob Brakeman's 2,000 articles on famous people and world affairs and how they make unintentional statements about immortalism.]
In an article in Egyptian mummies, The Times of 12 July discussed research being done on DNA fragments that are revealing pathologies of modern diseases as they affected ancient peoples. This study will enable researchers to discover the unchanging parts of the viruses, and therefore the best parts to attack with treatments and vaccines.
The Brakemanesque statement? "We have to be convinced that each project is serious and has real potential before we allow even the smallest sample to be removed. We need to conserve what we have because the astonishing techniques of today will continue to improve. We must look ahead and realise that the researcher of the future will also need material to study."
The actual revival of mummies will, of course, be rather difficult due to the absence of the brain!
EPO (erythropoietin) is a drug that is essential to the regulation of red blood cells. It is produced by the kidneys, and therefore is absent in anyone who has none. Without the drug, kidney patients suffer constant anaemia, with attendant complications. A genetically engineered version costs about $7,500 per patient per year, and therefore it is difficult for people to get it on the National Health. However those that do achieve a remarkable improvement in health.
Dr Marion Stevens, herself a kidney patient whose transplant failed, has started a campaign to get the drug more widely used.
My own comment is that when things appear very expensive, the answer may to audit the costs involved, and see if there is any dead wood that can be cut out. Also, would it be possible for governments who manage health care in their countries to do some form of deal with the drug companies to reduce the costs of these vital products? What I have in mind is some favourable tax or regulatory concessions in exchange for supplies at cost.
Ripples in a Pond Analogy for Big Bang
Ms Alison Price in a letter to an unspecified newspaper on 30 June suggested that if you look down on a pond into which water is dropping you don't notice the falling drop but see the ripples expanding outwards. She thinks that the surface of the pond represents time and space as we know it, and the "universe is a circling iteration of input and output, perfectly balanced within a three dimensional flowing of time."
Young children don't understand perspective, and think a perspective drawing of a group of men consists of big men in the foreground with little men behind them. She says that they don't understand space, and in an analogous way we don't understand time.
The Evening Standard had an item on a Japanese case where an employee's father sued his daughter's employers for working her to death. They suggest that the legacy of Bushido, the code of the Samurai warrior, has moved to the employer's relationship with his staff. There are two tenets of Bushido that apply:
1. A warrior aspires to serve his master as if his body was already dead.
2. When in doubt don't hesitate - choose death!
Medical Receptionists Castigated
The Daily Star of 21 July reported that a doctor 'phoned to get treatment for his baby daughter (doctors in the UK are not allowed to treat their own families) and was refused an immediate appointment. The 11 month old child had a potentially fatal condition which results in skin blisters. The receptionist (described by the Daily Star as a "dragon") is reported to have said "I suppose you think a blister is more important than an old lady with breathing problems." When the little girl was finally seen, she had to be rushed to hospital as an emergency.
According to The Daily Mail of 23 July, gene creams are being developed to stop people developing allergic skin conditions. Proteins would bind with messenger skin cells to stop them producing inflammatory response to provocation. (Dr Stephen Katz, American National Cancer Institute, Maryland.)
It's not so much have you got the guts, but have you got the balls ...
An article in The Sunday Times of 22 July discussed the role of testosterone in male behaviour. It seemed to herald the findings as new material, but I must say that I had thought it to be common knowledge.
Two medical studies have shown that the same high levels of testosterone can turn one man into a millionaire and another to violent crime. High levels of the sex hormone in humans are linked with the urge to win and dominate. Researchers found that football players, actors and entertainers and women lawyers have one thing in common: high levels of testosterone. Clergymen have low levels.
Professor James Dabbs, a psychologist at Georgia State University, found men of low status with high levels of testosterone are more likely to commit crimes, become drug addicts, and have more than ten sexual partners in a year.
Research with 5,000 Viet Nam war veterans linked sensation seeking with high levels of testosterone in men with little education and low income. The most exciting things they liked were also illegal. People with more education tended to be more sociable - driving fast cars instead of stealing them, arguing instead of fighting.
A second study by the US National Institutes of Health on 1,700 confirmed that those with higher testosterone levels were more aggressive. The study's leader, Dr John McKinlay, said that men with high levels expressed himself forcefully and freely and dominated social interactions.
Dr Joe Herbert, of Cambridge University, an expert on human behaviour and hormones, said the effects of high levels also depend on life's circumstances. For some, it will mean they will become captains of industry, and for others a leader of a criminal gang. He also says the converse can apply, and hormone levels can change with people's success. First year cadets at Westpoint had depressed testosterone levels due to their low position in the pecking order. By their third year, their levels rose with their status.
