X-Message-Number: 7164 Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 21:50:07 +0000 From: Chris Benatar <> Subject: Rats and Lenses >Message #7160 >Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 20:31:57 -0800 (PST) >From: Doug Skrecky <> >Subject: Why the DNA-RNA experiment was never replicated > > All those who emailed their addresses have now been sent copies of > the incredible report on increasing rat life span by 144%. This >actually understates things slightly. After looking at the report again >I saw that the maximum life span of the DNA-RNA injected rats was 2250, >not the 2200 days previously reported. Sorry for this typo. The >increase is then 150%, not the 144% previously stated. If anyone is >still interested in recieving the report just email your address. > What kind of response have you had so far? > After rereading the report it is apparent that the author Max Odens > was not a life extensionist. This is perhaps not surprising given the >conservative nature of many in the medical profession. Dr. Odens seemed > to be mostly interested in proving a viral theory of cancer. The fact > that he did not state the exact day of death of the remaining four > injected rats suggests he may have found this embaressing, since this >was almost certainly not what he was looking for. Indeed the 2250 >figuare is suspect, since the chances of the exact day of death being a >multiple of 50 are 1 in 50. I suspect the real figuare may be something >like 2263. > It seems to me to be as likely to have been 2229 days but that is beside the point. As I understand it, the experiment took place 30 years ago and that Dr Odens was in his seventies at the time and I think he was British. If this is indeed the case, it means that he was born around 1890, and studied at the beginning of this century. This could be relevent in trying to determine if he was likely to be a con. Many scientists in Britain were more conservative then, than nowdays and elderly people also seem to be more conservative. I guess I am trying to say I think the situation is marginally more plausable than if a 23 year old had done the experiment 3 months ago. I know I am grasping at straws, but with so little to go on and something this important we need to explore all aspects. > The fact that this experiment was not replicated is not hard to > explain. Dr. Odens and his colleagues almost certainly had no interest >in doing so, since they had little or no interest in extending the >lifespan of humans. > > Here's a few quotes from the report: > > "ABSTRACT: To test the effect of RNA-DNA in preventing the > deleterious effects of old age, an experiment was conducted that >involved 10 rats with a normal life span of 800-900 days. All were fed >the same diet; 5 rats were not treated, and 5 were given weekly >injections of DNA + RNA. After twelve weeks the difference in >appearance, weight and alertness was remarkable. The 5 untreated rats >died before 900 days. Of the treated rats, 4 died at ages of 1600-1900 >days, and 1 at 2250 days. A parallel cannot be drawn with aging in >human beings fed RNA-DNA, but the findings on rats may have some >application to cellular studies on cancer." > > (Later on in the body of the report Dr. Odens mentions:) > > "Although it is tempting to think in terms of the possibility of >an equivalent prolongation of the life span of human beings >accomplished by injections of DNA and RNA, it should be emphasized that >the parallels between aging in rats and aging in humans are not only >unknown but are entirely outside the scope of this experiment." This really does help my point, comments like these are typical of those who are trying to play down the significance of their results. I would like to see this experiment replicated before I am prepared to disregard it. To this end I would be prepared to stump up 100UKP towards the costs of repeating it. Is there anybody else out there as curious as me that would like to comment or contribute financially to a repeat of the experiment? Perhaps you have access to some of the equipment necessary or a lab or even some spare rats:) Chris Benatar > >Message #7161 >Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 20:53:10 -0800 (PST) >From: John K Clark <> >Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Nanotechnology Progress > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >The reason that the magnification of a light microscope is so limited >is that the wavelength of light is large. The obvious solution is to >use light of a shorter wavelength, because the resolution is equal to >the wavelength of the light times the focal length of the lens divided >by the aperture of the lens. > >The difficulty is that when you go beyond the near ultraviolet there >didn't seem to be any way to make a lens. Aluminum is almost as >transparent to hard (over 14 kev) X rays as glass is to light, but the >index of refraction is so tiny that the focal length of a simple lens >would be huge, far too long to be practical. Heavier elements like Gold >have a higher index of refraction, but they strongly absorb X rays, >your lens would be almost completely opaque. > >This is also a serious obstacle to using X rays in photolithography to >make very tiny semiconductor devices. If you don't have any optical >elements then you can't optically reduce the size of your image, your >mask must be as small as the very microprocessor you're trying to make, >and you must place it right on top of the silicon, as in a contact >sheet in photography. None of this seemed very workable to most >people. > >In the November 7 1996 issue of Nature is an article called "A Compound >Refractive Lens For Focusing High Energy X Rays" by Snigirev, Kohn, >Snigireva and Lengeler. They found a easy and cheap way to focus very >Hard X Rays, up to about 40 kev. Their lens is simply an Aluminum >block with holes of radius .3 millimeter drilled into it, it looks like >this: > > > _____________________ > ---------------> | o o o o o o o o o | > X Rays | o o o o o o o o o | . <--- Focal Point > ---------------> | o o o o o o o o o | > ---------------> |-------------------| > > >Each hole drilled into the Aluminum block is a lens, one lens may give >you a ridiculously long focal length, but 2 will cut that distance in >half, this first device has 30 lenses. The focal length of their >compound lens is R/ 2NI, R is the radius of the holes, N is the number >of holes, and I is the index of refraction in the X ray region of the >material. In this lens the holes are cylinders so the X rays are >focused in only 2 dimensions, for 3 you'd need spheres not cylinders. >The authors don't seem to think it would be very difficult to make a >device with hundreds, perhaps thousands of such lenses. The authors >also calculate that if they could make the holes in a parabolic shape >they could reduce the focal length by a further factor of 5. > >Although they haven't tried it yet they also think the same lens could >also focus something else that was thought to be impossible, a beam of >neutrons. What wavelength does a beam neutrinos have? What is the theoretical smallest feature that could be produced with this wavelength - perhaps you better express this as the number of atoms across. > >Aluminum was used in this case because it's easy to machine, but boron, >carbon, plastic and even water should work too. It occurs to me that it >might not be too difficult to make an array of small spherical bubbles >in water, they wouldn't stay in place for long but they wouldn't need >to, the X rays from a laser would be in a VERY short burst. > > > John K Clark > > I was recently reading about sound being used to create vacuum bubbles in water which may give better stability than bubbling air through the water which will produce tiny eddies and vortexes etc. Was there any mention of trying to make an x-ray or neutrino microscope? Does anybody have anyideas about how long it will take for something like this to move out the lab? Regards Chris Chris Benatar Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7164