Microsoft prepares U-turn on Windows 8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/330c8b8e-b66b-11e2-93ba-00144feabdc0.html <comment><USER2> If they give me something approximating the ui of win7 combined with all the "backend" optimizations they made in win8, I'd be ecstatic. Perhaps it works better on a tablet, but the few hours I spent with win8 were enough to convince me that I want nothing to do with the current desktop version of win8.

<comment><USER3> I wanted to like Windows 8, I did. I went "all in" - a Surface, Lumia 920...

But I'm out. The OS is unreliable in annoyingly simple ways: my laptop will regularly not re-connect to the network (wired or wireless) when it comes out of sleep, and not only that, the entire "Network/ Sharing Center" tray / charm app won't even respond for minutes.

Other network issues too - the Windows Store app will show updates (eventually), but will regularly respond "not connected to the Internet".

I dislike, immensely, switching desktop modes. I tried using Start8, but still no.

Inconsistency: why does clicking the Settings Charm in desktop mode give a Control Panel option, but in full screen mode, no?

Live Tiles work a bit better on the phone, but on the desktop and laptop? Not unless you want to keep the computer on the Start Menu full time.

So, for better or worse - and I know there are both - I am moving to the iEcosystem.

<comment><USER2> You could always adopt a more conservativ window upgrade strategy. Mine is currently something like "every other windows and/or only after sp1".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Referring to difficulties many users have had with mastering the software, she added: "The learning curve is definitely real."_

Who are the _users_ this article is referring to? If it's _older users_ who are sun-setting, then isn't Windows 8 skating to where the puck has been ( _instead_ of where it's going)?

 _Edited to fix typo - thanks!_

<comment><USER5> How can you skate to where the puck has been AND where it's going? Typo?

Older users may sunset eventually, but people generally have a 45 year working life. So how many of them are likely to sunset within the time frame of one Windows UI refresh? It's not like a whole generation will grow old and die before Windows 9 (or whatever it gets called) comes out. Well at least we can hope not, but after Win XP -> Vista who knows?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Was the previous post killed?

<comment><USER7> No, it seems like it's still up, though for some reason on place 81. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5667466></comment></comment>


Pretty printing using Dart - <AUTHOR> http://polux.github.io/pretty_demo/web/pretty_demo.html

<comment><AUTHOR> A Dart port of Philip Wadler's pretty printer [http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/prettier/prettie...](http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/prettier/prettier.pdf)

Make sure to scroll down to the more complex examples and drag the red line around to change the column size (didn't get that the first time and expected +/\- to adjust the column).</comment>


Is China one of the first ever Growth Hacker? - <AUTHOR> http://aflaisler.com/post/76103070104/is-china-the-first-ever-growth-hacker

<comment><AUTHOR> Is China the first (ever) Growth Hacker The situation

I am not a big fan of thinking. To be perfectly honest I am not even sure I am good at it. So I will go straight to the point. Yesterday evening, whilst enjoying my 2nd (or 5th) rounds of shots with some friends, I realised the glass I was using was "made in China" (for the record, I should precise I am a French man working in startups in London for 3 years now as a Web/user/marketing analyst and more recently as a Growth hacker).

Anyway that's fair enough, there are no cutting edge discoveries here. However starting next week my first day as a full time Growth hacker for an email app ([http://wizzmail.com](http://wizzmail.com)), I somehow kept thinking all day about it (along with, "is taking a 4th x 500mg of paracetamol a good thing to do"). Cleverly (or not), instead I decided to write my thoughts about it.

Why is China so obsessed about putting its fingerprint on every single things they are manufacturing? I mean seriously, I am pretty sure that 80% of the products around me have been manufactured there and actually have a mention proving it, starting with the computer I am writing with at the moment.

Please, don't take me wrong, I really like my laptop, and I believe China is quite good at what they are doing (eg: manufacturing very good value for money product that company can scale easily).

So why do they still feel the need to put that "made in China" sticker everywhere? I mean who else does that? And on EVERY products?

Time for the first argument

Let's take an example of two friends of mine that needed a GPS receptor able to communicate with the GPRS French network ([http://mapetitebalise.com](http://mapetitebalise.com) ). Guess their first sourcing destination choice was?

If you have India in mind, well sorry to tell you but you are wrong. It was (TaDam…) China! If you are still reading, I bet you are thinking those dudes must (at least) have searched for such products on Alibaba.com (which by the way is saving Yahoo.com from going out of business).

And you are right, yes they did.

In fact, Alibaba, is really amazing for helping any company in the world sourcing products made primarily in China. For example, let's say you need a JCT graphite nuclear reactor. Well, they have it : [http://www.alibaba.com/product- gs/1188259098/JCT_graphite_nu...](http://www.alibaba.com/product- gs/1188259098/JCT_graphite_nuclear_reactor.html) (I don't even know what that is).

Now, let's say you just need an olive oil extractor, they also have it: [http://www.alibaba.com/product- gs/877079592/cold_press_oil_e...](http://www.alibaba.com/product- gs/877079592/cold_press_oil_extraction_machine_sesame.html).

The list is actually so long I am not sure my computer's memory can hold it. The fact is Alibaba.com will provide you the best deals for almost everything you need to manufacture.

2nd argument

Since the new government of Francois Hollande was elected in France (May 2012), the country got itself a full-time minister, nominated for the "productive recovery" of France : [http://www.redressement- productif.gouv.fr/](http://www.redressement-productif.gouv.fr/).

I should warn you, this is when you might be mind blown: guess what was his first move?

Yes, he created a lot of advantages for products made in France and also strongly advised companies to show that their products were made in France (by "strongly" I actually mean mostly financial advantages).

Third and last small argument

Finally, the other day, I found myself downloading an app called Frontback. This was in fact, just because a friend posted a cool personalized picture on facebook with the mention ("via frontback" - [http://frontback.me/](http://frontback.me/) ).

So, lets sum up:

\- China is writing down "made in China" since at least the 90s (before that I wasn't able to check)

\- This mention, seems to make people/company looking for sourcing products, firstly search in China (just like the high CTR for the first ad on a Google search)

\- The French government decided to try it - to make people buy more french made products

My conclusion:

Writing "made in China" on all products manufactured in China is a growth hack. In fact, I am tempted to say that China was one of the first Growth hacker using this method.

Want to interact?

Twitter: [https://twitter.com/aflaisler](https://twitter.com/aflaisler)</comment>


Show HN: Fresh Eyes – Let people look at your page - <AUTHOR> https://feedbacktoaster.com/#/100roasts <comment><USER2> Who are the people looking at the pages/apps? Is there a way to match reviewers to my target audience?

