Sell your ranches while you can!

[pointrider]

Now you're talking, BMR! Just as there are fish and shrimp farms these days instead of relying only on the oceans, perhaps they will need someone to build and run the factories where the nanoclothing will be loaded with the nutrients we need - nanoclothing that will feed nutrients through the skin according to the signals it is receiving from the monitorbots swimming around in our blood. Is that wild or what?

The wisdom of Louis L'Amour ------ Are you a Louis L'Amour fan? I am. I especially like his Sackett series - his series of books about the Sackett family that came to the new world from England and ended up being legends (fictional) as the American West was won. The Sackett family in this series may have been a fictional family, but the books were written with a great deal of actual world and American history interwoven into the stories. In addition, Louis frequently threw in bits of his personal beliefs and wisdom for all of us to consider. This first example I will give you is from the book, The Warrior's Path, which is the 3rd book in the series. Books 1 and 2 were about Barnabas Sackett, why he decided to come to America, and what he did after he arrived. This set the stage for all of the other Sackett books. Barnabas Sackett's first son was Kin Sackett. His second son was Yance, and his third, Jubal.

In this book, which is primarily about Kin and Yance, we find them in unexpected places on unexpected missions. Kin decides he must go to the West Indies. (I'll let you learn why yourself if you don't already know.) On his way back, he is out on the deck of the ship feeling the effects of a storm that is tossing them around.

The Warrior's Path (a Sackett novel) by Louis L'Amour - from Chapter 18 - circa 1620's

Strong blew the wind, dark the angry clouds, vivid the lightening. Upon the deck, near the mainmast shrouds I stood, one hand upon them to steady me, my eyes out upon the sea, its dark, huge waves lifting like great upthrusts of black glass, raged along the breaking edge. My father had gone to sea in his time, but I had no love for it. He had bred a landsman, whether he preferred it or not.

There was a challenge in the storm, a magnificence in the power of the sea, and I rode the deck like a gull upon the wind and confessed inside me that while afraid, I was also drunk with it. Salt spray, stung my face; my tongue licked it, tasted it, loved it. She put her bows down and took a great sea over them, and the water came thundering back, the decks awash, the scuppers sucking and gasping.

John Tilly came down upon the deck and stood beside me. "Tis a raw night, lad, a raw night! We be sailing north with the coast out yonder, and many a proud ship gone down in weather no worse than this!"

"I'll be glad when I'm ashore," I told him frankly. "I want my feet upon solid earth."

"Aye!" he said grimly. "So think we all. We think ofttimes in the night that once the storm is over and the storm gone, we will go ashore and stay there. We'll tell ourselves that in the night watches, but when the day has come, and our money is spent ashore, then we go seeking a berth again, and off to sea it is."

"I am a man of the hills and forest."

"It may be so. Your father made a good seafaring man, though, and belike you could do the same given time. You are a strong one and active, and you've a cool head about you. I saw that ashore there."

"Ashore?"

"In the fight with Bogardus. Ah, lad, I feared for you! I've seen him with a blade before, but you had him bested --"

"My father taught me, and the others."

"It showed. I could see your father's hand there, but you've the greater reach and height. He never beat a better man than Bogardus, but you did not kill him."

"I have no wish to kill. A man's life is a precious thing, though he waste it. A life is greater than gold and better than all else, so who am I to take it unless need be?"

"He intended to take yours."

"He has not my thoughts, nor my wishes nor my desires, and if he lives, life may bring him to wisdom. Who knows? It is a good thing to live, to walk out upon such a deck as this and feel the wind, to walk in the forest on a moonlit night or out upon some great plateau and look westward --"

"You, too?"

"What do you mean?"

"Ah, you are your father's son! He looked to the westward, too! To his far blue mountains. But was it the mountains? Or was it that something beyond? We need such men, lad, men who can look to the beyond, to ever strive for something out there beyond the stars. It is man's destiny, I think, to go forward, ever forward. We are of the breed who venture always toward what lies out there -- westward, onward, everward."

We were silent then, riding the deck as it tipped and slanted. She was a good ship, even as she had been in my father's time, and she bore a good name (his mother's name, Abigail).

-------------

After the Columbia disaster it was night for a while. Then, the sun came up, the next space shuttle was made ready for flight into space, and another crew of astronauts flew off to their glory, and, with them, the hopes and desires of many people who believe that our destiny is, indeed, to go to the outer reaches of the universe.

I've had a couple of people say to me, "If people start living to be hundreds of years old because of advances in G, N, R and medical science, how is the earth going to be able to handle all those people?" Ray Kurzweil matter-of-factly states, "It's simple. All this exponential growth in technology will allow us to go out into the universe which is what man wants to do anyway. It's our destiny. We will want to extend our knowledge and our intelligence (by then a combination of human intelligence and artificial intelligence), and that is how we will do it. There is much more to learn out there." I believe Louis L'Amour understood this.