Testosterone is also necessary in women in order to maintain their libido, according to Dr Herbert.
Society Solicitor Sir David Napley, whose clients include Princess Michael of Kent, said that barristers would be queuing up for booster shots of testosterone. Criminal Barrister Helena Kennedy is quoted by the paper as saying that the "adrenalin surge" that comes from the adversarial legal system is part of the job's attraction.
It is interesting to note this in connection with a recent report in this column about the fact that males if deprived of sexuality in adolescence are likely to be more violent than those who aren't. Readers may recall that I drew inferences about the use of single-sex concentration schools in both Germany and England and the fact that both countries were major protagonists in the two world wars.
Law takes precedence over Parisians' health
An item in The Evening Standard of 20 July mentioned that a private medical service that has been a common sight in Paris has been closed by bureaucrats.
The French medical authorities have suspended 127 of SOS-Medecins because their private service promised to race to clients' assistance at the first sign of symptoms. The excuse was unauthorised advertising. SOS-Medicins brightly liveried vehicles had been a familiar sight in Paris.
They also banned Professor Leon Schwartzenberg, the leading cancer specialist and a former Minister of Health in France, for giving a newspaper interview in which he admitted to relieving a cancer patient of suffering by prematurely terminating his existence.
On July 27 The Sun reported that The Sheerness Times Guardian, a local paper in Kent, inserted an "in memoriam" advertisement that "God had taken William Hurst by the throat" when they should have said "by the hand." When the widow, Mrs Dorie Hurst, 61, complained, the apologetic receptionist said "I'm sorry I'm choked."
Conductor Said he Wanted to be Frozen
The German conductor Herbert von Karajan, who died about a year ago, was reported in the Observer Magazine of 8 July to have said that he would have liked to have been frozen and come alive in another century. The article also discussed his problems resulting from his association with National Socialism during the war, and arrangements he made with Sony for CD images to be recorded that will enable his conducting skills to be employed in the future with a computerised "resurrection".
The article described the conductor's lifestyle, and it is clear that he would have had no trouble in affording a Cryonics Institute suspension had he known about it.
The Sunday Sport is the UK's answer to the National Enquirer, but there is probably some germ of truth in the stories it prints, even though it may be hard to find. On 16 September they gave two full colour pages to Rosalia Lambardo, of Palermo, Sicily. She died aged two years in 1918 from influenza, and was chemopreserved by injection and sealed in a glass topped casket. Her appearance has remained unchanged, and down the ages there are stories of movements and other unnatural happenings surrounding the corpse.
After visitors claimed seeing the eyelids flicker, doctors connected an EEG to her head, and reported two small spurts of activity, one lasting 33 seconds and another 12. They say the printouts are comparable to those from a person dreaming.
The bulk of the article then goes into spiritual nonsense.
My reaction is that the EEG readings were probably due to radio interference with the EEG equipment. I wonder if a taxi or police car passing the church where the remains are situated was talking on it's radio?
The Sunday Sport also reports that world shortages of human blood may mean that people will get cow blood, which Boston doctors are reported to say is almost identical. If this is so, I wonder why it hasn't been done before!
Doctors at the Texas Science Centre are researching hyaluronic acid, currently used on lame race-horses, for people with arthritic knees.
Fake Pharmacist works for 21 months.
For 21 months fork lift truck driver John Garvin posed as a pharmacist and obtained part time locum work at 210 chemists' via an agency. He used the name of a real pharmacist when signing on with an agency supplying stand-in staff. He was rumbled after a careless mistake labelling a patient's medicine wrongly.
What this shows, of course, is that the professionalism of dispensing pharmacists is questionable. If a fork lift driver can do the job for 21 months without error with no training, what value the years of training required for the job?
Ms Anne-Lise Gotzsche of Hampstead wrote to an unspecified newspaper with her cold cure. It is to sniff vitamin C powder up your nose so it gets to the infected membranes at the back of the nose. She attributes the remedy to Dr Fred Klenner, who knew of the virtues of vitamin C long before Linus Pauling entered the fray. He was chief of staff at the Memorial Hospital in Reidsville, North Carolina. She said that he was known to treat people successfully who were given up for dead by other doctors, with intravenous doses of ascorbic acid.
Scientists in Australia have discovered a natural protein, GMP140, which stops blood clots forming. Dr Michael Berndt at The Institute of Vetinary and medical science, Adelaide, says that the protein is naturally present in the body and can be used without side effects. It will help in arthritis, asthma, and heart disease.
A report in The Guardian on 16 August revealed that the practise of body burning is releasing 11 kg of mercury into the air each year per crematorium. The upper limit for long term exposure is only a millionth of a gram per cubic centimetre.