Because getting reviews from the general public (or mechanical turk, etc.) is not necessarily going to be meaningful if an app is targeting a specific niche.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For example you could test your sign-up procedure or specific features of your app or website with some fresh pairs of eyes.</comment>


Comparison of the Amundsen and Scott Expeditions - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_Amundsen_and_Scott_Expeditions <comment><USER2> Cherry Garrard "worst journey" is well worth reading. He carried a life long PTSD burden I think (my mum remembered him visiting her boarding school in Salisbury, ghoulishly entertaining them with his false teeth, the real ones shattered in the polar frost)

Roland Huntford's writing is very good too.

Don't forget the north races, or the Soviets and polar flights, or of course Shackleton and South Georgia.

Once you start down the polar explorer rabbit hole it's a long way back.</comment>


Trying Tim Ferriss's "no grain" diet for 30 days... - <AUTHOR> http://grainandsuffering.blogspot.com/ <comment><USER2> I doubt there's anything terribly wrong with cutting out dietary grains, but the basis for a "paleo" diet appears to rest on two principal assumptions:

1\. Pre-agricultural humans didn't eat grains

2\. The human digestive system has evolved little since the introduction of agriculture

The problem is that both of these assumptions are dubious at best. If paleolithic humans didn't eat grains, then how were grains ever domesticated in the first place? Obviously, _someone_ was eating grains in the wild, and evidently over time people learned how to cultivate them. I have no trouble believing that the paleo diet contained far fewer grains than the typical post-agricultural diet, but that suggests eating select whole grains in moderation, not eliminating them entirely.

In addition, the idea that ten thousand years isn't enough time for substantial evolution is clearly wrong. The reason the New World was ravaged by smallpox, plague, influenza, etc., upon contact with Europeans was because Americans (in the generalized sense) lacked the resistance that Eurasians had evolved in the time since the invention of agriculture. Meanwhile, some people (especially northern Europeans) have no trouble digesting milk because they evolved the ability to metabolize lactose—presumably a recent innovation, since dairy animals were domesticated around the same time as grains. (Yet many "paleo" advocates also recommend eschewing dairy.) Indeed, "lactose intolerance" is a misnomer; what's remarkable is that anyone is lactose- tolerant—lactose-tolerant humans are the only mammals to produce the necessary lactase enzyme as adults. There is every reason to expect that a similar evolutionary process has led to an enhanced ability to digest grains; it may not be true, but it should be the null hypothesis.

In short, the basic idea of eating nutrient-dense foods is based on sound science, but the complete elimination of perfectly healthy foods such as whole grains and dairy doesn't have any basis in reality.

</comment><comment><USER3> I did a similar experiment last year. For 3 months I stuck to a low carb diet, influenced by the Atkin's diet, but not following it strictly. I was a very healthy weight and decided to try it after a number of arguments with friends and family where I defended the science behind it. I wanted to see whether it was genuinely a healthy diet, and not just the weight loss tool that it was getting all the buzz about.

I'm pleased to say the results where overwhelmingly positive. After the first unpleasant week as my body adjusted, I started to feel more energetic, less hungry and I needed less sleep. The biggest quantitative improvement though was the quality of my skin. I've always had problems with acne, even now I'm past my troubled teen years but on a low carb diet my skin almost completely cleared up. I'm sure it was more nutritious too because when you're not bulking your meals out with pasta, rice or potatoes, you don't have much choice other than to eat more veg.

After about 3 months, enough carbohydrate had crept back into my diet that I wasn't really doing anything special anymore, but I'm very tempted to go back and try to stick to it properly.

Good luck with your own experiment!

</comment><comment><USER4> I've vacillated from a near-all vegetarian diet (with fish 1x a week, mostly kidney beans for protein and eggs) back to this more "primal diet" of non- grains / breads.

Starting a few years ago, and overweight, I started feeling healthier after a few weeks. Over the next year dropped 55 lbs, then an addition 15 lbs of fat in another 3-5 months. This was without much exercise (due to a lower-back injury), though I would walk a few times a week. Which is not enough :)

I am still in a similar eating pattern (this is not a diet, it's a way of healthy eating); lots of vegetables, meat and eggs daily. I may have grains / bread (pizza or other junk) on the weekend if I am inclined. I gradually turned into this eating lifestyle by making small eating changes 1x per week.

Such as, getting rid of soda. Then getting rid of any deserts. Getting rid of bread at night. Getting rid of all pasta's, etc. Slow progression to healthier eating. After a time, junk food will literally make you sick and not be as tasty..though if I'm missing something (like good fats or protein), I sometimes go nuts and eat 2 burritos or 3 burgers.

I go through these groceries weekly, cooking 2-4x meals per day.

12-24 eggs

2-3 steaks (frozen), or pork, or ground beef (Bison is tasty)

2-4 servings of fish (frozen, tilapia, halibut etc)

~1 can of kidney beans (against Tim Ferris' article)

Number of handfuls of nuts; almonds, cashews, etc.

½ frozen bag of green beans

½ frozen bag of broccoli

1 bag of Chinese broccoli

3-4 peppers (green, red)

2-3 avocado's

2-4 tomato's

2 bags of spinach

I also used to eat more than 5 meals a day, now down to 2-4 (mostly a lot of snacks). Eating healthier = less fuel needed to function.

Edit: It took a number of MONTHS to get over feeling lethargic from not having any grains / bread. For those months I still had some grain / bread for lunch.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cutting out grains isn't just about the gluten, but about the starch and sugar too. Replacing grains with fruit and potatoes is likely not optimal.

I've been eating paleo/primal/low-carb (whatever) for half a year now. The need/craving for sweets and carby stuff disappears in a week (for me, YMMV). I eat about the same as I used to (which means I'm eating more meat and veggies to compensate) and don't recognize the hunger aspect of it at all. What I like most is the complete lack of insulin surge after a meal. I can eat a meal and immediatelly go sporting, because there is no insulin spike and thus no energy dip.

However, each body reacts differently, and it might now work for you. I know some people stay hungry without noticing anything.

<comment><USER6> Yes. I would advise getting the book (Tim's blog article was just an excerpted chapter). The latter part of the book gives the "how". You should definitely not be feeling hungry from this diet, _especially_ if you're not trying to lose weight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wouldn't be surprised if this works, because I've done something similarly drastic that worked for me. Here's my story:

Last year I read something by Giles Bowkett about how he lost weight and got healthy. I've read about many fad diets and they all seem crazy or impractical. What he described sounded just boring enough to work. If you think about what a silver-bullet diet would look like, this is it. Here's his touched up version of what I originally read: [http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-i- lost-75-pound...](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-i- lost-75-pounds-in-six-months-and.html)

It's Dr. Fuhrmann's Eat To Live diet: Eat more vegetables. Lots more. Eat mostly vegetables. I didn't follow the diet exactly. I just tried to eat lots more vegetables. I was a young, fairly healthy guy but maybe 15 lbs overweight. I ate more vegetables, lost 10 lbs in a month, and felt fantastic doing it. I didn't eat any less or more. I didn't workout more. I simply lost weight and felt great.

