JoVE stats: blogosphere and Nature News traffic before official launch

The first official issue of the new biological video protocol site JoVE or Journal of Visualized Experiments will be available today 11 pm EST, November 30, 2006. The graph shows November traffic in term of unique visitors, first 2.5 weeks mainly uploaders, authors, editors and editors’ friends used the page, from 17th there was a mild scientific blogosphere coverage, like Pimm, Blog around the clock and Easternblot, and from 24th, November, it was the Nature News article (no longer available, only to subscribers) aided by blogs, that generated the heaviest traffic, that led even to a server change.

Moshe Pritsker, founder and editor of JoVE says: “The first launch means more organized format (articles by categories), certain dates of issue. Later we plan to increase the qualities of the video-articles. The idea is to create a scientific publication with all the characteristics of publication, to avoid the Youtubish comparison, while remaining flexible. The site will have a different design and more video-articles, including ones from famous ES cell labs.”

Thanks Moshe for the data.

More on science video protocols: Science: video protocols can help to share the tacit dimension, Early science protocol video: OpenWetWare Drosophila CHiP

Human heart mitochondria and nitric oxide production: hard work

I’ve almost missed the publication of an article by our group back home, in Budapest which is my first real first author peer-review article published in Life Sciences, impact factor, 2.512 as of 2005. The peer-review process was hard (illustration: me under the hood) and bloody, because it is a negative result, so you have to be more careful and logically step-by-step. We’ve eventually showed that Human heart mitochondria do not produce physiologically relevant quantities of nitric oxide. Take care, it is hardcore science without any popular tone. Abstract here:

hESCs derived from single blastomere by Lanza et al.: second trial in Nature with success

In science you can always correct yourself. In stem cell research it is of utmost importance to correct what you’re claiming, if you’ve claimed it not accurately enough before. Now in November 23 Nature magazine the Lanza group has a corrected manuscript on Human embryonic stem cell lines derived from single blastomeres on the possibility to generate human embryonic stem cells from a single cell that is isolated from an in vitro eight-celled embryo during routine preimplantatation genetic diagnosis (PGD). So it is an ethically non-controversial way to collect human embryonic stem cells, although it is working only in the case of in vitro fertilized embryos. Safety concerns of the protocol are perturbations of genomic imprinting due to the longer time the embryo remains in vitro during the process. As Joe Leigh Simpson says in the News and Views commentary: “This work with human blastomeres follows a demonstration by the same group that ES cells can be derived from single mouse blastomere. In these earlier mouse experiments, an intact viable embryo developed that consisted of the seven remaining blastomeres; by contrast, in the work with human cells, multiple blastomeres were taken from the 8-cell stage and no embryos were allowed to remain in culture. This was a source of confusion in the earlier online publication.”

See also: Editor’s Summary, Bodyhack, New York Times

Moderate life extension: yes, maximum: no, interview with Huber Warner

Huber R. Warner is a biochemist by profession and he initiated and participated in the development of many research areas including: cellular senescence, oxidative stress, apoptosis, functional genomics, the intervention testing program, and premature aging models. He currently serves on the editorial board of Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, is the editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences, and is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. In latest Rejuvenation Research there is a valuable discussion between Warner and de Grey about the SENS project.

1. What is the story of your contra maximum life extension commitment?

I worked at the National Institutes of Health in the USA managing a grant program to fund research on the biology of aging for 21 years (1984-2005). As a member of the Federal government, I learned to be careful when speaking about science and health issues so as not to mislead the public about what had been experimentally proven vs. what was merely promising, hypothetical, or in progress.

2. Do you support moderate life extension? If not, what are your arguments against it?

I’m not against life extension, as numerous experiments with animal models have shown that increased longevity is routinely accompanied by increased health span, something that probably no one is against. However, we felt we had to be careful how we framed our goals, especially when speaking to legislators, as life span extension can conjure up the image of an exploding number of older frail people hanging around draining the resources of the government.