[Big Muddy rancher]

I am a Louis L'Amour fan, in fact I have read those books several times and your right lots of world history in them. I quite enjoy them.

[pointrider]

Many years ago I went to Italy, and I went to the city of Milan among other places there. Italy is a beautiful country with everything from the Alps to the Mediterranean. Now I've run across what appears to be a great opportunity for someone who wants to get a PhD in Medical Nanotechnology. Perhaps you know someone with a Master of Science who has been thinking of going on to a PhD.

The University of Milan and the Italian Institute of Technology are working together on this. Sounds like it's a new program, and the student could go to school in Milan, Italy. Take a look at the tuition part in the Fellowship section. They really want people to study in this field.

(article)

Duration: 4 years
Awarding bodies: University of Milan
Location: Campus IFOM-IEO and CIMaINa Milan
Coordinator of the program: Paolo Milani
Collaborations: Italian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Description:
This course is open to students having a degree in the sciences especially to chemists physicists, biologists and biotechnologists. It aims to train students in the use, development and integration of a nanotechnology approach in the medical sciences.

Research topics:
Cell Arrays, Micro and Nanopatterning, Drug delivery, Hybrid Bio/Artificial Interfaces, Single molecule interactions, Nanosensors, Imaging technologies, Microarrays and Biochips

Supervision:
Three tutorial profiles are foreseen for each PhD student:
The Supervisor is the scientific head of the laboratory, who will supervise the work of the student during his/her PhD period.
The Internal Co-supervisor is chosen among the faculty members and will contribute in tutoring the student.
The External Co-supervisor is a foreign expert, who will provide advice at critical stages of the project and meet the student at least once during his/her PhD period.

Training offered:
Courses: Courses will cover, among other topics, advanced imaging technologies and material sciences and will allow students to have hands-on experience with nano-sensors, biochips and robotics.
Seminars: Students are exposed to a wide selection of seminars from international speakers that cover a large range of topics.

Fellowship:
Tuition and salaries for students are fully covered for the entire PhD period. Refer to "financial matters" for more info.

Working language: English

HOW TO APPLY:
Applications are accepted exclusively online once a year in the period July-September. Go to application process.
Starting date: 1st January of each year
For more information, we suggest to visit all sections and the FAQ page.
If you don't find an answer to your question, please e-mail phd@semm.it

[Red Bull Breeder]

Think i will just eat a steak from a beef i raised on normal everday grass and a tater grown in the dirt in my garden.

[Big Muddy rancher]

"Now you're talking, BMR! Just as there are fish and shrimp farms these days instead of relying only on the oceans, perhaps they will need someone to build and run the factories where the nanoclothing will be loaded with the nutrients we need - nanoclothing that will feed nutrients through the skin according to the signals it is receiving from the monitorbots swimming around in our blood. Is that wild or what? "

I got thinking about this today while cutting hay. I don't think I want what i get on my clothes for supper. I have got pretty messy doing all kinds of jobs and nothing i have had on my clothes has been very appetizing.

[pointrider]

Well heck, BMR, back in my cowboyin' and growin' up days in Texas you weren't considered a real cowboy until you were drug through a cow lot while working cattle and actually ate a little real b--- s---! Back in those days in East Texas the calves were separated and put in lots where they were worked on foot, not on horses. The bigger calves could really pull you around. It was a hoot, and, of course, the days before calf tables in East Texas.

Here's a little something that just arrived in my email inbox.

Healthcare 2030: disease-free life with home monitoring, nanomedicine

By DICK PELLETIER
Futuretalk

What kind of healthcare might we expect in 20 years? Will we still suffer from today's debilitating diseases or will future technologies come to the rescue?

Current biotech research holds great promise to correct many human flaws including vulnerability to disease and telltale signs of aging. Using stem cells and genetic engineering techniques, scientists are learning to regrow damaged organs, tissues, muscles, and bones to regenerate damaged bodies.

And with new home monitoring systems, along with less expensive, but more efficient, medical equipment, both predicted for the next two decades, researchers believe that by 2030, killer diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and other ailments will become easy-to-manage sicknesses.

Home Monitoring - during the 2010s and 2020s, experts predict that new health monitoring systems, designed to keep patients out of the hospital and get them more involved in managing their own health, will revolutionize medical care.

Typical homes will include 'smart' toilets that test urine and stool, bathroom sinks that analyze breath and saliva, and transmission systems that automatically forward this data, along with blood samples, heart rate, pulse, and other biometric information over the Internet to healthcare providers.

By 2020, most doctor visits will not require a personal appearance. Consultation will take place via smart phones, rarely requiring physical face-to-face visits to a physician's office. Doctors will text recommendations for diet, physical activities, and other healthcare advice directly to patients.

Lower-Cost Medical Components - leading medical equipment manufacturer, GE, recently committed $3 billion to create new products that will improve healthcare efficiency and slash costs.

Their first items include a $1,000 handheld electrocardiogram and a $15,000 portable ultrasound machine. These devices have improved emergency care at accident sites, and are already saving lives.