I don't know if the no-grain thing will work for anybody, but the more vegetables thing sure worked for me.

<comment><USER8> When I was single, I went on a modified (included small portions of lean meats) Eat To Live diet as an experiment.For breakfast, I jammed myself full of fruits and some dairy. For lunch I had a Subway salad with all the veggies and a lean meat. For dinner, I had a large punchbowl-sized salad with a variety of vegetables and a lean meat. Broccoli and vast amounts of spinach seemed a common theme. I also drank A LOT of water. I did not modify my sedentary fitness scheme.

The results were that I dropped 10 lbs a week for that month, didn't seem to lose any muscle, and didn't feel hungry. I felt more energetic. The downside was that I had to make 3 trips a week to the store for fresh veggies.

Some of my other "body hacks" experiments were:

\- Vegan for 2 years

\- Vegetarian for 10 years. Going back to meat (especially tuna) had amazing effects on my brain functioning. Tuna was initially the only meat I could eat without throwing it back up. I noticed great mind improvements within a couple days.

\- Eliminating all sodas (of which I only drank diet pepsi) for a month. I very rapidly lost (probably water) weight. If I recall, it was about 20 lbs. I have no clue whats in Diet Pepsi that causes weight/water retention.

\- Polyphasic sleep: A total scam in my experience. Maybe I need too much sleep.

\- 5BX: Really works

\- Body For Life: Really works as advertised, but consumes your life.

\- Couch (couldn't jog 400 meters to start) to ultramarathon in 8 months, with several marathons as "training" along the way. Some marathons were at high altitude and quite rugged.

\- I have not used any soap or shampoo for 2 weeks now (per [http://freetheanimal.com/2009/12/paleo-i-dont-care-i-like- no...](http://freetheanimal.com/2009/12/paleo-i-dont-care-i-like-no-soap-no- shampoo.html)). To save space, I am finding the same results as the author, Richard Nikoley, has.

I don't stink. I haven't told my wife about this experiment and she hasn't mentioned any stink yet! Another modifier to my washing regime is that I now use a washcloth instead of just a bar of soap in hand, so this probably has an effect, too.

I don't have any particular ideological aims behind these experiments (except maybe to go against conventional wisdom).

If anyone has any other interesting experiments they want/wish they could try, post em here, maybe I'll try for you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What strikes me as odd about this is that grains are a perfectly natural food source and a staple of plenty of really healthy people, from all around the world, and for as far back in history as you care to delve. Why not eat grains?

And also, since this appears to be about gluten: it cracks me up that one health food movement (the macrobiotic movement) get away with promoting seitan (which is just fried/steamed/baked wheat gluten) as a health food, while another movement says that gluten kills you.

<comment><USER10> Gluten allergies aren't that uncommon.

<comment><USER11> But a specific allergy to gluten is well-known, tested, and verified phenomenon (it's called celiac disease). What this guy is attempting to pass off as "science" is just a bunch of conjecture about "this isn't what primates eat."

Thousands of years of evidence contradict his rather flimsy conjectures.

<comment><USER12> Not only that but he's not even defining his terms well. What does it mean to say that you'll "feel better"? This just isn't science.

<comment><USER10> Dude. It's a _blog,_ not a rigorous scientific study.

<comment><USER12> He's making specific, testable, claims with no references and encouraging people to make potentially damaging changes to their diets. That demands a slightly higher standard of evidence than somebody's cute code samples or kid photos.

<comment><USER13> _> He's making specific, testable, claims_

And that is good, you can specifically test the claims

 _> with no references_

The blog is a guest post by Rob Wolff with an excerpt from his book, where the references are.

 _> and encouraging people to make potentially damaging changes to their diets._

Woah, avoiding lectins for 30 days potentially damaging? Everything is possible I guess, but that seems not only highly unlikely, but a stark contrast to the point of the recommendation: a potentially _beneficial_ change to their diets.

 _> That demands a slightly higher standard of evidence than somebody's cute code samples or kid photos._

I don't see why, because I don't see any possible danger whatsoever in avoiding grains for a month. If I'm wrong, please illuminate me. I am admittedly, another anecdote case of positive outcome from avoiding grains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good for you for trying the no-grain diet! Just one question, however: you seem to eat food that is likely to include corn syrup. For example: the smoothie at McDonald's. Don't you think corn syrup should also be eliminated?

</comment><comment><USER15> It probably shouldn't be referred to as Tim Ferris' "no grain" diet. The original post was Robb Wolf, author of The Paleo Solution. The goal isn't to eat no grain. The goal is to eat no gluten. Grain just happens to contain gluten.

It should probably be called No Gluten diet or refer to Robb Wolf instead since he wrote the book and did all of the research.

</comment><comment><USER16> "The second worst part of this diet is that I'm _always_ hungry." I think that's the basis of this whole diet. I think it's reasonable to assume that the average American diet is far from ideal for the mostly sedentary lifestyles we lead (once again, talking only about the average case). So any change is an improvement. What I want to see is a study that pits the paleo diet against, say the low carb diet, against just a balanced carb/protein/fat diet against a control group. My wife was telling me about a study that did a low carb vs balanced vs control experiment and the balanced diet won by an appreciable margin, but I don't have any links handy.

<comment><USER13> _> ...a study... low carb vs balanced..._

Might this be it? (link is a debunking): [http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/09/08/brand-spankin-new-study- are...](http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/09/08/brand-spankin-new-study-are-low-carb- meat-eaters-in-trouble/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Without grains and agriculture... the earth could not sustain billions of people.

<comment><USER13> Maybe. Then again, if you ask Jared Diamond, grains and agriculture could be partly responsible for the earth having billions of people. [http://www.mnforsustain.org/food_ag_worst_mistake_diamond_j....](http://www.mnforsustain.org/food_ag_worst_mistake_diamond_j.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ferriss' article discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1707305>

</comment><comment><USER19> Good luck. You may be interested in the paleo hacks site. It's one of them stack overflow sites for questions about stuff related to the paleo diet and lifestyle: <http://paleohacks.com/>

</comment><comment><USER20> Eggs seem conspicuously absent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I'll be upping my consumption.

<comment><USER21> and very large portions of insects, if we're talking primates.

<comment><USER22> We really shouldn't be talking primates at all. Diets of paleolithic humans look nothing like diets of primates, we split off millions of years ago. Eat what a chimpanzee eats and you'll get sick.

<comment><USER23> Many people consume insects today; it's just not very popular in western cultures.