New key protein player in mitochondrial fission and fusion: make or break

Regulators of the balance between mitochondrial fusion and fission events are of special interest. November 27, Journal of Cell Science: Katsuyoshi Mihara and colleagues identified a mammalian protein – mitofusin-binding protein (MIB) – that regulates mitochondrial fusion by interacting with mitofusins (Mfns), mitochondrial outer-membrane GTPases that are required for mitochondrial fusion. Overexpressed MIB induces mito fragmentation, silenced MIB by RNAi induces expansion of mitochondrial network fusion structures, inhibits cell growth. Link

Questions to contra life extensionists: rational pitfalls

Critical thinking is crucial to every successful scientific and technological project. In order to consider any attempt to the extension of life in details,we have to take a look at the other side of the coin. So in the future I try to blogterview some experts, scholars, philosophers, activists, …who are opposing some concrete points concerning life extension with the questions below:

1. What is the story of your contra life extension commitment?

2. Is it against moderate or maximum life extension?

3. Do you support moderate life extension? If not, what are your arguments against it?

4. What is your (strongest) argument against maximum life extension?

5. What are the problems with moderate life extension technologies concerning humans and why?

6. What are the problems with the present technological drafts of maximum life extension?

7. What can You do against life extension?

Valley Brats in Rolling Stone’s Tech Issue: trends in journalism (weekend off)

And now for something completely different! Sometimes life is just simply life for me without any extension. This is Life.exe. So at the weekends during the largely dead webtimes, I’ll blog about other things than stem cells, regenerative medicine, maximum life extension and biotech. This week offstory is a report, which shows the transformation of the now mainstream, once countercultural Rolling Stone magazine into a Wired-type Zeitgeist patterned techweb conglomerate. I bought the 16th November issue because it seemed like a Wired magazine by cover and content too: (inversely, look at the december Wired cover: it is Rolling Stone-like):

- coverboys and story are not the usual nice bodymaniac popceleb men&women but Colbert&Stewart

- blogs of musicians,

- long report on a radical idea by a planetary engineer to stop global warming,

- a big article with the title: The Baby Billionaires of Silicon Valley.

That is about the Valley Brats, the hidden power clique of under 30 übergeeks in the Bay Area, like Firefox main creator Blake Ross,

Nature News on JoVE: is JoVE really the YouTube for life scientists?

Nature News has an article of the new Journal of Visual Experiments website, whereof Pimm had a story one week ago with the help of Moshe Pritsker, founder of the site. The title of the Nature News post: YouTube for test tubes, which sounds good really, but is problematic a little bit. In a way the YouTube analogy is true, the biologists can now upload their protocol videos on the site, and can watch it freely, and there is the exciting DIY possibility, but on the other hand JoVE is not YouTube at all: there is a strict submission process with clear policies to go through, which excludes junk, and you cannot embed the videos freely. The first aim of JoVE is to be useful for people in the lab, which is a scientific purpose. Entertainment is just after that. Good luck for any bioDIYers.

Maximum Life CEO David Kekich: the investment strategy of life extension

David A Kekich is a heavyweight venture capitalist and investment expert. In 1999, he founded the Maximum Life Foundation, a corporation dedicated to curing aging related diseases. His LIVES™ financial strategy will finance the research needed to profitably develop life extending technologies. Kekich, who is also a lifestyle life extensionist, and very aware of current technological possibilities, answered the Pimm blogterview questions:

1. What is the story of your life extension commitment? I have basically committed all my professional efforts to help reverse aging within the next 25 years. My commitment was a by product of watching my parents relatives slowly deteriorate and die off due to aging related conditions. Life extension was also a strong interest of mine since my late 20’s, about 35 years ago. My total commitment happened as a result of a productivity and goal reaching exercise designed to show how much productive time I had left to accomplish my goals. My conclusion was, I needed to live longer.

2. Is it a commitment for moderate or maximum life extension? Maximum

The (all)mighty condrion: Mitochondrial biology, new perspectives, meeting in London

I am happy to participate: The Novartis Foundation in collaboration with The Royal Society of Medicine and The Physiological Society will be holding a one-day meeting on the above subject at Birkbeck College, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1 on Friday 1 December 2006. The field of mitochondrial research has undergone a complete re-evaluation in recent years. It is now clear that mitochondria participate intimately in cell life and death and that they are involved not ‘simply’ in the business of ATP synthesis but also in the modulation of cell signalling and as safe compartments in which potentially lethal proteins are stored.

Maximum Life’s James Clement: what can a lawyer do for life extension?

James Clement is an attorney and serial entrepreneur. He is the Chief Operating Officer of Maximum Life Foundation which supports aging and life extension research with a mature and secure VC fund strategy (next blogterviewee, David Kekich, C.E.O. of MaxLife).