Dr Alan Mills, a Leicester University geologist, is calling for filters to be added to crematoria or for the teeth to be extracted before cremation, as the main source is dental fillings.
Also in The Guardian, an article on 31 August related work by Jon Costanzo and Dennis Claussen, of Miami University, who are investigating how tolerant the turtle Terrapin Carolina is to sub-zero temperatures. Up to 60% of their body water can be frozen solid for up to 73 hours with no apparent ill effects.
Gary and Mary Packard, of Colorado State University, have shown that newly hatched painted turtles, Chrysemis picta, can withstand temperatures as low as -8.6oC for up to 18 hours.
The article concludes that turtles may have more than soup to offer mankind, and might hold the key to one of science's greatest goals - suspended animation.
TV Star Eschews Cancer Surgery
A-team star David Benedict is reported in The Sun on 3 August to have refused prostate cancer surgery and cured himself using seaweed. He forced himself to live off a strict diet of grains, vegetables beans and seaweed. he poulticed his lower abdomen with potato and ginger to reduce the pain.
He is quoted as stating "I totally believe that food is medicine. I have no faith in drugs, radiation or chemotherapy. Steve McQueen tried that and died in agony."
He said "The tumour passed though me one week in April 1983. Sweat suddenly began to pour from me and I didn't leave the house for a week. But by the end, the diseased tissue has passed through my system."
Medical tests confirmed the cure.
"Its not how you look, but how you think"
In an article discussing "mixed age" relationships based on the singer Cher and her toy boy Richie "I don't want to be tied down to an old woman" Sambora, The Daily Mail suggested that older people need shared experiences with people their own age. They can't stay up all night drinking whisky and get tired more easily. How do you ask a toy boy "Where were you on the day Kennedy was shot" when "I was in my pram" is the answer.
The article says that older men can attract young women because women are more attracted by personality than appearance.
The article concludes that our understanding of the ageing process is superficial. It is not just the appearance but what is inside the head, experience and memory, that matters.
I would comment that aggregated experience and memory is an advantage not a problem, and if the chemical and physical defects can be reversed, then the total result will not be a young again person, but a better than young person!
The Sun of 13 September anounced that American researchers had said that women who marry toy boys live a third longer than usual!
According to an unattributed cutting, scientists at the University of Colorado have obtained the world's lowest temperature - 1.1 millionth of a degree absolute - using a diode laser. They used it to trap some caesium in a "light cage" and cause the atoms to stop moving. The laser was said to cost 100.
This account is obviously absurdly simplified, but if anyone can find out more details it may prove useful.
The naturally occurring drug erythropoitin (EPO) is used by kidney patients to increase the oxygen absorbing qualities of haemoglobin. It is difficult to get under the National Health in the UK because of the cost, but it can work miracles in patients with no kidneys to produce it naturally.
However it is now being obtained by sportsmen who are using it to improve performance. As it is naturally occurring, no test can detect its artificial presence. Although it can be detected and measured, who is to say whether a particular level is natural or artificial to a specific individual?
An unspecified cutting mentioned that the acne drug accutane had been found to be effective in preventing the development of head and neck cancers. The breathrough was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine resulting from research at the University of Texas. The drug concerned is Accutane, made by Hoffman-La Roche. Researchers speculate that alcohol drinkers and lung smokers may be able to use the drug as a cancer preventative.
Dr Peter Greenwald of the National Cancer Institute was quoted as saying that ti was the first controlled study demonstrating that cancer chemoprevention actually works.
An article in the Sunday Times suggests that people are not happy with insurance schemes designed to pay for funerals. They are now aware that inflation will make the sum insured unlikely to be sufficient. Age Concern says that the best value and most popular schemes are those where the client pays a single payment that guarantees him a funeral as specified in the contract. A bsic plan is available for $1,100, and a slightly more elaborate ceremony costs $1,500.
An article in an unspecified newspaper revealed that research is going on in a number of U.K. universities into molecular electronics. Applications given included computing and light/electricity conversion. Those involved with the research include:
Ray Bonnett (Department of Chemistry, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London) (QMW)
David Bloor (Department of Applied Physics, Durham University)
Chris Pitts (Department of Electronics, University College, London)
Ray Smith (Department of Materials, QMW)
Guy Williams, (Department of Physics QMW)
Some of the projects include an electrically conducting layer one molecule thick, and constructing objects using molecules as building blocks. One such object would be a conditional switch using single porphyrin molecules.