<comment><USER20> [http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/09/21/dining/12480690665...](http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/09/21/dining/1248069066500/mealworm- it-s-what-s-for-dinner.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Dutch island of Noorderhaaks regenerates itself every 150 years - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noorderhaaks#/media/File:Noorderhaaks_Time-lapse.gif <comment><AUTHOR> The Dutch island of Noorderhaaks, situated just West of the inlet between the island of Texel and the city of Den Helder, moves and morphs over time and has regenerated every 150 years - about six times in recorded history.</comment>


NASA: We're sending humans to Mars - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/NASA/status/539814651404754944 <comment><USER2> Sometime in the past fifty years NASA became paralyzed not by budget cuts, but by political in-fighting, fractured organizational structure and lots and lots of red tape. And then there is all that pork that goes around with the entrenched contractors. The tale of the last Mars program that NASA put together is a great example of this. They got handed a technically sound plan to get there in reasonable time with reasonable resources. Then every org-unit in NASA wanted to add their own part to stay relevant and it got so bloated both technically and financially that it had to be put to rest.

So unless they convince me that they managed to get their internal structural problems under control, I don't think they get anytime to Mars within this century. And certainly not before the private sector does.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program)

p.s.: There is a free movie on YouTube telling the tale: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTZvNLL0-w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTZvNLL0-w)

<comment><USER3> > political in-fighting, fractured organizational structure and lots and lots > of red tape.

These things happen in private sector organizations too; the assumption that the private sector somehow will do it better needs to be supported. Really, we need to point to a specific private sector organization.

Name every place in the solar system where NASA missions currently are located. Outside the solar system? Where they have gone historically? Their achievements are staggering; history-making events are routine; they are by far the greatest explorers in the history of humanity. Certainly they aren't perfect and every organization can improve, but they do pretty well.

<comment><USER4> > Really, we need to point to a specific private sector organization.

SpaceX. I agree that NASA has done more for space exploration than the private sector and that SpaceX would not be where it is today without NASA funding, but SpaceX is doing more per dollar than NASA is by a wide margin. I would guess that NASA will be the first to land a human on Mars, but I would also guess that they will lift off in a SpaceX rocket.

<comment><USER5> SpaceX sits atop decades of resources in what constitutes sound aerospace engineering practices, and is being helped by the fact that their scope is far, _far_ more limited than NASA's.

Private contractors given good specifications are certainly very effective at what they do, but I really doubt that they'd be as good if they were to go on a purely exploratory , basic research-like mission where objectives are fuzzier.

<comment><USER6> Their scope is to colonize Mars. NASA's scope is to land a man on Mars.

In some way, SpaceX's scope is much more ambitious than NASA.

<comment><USER5> SpaceX's scope is irrelevant until they can be viable without substantial assistance from Mars, from the point of view of the private-is-better supporters.

It's most likely that space exploration will always be a public-private mixture given the political and military interests in play, and the fact that a privately-funded endeavor of such magnitude would be _extremely_ unlikely to survive a failure, and no one in their right mind would underwrite such a project.

It's funny that people praise private companies' willingness to be flexible beyond bureaucracy yet they forget that a company can only survive for so long without positive returns and that limits their risk tolerance tremendously. Heck, consider how few companies are willing to do basic research nowadays.

<comment><USER7> "a company can only survive for so long without positive returns and that limits their risk tolerance tremendously"

Don't you think Amazon's stock price says differently?

To me, a private Mars colony sounds a lot like an Amazon. An endeavor with a very big mission and a very long execution time.

<comment><USER6> SpaceX's mission to colonize Mars isn't about making money, it's about colonizing Mars.

But SpaceX needs to make money to make colonization of Mars happen.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what your point is exactly.

Making money is about making things people want. Colonizing Mars is the thing that people want; and every step towards that goal (launch vehicles, human spacecraft, etc) bootstraps them onto the next step. Much like how Amazon works; they forfeit profit today to invest in not just tomorrow, but several decades from now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is just stupid. What is the point? This will be extremely expensive, it will gut a lot of useful science programs.

Send robots! They are thousands of times cheaper and they get the job done. And when they die it is not a national tragedy.

Robots have been doing an excellent job of planetary exploration over the past 20 years or so. There is no reason to stop this. And this will mostly stop if nasa decides to seriously pursue a human mars mission, because such a mission will soak up most NASA resources.

The only reason to send humans is to satisfy the science fiction fantasies of a bunch of stupid fan boys. And everyone knows that these fantasies can just as easily be satisfied by a cheesy movie or TV show.

Now I have to emphasize the word stupid, in "stupid science fiction fanboys." If you were a smart science fiction fanboy or girl you would know that continued robotic exploration will make the science fiction fantasy of mars tourism much closer than a human mission.

If we keep sending robotic missions we can study the mars soil and perhaps move on to having the robots build stuff on mars. If the robots can build a base with solar based energy gathering, oxygen generation and even perhaps rocket fuel generation, then mars travel may become a regular if expensive thing.

Otherwise we will have a single mission that with great fan fare sends one or two people to stomp around on mars for an hour or two and quickly return. (Or even worse, perhaps die there). After the mission the whole thing will be scrapped and only the newspaper clippings and tv documentaries will remain. This is what happened with Apolo. It was great but it did not really lead anywhere in terms of moon exploration.

<comment><USER9> I think the ultimate goal with space travel is to reduce the risk of human extinction, which is a distinct possibility when we are confined to a single planet or planetary system.

Transporting and then returning humans to a "distant" destination will be a worthy milestone that will teach us a lot. We have to start somewhere.

Perhaps you're right: maybe we can more quickly achieve distribution of humanity by solely focusing on robotic exploration. But I just wanted to point out that satisfying science fiction fanboys isn't the only reason to travel to Mars.

<comment><USER10> It seems incredibly arrogant and short-sited to assume that humans would be able to somehow survive outside of their original environment. There isn't a grocery list of things we need to bring into space or to another planet. Everything on this planet is interrelated and inseparable in largely unknown ways.

<comment><USER11> You don't need that much to just survive - food/water, atmosphere, low enough radiation, manageable temperature.

All of these problems can be solved with our current level of technology on Mars. After you establish the base near a water source, you can grow your own food, you can make oxygen, you can mine for whatever elements you need.

Nobody says it's easy, but it's doable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fuck the cynicism. The fact that NASA finally has its head turned around to at least announce is indicative to me of a cultural, maybe generational shift towards giving a shit about space travel. Who cares who does it first, at least this is a trend in the right direction.

<comment><USER13> NASA has "announced" Mars timelines 20 years in the future many times before.

