X-Message-Number: 13412
From: 
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 00:43:22 -0800
Subject: Re: CryoNet #13408 - #13410

The confernece on 01 April will be at Stanford University, right?

John Perry

On Tue, 21 Mar 2000 05:00:02 -0500 (EST) CryoNet
<> writes:
> CryoNet - Tue 21 Mar 2000
> 
>     #13408: ANNOUNCE: Kurzweil/Moravec Symposium: "Will Spiritual 
> Robots Replace Humanity by 2100?" [John Clark]
>     #13409: Charles, you just gotta believe! [john grigg]
>     #13410: peg - a non-toxic treatment for colon cancer [Doug 
> Skrecky]
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message #13408
> From: "John Clark" <>
> Subject: ANNOUNCE: Kurzweil/Moravec Symposium: "Will Spiritual 
> Robots Replace Humanity by 2100?"
> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 13:19:12 -0500
> 
> "Will Spiritual Robots Replace Humanity by 2100?"
> ----------------
> 
> Douglas Hofstadter presents...
> Kurzweil/Moravec Symposium
> FREE and open to the public
> April 1, 2000, 1pm - 5:30. TCSEQ room 200.
> (Parking in "A" lots OK on Saturdays)
> 
> Primary speakers:
> * Ray Kurzweil (inventor of reading machine for the blind, 
> electronic keyboards, etc., and author of "The Age of Spiritual
> Machines")
> * Hans Moravec (a pioneer of mobile robot research, and author of 
> "Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind")
> * Bill Joy (co-founder of, and chief scientist at, SUN Microsystems)
> 
> 
> Panel members:
> * Ralph Merkle (well-known computer scientist and one of today's top 
> figures in the explosive field of nanotechnology)
> * Kevin Kelly (editor at "Wired" magazine and author of "Out of 
> Control", a study of bio-technological hybrids)
> * John Holland (inventor of genetic algorithms, and artificial-life 
> pioneer; professor of computer science and psychology at the U.
> of Michigan)
> * Frank Drake (distinguished radio-astronomer and head of the SETI 
> Institute -- Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
> * John Koza (inventor of genetic programming, a rapidly expanding 
> branch of artificial intelligence)
> *
> 
> 
> Symposium organizer and panel moderator:
> * Douglas Hofstadter (professor of cognitive science at Indiana; 
> author of "G del, Escher, Bach", "Fluid Concepts and Creative
> Analogies", etc.)
> ----------------
> 
> In 1999, two distinguished computer scientists, Ray Kurzweil and 
> Hans Moravec, came out independently with serious books that
> proclaimed that in the coming century, our own computational 
> technology, marching to the exponential drum of Moore's Law and more
> general laws of bootstrapping, leapfrogging, positive-feedback 
> progress, will outstrip us intellectually and spiritually, becoming
> not only deeply creative but deeply emotive, thus usurping from us 
> humans our self-appointed position as "the highest product of
> evolution".
> 
> These two books (and several others that appeared at about the same 
> time) are not the works of crackpots; they have been reviewed at
> the highest levels of the nation's press, and often very favorably. 
> But the scenarios they paint are surrealistic,
> science-fiction-like, and often shocking.
> 
> According to Kurzweil and Moravec, today's human researchers, 
> drawing on emerging research areas such as artificial life, 
> artificial
> intelligence, nanotechnology, virtual reality, genetic algorithms, 
> genetic programming, and optical, DNA, and quantum computing (as
> well as other areas that have not yet been dreamt of), are striving, 
> perhaps unwittingly, to render themselves obsolete -- and in
> this strange endeavor, they are being aided and abetted by the very 
> entities that would replace them (and you and me): superpowerful
> computers that are relentlessly becoming tinier and tinier and 
> faster and faster, month after month after month.
> 
> Where will it all lead? Will we soon pass the spiritual baton to 
> software minds that will swim in virtual realities of a thousand
> sorts that we cannot even begin to imagine? Will uploading and 
> downloading of full minds onto the Web become a commonplace? Will
> thinking take place at silicon speeds, millions of times greater 
> than carbon speeds? Will our children -- or perhaps our
> grandchildren -- be the last generation to experience "the human 
> condition"? Will immortality take over from mortality? Will
> personalities blur and merge and interpenetrate as the need for 
> biological bodies and brains recedes into the past? What is to come?
> 
> To treat these disorienting themes with the seriousness they deserve 
> at the dawn of the new millennium, cognitive scientist Douglas
> Hofstadter has drawn together a blue-ribbon panel of experts in all 
> the areas concerned, including the authors of the two books
> cited. On Saturday, April 1 (take the date as you will), three main 
> speakers and five additional panelists will publicly discuss and
> debate what the computational and technological future holds for 
> humanity. The forum will be held from 1 PM till 5:30 PM, and
> audience participation will be welcome in the final third of the 
> program.
