X-Message-Number: 7058 From: Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 00:31:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Trans Time newsletter SCI.CRYONICS \tt\newsletr\v5n4\vol5num4.asc THE TRANS TIMES Life Extension through Cryonic Suspension ----------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 5 Number 4 August 1996 On the Move by Art Quaife, Ph.D. TRANS TIME moved into its current facility in 1986. It occupies 2200 square feet, in a somewhat undesirable section of Oakland. At the time The Facility Group purchased it, this was all we could afford. Our ten-year lease expired early this year. We then had the choice of buying our current place (NO!), or finding new quarters. I have been searching for the past seven months for a suitable new location. We entered serious negotiations on about five different locations, but for varying reasons, all of the deals fell through. Finally we have a new facility. We recently signed a lease on 3029 Teagarden St., San Leandro. This modern industrial bay occupies 4540 square feet, which is twice the size of our current location. The ceilings are 19' high, permitting easy overhead encapsulation. It is part of a complex of nine bays, in a pleasant light-industrial area. The neighborhood is substantially better than at our current location. The facility is close to the Oakland Airport, for travel convenience. We regret our tardiness in getting out this newsletter. It is abbreviated because of the time we are spending on the move. The move, and settling in at our new location, will keep us extremely busy for the next few months. Please bear with us if publication of the TRANS TIMES is delayed. We will supply further detail and photos after the move is completed. I feel very good about the move. As I write this, Frank Sinatra is crooning the Irving Berlin tune Blue skies Smiling at me Nothing but blue skies Do I see. Bluebird Singing a song Nothing but bluebirds All day long. Nothing but blue skies >From now on. Some Thoughts on the Subject of Life Extension by Hal Sternberg, Ph.D. In addition to cryonics-related technology, there are many other lines of experimentation which may lead to life extension. Below is a list of some ideas which may be useful. 1. Multi-organ transplants from young animals into old animals in inbred strains of rats should be performed to determine if they can reverse aging or prolong life. 2. Artificial hearts should be developed that work long term without dramatically influencing the quality of life. 3. Head transplants which allow survival of the head in inbred rat strains should be practiced. 4. It is important to develop technology to reattach severed spinal cords. 5. It is important to assess neuron loss with aging in the hypothalamus, brain stem, and brain in general. 6. More experimentation with antibodies against specific cancers should be performed. 7. We need more defibrillators available and nationwide training programs in their use. 8. We need to study and better understand the physics and electrodynamics of consciousness and identity. Annual Meeting TRANS TIME held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders on July 14. Three proposals were voted on. 1. All five nominated Directors were elected. At the subsequent Board of Directors' Meeting, four of them were reelected to their positions as officers. So the Board for the upcoming year is: Art Quaife, Ph.D. President Hal Sternberg, Ph.D. Vice-President Judy Segall Secretary Norm Lewis Treasurer Stephen Kehrer 2. The bylaws were amended to provide that the Board of Directors consists of a minimum of five members and a maximum of nine members. 3. The articles of incorporation and the bylaws were amended to eliminate the liability of directors for certain monetary damages and to indemnify the corporation's directors and other agents to the fullest extent permitted by law. All three proposals were approved by near-unanimous votes. *Just for the Fun of It* Winning the Deal by Art Quaife, Ph.D. In the last issue we challenged our readers with the following puzzle: You are a contestant in a game show, and there are three closed doors on stage. Behind one door (chosen at random) is a car as a prize; behind the other two are goats as booby prizes. Host Monty Hall knows which door hides the car. You have no way of knowing, so for you each choice is equally likely. Monty then truthfully says "Choose a door, and then I will open another door to reveal a goat. (Since there are two goats, Monty can always do that. If both closed doors hide a goat, Monty mentally flips a coin as to which to open.) I will then offer you a chance to switch to the remaining door." You select (say) door #1. Monty opens door #3 revealing a goat, and offers you the chance to switch to door #2. Question: Should you switch? What is your probability of winning if you switch as opposed to if you stick? *Answer* Many people argue that after Monty has ruled out door #3, each of door #1 and door #2 must have a 1/2 chance of hiding the car. Thus it makes no difference whether you switch or not. Seven entrants gave this answer and essentially this argument. But this is WRONG. Your initial guess of door #1 had 1/3 chance of winning. Monty's opening another door to reveal a goat, as he previously promised to do, does not change that probability. But since Monty has now eliminated door #3 as a possibility, door #2 must now have a 2/3 chance of being correct. You should switch, and by doing so you *double* your chance of winning the car. If this still leaves you dubious, let us look at the three equally likely possibilities shown in the table (the goats are indistinguishable for the purposes of this puzzle). We see that you win in two cases by switching, and in only one case by sticking. Possi- Car Goat Goat You Monty Winning bility choose opens choice ___________________________________________________ D O O R # A 1 2 3 1 2 or 3 Stick B 2 3 1 1 3 Switch C 3 1 2 1 2 Switch *Winner* The winner of a two-year subscription to THE TRANS TIMES is Hara Ra. He gave the correct answer, and an abbreviated version of our enumeration table (I give him the benefit of the doubt that he intended the above argument.) Congratulations! Hara is currently developing a life monitor