<comment><USER12> I have never seen their announcements in the past. Between SpaceX, the global international space travel movement, and hey even Interstellar, there is a lot more buzz around space travel. Plus, we have landed a rover on mars, plus people have landed a rover on a comet. NASA has had a hand in space advancement. I don't give a shit if they have been wrong in the past, the growing hype around space travel is exciting, and I refuse to be a buzzkill about it.

<comment><USER13> If you are citing _Interstellar_ as a reason to believe this, I don't know how to help you.

For anyone else:

Obama in 2010: to Mars by the mid-2030's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_policy_of_the_Barack_Obam...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_policy_of_the_Barack_Obama_administration)

Bush in 2005: to the Moon by 2020, to Mars soon after 2030 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program)

NASA 1998: DRM 3.0 calls for first launch to Mars in 2011, human crew in 2014. [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/1998021...](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19980218778.pdf)

Bush in 1989: 90-day report, which was a joke, but also 30 years to spend $300 billion [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Exploration_Initiative](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Exploration_Initiative)

<comment><USER12> I am not sure I believe it, fuck believing it. I have worked on enough software projects to know its not entirely true. But why should I not get excited? I got excited when Obama announced his policy and I will continue to get excited. It means people are still thinking about Mars and space exploration and that is a positive amongst all this cynicism.

<comment><USER13> If you lap this up, they'll give you more of it.

"This" being "plans 20 years in the future."

I get that this is your first time getting your heart shattered. I'm the old crone who doesn't understand the true love you found with your soulmate who is promising you the moon, er, Mars. But if you repeat our mistakes, you will repeat our heartbreak.

The more excited the public is, the more NASA sees it as a blank check to cram more things as "necessary" for a Mars mission. The 90-day report is the perfect example. Today's press conference is talking about creating "solar electric propulsion," something that was never mentioned for prior Mars missions but is now suddenly a requirement.

That's the pattern. The public wants a Mars mission, then NASA says "yeah, we'll get there in 20 years, but first we need to spend time inventing <new tech>." It's a different <new tech> each time.

<comment><USER14> Unless you think that <new tech> is somehow detrimental to getting to Mars, I don't see what the cynicism gets you. In fact, I've never understood how cynicism helps achieve anything at all.

We'll send humans to Mars when it makes sense, when we can, and when we want to. If we stop wanting to, we'll never go...we'll never even develop the capability.

Mankind spent a long time--hundreds, maybe thousands of years--using boats before we started sailing across oceans. Going to Mars is way more complicated and dangerous, and that's still only the closest planet.

Enthusiasm for plans might create license for NASA to experiment, but lack of enthusiasm would be far worse. There's no lack of other people who would love to spend NASA's money. And even the private sector spaceflight companies are largely dependent on NASA today.

<comment><USER15> I think they mean <new tech> for <new tech>'s sake. Not <new tech> that's absolutely necessary for reaching Mars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Call me cynical, but I feel like NASA won't end up shuttling humans to Mars. Instead, NASA will more likely be shuttling government money between various contractors before having the program cancelled in the far-future...

Politics + exploration for exploration's sake always seems at odds.

<comment><USER17> Perhaps, but I feel like NASA is at a point where if they don't "ship" something big they're going to fade into the night.

Robotic space exploration is awesome, but it doesn't capture the human imagination the way a human mission does. I also think -- and the academic types be damned -- that there is a difference between sending a robot and actually _going_ somewhere.

In the long term I think Mars will be settled by humans. Sending humans to land there for a bit is a first step, a fact-finding mission.

<comment><USER18> Mars will never be settled any more than Antarctica is settled. Mars is vastly more difficult to get to and provides an even more severe environment. It's going to be just like the moon - once we're there, we'll wonder why we ever bothered to go to this miserable rock. Leave the private industry to go there and do as they wish. After sending a small band of rovers there we haven't found any compelling reason to go, have we? Other than exogeology?

NASA should be dreaming much bigger. How about manned missions to Jupiter? Maybe after failing at the impossible for a while we'll at least get a better concept of how far away the rest of pretty much anywhere in space is, and stop thinking about planetary exploration as a lifeboat for our species.

<comment><USER19> What's your lifeboat for our species?

<comment><USER18> If making a lifeboat is the real goal, then let's colonize the moon. It's much closer, and about equally inhospitable.

The best option is not screwing up our planet. If asteroid strikes is the concern, then funding a planetwide network of residents living in underground bunkers with supplies to last decades is probably cheaper and more effective than going to Mars.

<comment><USER20> >The best option is not screwing up our planet.

That isn't even close to the best option. That's like saying: "don't make backups, just don't screw up."

edit: to be more specific, "make makeups, but also try not to screw up"

<comment><USER21> > That's like saying: "don't make backups, just don't screw up."

That does not even belong in the same category. Data backups in computer systems are cheap, and people/organizations not doing them even cheaper!

On the other hand, doctors don't make backups of the gravely ill[1] before a dangerous surgery. That is beyond our current capabilities, so "do not screw up" is as good as it gets.

Yet another example, civil engineers do not make backups of skyscrapers[2] before doing maintenance work, even major maintenance work. While technically feasible, the economic cost would be prohibitive.

My gut feeling is that a "backup planet" would fall somewhere in between cases [1] and [2].

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So many cynical comments in here. I can't disagree with the substance, because the past track record has been mixed, and because of the issues with NASA's political structure have been well documented.

I also can't disagree with the practicalists that suggest the money would be better spent elsewhere.

However, one thing I can't get past: I don't think humanity will ever escape self interested nationalism without space exploration. I have zero hope for the long term survival of our species, barring significant human cooperation.

So I get all the intellectual arguments, but I also dream that space could be the one freaking thing that joins our species together -- the understanding that we really are very similar. I think only space will provide that push.

My opinion is that without space, humanity will destroy itself in a matter of centuries, through environmental pollution, nuclear war, disease, or any of the other methods we've come up with in the last 100 years.

<comment><USER15> > My opinion is that without space, humanity will destroy itself in a matter > of centuries, through environmental pollution, nuclear war, disease, or any > of the other methods we've come up with in the last 100 years.

People say this, but I don't get what it's based in. Our track record for surviving is incredibly impressive. In fact, if there's one trait we humans have that's worth noting, it's our ability to survive, no matter the conditions.

I also find it amusing that predict that humanity will destroy itself in a matter of centuries after starting your post with "So many cynical comments in here." :)

<comment><USER22> I hear what you're saying. I had the first thought just after making my comment, and explored it a little more. I hope you'll indulge me, because I'm genuinely curious what you think.

It's really only in the last 120 years that humans have been able to inflict enough damage within a few generations to seriously damage our existence. So I limit myself to that era (and forward), because I'm focusing on human- inflicted extinction.

I have 4 or 5 nuclear near-events that very narrowly started a nuclear war. (I suppose I forget that humans will survive total nuclear war, but there would be so much death that I'm not sure I'd want to survive it.) We can add in global warming, although we don't know what the effects will be.