> 
> ----------------
> 
> This event is brought to you with the gracious support of
> Stanford's Symbolic Systems Program,
> the Center for the Study of Language and Information,
> the Computer Science and Philosophy Departments,
> the Center for Computer-Assisted Research in the Humanities,
> Channel 51,
> and the GSB Futurist Club.
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message #13409
> From: "john grigg" <>
> Subject: Charles, you just gotta believe!
> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 13:51:40 PST
> 
> >From: bankston <>> Subject: Re: CryoNet #13399 - 
> #13401
> >I continue to receive and read many of the CryoNet updates and 
> would like 
> >to
> add> a few things. I work in an acquired brain injury program in San 
> Diego 
> that
> works
> >every day with over 100 individuals surviving stroke, anoxia, 
> tramatic 
> >brain
> >injuries, the surgeons byproducts of tumor removals, etc. I can 
> attest to 
> >one
> >undeniable fact, boys and girls; when areas of the brain are 
> damaged, 
> >corelated
> >functioning for that particular formation results in flat ass loss. 
> As in
> >forever.
> 
> Charles Platt wrote:
> Thanks for this small dose of fact-based reality, which of course 
> will not 
> be welcome among those locked in permanent denial.
> (end)
> 
> But Charles, nanotech will fix everything!!  With our nano and AI we 
> will 
> just have to build time machines to find out all the missing 
> information!
> 
> 
> your friend,
> 
> John Grigg ;)
> 
> P.S.  I am going to start keeping a daily journal so in roughly 
> seventy 
> years I can say, "who was this person?"  And I would probably say 
> that 
> whether I was a healthy but very frail 103 year-old who never took 
> the 'cold 
> bath' or a vigorous reanimated amnesiac!
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message #13410
> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 00:09:35 -0800 (PST)
> From: Doug Skrecky <>
> Subject: peg - a non-toxic treatment for colon cancer
> 
> Citations: 1-3 (plus an additional note.)
> <1>
> Authors
>   Parnaud G.  Tache S.  Peiffer G.  Corpet DE.
> Institution
>   Securite des Aliments, Institut National de la Recherche 
> Agronomique, Ecole
>   Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse, France.
> Title
>   Polyethylene-glycol suppresses colon
>   cancer and causes dose-dependent regression of
>   azoxymethane-induced aberrant crypt foci in rats.
> Source
>   Cancer Research.  59(20):5143-7, 1999 Oct 15.
> Abstract
>   Dietary polyethylene-glycol (PEG) 8000, a
>   nonfermented polymer laxative, strongly suppresses 
> azoxymethane-induced
>   aberrant crypt foci (ACF) in the colon of rats, as shown in a 
> previous study
>   (D. E. Corpet et al., Carcinogenesis (Lond.), 20: 915-918, 1999). 
> In the
>   present study, we tested the effect of PEG administered during 
> either
>   initiation or postinitiation, the dose-response effect of PEG, the 
> regressive
>   effect of PEG on established ACF, and the preventive effect of PEG 
> on colon
>   cancers in rats. The general design was to initiate
>   carcinogenesis in F344 rats by a single injection of azoxymethane 
> (20 mg/kg)
>   and to randomize the animals 7 days later to AIN-76 diets 
> containing 5% PEG
>   or no PEG (control). At termination, ACF and tumors were scored 
> blindly by a
>   single observer. The administration of 5% PEG for 32 days to 
> groups of 10
>   female rats in either food or drinking water reduced the number of 
> ACF by a
>   factor of 8 (P = 0.0002) and reduced the number of large ACF by a 
> factor of
>   20-30 (P = 0.002). No protection was afforded when PEG was given 
> only during
>   the initiation phase. Diets containing 0%, 0.5%, 2%, or 5% PEG fed 
> for 35
>   days to four groups of male rats inhibited ACF in a dose-dependent 
> manner (P
>   < 0.0001). The administration of a 5% PEG diet for 41 days, 
> starting 42 days
>   after carcinogen injection, led to a 73% decrease in the number of 
> ACF (P <
>   0.0001). Dietary PEG thus caused the regression of established 
> ACF.
>   Macroscopic tumors were evaluated by histology in rats that had 
> been fed a
>   high-fat diet containing cooked casein to promote tumor growth for 
> 81 days.
>   In this accelerated model of carcinogenesis, dietary PEG 
> suppressed the
>   occurrence of colon adenomas and carcinomas: the incidence of 
> tumors
>   decreased from 70% to 10% (P = 0.005); and the multiplicity 
> decreased from
>   2.1 to 0.1 tumor(s)/rat (P = 0.003). No cancer was detected
>   in the PEG-fed rats. Taken together, these results suggest that 
> PEG could be
>   a potent anticancer agent in the postinitiation phase of
>   carcinogenesis. Because PEG is a substance that is generally 
> recognized as
>   safe (GRAS list, Food and Drug Administration), its
>   cancer-preventive features could be tested in humans.