1. What is the story of your life extension commitment? I have been interested in life extension ever since I first learned about death as a child. During school, I was always more interested in science than any other subject; but my high-school chemistry teacher was a political activist and encouraged me to study law and change “the System.” Unfortunately, it did not occur to me that I could actually practice life-extension research until I was in law school in the 1980’s, and read Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw’s “Life Extension Handbook.” I continue to read constantly in diverse scientific fields, especially regarding anti-aging and life-extension, neurophysiology, artificial intelligence, and space. I take about 40 to 50 pills a day, mostly from the Life Extension Foundation, which I believe is the premier vitamin/supplement company in the U.S. I joined the Maximum Life Foundation about a year ago as its Chief Operating Officer, and help its Founder, David Kekich plan and implement strategies for the Foundation to help facilitate anti-aging research.

2. Is it a commitment for moderate or maximum life extension? I am definitely committed to maximum life extension. I appreciate the views of Hans Moravec and others, popularized by Ray Kurzweil in his book “The Singularity Is Near,” that technological change is happening at an exponential rate. While too many people think that super longevity won’t be practical during this century, I believe my generation of Baby Boomers will be the last humans to experience involuntary aging and death from old-age.

3. What is your favourite argument supporting human life extension?Not only will the suffering of disease and aging be alleviated, but human society will be transformed by continuous learning, and a deeper appreciation for the value of life (human and animal) and the environment in which we live.

Life extension interviews: Nick Bostrom and the philosopher’s point of view

Nick Bostrom is an analytic philosopher by profession in Oxford, but he has a strong background in science too. He is also the co-founder and current chair of the World Transhumanist Association.

1. What is the story of your life extension commitment?

I did not think much about the topic until I learned about various possible enabling technologies, and concluded that life extension is feasible. I suppose I was “committed” from that point on.

2. Is it a commitment for moderate or maximum life extension?

For whatever is attainable. Ideally, death should be voluntary. I am assuming we’re talking about extension of health span. I am not committed to indefinite extension of life in a very poor state.

3. What is your favourite argument supporting human life extension?

I’m in favor of research into anti-aging medicine for precisely the same reasons that I’m in favor of cancer research, heart disease research, and diabetes research: because it might prevent or cure disease and save lives.

Weekend Picture: Get Retro Wireless To-Day

Last Sunday I was in London with my girlfriend and we saw this on a Bloomsbury Book Fair:

Biological Video Protocols on JoVE: Online Journal of Visualized Experiments

At last there is an almost perfect solution for life scientists to share video protocols and insider tricks to learn techniques and repeat experiments properly. Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is a newly founded and FREE online research journal that publishes video-articles on biological experiments (video-protocols). It is an independent project by 2 people, Moshe Pritsker (postdoc at Harvard Medical School) and Nikita Bernstein (Web application developer). Moshe says: “As a biologist personally suffering from written “protocols”, I had this idea for some years, but couldn’t do it because was busy with my PhD studies at Princeton. Two months ago, Nikita and I have began implement it practically, as a research publication.” On JoVE Video-articles include step-by-step instructions on experiments, and short discussions by experts describing possible technical problems and modifications. JoVE employs the OPEN-SOURCE model:

Pimm got BoingBoinged

Pimmblog, or more exactly the Aubrey de Grey blogterview got BoingBoinged this Monday. Despite the rumors, there was not any traffic overload, no tens of thousands visitors, no server dying, not any problems of sudden popularity. It was good, but now it’s over, back to the niche audience. In the meantime I am preparing for the next one. Thanks, Mark Frauenfelder.

The effects: first 4-5 hours: circa 900 views, first day: 1838 views, 110 feeds, second day: 471 views, today about 250. Interesting will be the one week followup, I hope that I can retain and attract 30-50 or more regular readers-commenters due to the Boing attack. Here are the stats:

Commentary on mitochondrial transfer in recent Rejuvenation Research

I published a commentary paper on mitochondrial transfer experiments (PNAS) in recent Rejuvenation Research, impact factor 8.571. Rejuv. Res. is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal and the leading forum publishing solid science to expedite a real cure for aging. Here is the public abstract:

Kevin Dewalt’s answers: technology professional, lifestyle life extensionist

Kevin Dewalt is an American technology professional, presently working at a VC. Kevin is a strong life extension supporter. We’ve met online at Baris Karadogan’s blog. I specially liked his “happy argument” for maximum life extension on the psychological level, see answer 3.

