Cryonics for all?

In fascinating recent work, some philosophers have argued that it would be morally permissible and prudentially rational to sign up for cryonics—if you can afford the price tag of the procedure. In this paper I ask: why not share the elixir of extended life with everyone? Should governments financially support, positively encourage, or even require people to undergo cryonics? From a general principle of beneficence, I construct a formal argument for cryonics promotion policies. I consider the objection that a subset of these policies would violate autonomy, but I argue that—to the contrary—considerations of autonomy weigh in their favour. I then consider objections based on cost and population, but argue that neither is fatal. Finally, I raise the objection that I believe poses the most serious challenge: that those who revive the cryonically preserved might inflict suffering upon them.     

Biotechnology in the global agri-food system

The advent of biotechnology presents fundamental challenges to the global agri-food industry. While the scientific base for agri-food production is being revolutionised, it is not clear if or how the technology will be used. Proponents of biotechnology and a large portion of agri-food policy makers around the world project a positive future in which technology overcomes food shortages, improves the environment, heals or eliminates disease and leads to a prosperous and healthy society. A smaller but significant array of policy makers, citizens and consumers fear that the technology will exacerbate food insecurity, threaten the environment, endanger human health and ultimately impoverish society itself. Although scientists and industry are convinced the fears are unfounded, it is not clear that our social institutions will be able to adapt, adopt and use the technology in a way that will satisfy society and improve social welfare.     

Ectogenesis,abortion and a right to the death of the fetus

Many people believe that the abortion debate will end when at some point in the future it will be possible for fetuses to develop outside the womb. Ectogenesis, as this technology is called, would make possible to reconcile pro‐life and pro‐choice positions. That is because it is commonly believed that there is no right to the death of the fetus if it can be detached alive and gestated in an artificial womb. Recently Eric Mathison and Jeremy Davis defended this position, by arguing against three common arguments for a right to the death of the fetus. I claim that their arguments are mistaken. I argue that there is a right to the death of the fetus because gestating a fetus in an artificial womb when genetic parents refuse it violates their rights not to become a biological parent, their rights to genetic privacy and their property rights. The right to the death of the fetus, however, is not a woman's right but genetic parents’ collective right which only can be used together.     

The problematic role of 'irreversibility' in the definition of death

Most definitions of death – whether cardiopulmonary, whole brain and brain stem, or just upper brain – include an irreversibility condition. Cessation of function is not enough to declare death. Irreversibility should be limited to an organism's ability to 'restart' itself after vital organs have ceased to function. However, this would mean that every hour people who cannot be revived without the intervention of medical personnel and their technology are coming back from the dead. However, the alternative of irreversibility being dependent upon technology will lead to even more counterintuitive results such as: some people are dead at a particular time and place, but others in more technologically advanced eras and locations are alive despite their being in identical physical states; in the future, millions of cryogenically frozen human beings could spend centuries in a non–dead state because of the future technological breakthroughs; or large numbers of 'frozen' people are dead for aeons but coroners are not able to declare them so because they are unaware of what biological conditions science will never be able to reverse. So death should be defined only in non–relational biological terms with a self–starting condition similar to that once advocated by Lawrence Becker.     

Free radicals in aging: Causal complexity and its biomedical implications

Superoxide generated adventitiously by the mitochondrial respiratory chain can give rise to much more reactive radicals, resulting in random oxidation of all classes of macromolecules. Harman's 1956 suggestion that this process might drive aging has been a leading strand of biogerontological thinking since the discovery of superoxide dismutase. However, it has become apparent that the many downstream consequences of free radical damage can also be caused by processes not involving oxidation. Moreover, free radicals have been put to use by evolution to such an extent that their wholesale elimination would certainly be fatal. This multiplicity of parallel pathways and side-effects illustrates why attempts to postpone aging by “cleaning up” metabolism will surely fail for the foreseeable future: we simply understand metabolism too poorly. This has led me to pursue the alternative, “repair and maintenance” approach that sidesteps our ignorance of metabolism and may be feasible relatively soon.     