> 
> <2>
> Authors
>   Corpet DE.  Parnaud G.
> Institution
>   Securite des Aliments, INRA, Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de 
> Toulouse, France.
>   
> Title
>   Polyethylene-glycol, a potent suppressor of
>   azoxymethane-induced colonic aberrant crypt foci in rats.
> Source
>   Carcinogenesis.  20(5):915-8, 1999 May.
> Abstract
>   Bulking fibers and high water intake may decrease colon 
> carcinogenesis in
>   rats, and the risk of colorectal cancer in humans. We
>   speculated that a non-fermented polymer,
>   polyethylene-glycol (PEG) 8000, which
>   increases stool moisture, might protect rats against colon 
> carcinogenesis.
>   Thirty female F344 rats were given a single injection of 
> azoxymethane (20
>   mg/kg), and 7 days later randomized to AIN76 diets containing PEG 
> (to provide
>   3 g/kg body wt/day), or no PEG (control). Diets were given ad 
> libitum for 105
>   days, then colon carcinogenesis was assessed by the aberrant crypt 
> foci (ACF)
>   test. ACF were scored blindly by a single observer. Dietary 
> feeding of PEG
>   almost suppressed ACF larger than one crypt, and strikingly 
> decreased the
>   total number of ACF per rat. PEG-fed rats had 100 times less large 
> ACF than
>   controls (0.8 and 83 respectively, P = 0.00001). PEG-fed rats had 
> 20 times
>   less total ACF than control (six and 107 ACF/rat, respectively; P 
> < 0.0001).
>   Two treated rats had no detectable ACF. PEG is 10 times more 
> potent than
>   other chemopreventive agents in this model. Since PEG is generally 
> recognized
>   as safe, its cancer-preventive features could be tested in
>   humans.
> 
> <3>
> Authors
>   Laboisse CL.  Maoret JJ.  Triadou N.  Augeron C.
> Institution
>   Laboratoire de Biologie et de Physiologie des Cellules Digestives 
> (U239
>   I.N.S.E.R.M.), Faculte X. Bichat, Paris, France.
> Title
>   Restoration by polyethylene glycol of
>   characteristics of intestinal differentiation in subpopulations of 
> the human
>   colonic adenocarcinoma cell line HT29.
> Source
>   Cancer Research.  48(9):2498-504, 1988 May 1.
> Abstract
>   The human colonic cancer cell line HT29 is morphologically
>   undifferentiated in standard culture conditions. The cells were 
> incubated for
>   30 s in polyethylene glycol (27%, v/v),
>   then washed, and refed with standard medium. In these conditions 
> of
>   treatment, polyethylene glycol was unable
>   to induce a significant cell multinucleation. Three wk after the 
> treatment,
>   circular "flat-foci" developed in the culture, which consisted of 
> circular
>   monolayers of polarized cells. These subpopulations were isolated, 
> then grown
>   as independent lines (lines 27, 28, 30, and 31) in standard 
> culture
>   conditions, and characterized. Two types of differentiated cells 
> were present
>   in these lines, namely, enterocytic cells and mucus-secreting 
> goblet cells.
>   These characteristics of intestinal differentiation were found to 
> be stable
>   during the long-term culture of these lines in standard medium. We 
> were able
>   to isolate from line 27 a clonal derivative (C1.27H) exhibiting 2 
> lineages of
>   differentiation, as assessed by electron microscopy, 
> immunofluorescence, and
>   immunoblot analysis of cell membranes with anti-sucrase-isomaltase
>   antibodies, and enzyme activities. Sucrase-isomaltase was present 
> in two
>   forms, namely, the high-molecular-weight precursor and the cleaved 
> subunits.
>   Finally, the C1.27H cells were found to be significantly less 
> tumorigenic
>   than the parental HT29 cells in both in vitro and in vivo 
> tumorigenicity
>   tests. This stably differentiated cell clone could represent the
>   cancer derivative of the normal stem cells of the intestinal
>   crypt. It is therefore a possible model system for the study of 
> intestinal
>   cell differentiation.
> 
> 
>   Additional note by poster:
> 
>      High molecular weight peg 8000 appears to be useful in the 
> treatment
>   of colon cancer. Considering its very high safety margins relative
>   to conventional chemotherapy, it deserves first consideration for 
>   further research. (too bad it is not patentable!)
>      The question I would like to see addressed is whether low 
>   molecular weight peg 200 could be useful in the treatment of other
>   cancers. Since this would be absorbable from the gastrointestinal
>   tract, it might be active against a wide variety of tumors.
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> End of CryoNet Digest
> *********************
> 

John W. Perry, Esq.,
"Failure is impossible!"
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Cellphone E-mail:  Mailto: 
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