Nanomedicine - Smaller than blood cells, these tiny intelligent machines cruise through veins, destroy pathogens, locate damaged cells and make instant repairs. In a recent blog, Institute for Molecular Manufacturing's Senior Research Fellow, Robert Freitas describes how this science works and predicts when treatments might become available.

In a typical nanomedicine therapy to stop infection, patients swallow a pill with 100 billion nanobots inside that search the body for unwanted bacteria, viruses, or fungi and immediately render them harmless.

When finished, an ultrasound instructs the 'bots to exit the body through urine. The entire procedure takes about 30 minutes and leaves the patient healthy and infection-free.

In addition, these clever machines can replace faulty chromosomes in diseased cells with new ones. Armed with knowledge of the patient's genome, nanobots find cells with DNA mistakes and create perfect error-free cells to replace them. This keeps patients in perfect health 24/7.

Possibly one of the more important applications for nanobots includes removing accumulated cellular damage and mutations that cause aging. This procedure will enable many of today’s 'boomers and seniors to recapture their youthful health, strength, and beauty. The young will remain young; the old will become young.

Nanomedicine promises to change forever how we treat sickness and disease. When might this futuristic science become available? Freitas believes that nanobots could appear in clinical trials by mid-2020s and will be saving lives everywhere by 2030.

Healthcare 2030 promises a disease-free "magical future" for everyone to enjoy.

[pointrider]

Okay, folks. I've given you a lot to read and think about concerning the future of nutrition and about how we will live in general according to the futurists. Here's one more question for you. I'm curious. The question has to be set up with some stats so we all know what we are talking about. Here's what I mean. I'm going to ask you when you would prefer to live your life, and you will have to choose between two choices. The first choice to consider has factual life expectancy data to consider. The second has "predicted life expectancy based on recent progress in health care and expected exponential growth in genetics, information technology, health care and other related fields of study. At this point let's look at some history.

Sometimes, mainly in the past, life expectancy increased during the years of childhood, as the individual survived the high mortality rates then associated with childhood. The life expectancies at birth listed below take account of infant mortality but not pre-natal mortality (miscarriage or abortion).

Humans by Era Average Lifespan at Birth
(years)

Upper Paleolithic 33 At age 15: 39 (to age 54)[7][8]
Neolithic 20[citation needed]
Bronze Age and Iron Age[9] 35+
Classical Greece[10] 28
Classical Rome[10] 28
Pre-Columbian North America[11] 25-30
Medieval Islamic Caliphate[12] 35+
Medieval Britain[13][14] 30
Early Modern Britain[9] 40+
Early 20th Century[15][16] 30-45(

Current world average[17] 67.2 2010 est.

The average life expectancy in Colonial America was under 25 years in the Virginia colony,[18] and in New England about 40% of children failed to reach adulthood.[19] During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically.[20] The percentage of children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5% in 1730-1749 to 31.8% in 1810-1829.[21][22]

Public health measures are credited with much of the recent increase in life expectancy. During the 20th century, the average lifespan in the United States increased by more than 30 years, of which 25 years can be attributed to advances in public health.[23]

---------------

Okay, here is the question and the two choices for your answer.

What year would you prefer to be born (in the U.S. or Canada)? 1840 or 2180? You can only choose one of those 2 options. The year, 1840 (170 years ago), was chosen first, and there were specific reasons for deciding on that year for the first choice. The second choice was calculated by adding 170 to our current year, 2010. If you were born in 1840 and survived early childhood and the other typical challenges of that period, you probably would have lived until the year, 1900 - about 60 years. If you are born in 2180 you could probably live at least 2-300 years if not longer according to predictions. And imagine where we will be in terms of going out into the universe by the year 2300 or 2400.

If you were born in 1840 in the U.S. and survived early childhood (most likely traveling west on a wagon train through hostile Indian country), you would live in the period of open range, rustlers, range wars, trail drives to Kansas and points beyond, Indian wars (primarily the 1860's) and the wild, wild west of the 1880's.

If you were born in 2180, you will be 100+ years beyond the Singularity as predicted by Ray Kurzweil, and you most likely will be able to travel to the far reaches of the universe if you choose to do so. You will most likely be a combination of human and machine, and life will not be anything like we know it today. Your 300 year lifespan will most likely be a matter of choice. In other words, just depends on how long you want to live.

So, if you had to choose one or the other, which would you choose?

[Mike]

It was tough in 1840, unless you were born into nobility. They were not the Good Ole Days, I suspect.

Take me forward............................................

[Big Muddy rancher]

I don't like crowds and if we are living 2-300 years their is going to be alot more of us. I guess i will go back.

[Ben H]

If there is a Nuclear War or a few EMP strikes, all bets are off. Real conflict in the middle east is likely in our near future.

[xiaqinghua1989]

Spam deleted.

[Big Muddy rancher]

if those Rolex watches are so good why would a guy need 19 of them? One Timex does me.