On 19 Mar 2001, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> Actually, it is not obvious that you can convince
> bone cells that they are being stressed without real mechanical
> stress.
Only because the required experiment hasn't been done yet. You
have to do a differential gene expression study on a set of
astronauts on the ground and then again after they have been
in space for 3 months (minimizing their exercise). Perhaps
morally questionable but you could request volunteers.
Half a dozen differential comparisons should have the stress
regulatory pathway jumping out at you. Then you backtrack
it through the genome to find the common regulatory control
element(s) and develop drugs or regulatory factors that "fix"
the pathway. This stuff is much less than rocket science
at this point.
> In this scenario the reason for going into space at all is simply that
> a form of runaway bio-goo slowly is overrunning the biosphere,
Oh, nice, give the Greens more ammunition why don't you.
Well at least the game should be popular in Germany.
> and the people behind the space effort calculate that the value of owning a
> sizeable fraction of all human living space would outweigh the risk of a
> project failure.
I'd like to be at the meeting where you get that many optimists (with
the necessary financial throw weight) in a room.
> I agree that this is a somewhat weak case, but then again, it is a
> game. I try to make the science and economy as hard as suits the
> story, but I do fudge a little bit to make (more) interesting things
> possible.
Remind me at some future point when I've relocated elsewhere to
invite you to visit for a few days. We'll make fudge together
so you can see how *sticky* it is.
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:41 MDT