The Independant On Sunday Discovered that before the gulf crisis Saddam Hussein had contacted Dr Avi Ben-Abraham re the possible suspension and future cloning of his cells, and run a story under the above heading. Readers may recall the film The Boys From Brazil concerning Hitler clones. The enquiry was timed about two months before the attack on Kuwait. Dr Ben-Abraham was quoted as saying that they would have helped two months ago, but as a result of the invasion would no longer be willing to consider Mr Hussein as an ACS client.
In the meatime, a U.S. lavatory paper manufactuerer has sold 20,000 rolls with a photograph of Mr Hussein on each sheet.
Amusing though that is, I would warn readers again that the use of coloured (or printed) lavatory paper may be dangerous as traces of dye may be left on the anus. Dyes used could be carcinogenic.
In a thoughtful article in The Guardian on 1 October, Jill Tweedie wrote of the plight of old people in homes where the clients don't get on with each other.
She starts off by mentioning that in schools children are concentrated regardless of whether particular individuals get on together. Those that don't are often branded difficult, a nuisance, selfish, withdrawn.
This traumatic event has such an effect that people spend the rest of their lives counteracting it, surrounding themselves with others of similar values and outlook.
However, when elderly, they are dumped back into exactly the same situation - in old people's homes. Here there is the added problem of Alzheimer's patients mixed in with other elderly people, who are made to feel heartless if they complain.
She calls for a selective process whereby old people's homes try and get clients of similar interests and condition.
An unspecified paper printed a story on 24 September that may interest those who suffer headaches. Research is to be carried out at the City Migraine Clinic, Charterhouse Square using a cranial stimulator imported from the U.S. The manufacturers claim that wearing the device for ten minutes twice a day should banish attacks.
It works using a voltage too low to be felt, and stimulates the release of beta endorphin and serotonin and reducing cortisol in the bloodstream. Professor Alan Bennett, of the Rayne Institute is overseeing the trial.
The idea that future science can make good from a poorly preserved original gets a boost from a recent CD issued by EMI classics.
Sir Thomas Beecham strolled into the pit at the Royal Opera House in London one evening in 1930, picked up his baton, and asked the leader of the orchestra "What Are We Doing Today?" "Tristan", he was told. "Are your sure? I thought it was Tannhäuser."
According to The European, (14 September) he then went on to give the performance of a lifetime, blithely observing "Nice little piece, that Tristan. Must do it again sometime."
Unknown to the "copyrightpolizei", a totally illegal recording was being made backstage. Once can imagine the poor quality of that secretive recording, on the bulky mechanical equipment of the 1930s. However it was later found by a researcher working for EMI Classics, and has been reprocessed into what is alleged to be a "technically perfect" CD recording. Even only a few years ago such reprocessing would have been regarded as impossible. It is only with the use of high speed and powerful microprocessors can the original sound be recovered from the distorted crackly mess which that recording must have been.
The story also mentioned that Lady Beecham is moving her late husband's remains from the Brookwood cemetery, Surrey because of the spread of urban sprawl to the area and particularly because of "fly tipping" around the cemetery.
L-Leucine May Help Motor Neurone Patients.
An item in The Guardian of 14 September suggested that the amino acid L-leucine would restore glutamate dehydrogenase activity and reduce damage to motor neurones. Motor Neurone Disease was designed to destroy the regulation of glutamate, which in turn destroys motor neurones.
Clearly this treatment is a palliative rather than a cure - the disease remains - but it is a step to help patients until a total cure can be developed.
A small scale American trial in 1988 showed some promise, and a new international trial coordinated by London's Charing Cross hospital will investigate claims over a year. It will take 14 months to recruit 600 patients in 6 countries for the project. Results will be available early in 1993. The trial, which will cost three quarters of a million pounds, will enable doctors to give clear advice whether amino acid treatment works.
The paper says that the treatment is unpleasant to take and cost £1,000 per year. I would ask why the amino acid cannot be encapsulated, and I would also query the cost.
A second study is to investigate whether motor neurone disease is a disease at all. It may not be caused by a virus, virion or bacteria but by the cumulative effects of food toxins. Dr Peter Nunn, a senior lecturer at London's King's College is to undertake a two year study funded by the British Ministry of Agriculture.
Dr Nunn is to investigate ideas that eating certain seeds can cause the condition, and although he is uncertain as to whether this is the whole story he feels that his work will yield an important insight into the problem.
Static Electricity Cure for Baldness
In an experiment at the University of British Columbia a test involving 30 bald men investigated a claim that sitting under a hood providing an electrostatic field renewed hair growth. It was claimed that 29 stopped losing hair and indeed gained two thirds more than they had at the start of the trial.
London hair consultant Heather Morris was unimpressed by the claims, according to the Daily Mail of 21 September. She said she had tried similar ideas to no success.
