Treadmill in space?

Back in 2004, widespread popular interest in average folks going into space was rekindled with the success of SpaceShipOne. The privately-built ship won the X-PRIZE, a competition that required three people to travel to a 100 km altitude twice within two weeks.

Here's a happy little video looking back at that adventure, produced in 2009:

For those old enough to remember the heady days of the space race, and classic science fiction that assumed rocketports and beanstalks and all manner of travel for both specialists and tourists alike, SpaceShipOne brought back the hope and anticipation of human-based space exploration.

But then, a mere two years later, in 2011, a peculiarly uninformed article showed up on Blastr, part of "The Syfy Online Network." Syfy, whose tagline is "Imagine Greater," brings all manner of science fiction and other imaginative works to television. The Blastr item, titled 8 once-amazing sci-fi devices now inferior to real-life gadgets, includes as its 7th (not-numbered) item, the "360-Degree Treadmill from 2001 ... One-Upped by: An ordinary modern treadmill."

Here's the scene:

The Blastr article's comments section is now fully buried under heaps of product spam, but back when it was a fresh item, it was heartening to see so many folks come to the defense of what was--and is--perfectly good science in a film that made extraordinary attempts to get the science right.

True, because the film was by necessity shot on Earth, using something known as a "set" to simulate an actual spacecraft (which wasn't available for loan or hire), the filmmakers did have to design a "360-Degree Treadmill" insofar as they needed to simulate the rotation of the ship--and given ongoing restrictions against using magic in the presence of Muggles, they couldn't simply have the actors levitate to perform the scene.

Even given the minor amount of space we've managed to reach with people on-board to date, one of the challenges we fragile humans face is that we're creatures of gravity, and space doesn't seem to have very much of it in the space-y part. Or to be more accurate, gravity is all over the place, just not where we can make use of it very well when travelling through space. Being "weightless" is essentially falling with nothing to break that fall, meaning that space travellers are in "free-fall."

Using spin on a spaceship is one of the few known ways to simulate gravity. This detailed page on Artificial Gravity gives both the science for this as well as the some of the ideas explored by scientists and science fiction writers alike (not necessarily two distinct categories, FWIW).

While treadmills really don't have anything to do with spaceships under spin, it's interesting to note that treadmills--for exercise--were invented back in 1952. Treadmills for other purposes have been around for thousands of years, and among those ancient forms was--you guessed it--a 360-Degree Treadmill (treadwheel). Not such "modern" technology after all. One continues to worry about the kids these days--sometimes knowing a bit about the past can help the present, not to mention any imagined futures, make a lot more sense.

One for all, and all for one

The old saying one for all, and all for one takes on a deeper meaning in a story in The Economist. Me, myself, us argues that a human is much more than simply a man or a woman: we are complex beings inhabited by substantial numbers of microorganisms essential to our survival, known collectively as the microbiome. According to the article, "[a] healthy adult human harbours some 100 trillion bacteria in his gut alone. That is ten times as many bacterial cells as he has cells descended from the sperm and egg of his parents."

Understanding the human as a complex, multi-organism being may open the way for very different ways of approaching medicine and human health. Dealing with disease may turn out to be a matter of better managing the balance of organisms that comprise any given individual. According to the Canadian Microbiome Initiative, "microbes play an important role in human health, not just as pathogens, or as benign communities that keep pathogens at bay, but also in association with a number of chronic health conditions including gastrointestinal diseases, obesity, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, asthma and cardiovascular disease."

For a slightly tongue-in-cheek look at what a microbiome-positive world might look like, see Tuberculosis bacteria join UN by microbiologist and science fiction writer, Joan Slonczewski.

Future-perfect: the rationally designed human

A bioethicist suggests that genetically engineering babies along a "rational design" would benefit humanity.Professor Julian Savulescu of the University of Oxford is quoted as saying, "Indeed, when it come to screening out personality flaws, such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence, you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children."  

What else might be erased under the notion of a 'personality flaw'? Would humanity truly improve by removing perceived flaws or is there a net benefit to retaining diversity? As the professor notes, "routinely screening embryos and foetuses for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Down's syndrome" results in "little public outcry."

Earlier this year, there was public outcry when it was discovered that an American reproductive clinic offering gender selection services was advertising its services in Canada. Sex-selective procedures are illegal in Canada under Section 5(1)(e) of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. Advertising such services is also illegal under the Act.

Also under Section 5(1)(e), though, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act does allow for sex-selective procedures "to prevent, diagnose or treat a sex-linked disorder or disease ...". Under the DSM and it's proposed revisions, a substantial list of conditions fall under the broad category of Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders. How broadly applied might legislation allowing genetic manipulation actually be?

I think it's fair to state that Western culture remains heavily biased towards a sex binary and that as such, the dominant culture might consider eradicating the possibility of trans at a genetic level to be a perfectly acceptable and even non-contentious decision.

But is eradicating the trans experience from the human experience actually such an easy decision? Would those who have undergone this experience agree that the possibility of being trans is itself problematic?

Is there value to undergoing the trans experience? Does such an experience have lessons to share with those who haven't and won't undergo that experience? As trans people, would we be comfortable with trans identities never having the opportunity to exist? Is there some sort of intrinsic value to coming to know ourselves as not fitting our assigned identity and undertaking the journey to uncover and assert ourselves as who we are?

Telegraph article originally linked via Slashdot.

Alberta relists GRS

In a surprise announcement on June 7, 2012, the Alberta Government chose to re-list Gender Reassignment Surgery for Albertans pursing medical intervention for Gender Identity Disorder.

Prior to 2009, Alberta was one of the few provinces to provide GRS coverage in Canada. In spring 2009, GRS was delisted without warning as part of a budget claiming to reduce health care costs. While coverage of some specific health services were also reduced at that time, no other group sharing a specific medical diagnosis was excluded from budgetary consideration.

For more details, read Mercedes Allen's post, Alberta reinstates funding for Sex Reassignment Surgery (plus, why it's necessary).

Whither privacy?

At the Analytics: Big Data and the Cloud conference in Edmonton (2012), I attended a keynote speech by Dr. Gautam Shroff. He spoke of the many ways big data can be used, including data that many of us simply give away. Sharing the results of a study focusing on 68 hours of Twitter data, Shroff noted that it was possible to narrow down to one (randomly-chosen) Tweeter's home and work sites based on that individual's GPS-enabled posts.

My quick thoughts: Data of this sort (GPS, etc.) is often freely given away by users. Other data, such as the now much-discussed divorce of federal (Canadian) Member of Parliament Vic Toews, becomes public by virtue of the legal processes the data is embedded within. While governmental agencies and products such as the Alberta Netcare system are supposed to be kept secure from unauthorised access, how many of us pay attention to the virtual footprints we leave behind? Perhaps merely analysing publicly-available data allows our private lives to be more public than we imagine.