1. What is the story of your life extension commitment?

When I was 23 I discovered a book called “Optimum Sports Nutrition” by Dr. Michael Colgan. In it he presents arguments for lifestyle and nutrition changes that athletes could make to improve performance. The idea that changing my exercise, eating, or lifestyle habits could change my physical well being, health and longevity thrilled me and I began my quest. I began researching and learning about dietary supplements. At age 25 I became a vegetarian. At 26 I joined the Life Extension Foundation and have followed their recommended supplement scheme since. At 33 I began started a mild Calorie Restrition diet, lost 10 pounds and have remained on the diet. At that time I also began following the writing of Aubrey de Grey (blogterview here), Roy Walford, and others and realized that the only way I was going to be Father Time forever would be through significant advances in science.

2. Is it a commitment for moderate or maximum life extension?

What can/will You do for life extension? Answer these questions first.

Dear Reader, if You are stem cell researcher, life scientist, medical doctor, scholar, activist, bloggers, IT professional, venture capitalist, philosopher, economist, politician, decision maker, businessman, biotech- or big pharma manager, plastic surgeon, hairdresser… who support life extension, please answer the questions below and send me to [attilacsordas][at][gmail.com] to get blogterviewed.

John Cumbers’ DIY approach to life extension: personal genomics and synthetic biology

John Cumbers made the Drosophila CHiP protocol video. He is a graduate student at the Tatar lab in Brown University, USA. Below are his answers to the blogterview questions and through answer 5 you can take a fresh look at the bottom-up approach of synthetic biology.

2 more bloggers’ answers: Anne Corwin and Phil Bowermaster

The spectrum of the life extension blogterviewees is broad: scholars, activists, IT people, VC folks, … and is broadening further. Here are 2 more activists/bloggers who put their answers to their blog: Anne Corwin and the aphoristically dense Phil Bowermaster. Thanks for answering. I ‘d like to emphasize that I modified questions 4-5, and introduced a new one:

Blogterview with Aubrey de Grey: life extension stories

Aubrey de Grey is the man, who first made serious, scientifically conceptualized life extension speech acceptable within scholarly circles through good timing, well-done strategy and with a little bit of luck. The rest is … (I’ve slightly modified the original question 4 and separated questions concerning the probable technologies of moderate and maximum life extension.)

1. What is the story of your life extension commitment?

I can’t trace when I realised that aging was a bad thing — I must have been so young that I can’t remember. But I was nearly 30 before I found out that most other people don’t think the same, or at least don’t think that it’s important enough to work on. I was in a very lucky situation to be able to make a contribution – I had training in research in a very different field, and I also had quite broad knowledge of biology – so I decide to have a go. My first publication was very well-received, so I kept going!

2. Is it a commitment for moderate or maximum life extension?

Maximum (i.e., indefinite). Aging doesn’t just kill people, it causes a huge amount of suffering in the process. Aging at a later age would also cause suffering, so it’s just as bad. It amazes me that people deny this.

3. What is your favourite argument supporting human life extension?

Well, there are so many that it’s hard to choose! – but I think the one that’s strongest of all is the alleviation of suffering. However, any argument based on the alleviation of suffering cannot stand on its own, because we evidently value the lives of people who are permanently sick as well as people who are healthy.

Election perspectives in tech support: New York City as California’s rival in stem cell billions?

Check this fresh Wired review about US Midterm elections’ effects on high-tech possibilities for the United States: In New York, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer‘s gubernatorial victory was no surprise, but it’s a big win for stem-cell research in that state. Spitzer wants to commit several billion dollars of the state’s money to the science. Link I’ve heard about only 1 billion.

Sand Hill Road Venture Capitalist about life extension as business

There was a very interesting comment dialogue last week apropos of Aubrey de Grey‘s TED talk, and the host was Baris Karadokan’s blog called From Istanbul to Sand Hill Road subtitled High-tech, venture capital, creativity and innovation. Here are some details. Link

storytelling idea source

North Carolina Science Blogging Conference, January, 2007

It’s time for you to register to the North Carolina Science Blogging Conference, January 20, 2007, organized by BlogTogethter wiki. I hope that it will be a nice Unconference too.