So 6 events or so in the last 120 years, 1 of which is still undecided. The "next few centuries" part was a bit dramatic -- but over the next 1,000,000 years, how many more near-misses will we have? Even if we survive 99%, there's still a pretty high chance that humanity is gone. And from reading descriptions of things like the Cuban Missile Crisis, I think the odds of nuclear exchange were much higher than 1%.

I must confess to resembling the second comment. In humanity, I see a lot of hope, but I see also reason for despair. I guess the cynicism hit me a bit because it's people being cynical about the one endeavor I believe holds hope for uniting our species.

<comment><USER15> I suppose I might agree with you that it's likely catastrophic events will be caused by us at some point, but I very much disagree that the survivors of those events will ever consider life not worth living. Wanting to stay alive is probably our most fundamental desire, and we happen to be pretty damn good at doing it. I think of those types of events like forest fires. On the surface, they seem devastating, but they actually end up serving a wider purpose and thus, one should not despair.

<comment><USER22> Excellent points, from an abstract perspective.

However, if 99% of the world's population died and the remainder had to scratch out a difficult living, I think it would be difficult to distance myself from the reality that my existence, as I had known it to that point, was dead.

One of the great things about the human spirit is the resilience of our species and our individuals. However, it's hard for me to think I'd just accept it as part of a greater purpose. (In fact, that language makes me think of a religious approach to death -- "they're in a better place" \-- which does nothing to soften the blow from a loved one's death.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Alot of cynicism in the comments on this, so I just wanted to say I am excited and I believe in NASA.

<comment><USER24> Seeing as I was in my own world today, I just heard about this news. I was(still am) ecstatic and excited by the news just to be bummed down by the comments. I'm with you on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "I have no desire to do a Mars landing on our own," Bolden said (two years ago).

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/story/2012...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/story/2012-08-01/NASA- mars-rover/56656270/1)

I've more faith in Musk than in Bolden. "[going to Mars has] always been a goal of SpaceX. We're hoping to develop the technology to do that in probably 12 to 15 years."

[http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-0801-morrison-musk- spacex-20120...](http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-0801-morrison-musk- spacex-20120801-column.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> There's something I always asked myself about Mars expedition: well I kind of believe that it's possible to put somebody down on Mars within the next few decades.

But... what about coming back to earth? Escape velocity is about > 5 km/s. Wouldn't you need to build a launch site having at least half of the power of our launch sites down here on Earth? How are they going to do that anytime near in the future?

So is it going to be a on-way trip? And if so, are they going to maintain a supply chain from Earth to Mars for the whole of the life time of those explorers? Water, air, food...

<comment><USER27> Most of the mass (fuel) will be waiting in orbit. They need to bring down to the surface only the fuel to get back to orbit so they won't need half of a Saturn V. They still need to launch a lot of fuel from Earth.

<comment><USER26> I wasn't thinking about the whole journey back home, just the first part of it which looks damn hard to me: how do you get a space craft away from Mars? You need to reach escape velocity, and that's 5 km/s (> 11000 mph).

You'll have to build a complete launch site for that.

<comment><USER28> If you have fuel in orbit you just have to reach it, you don't have to get to escape velocity.

<comment><USER29> You still have to match velocity with the fuel. Crashing into your fueling station at 10000 km/h doesn't help anything.

<comment><USER30> Actually... it completely solves the problem of the return trip.

<comment><USER31> Somebody needs to teach NASA to embrace Crash-Only Design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I feel like the significance of humans going to Mars is largely attributed to movies and pop culture.

It's the Paris Hilton of the astronomical world.

I don't want to be labeled a cynic, but do the benefits of sending humans to Mars outweigh the costs?

<comment><USER33> >I feel like the significance of humans going to Mars is largely attributed to movies and pop culture. It's the Paris Hilton of the astronomical world.

I think that may be conflating cause and effect. I'd argue a manned trip to Mars is a focus of pop culture because it resonates strongly with so many. The drive to explore has always been etched into a portion of humanity. For many(myself included) Mars stands as the currently realistic pinnacle of exploration for humanity. Along with accessibility of understanding the accomplishment you end up with our current Martian fascination.

>I don't want to be labeled a cynic, but do the benefits of sending humans to Mars outweigh the costs?

With anything as expensive and complex as a manned mission to mars, we honestly can never know until we try. It's impossible to predict what fruits, if any, it would bear for humanity. That's the nature of exploration and discovery. For all we know there's some infeasible to overcome barrier that makes the task of manned travel to Mars impossible.

Due to the intractable nature of quantifying the value of manned Mars missions I think the reasoning for doing so falls to a far more base human condition than a positive cost benefit analysis. On a personal level the desire for continued human exploration is hard to explain to those who don't possess it. There's an intensely disquieting internal sensation that comes with feeling stagnation at the bounds of human capability. It's not dissimilar to the urge for preservation of the Earth for future generations, or to rid the world of undue suffering. These drives, like exploration, aren't built on entirely pragmatic foundations. They can and do often fail to justify themselves on purely practical terms.

Just for clarity, my response isn't made with the purpose of persuasion. It's to help convey my entirely subjective view of things and perhaps illuminate the thinking behind some proponents for space exploration.

<comment><USER32> > I think that may be conflating cause and effect. I'd argue a manned trip to > Mars is a focus of pop culture because it resonates strongly with so many.

Game of Thrones, Star Wars, etc, also resonate with society. Things in those movies aren't necessarily worthy of exploring. Conversely, cancer research isn't represented well in pop culture... but that doesn't mean it doesn't warrant pursuit.

<comment><USER33> >Conversely, cancer research isn't represented well in pop culture

I'd disagree, with that sentiment(cancer awareness, research and prevention are widely popular; otherwise we wouldn't so tightly associate the color pink and breast cancer), but that's not really what I was getting at.

> that doesn't mean it doesn't warrant pursuit.

What I'm suggesting isn't that we should tailor our spending to match the frequency in which a subject appears in pop culture, but that humanity has an innate drive to explore. This drive manifests in both real attempts at exploration(NASA, WHOI, ESA, etc.) and fictional dramatizations of exploration that appear in pop culture.

Maybe a better example of a similarly inherent drive influencing pop culture is the one for sex. Pop culture's fascination with sex(and exploration) is merely a consequence fundamental human pursuits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The NASA went to the moon because the russians wanted to do it. Today's space exploration is shaped by cooperation, but sometimes a little bit of competition is needed to achive great thinks.

This is why i'm really hoping for the chinese to announce a manned mission to mars. It's the red planet afterall ;), and this could be a modern sputnik shock for the NASA.

<comment><USER35> Sputnik had military implications. Going to Mars doesn't.