system, including a device that a person could wear, that will generate a phone call in case the person dies. This is important, as several cryonicists have already died unattended and not been discovered for days, with substantial deterioration/decomposition in the meantime. I hope to be one of the early testers of his first prototype system. The two winners of our earlier "High Noon" contest, Mike Perry and Barry Chapman, also submitted correct answers. Mike disqualified himself because he was already familiar with the puzzle. Barry's reply arrived later than Hara Ra's. * * * To solve the puzzle, it is very important that you know what Monty Hall's knowledge and strategy are. Let us consider several alternatives as to how Monty could conduct the game. 1. Monty tries to favor the contestant. If you pick the door with the car, Monty does not offer a chance to switch. If you pick a goat, Monty reveals the other goat and offers the switch. You can then *always* win this game, by switching whenever Monty offers the choice. 2. Monty tries to favor the sponsor. If you pick a goat, Monty doesn't offer a chance to switch. If you picked the car, he reveals a goat and offers the switch. You will lose 2/3 of the time here when you pick a goat, but knowing his strategy you will never take his offer to switch, and will win the remaining 1/3 of the time. 3. Monty doesn't know which door hides the car, but still always opens a door which he chooses at random. Then 1/3 of the time he will reveal the car, and the game ends there with you losing. In the other 2/3 of the time where he reveals a goat, you do indeed have an even choice as to whether to switch or stick. All told you win 1/3 of the time. This problem first appeared in the American Statistician journal in 1976. Marilyn vos Savant published it in her Parade column on September 9, 1990, but *without* specifying Monty Hall's strategy. The correct answer to the puzzle as she phrased it is "There is not enough information given to determine an answer." Instead, she gave the correct answer to the fully specified puzzle as I gave it. This generated an avalanche of mail telling her she was dead wrong. Most of the mail did not say "not enough information", but rather it's "50-50", so the critics were dead wrong. Embarrassingly, some of that mail came from Ph.D. mathematicians who definitely should have known better. Marilyn wrote three follow-up columns where she defended and further explained her answer. Some of her analysis was fuzzy, but she was mostly right. You can find much more detail about the hullabaloo in her recent book The Power of Logical Thinking.(1) It seems hard to believe that so many smart people get the wrong answer, when it is so easy to check the three equally likely alternatives. I have long thought that elementary probability theory is one of the most useful mathematical disciplines, whose teaching should begin in about the fourth grade. *Note* 1. If Marilyn looked good on this puzzle, she got in way over her head in her 1993 book The World's Most Famous Math Problem, a popular report on Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. There was much nonsense in this book, including her claim that Wiles had *not* proved the theorem because his proof is "non-Euclidean". This time mathematicians were correct in jumping all over her. Biotime's Hextend (Trademark) Cleared for Phase III Clinical Trials BioTime, Inc. (BTIM - NASDAQ) announced today that its proprietary blood plasma volume expander Hextend(Trademark) has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration to enter Phase III clinical trials in the United States. The company said that the trials will be prospective, randomized, double blind controlled studies. According to the company, they are designed to show that Hextend can maintain patient blood pressure and other physiological and biochemical measurements at appropriate levels during major surgery in which substantial amounts of blood are generally lost. BioTime said that two separate trials will be conducted. The first is expected to begin at the Duke University Medical Center, and a second soon after at another institution to be announced later. Each trial is expected to involve approximately 75 patients. Study director, Dr. Monty Mythen of the Duke University Medical Center's Department of Anesthesiology, said "Hextend is a buffered, balanced electrolyte formulation which, based on pre-clinical studies, is likely to provide better electrolyte and acid-base management." Dr. Paul Segall, BioTime's president and chief executive officer, said that the clearance of Hextend for Phase III trials is a milestone in BioTime's product development program. BioTime, headquartered in Berkeley, California is engaged in the research and development of synthetic blood plasma volume expanders and low temperature blood substitute solutions and technology for use in surgery, emergency trauma treatment, the preservation of organs awaiting transplant, and other applications. TRANS TIME is the only cryonics company that suspends its patients using solutions that are based upon BioTime's formulations. *The Brighter Side of Death* The Philosopher's Conclusion Rene Descartes was asked if he wanted cream in his coffee. "I think not", he replied. And with that-poof-he disappeared! Have Something to Say? We invite our readers to submit cryonics-related articles for possible publication in this newsletter. The best way to submit is to send us the article in WordPerfect, on an MS-DOS diskette. Call us about other electronic formats you may use. We will also consider typed or handwritten submissions. Subscribe to THE TRANS TIMES! Please begin my subscription to THE TRANS TIMES. I enclose ___ $12.00 for one year (six issues) ___ $22.00 for two years ___ $31.00 for three years. (Add $4.00 per year if you reside outside North America.) I may cancel my subscription at any time for a pro rata refund. Name________________________________ Phone______________________ Address_________________________________________________________ City, State, Zip________________________________________________ Send to: TRANS TIME, INC., 3029 Teagarden St., San Leandro, CA 94577. (510) 297-5577. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7058