The Sun of 10 September carried a short item stating that migraine sufferers had a reduction in the level of magnesium in the brain, and therefore could be helped by eating spinach, which is rich in the mineral. Sufferers at a Detroit hospital have improved after spinach was added to their diet. (Any reader of The Immortalist know anything about this?)
Although the Jarvic artificial heart was regarded as a failure due to blood clotting, work has continued and more portable models have quietly been introduced. One patient has survived for eight months with one whilst awaiting a transplant. The key seems to have been to make the hearts with a rough surface upon which body cells collect. This prevents blood clots forming on the artificial parts. In previous models, these blood clots would then dislodge and pass around the body causing damage.
A conference at the Royal London Hospital heard how cardiothoracic surgeon Mr Terence Lewis has been researching a device made by Thermo Cardiosystems Inc of Boston, Mass. according to a report on The Guardian on 10 September.
Junior Doctors Driven to Drugs by Long Hours
Today of 10 October revealed that 7.5% of junior doctors rely on drugs to work 36 hour shifts without a sleep break. Some shifts have run to over 100 hours. The system survives because with too few junior doctors there is a chance for most to become highly paid consultants later in life. If there were more juniors, only a few could reach this level.
The matter was given a further airing when Dr Hanno Richards, 30, was brought before the courts for illegal use of the Home Office List drug Fortral. The judge was so appalled by his working conditions that he let him off with a conditional discharge. However Dr Richards will probably lose his license to practise medicine at a professional hearing later.
Other cases were also mentioned in the news item, and it was said that many doctors had to use sleeping pills because when they finally were allowed to sleep they couldn't. Also, they use pills to keep awake during long shifts. Although these shifts theoretically have sleep periods, these are often interrupted by telephone calls to attend patients. A case was mentioned where a doctor under such stress very nearly killed a baby by giving an incorrect dose. Fortunately, she saw her error before administering the injection.
Dr Leonard Bailey, of the Loma Linda University Medical Centre, said that the heart does not normally develop outside the womb, so he gave nine week old Weston Kilpatrick two weeks to live with his undersized heart unless a heart donor could be found.
Then his heart inexplicably began growing. Unfortunately, Dr Baily said that it was a miracle and that he believed in that sort of thing.
Personally I would call it a beneficial mutation, and it gives hope to all those that don't accept bald statements made by the medical profession that certain things are impossible. When we can control the human genome we can program the body to do all sorts of things that it can't at present. Maybe even Alcor patients can grow new bodies!
The Guardian carried a letter following an item on the Bristol Centre (non-surgical treatment of cancer). Dr Moermann in Holland developed a dietary treatment for cancer, including megadoses of vitamin C, in 1939. After much abuse his work was finally accepted in 1988 as a valid treatment in Dutch hospitals.
One wonders what the Nazis must have made of it during their occupation of Holland!
The letter writer ended by requesting that greater care is taken over evaluations of natural medicine. I didn't see the report on the Bristol Centre, but the tone of the letter suggested the report was abusive.
The Guardian of 12 October carried a long article on the drug Adifax. This reduces craving for carbohydrates, and is said to be successful if part of a calorie controlled diet. The drug has already earned £25 million for the Servier company in France, who make it. It is said to have the same anorexic characteristic as amphetamines, without the unwanted side effects. It increases the brain's serotonin levels, thereby
reducing the desire for carbohydrate food. Each pill reduces the desire for 300 calories, approximately equivalent to one Mars Bar.
According to an article on 21 September in The Independent, heavy metals present in active and passive smoking, and also some water supplies and foods, may damage the kidneys of 1 in 10 people.
This information resulted from an article in The Lancet, which reported that researchers in Belgium had studied 1,669 people aged from 20 to 80 years and found that 10% had consumed enough cadmium to cause slight kidney damage. They conclude that the ratio will extend to other industrialised countries such as the United States.
Hair Test Reveals Dead Poet was on Opium
An article in The Independent on Sunday of 23 September described how hair tests are used by employers to check that employees aren't drug abusers. As a side issue it mentioned that a test on the 170 year old hair of John Keats, a poet, revealed the opium that he used as a painkiller. A similar test on Lord Byron proved negative.
Surgery Patients Fear Being Labelled Cowardly
According to The Independent of 26 September, Professor Michael Rosen, president of the College of Anaesthetists, has said that the attitude of patients who are afraid of being labelled cowardly by asking for pain relief must change. There is evidence that good pain control aids patient recovery, and means he spends less time in hospital.