Free radicals in aging: causal complexity and its biomedical implications

Superoxide generated adventitiously by the mitochondrial respiratory chain can give rise to much more reactive radicals, resulting in random oxidation of all classes of macromolecules. Harman's 1956 suggestion that this process might drive aging has been a leading strand of biogerontological thinking since the discovery of superoxide dismutase. However, it has become apparent that the many downstream consequences of free radical damage can also be caused by processes not involving oxidation. Moreover, free radicals have been put to use by evolution to such an extent that their wholesale elimination would certainly be fatal. This multiplicity of parallel pathways and side-effects illustrates why attempts to postpone aging by "cleaning up" metabolism will surely fail for the foreseeable future: we simply understand metabolism too poorly. This has led me to pursue the alternative, "repair and maintenance" approach that sidesteps our ignorance of metabolism and may be feasible relatively soon.     

High expression of cloned genes in E. coli and its consequences

Using recombinant DNA technology it is relatively easy to construct strains of bacteria which over-produce foreign proteins such as those from human, animal or viral sources. In the near future the same methodology will be used to increase the production of natural products of microorganism by manipulating metabolic pathways, e.g. those involved in antibiotic or amino acid syntheses. This article reviews the factors which lead to over-expression of proteins in E. coli and the possible consequences when large scale culture is undertaken.     

Choice of area for assessment

Multiple areas for assessment of skeletal maturity of an individual (hand, foot, knee, elbow, shoulder, hip) provide the broadest basis for accurate appraisal. Such studies are becoming progressively less feasible because: (1) the amount of radiation exposure involved may not be permitted; and (2) the greater time, expense and technical assistance required may not be justified by the knowledge yielded. For most statistical series it is desirable today to limit radiographs to one area. The left hand, including lower forearm, would seem the area of choice. It is most convenient, permits maximum subjects cooperation, is cheapest, most rapidly done, and may be repeated most often without objection. Uniformity and clarity of radiograms are also easiest to obtain. Standardization of techniques for use with both fixed and portable machines by widely separated workers is most readily attained. For special purposes the choice of area must be determined by the information sought. Special measures will often have to be devised to answer the questions being investigated.     

Programmed cell death in spinal cord injury pathogenesis and therapy

Spinal cord injury (SCI) always leads to functional deterioration due to a series of processes including cell death. In recent years, programmed cell death (PCD) is considered to be a critical process after SCI, and various forms of PCD were discovered in recent years, including apoptosis, necroptosis, autophagy, ferroptosis, pyroptosis and paraptosis. Unlike necrosis, PCD is known as an active cell death mediated by a cascade of gene expression events, and it is crucial for elimination unnecessary and damaged cells, as well as a defence mechanism. Therefore, it would be meaningful to characterize the roles of PCD to not only enhance our understanding of the pathophysiological processes, but also improve functional recovery after SCI. This review will summarize and explore the most recent advances on how apoptosis, necroptosis, autophagy, ferroptosis, pyroptosis and paraptosis are involved in SCI. This review can help us to understand the various functions of PCD in the pathological processes of SCI, and contribute to our novel understanding of SCI of unknown aetiology in the near future.     

Neuropathological Aspects of Mitochondrial DNA Disease

Mitochondrial DNA disorders are an important cause of neurological disease, yet despite our awareness of the importance of these conditions, relatively little is known about the neuropathology of these disorders and even less about the mechanisms involved in neuronal dysfunction and death. In this review we detail important features from neuropathological studies available and highlight deficiencies that are currently limiting our understanding of mitochondrial DNA disease. We also discuss possible future approaches that might resolve some of these outstanding issues. Further study of these disorders is critical because mitochondria play a central role in neuronal survival and it is likely that an understanding of the mechanisms involved in neuronal dysfunction and cell death in mitochondrial DNA disease may have implications for other neurodegenerative diseases.     