The bioinformatics bet: what can IT folks do for life extension?

Briefly: A lot. As you might have noticed, for me as biotechnologist/life extensionist, the most important reference group is the group of IT people, because of the engineering approach, software-hardware tools, intuition concerning technology and funds. After Reason and Chris, our next answerer is Jim Craig, who published his answers here as a comment first by accident. This democracy of comments and reader generated contribution is so welcome. Jim is a lead architect and director of a software team, and the type of IT guy, whose interests can easily be as valuable concerning life extension as biotechnologists, and not exclusively in the long run.

1. What is the story of your life extension commitment?

I have adopted life extension as a hobby. I now study microbiology, proteomics and molecular design about 20 hours per week and plan to guide the next 20-40 years of my career through bioinformatics and eventually into de novo drug design with an emphasis on aging solutions.

2. Is it a commitment for moderate or maximum life extension?

maximum.

Ouroboros’ Chris Patil, III.: What can blogs do for life extension?

This is the last part of the blogterview with Chris Patil about the growing role of blogs and the web in aging research and life extension activism. Spread, summarize, criticize, connect. Thanks Chris for the answers.

Part I. Ouroboros’ Chris Patil: answers to life extension questions I.
Part II. Blogterview with Ouroboros’ Chris Patil, II.: the technology of life extension

I think that blogs can do for life extension the same thing they can do for politics (my other favorite subject): They can spread the word about current events; they can provide summarizing analysis of a dense and exponentially growing literature; and they can connect people with similar ideals and ideas.

Blogterview with Ouroboros’ Chris Patil, II.: the technology of life extension

Here is Chris’ answer to question 4, for me it was the most important because of its critical edge. Question 2 was about moderate or maximum life extension commitment and the question below is not restricted to maximum LE and unlimited lifespan but includes modest trials too.

4. What is the most probable technological draft of human life extension, which technology or discipline has the biggest chance to reach it earliest?(regenerative medicine, nanotechnology, gene therapy, caloric restriction, bionics, hormones, antioxidants, …)

In a hundred years, we won’t be able to look back and answer that question in a clear way. People who are committed to extending their lifespans will have taken multiple strategies. One can’t point to a life and say, these ten years were from exercise but these five were from resveratrol.

I think the first really useful technological life extension will have a very familiar form, e.g., “take this pill and call me in fifty years when you’re still alive.” Drugs that activate sirtuins and related pathways are very promising (I can’t spill the beans but I saw some amazing data at Cold Spring Harbor suggesting that there are already several working drugs). Once we’re better able to get our brains around calorie restriction, I think that CR mimetics will be right behind the sirtuin-based drugs. To the extent that these sorts of drugs will help prevent acknowledged illnesses like Type II diabetes, there’s already a clinical indication for them, so they should sail through approval on that basis.

Ouroboros’ Chris Patil: answers to life extension questions I.

Ouroboros is a weblog mainly for people in the life sciences focusing on the different aspects of aging research through scanning articles published in peer-review journals. The blogger behind is Chris Patil, a postdoctoral fellow, currently working with Judith Campisi in the Life Sciences division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, California. If Fight Aging! is the life extension movement itself, than Ouroboros is the high-end scientific basis of it. The second part is about the technological question of LE, and the third is the answer to what can blogs do for LE.

1. What is the story of your life extension commitment?

I got interested in the prospect of life extension very early in my undergraduate education, before I knew much about biology and before I was even sure I wanted to be a biologist (I had originally planned to study chemistry or chemical engineering).

I had read a few articles about DNA damage, mitochondria and aging, which had of course convinced me that mitochondrial DNA damage was the causative force in all human aging (18-year-olds with no scientific training are remarkably easy to convince of anything), and it seemed obvious that all we’d have to do is go in and repair mitochondrial DNA in every cell of the body, and cure aging. Et voilà. It seemed painfully obvious and trivially simple to me.

Meanwhile I’d realized that most of what had interested me about chemistry was actually about biology, so I decided to become a biologist instead of a chemist. Over time I developed the idea of eventually working on the biology of aging with an eye toward life extension research. I’ve taken a lot of detours along the way but never strayed too far: I worked on DNA repair, and then cellular stress, and finally I’m studying cellular senescence.