The College has published a report in which it criticises British hospitals for poor pain control. They point out that the perception of pain can vary by 10 to 1 depending on the individual submitting to a particular operation. Often surgeons think that they know what post operative pain the patients are subjected to and ignore patient's requests. Patients expect severe pain as the price they have to pay for surgery, despite the fact that technology exists for its management.
The report calls for regular monitoring of pain using pain charts, and a special Acute Pain Service - a team of doctors, nurses and pharmacists on 24 hour call to provide advice on pain management. It also calls for more research into techniques and drugs to block pain, and the use of cryoanalgesia - freezing nerves to block pain.
British Army Invent Long Life Blood
According to The Mail on Sunday of 4 November, the Defence Ministry will earn hundreds of thousands of pounds over the next 20 years from its patent on a process that allows blood for transfusion to be kept forever. The story didn't detail the process.
In an important letter to The Times on 24 July, Mr Graham Hills, the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, called for human contraceptives to be placed in the food chain. This would make those wishing to conceive to take a special diet for this to be possible, and would enable families to be properly planned. He said that the measure would result in far less child murders and abuse, and that those that worry about the right of the unborn child should also consider the rights of unwanted children.
He suggested that it should be a moral and religious principle that a child should be desired by both parties before sperm and ovum are allowed to interact. Approaching the problem from this standpoint, lacing the food chain with contraceptives would not be an unreasonable infringement of individual liberty.
Researchers at Strathclyde and Sussex universities have found a way to reproduce, from a small amount of human tissue, an unlimited line of cells which exactly replicate the originals. Oncogenes, originally designed to cause cancer, have been adapted for this purpose, according to The Sunday Correspondent of 7 October.
The process will be of use to create the cell type missing in Parkinson's disease patients, bringing to an end the controversial foetal transplant procedure.
Also lines of immortalised cells can be used in place of animal experiments to test new drugs, and the process can be used to grow artificial blood, ending the need for blood donors.
Androgenist cites hatred of men as cause of long life
An item in The Sunday Sport described 135 year old Barbora Yasaite, of Ramoshkiu, Lithuania, as a "sprightly spinster". She is quoted as saying her longevity is due to having nothing to do with men. She says they are responsible for all the ills of the world, and describes them as "dangerous animals".
She was 60 before she saw her first light bulb, and 80 before she made her first telephone call. The Guinness Book of Records confirms her claim, stating that she is 19 years older than her nearest rival.
Yet in contradiction of this, The Standard of 19 November claimed that the world's oldest person was Carrie C. Joyner White at 116 years, and that the only other person to have lived longer died in January 1986 aged 120. The Guinness Book of records was again cited as the source of this story!
Time warps? Precognition? Whatever you believe, 16 year old Hannah Rose was terrified of dental surgery. The healthy teenager was finally coaxed into surgery at Leatherhead Hospital to have two teeth extracted - and the next time her parents saw her she was in the mortuary.
The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death, and consultant anaesthetist Dr David Zeiderman told the hearing that the fear before the operation set off and abnormal reaction between her system and the Halothane anaesthetic gas. He said he was happy with the dose given and the resuscitation methods tried. Dental expert Geoff Graham said the fatal combination of general anaesthetic and nervous adrenalin is a one in few million chance.
However the parents plan legal action, claiming hospital staff did not act quickly enough. [The Mail on Sunday, 18 November]
Boys are told by their parents not to be lily livered if they make a fuss about going to the dentist. But on 27 November 13 year old Jason Shankles was terrified of going to the dentist. His mum told him "This dentist is the best. You've nothing to worry about." According to The Star of 27 November, these were the last word she spoke to her son. Jason slumped dead in the chair as the dentist extracted the first tooth. A post mortem found no cause of death, and the family doctor said "We can only assume that he died of fear."
Another Zehse Letter to the Press
Evening Standard, 21 November:
Sir Cyril Taylor is out of his tree if he imagines raising educational standards can be achieved only by making children spend more time in the classroom.
In [modern -ed] Germany, many schools commence work at 8am and pupils go home at 1pm. Yet in Germany we do not have the English problems of a rampant, widespread stupid teenage underclass who spend 10 years at school and learn nothing.
Teachers need space and time to develop their own intellectual lives so they can be respected by pupils and parents. They deserve to be paid a proper professional salary in order to attract the brightest and best.
One does not know whether to laugh or to cry when school careers advisors tell pupils with mediocre A-Level grades "Well, you can always go into teaching."
my comment:
Yes, I agree that children are concentrated with each other over too longer a period. They need to interact with adults if they are to learn to behave like adults.