Persistence of antibiotic resistance in bacterial populations

Unfortunately for mankind, it is very likely that the antibiotic resistance problem we have generated during the last 60 years due to the extensive use and misuse of antibiotics is here to stay for the foreseeable future. This view is based on theoretical arguments, mathematical modeling, experiments and clinical interventions, suggesting that even if we could reduce antibiotic use, resistant clones would remain persistent and only slowly (if at all) be outcompeted by their susceptible relatives. In this review, we discuss the multitude of mechanisms and processes that are involved in causing the persistence of chromosomal and plasmid-borne resistance determinants and how we might use them to our advantage to increase the likelihood of reversing the problem. Of particular interest is the recent demonstration that a very low antibiotic concentration can be enriching for resistant bacteria and the implication that antibiotic release into the environment could contribute to the selection for resistance. Several mechanisms are contributing to the stability of antibiotic resistance in bacterial populations and even if antibiotic use is reduced it is likely that most resistance mechanisms will persist for considerable times.     

Cryopreservation of articular cartilage. Part 1: conventional cryopreservation methods

There is increasing interest in the possibility of treating diseased or damaged areas of synovial joint surfaces by grafts of healthy allogeneic cartilage. Such grafts could be obtained from cadaver tissue donors or in the future they might be manufactured by 'tissue engineering' methods. Cartilage is an avascular tissue and hence is immunologically privileged but to take advantage of this is the graft must contain living cells. Preservation methods that achieve this are required to build up operational stocks of grafts, to provide a buffer between procurement and use, and to enable living grafts of a practical size to be provided at the right time for patient and surgeon. Review of the literature shows that it has been relatively straightforward to cryopreserve living isolated chondrocytes, but at the present time there is no satisfactory method to preserve cartilage between the time of procurement or manufacture and surgical use. In this paper, we review the relevant literature and we confirm that isolated ovine chondrocytes in suspension can be effectively cryopreserved by standard methods yet the survival of chondrocytes in situ in cartilage tissue is inadequate and extremely variable.     

The economics of evolution: Henry Ford and the Model T

For the past 30 years evolutionary biologists have used a fictional tale about engineer and businessman Henry Ford to help illustrate the undesirability of over-design. Thus, on discovering that kingpins were rarely damaged in scrapped Model T automobiles, Henry Ford is alleged to have concluded that the kingpins were unnecessarily durable and asked that they be built to a cheaper specification. The general lesson that has been drawn from this tale is that natural selection will act to equalize the mortality risks accruing from damage to each part of the organism's body. Yet it is well known, at least as far as humans are concerned, that death is more likely to be attributed to a failure of some organs compared to others. To understand why this might be so, we use some graphical and mathematical models to show that even if all body organs were equally important to survivorship, then the optimal investment solution that maximizes whole-organism longevity will typically not be the solution that equalizes the fail-times of the individual organs. As with natural organisms, the key to any optimal investment policy in multi-component systems is understanding what 'bang you can get for your buck'. Moreover, we use a specific model to show that, even following selection to ameliorate the effects of damage, those body parts that receive more damage are still more likely to be the ultimate cause of death – that is, there is 'under-compensation'. Therefore, the decision to make the kingpins more cheaply should not have been based only on the fact they rarely cause car failure compared to other car components. Such arguments wrongly assume that if one car part (or body part) is less durable than the others, then it will always be the reason for any future breakdown (or death).     

Genetic and environmental factors in the resistance of Drosophila subobscura adults to high temperature shock

Summary Survival time following a high temperature shock of Drosophila subobscura adults in dry air has shown great variability. This experimental condition involved desiccation as the first cause of death. Here survival is studied under saturation humidity, so that the mortality may be imputed only to thermic stress. We analyze the influence of culture temperature and crowding on resistance for different sex and age of the adults. The results show strong influences of these environmental factors on heat shock resistance and show interactions with the age and sex of the adults. We suggest that these facts could be due to acclimatization and/or to adaptation. The acclimatization would occur during development and would affect physiological processes related to aging of the flies. The adaptation would take place for selection, acting through differential mortality before the heat shock. Of course, other processes could be significant. Whatever the causal explanation, it will be necessary in any future research related with heat shock resistance to take these factors into account.     

