Dr. Mark Clanton explains the State of Cancer Science

Health and Medicine 2.0

With almost everything bearing the “2.0″ label these days, I suppose it’s not surprising that we’d get Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0. They’re really complementary ideas. They emphasize a more patient- or consumer-centered view of the health model. This video is about Health and Medicine 2.0 and their . The qualities of the new model include: participation, collaboration, “apomediation,” openness, and–ta-dah!–social networking.  The whole idea is to get people to be more responsible for prevention and positive health.

Health & Medicine 2.0 from David Collin on Vimeo.

Practice saving the world

FISpace is about the future and innovation. Want to practice collaborating with others to solve some hella problems? Then check out SUPERSTRUCT, the first massively multiplayer forecasting game. It was created by the Institute for the Future to use multiplayer gaming to see how people solve complex problems like the ones the world will face in the 21st Century. We’re going to need to think big and work together on a global scale in the future, and this is an exercise in doing that.

The game takes place in 2019 (just four years after 2015). Five scenarios about events are prsented for playeres to focus on: 1) an epidemic of a serious SARS-like respiratory disease; 2) the 20th century food supply chain breaks down and people revert to local supplies; 3) the switch to alternative energy hits a snag as incompatible alternatives are pushed; 4) hackers and griefers disrupt communication systems; and 5) climate refugees cause overburden on social systems where they try to relocate. To top it all off, an authroitative world agency has just predicted that if these and other problems are not managed the world will reach a tipping-point in 2042 for a massive, worldwide population collapse.

It’s kind of surreal to play the game given the context of the global financial system meltdown we’re in the middle of right now. So maybe we should be practicing our problem solving skills.

Can we live forever?

Rather coincidentally I’ve run into a couple of indicators in the past week that the meme (i.e., the idea) that life might be extended indefinitely is gaining some traction. The first was an article in Wired titled “The Fight to End Aging Gains Legitimacy, Funding.” That leads to a series of interesting videos from the recent conference at UCLA on Aging: The Disease, The Cure, The Implications.

Then there was a notice just yesterday indicating that an article has been published in Nature indicating that a survey of scientists shows they are increasingly finding ways to extend lifespan in lower animals that might have analogues in humans as well.

Just a few years ago suggesting indefinite life extension was possible might get you tossed into a padded cell. The immense power of biological research done in the past ten years, however, is opening up thoughts about what can be done for human well being that depart pretty radically from our recent aspirations.

It’s been nearly a century since the crusade againt cancer became a bold new movement. The immensity of the scientific/medical hurdles were not known at the outset, and the more recent realization of the economic issues involved have put some long lasting challenges in the path of defeating this one major disease. However, it has occurred to me that the magnitude of the undertaking to beat cancer is also an inspiration and demonstraton of how a tenacious, widely-supported effort might tackle a heretofore unthinkable goal like indefinite life extension in the 21st Century. The cancer crusade is kind of a forerunner to that whole movement.