The problem with teacher salaries is that if they were paid like other professionals, then the country wouldn't be able to afford them. Even now, 75% of local authority taxation goes to education, and it is the problem of how to raise local taxation that finally ended the career of Mrs Thatcher as prime minister of Britain. Possibly if the earlier item about lacing food with contraceptives really happened and there were far fewer children, then we could afford to educate them properly.
But could the first generation of wanted children be able to support it's parents generation, being much larger in number, in retirement? Maybe the answer is life extension, and the abolition of ageing and death - and retirement!
If there was no retirement, what would actually happen? Once people amassed enough capital, then they would gravitate to occupations that they enjoy rather than pursue to make money. They would be more contented, and better at these occupations. With genuinely infinite lifespan, however poor you are you can save something, and if you do it long enough then you get capital. There is probably enough diversity in the human species to ensure that all vacancies would still be filled.
Jackson Seeks Solace in Psychics
The Mirror of 22 November ran a story that says that singer Michael Jackson consulted a psychic who told him that he would be re-incarnated when he died. At this news, he rushed off to inform his lawyers he wanted to leave his money to his next self.
If true, bad luck, Alcor!
Yes, and it looks as though they have lost Elizabeth Taylor as well. The News of the World Sunday Magazine carried a story on 11 November quoting the star as saying that she was intrigued by the press coverage, but soon decided that the only place for that piece is in the dustbin.
A new process that enables painless filling of teeth and bloodless gum surgery has been introduced by a Scottish lady dental surgeon, Louise Davidson. She is the first UK dentist to spend £35,000 on the equipment, imported from the USA. Patients are travelling hundreds of miles to visit her surgery, according to the story in Today of 31 October.
The laser beam will vaporise decayed tissue with no pain. However the drill still needs to be used to shape the cavity to take a filling.
Personally I would sound a caution here. The high speed drill was hailed as the answer for painless dentistry when it was introduced, and for a while dentists tried to get away without giving anaesthetics. But now everyone knows it isn't painless, and injections are given as a matter of routine. I cannot help but wonder whether the same can be said here. Only time will tell.
Certainly the saving of the costs of anaesthetics would soon justify the installation of laser equipment. The costs will rise with inflation, but equipment is paid for at a fixed price. Also, the costs of anaesthetics include risk costs, such as contracting infections which have to be covered by the practise's insurance premiums.
The article also said that roughly half the UK's population do not attend dental surgeries regularly, and every so often the British Dental Association tries to get more to go. The problem is, that dental surgeries are overworked already. If you ask for an appointment you usually have to wait quite some time. Just imagine what would happen if the other half of the population suddenly asked for appointments all at once!
A report published in The Lancet condemning the "gentle treatment" of cancer at the Bristol Centre as ineffective was admitted to be flawed. In a subsequent letter to The Lancet, the authors of the report, which stated that patients treated there did less well than those who submitted to surgery, admitted that they did not take into consideration the fact that many of the Bristol patients had more advanced forms of cancer at the start of treatment.
The centre is now considering legal action against The Institute of Cancer research who instigated the report. They say that admissions have fallen and they are having difficulty in renewing their indemnity insurance.
Following the points raised at the European Cryonic Conference by press delegates that it may be irresponsible to promote the life extending properties of Deprenyl, The Independent carried a story in which Professor Merton Sandler, of the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London, also condemned that use of the product. He said it was "highly irresponsible."
Maxwell Noble, a director of Britannia Pharmaceuticals which manufactures the drug in the UK said "As far as I am concerned any uses of this drug outside Parkinson's disease is very irresponsible. It's long term safety in healthy people is not known."
The story mentions that Deprenyl extends the lifespan of rats, but it is dangerous to extrapolate this to man. My comment would be that if you actually do the experiment on man, then anyone now living would be dead before the result was known, therefore the experiment is idiotic. It is only by extrapolation that we can make use of this effect, assuming that it exists.
Medical Leads to "7 Year Hell"
Mrs Sandra Evanson was falsely diagnosed as having breast cancer following a routine examination, according to a story in The Daily Mirror of 9 June. She then spent some 13 months in and out of cancer wards, loss of hair, and continual nausea due to six sessions of chemotherapy. In addition she had an ovary removed by surgeons in an unsuccessful search for the cancer. Only then was she told it was all a mistake. By that time her marriage had dissolved under the strain, and she is unlikely to be fit to work for five years.
At the health authority's trial, the judge order "very substantial damages" and also made an order for further damages to be assessed on loss of future earnings.
The mistake was caused by two samples being mixed up, but the hospital assured the court that the other patient's treatment was not compromised - it had been a confirmatory test and the patient was known to have cancer.
My comment is that if this is the case, why didn't they question the fact that the second test proved negative?