Making the case for human life extension: personal arguments

In the close to medium future, the life sciences might permit a vast extension of the human life span. I will argue that this is a very desirable development for the individual person. The question whether death is a harm to the dying is irrelevant here. All it takes is that being alive is good for the living person and not being alive is not good for anyone. Thus, living persons who expect to live on happily are rationally required to want to stay alive. Eventual uncertainty whether it will be possible to be happy in the future provides no objection, but rather an incentive to try. This view, however, may be naive in assuming that persons are unchanging entities that exist separately from their psychological information. Objections have been derived from reductionistic views that value our future experiences in a way that declines with time, so that there will be a future point beyond which only negligible value accrues. If we adopt such a view, then we cannot now be concerned to have experiences beyond that point. I argue that these arguments fail to take into account all the reasons we might have to be concerned for the future and all kinds of such concern that come from them. The adoption of a plausible reductionistic account can arguably weaken our concern for the future and certainly change its quality in important ways. But this provides no objection to the desire to live forever, nor to live at all.     

Technology and social reality

Conclusion My purpose in discussing the social function of technology has not been so much to provide an explanation for a particular state of affairs as to describe the legitimation that a dominant social class attempts — not always successfully, one should add — to place on that set of affairs. In no way therefore does it lead directly to a recipe for an adequate political practice that would alter such a situation. Yet it does provide some indications of various aspects required by such a practice. In particular, it points to the need to challenge technological innovation directly on political grounds, as part of an overall struggle for emancipation from the exploitative system which technology maintains under industrial capitalism. Furthermore, it indicates that what is experienced as oppression by technology is in fact the articulation of political repression experienced through technology. The nature of technological innovation as a political process means that those who in our society control the process of innovation are able to use this control to strengthen their position, a situation in which scientists and technologists become direct accomplices. Once this has been realized, it will be seen that political struggle belongs as much to the laboratory bench as it does to the factory floor and indeed to all other areas of everyday activity.David Dickson is a mathematician and a member of the Editorial Collective of Radical Science Journal, London.     

Clean Recycling of Lead-Acid Batteries for Electric Vehicles: A Reply to Socolow and Thomas

This article is stimulated by the analysis of Socolow and Thomas in the first issue of this journal. Our work showed that a lead-acid battery-powered electric vehicle (Ev) would result in more lead being discharged into the environment than a comparable car burning leaded gasoline. Five hundred thousand EVs would lead to a 20% increase in lead use in the United States, and presumably a comparable 20% increase in lead discharges.
The Socolow-Thomas analysis asserts: (I) choosing not to pursue technology that uses toxic materials will unduly constrain the research and development (R&D) in advanced vehicles and limit the options likely to emerge from that research; (2) we do not do a full risk assessment of the lead discharges from lead smelting, battery making and recycling; and (3) in response to regulation the industry might devise a "clean recycling" system.
We doubt the wisdom of increasing R&D on lead batteries because introducing large quantities of lead into cars will pose health risks. The possibility of clean recycling in the future is not an adequate basis for mandating EVs. Proponents of EVs should prove there is no harm to the environment Regulators should not require EVs until there is a reasonable showing of environmental benefit and that the requirement is cost-effective in reducing ozone.     

Alternative hypotheses for the effects of drugs in small-scale clinical studies

New drugs that will be investigated in the future are expected to deal with chronic diseases, where the number of patients available for controlled clinical trials will be small and where the long-term sequelae that it is hoped will be ameliorated take a long time to occur. Thus, it would be useful to construct powerful tests of hypotheses that can be used to compare subtle intermediate measures of change in condition. This paper examines the probabilistic characteristics of these measures and the changes in them that might be expected from drug therapy.     

Genetically modified lactic acid bacteria: applications to food or health and risk assessment

Lactic acid bacteria have a long history of use in fermented food products. Progress in gene technology allows their modification by introducing new genes or by modifying their metabolic functions. These modifications may lead to improvements in food technology (bacteria better fitted to technological processes, leading to improved organoleptic properties em leader ), or to new applications including bacteria producing therapeutic molecules that could be delivered by mouth. Examples in these two fields will be discussed, at the same time evaluating their potential benefit to society and the possible risks associated with their use. Risk assessment and expected benefits will determine the future use of modified bacteria in the domains of food technology and health.