<comment><USER34> That's a valid point. But Sputnik had also a component of harmed pride (›most advanced nation‹); at least this should be reproducible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is like Kickstarter campaign. I don't believe until I see some serious things happening.

I have more fate in SpaceX or Chinese to put man on Mars then NASA.

<comment><USER37> I guarantee you if China or India were to make strides towards a serious Mars mission (i.e. they had a Moon landing) we would have another space race with the US involved. It's exactly what happened when the USSR sparked the first space race. Whether we would win, who knows, but there is still plenty of expertise and know how in about sending humans into space in the US ...

I really don't understand all the absolute trust in SpaceX, in terms of human exploration they have proved _nothing_ thus far. Sending cargo to the ISS is a different thing than sending humans. Once they pull that off we can start talking about great strides they are making in human space exploration.

Otherwise it's still a risky venture that hasn't proven anything yet, the only reason to have so much faith in them is because you're over zealously infatuated with Elon Musk. Not to downplay any of his obvious success, but I still believe in seeing results in the same way you're waiting to see if NASA is going to do some "serious things". Let's hold people to same standards, shall we?

<comment><USER38> > I really don't understand all the absolute trust in SpaceX, in terms of > human exploration they have proved nothing thus far. Sending cargo to the > ISS is a different thing than sending humans. Once they pull that off we can > start talking about great strides they are making in human space > exploration.

I think the thing about SpaceX is it seems like they have no ulterior motives (no one honestly thought it was going to make money, until it did), and they seem to have some chance of success.

I also think your humans to the space station mark is entirely the wrong one, they could do that today if they were willing to accept a bit more risk, and will almost certainly be able to do it in the near future. But putting humans in space isn't solving any of the hard problems. Far more interesting will be if they manage to re-use a rocket (or even first-stage) with no or minor refurbishment... as re-use is the only way they will be able to achieve their goals (paraphrasing massively from what Elon has said on numerous occasions).

<comment><USER39> I guarantee you that people felt quite certain that SpaceX was going to at least have the possibility of making loads of money. No one invests capital or starts a business, much less an aerospace business, if they don't honestly believe it will make money. Even if you have a bunch of idealists who want to see humanity achieve it's destiny and reach for the stars, they would be fools to invest so much time and money in something that they believe was destined to fail.

Whatever Elon Musk is, he's not a complete fool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I honestly don't see the point of doing this. The scientific bounty from going to the moon was tiny comparing to the amount of resource put into it.

I think poet Gil-Scott Heron does a great job deconstructing the space- exploration efforts in "Whitey on the Moon". [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtBy_ppG4hY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtBy_ppG4hY)

<comment><USER14> Some folks want to know how exploration can benefit them scientifically.

Other folks wonder what the point of science is, if not exploration.

<comment><USER41> I'm all for expanding frontiers of science.

I'd much prefer sending robotic exploration craft, though.

I don't see much scientific gain coming out of putting the people in space, while the massively increased costs associated of keeping people alive and well in space just subtract from scientific gains in knowledge and exploration.

Putting people in space is for PR, putting robots in space is for science.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> [http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/01/nasa-orion- sp...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/01/nasa-orion-spacecraft- human-mars-mission)

It seems they're just hyping this Thursday's mission.

That said, I don't know anybody could withstand a one year trip in a capsule the size of Orion...

<comment><USER43> I read some of the background material about Orion. The transfer mission will include much larger structures for crew habitation. Orion is there as the return-to-Earth vehicle which also provides something they call 'abort anywhere' \- the ability to pull the plug on the entire mission at any point during the flight to Mars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> We just need to pick another country to race with. "Hey China! Bet we'll get to Mars faster than you!" Then we'll have Mars 2020.

<comment><USER45> You ask the average American whether or not they'd pitch in to beat China to Mars and they'd say no. We don't have the nationalism to make that work anymore.

<comment><USER46> I'm not so sure on this... Competition is still a strong motivator, even if nationalism is waning.

<comment><USER45> The key to why the space race worked is competition _between nations_. It's because the fallout from World War 2 was a strong sense of national identity. The same thing that made McCarthyism work is what made the space race work.

We don't have that anymore. It was probably a worthwhile trade: there are other vectors we can get technological advance from: but if Obama made a speech about beating China to Mars tomorrow as a proof of how America is a great nation, the Republicans would assemble on the dot to burn him at the stake for it.

There's still a sense of national identity, such as can be seen in the Olympics, but it's barely an echo of what it was 50 years ago. Before we lost in Vietnam. Before the Civil War was re-enacted to gain universal suffrage. Before Reaganomics. Before Cuba. Before Bosnia. Before 9/11 and Iraq. Before Snowden. Before Ferguson.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> We have to wait until the mid 2030s (20 years!) to put humans on Mars via the government's program?

I fear that this goal is not nearly ambitious enough. Set a deadline far away, and the time you "need" to spend preparing to meet that deadline will increase in order to fill the amount of time you have.

<comment><USER48> Isn't it prudent to spread out the $1 trillion cost over a couple decades? After all, we have to borrow every dime of that from future taxpayers. I'm including cost overruns.

Or are you willing to pay an extra $10K a year in taxes to get to Mars sooner?

<comment><USER49> The average taxpayer pays NASA $55 per year.

<comment><USER50> I pay less for my Science Museum membership.

I would love to see NASA fixed (firstly) and fully funded (once its fixed).

<comment><USER48> Well you haven't paid a dime in NASA funding yet. All funding to date has been borrowed from people younger than you or not yet born. Presumably the gov't will borrow many times more to get to Mars, than it has for any previous mission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> There are two possible scenarios where I'll get my hopes up that humans are going to Mars:

1\. It is so close that it is obvious. A heavy lift human-rated rocket is in service. It is demonstrated that humans can live long duration without the radiation shielding of the Earth. The capsule is human rated (planned to happen in 2021). A robotic landing of the vehicle on Mars is done (a lot of Mars probes have failed on this step). That humans are selected / training. This goal is set for the 2030s, so it fails this criteria.

2\. They announce a huge amount of funding to be spent within a few years. The pages I've read thus far don't suggest what funding levels are.

I'll happily listen to what they say, but I'm still skeptical.

EDIT: Expanded the conditions for point 1.

<comment><USER52> #2 is out of their control. I'd speculate that at least part of the purpose of this announcement is to shame Congress into ensuring sufficient funding.

<comment><USER51> Shaming congress doesn't appear to be effective at the moment.

Bush Sr. talked about going to Mars with SEI. Bush Jr. talked about it after Columbia. Skylab (the space station in the 70s) was supposed to teach us about long duration spaceflight in order to go to Mars (and we've been parked in LEO ever since).