Scientists at Cambridge University, according to The Guardian of 26 October, have succeeded in growing human hair in a test tube.
Dr Michael Philpot said that the research would enable them to understand what makes hair grow and what goes wrong in baldness.
Surely what goes wrong in baldness is that testosterone makes hair grow on the body and fall out on the head, where it would do more good in protecting people from sunlight. A natural "side effect" if ever there was one!
However they also say the research will help women remove unwanted hair. Dr Terence Kealey said that he is not concerned about his own baldness, and finds the trauma huge numbers of men suffer when going bald difficult to understand.
Growth of hair in a test tube is something research teams have wanted to do for 70 years. The method involves using a synthetic blood substitute and an incubator. The decisive factor leading to the breakthrough was the method used to extract the tiny follicles from skin discarded in plastic surgery, without bruising them. (Also Evening Standard 25 October.)
Medical Checks Miss Fatal Signs
An article in The Sunday Correspondent on 28 October suggested that the current craze for annual medical examinations, costing up to £300, is misplaced. The tests performed often miss serious disease. For example, if one is going to go to this trouble, a sigmoidoscopic examination for colon cancer would seem worthwhile, the author says. But the connection with homosexuality and AIDS would make customers stay away so it is not included.
Also, some doctors say the psychological costs outweigh the benefits. A good result may bolster an unhealthy lifestyle, and an apparently bad result may cause unnecessary worry. Sight and hearing tests are superfluous, as most people are aware of defects in these senses. The chest X-ray rarely reveals abnormalities, and the risks outweigh the benefits. The heart ECG is of little value if resting only. However an exercise ECG ("Stress Test") takes time and expertise to evaluate, and of course there is always the risk that inexperienced operators may lose the patient through heart attack!
Professional Interests in Japan Encourage Botched Abortions
According to an article, The Sunday Correspondent Magazine of 4 November suggests that the Japanese medical profession has found abortions so profitable that they have raised real and imaginary objections to maintain a ban on contraceptive pills to maintain their business. Abortion was legalised in Japan in 1948 (UK -1967, USA - 1973) and created a lucrative industry for its doctors, according to the magazine. Two out of three Japanese women have had at least one abortion. Prices start at $800, and under qualified doctors often make mistakes, that lead to further profits for the profession as a whole when they are remedied.
After reading David Pizer's letter in The Immortalist offering a job to a technician to manage his private search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, I wrote to him repeating what I had read in literature put out by the Planetary Society. This seemed to indicate that the equipment required would be beyond the means and abilities of the individual. For one thing, a very large dish would be needed. However an item appeared in The Sunday Correspondent of 11 November to the effect that a private individual could set up his own SETI station for under $3,000. The equipment needed would include a satellite television dish, ($500) CR-R7000 VHF scanning receiver ($1,000)*, Personal Computer ($1,200), digitiser ($100) and low noise amplifier ($100). The article suggested that the set-up could be tuned to frequencies not covered by the NASA and Planetary Society's programme, and that "the chances of making arguably the greatest discovery of all time are surprisingly high".
What a delightfully imprecise statement. I can't help but wonder whether, if I were to get a receiver and connect it to the other bits (which I have already got), I could contact an ET before I can find a suitable girlfriend! (My present one is leaving, and probably suspects I'd have a better chance finding an ET than another girlfriend.)
The article also quoted from a book, which I have ordered, First Contact: The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, edited by Ben Bova and Byron Preiss. (Headline Press $34) which contains a number of articles on the subject by different authors. Two of them are Dr Kent Cullers and Dr William Alschuler. The former is a member of ACS as far as I am aware.
The search for extra terrestrial intelligence has more than hobby interest for immortalists. One of the ways of curbing the warlike characteristics of races like humanity (apart from exterminating them) would be to give them the secret of immortality. People would be far less willing to risk indeterminate lives in battle as opposed to risking strictly finite lives.
* I checked the price of this item with Icom (UK) Ltd. Remember that the dollar prices quoted were £ prices in an English newspaper which I had roughly converted for the benefit of U.S. readers. The price of the receiver is actually $1,879 - nearly double the price quoted in the paper. If all the other prices are underestimated by 2:1, then clearly the cost of the whole project has been deliberately underestimated for journalistic effect.
If journalists are telling what amounts to lies for effect, then clearly the veracity of the whole article comes into question.
My original contention - that SETI is a project for large organisations - must most regretfully remain in force until at least I have received and read the book.
Permanent Health Insurance Ill Advised
An article in The Independent on 14 October revealed that permanent health insurance (PHI) often caused more worry than relief.
The reason is that although these policies are designed to provide an income whilst you are too ill to work, the definition of how il