By: Alvaro Fernandez
Welcome to the 8th edition of Hourglass, the blog carnival devoted to biogerontology. Enjoy!
—
Use It or Lose It
|
Existence is Wonderful,
by Anne C.
|
Neither A Transhumanist Nor a “Pessimist”, And That’s Okay
“I can’t survive cognitively in environments that force everything into false dichotomies, and nobody should feel hurt, slighted, or bitter because of my doing what I need to do for the sake of being able to actually use my brain.”
“Just because I think superlativity tends to distort dialogue and make it difficult to focus on what can actually be done in the real world does not mean I disparage the power of human imagination or our capacity to change things for the better.” |
—
Cognitive Enhancement, Health and Assessments
|
Ouroboros,
by Chris Patil
|
Better thinking through chemistry
“I suspect that the structure of arguments about cognitive enhancement will mirror those of future debates regarding lifespan extension.” |
|
Fight Aging,
by “Reason”
|
A View of the Enhancement Debate
“A great many people grow up with what they know – having things far better than their parents, despite the efforts of past luddites who strived to block advancements – and then spend the rest of their lives fighting against visionaries who are trying to make things even better.” |
|
SharpBrains,
by Alvaro Fernandez
|
Ten Reflections on Cognitive Health and Assessments
“Cognitive health is a critical factor in overall healthcare, but is often approached in a fragmented, non-systematic way. We lack of a common framework and taxonomy to define the problem and identify solutions and interventions to measure and help maintain cognitive health across the lifespan.” |
—
The Benefits of Caloric Restriction Read the rest of this entry »
By: Alvaro Fernandez
If you are a blogger or read blogs often, you know that there are a good number of excellent blog carnivals focused on specific themes. If you are interested in medicine, you know what carnival to visit. Education, the same. Biology, neuroscience, nursing, birds, aging, philosophy…a variety of topics are very well covered in the blogosphere.
What you probably haven’t come across is a high-quality “metacarnival” or “carnival of carnivals”, where you can read the best blog posts ACROSS topics, subjects, disciplines.
This is why a few blog carnival “organizers” are launching next Monday a monthly rotating “MetaCarnival” to feature the most interesting posts from a variety of high-quality blog carnivals.
Participating blog carnivals so far, alphabetically: Read the rest of this entry »
By: Alvaro Fernandez
Welcome to the third edition of Hourglass, the monthly virtual gathering of bloggers to 
discuss the Biology of Aging.
For today’s edition, let’s imagine all participants sitting around a table leading a lively Questions & Answers session, discussing as a group, listening, talking. (And, well, aging.)
Q: What is aging?
Ms. Wikipedia: “Ageing or aging (American English) is the accumulation of changes in an organism or object over time. Ageing in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Some dimensions of ageing grow and expand over time, while others decline. Reaction time, for example, may slow with age, while knowledge of world events and wisdom may expand.”
Aging may not be the sexiest of words in our vocabulary. Unless, of course (as I heard somewhere recently but can’t properly credit), you consider the most common alternative.
Q: If the objective of anti-aging research is to extend lifespan, isn’t there a risk that we may neglect quality of life. After all, would people really like to spend more years afflicted by the diseases and the decline that often come with age?
Ed (dragged to the discussion by Chris and Alvaro): I have relatively good news to share. A recent University of Southern Denmark found that the proportion of elderly Danes who manage to remain independent holds steady at Read the rest of this entry »
By: Alvaro Fernandez
Education, Aging…two seemingly unrelated topics, but with more biology in common than may meet the eye…
You may enjoy the most recent editions of two great blog carnivals:Â
- Carnival of Education, hosted by Joanne Jacobs.
- Hourglass: a carnival of biogerontology, hosted by Chris at Ouroboros. Chris recently launched this blog carnival to provide a home for ”bloggers who are writing about biogerontology, lifespan extension technologies, and aging in general.”
Anne writes my favorite post at Existence is Wonderful, linking education/ learning/ nurture with aging.
She first explains that
“Many people use the word “aging” as a shorthand not just for the mere process of getting older (which is not only inevitable for everything in existence, but something to celebrate — “getting older”, after all, means “experiencing more life”!), but for the physical degeneration that occurs as metabolic, immune, and mechanical side effects take hold as a person ages. Personally I find this dual use of the word “aging” terribly confusing”.
And then adds
“We don’t necessarily know what hard limits are on longevity until we optimize care. I saw a dramatic turnaround in my fish when I learned how to properly configure the tank setup, and I hope to see the day when human medicine makes a similar leap in effectiveness”
Recent Comments