I want to believe... And I like Zubrin's plan to go to Mars. As it could work with an incrementalist approach, and thus is pragmatic (and sounds like what they are doing). But the problem is that there is a long time before the work on the incrementalist dream starts and landing on Mars. Who knows what will happen to funding in the mean time.

<comment><USER52> It doesn't, but what other choice do they have? If you only have one button to press, you might as well keep pressing it. Maybe it'll work one of these times.

<comment><USER53> "The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

<comment><USER52> It would be very difficult to chop down a tree with that mentality.

<comment><USER53> In quoting Einstein's definition of stupidity, the analogy is to ineffectively chopping at a tree without managing to fell it, and then proceeding to ineffectively do the same to N other trees.

<comment><USER52> First, the quote is about insanity, not stupidity. Second, Einstein didn't say it. Third, it's not a very good definition of either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I've done a bit of (very marginal) work for NASA, and the problem they have is that it takes 2 weeks and 5 signatures to get $200 worth of parts approved... while everyone is always in a hurry regardless. Just give your engineers $300 a month for miscellanea, it'll be faster and cheaper. I can see why being a federal agency they have to be spotlessly above-board when it comes to who does what with money, but there's a limit to that.

What ended up happening with my projects (PhoneSat and a couple other things) is that I was there part time, and just bought parts on my own dime, then I sent a global itemized bill for everything. It took six months but they did pay me back.

</comment><comment><USER55> Huge PR move, but i dont think it's gonna work. Do people really need to "send a human" to mars? To prove what to whom (the soviets are no more). It's not like we haven't already been there and taken our pictures. Or that we expect any surprises from this mission. How about we make a plan to terraform Mars? Or to work on more mysterious things like genomes, like the brain etc? Sending a human to mars is a PR move, maybe typical of our times, but not useful.

</comment><comment><USER56> Looks like the briefing already happened. Does anyone know if a recorded version is available anywhere yet?

<comment><USER57> It's up on YouTube now: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBoj-1m-qLU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBoj-1m-qLU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> All this means to me is that somebody in the NASA PR department is leading a push to appear competitive with private companies. I imagine very little has changed operationally in the past few months at NASA. This announcement is only meant to conform to the ebb-and-flow of media, a battlefront where private companies have been kicking NASA's ass lately. (Maybe NASA PR wants to capitalize on recent virgin crash, chink-in-armor, lol).

This push is great but it's definitely a case of "fake it till you make it" from NASA vs the private companies, since they're all competing for the same funding. Honestly, I love it. It's great to see competition in the space race again. This time instead of nation states duking it out in orbit, it's private sector vs host nation state. It's great. Hopefully this leads to huge space innovations in the next decade, and we actually do send humans to Mars.

Go space yay. ~= >===|=>

</comment><comment><USER59> Notice that nowhere in the graphic is there a Martian lander. This looks like a re-purposing of the Orion spacecraft into a twin configuration to support a one-off slingshot around Mars on an approximately two-year free return trajectory, with a few months spent close enough to Mars to get some science done and photaos taken. It's an idea that's been floating around for years, and not very interesting because it's a strategic dead-end.

I am very saddened. When I saw the tweet I thought we finally got a commitment from high up to land people on another planet, and not just aimlessly building random congress-designed porkbarrel crap with a hope to someday do something somewhere as will be decided later.

A commitment to land people on Mars on a strict schedule would do so much to overcome the bureaucratic stranglehold on doing anything interesting in space ... too bad this isn't going to be it :/

</comment><comment><USER60> What exactly is the need to send humans to Mars? Why not robots? Is it worth risking a human's life for science, when a robot can do an equally good job?

<comment><USER61> > What exactly is the need to send humans to Mars?

Lots of reasons, some below. Primarily, the reason to send humans is because we have to in order to ensure the continued survival of (known) life in the universe. Sending a few people to Mars will be the first steps in becoming a multi-planetary civilization, which will reduce our dependency on a single- point-of-failure for all known life.

> Why not robots?

You ask as if we haven't been sending robots to Mars for the last 3-4 decades. (Edit: We should absolutely send robots. We should send way more robots than people. But we should still send people.)

> Is it worth risking a human's life for science, when a robot can do an > equally good job?

Not sure if trolling. Humans have collectively agreed that it's worth 10,000+ annual deaths in the USA in exchange for the convenience of cars. So yes, 1-5 human lives on Mars is worth the science that they'd get done.

Also...there are no robot scientists yet. Maybe there will be in the future, but we can't bank on that and allocate budgets to imaginary robotic scientists that are better than humans.

I've been trolled haven't I?

<comment><USER62> > because we have to in order to ensure the continued survival of (known) life > in the universe

Why not send bacteria which may evolve or may create environment for other form of life? If by known life you mean human, why is it so important to ensure the continued survival of human species in the universe?

<comment><USER63> > If by known life you mean human, why is it so important to ensure the > continued survival of human species in the universe?

I know this isn't a constructive comment but... Really? Like you don't see the point at all?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> The existence of Apollo is a curse that has made it almost impossible for NASA to plan any modest sustainable capabilities in human exploration.

Instead it's often "let's build our own huge rockets and launch a few huge missions per year". This makes it expensive and unsustainable. The development, the upkeep, the operations, everything is unscalable.

It's like if you want to create a new app, you decide you need custom transistors. Division of work. Added value. Concentrate on what your core competencies are. Start small and verify your solutions.

</comment><comment><USER65> What are the physics behind the 20mb/s bandwidth limit over radio? He said more than that isn't "feasible", because of power requirements or why?

<comment><USER66> The information bandwidth in bytes/s is limited by the SNR and the bandwidth (in Hz) of the radio channel. The atmospheric "window" is only so large. At the same time, antenna's can only be so focused and transmit power is only so high. If you're interested in reading more about this look up "link budgets."

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Not in my lifetime.

 _Somebody_ may get humans to Mars -- an effort that I'm all in favor of -- but given that NASA is kept on a short financial leash by politicians more interested in dumping money into their constituent areas than funding a long- term space policy, the odds that the United States government will be behind the effort are slim at this point.

<comment><USER68> NASA's budget is the highest of all government run space agencies and is three times that of Russia, which is number two.

<comment><USER69> So your point is that russia's space program and the ESA (etc) are _also_ underfunded then, yes?

<comment><USER70> No, Mobiu5 is countering MrZongle2's point that a non-NASA entities are likely to beat NASA to Mars.

I happen to disagree with his analysis, however, because he's not taking non- government entities like SpaceX into account.

<comment><USER52> I don't see him making any reference to non-NASA entities at all. All he said is that a trip to Mars made by somebody, anybody, might happen someday, but the odds of sufficient financial support for this attempt are poor.

<comment><USER70> _> Somebody may get humans to Mars ... [but] the odds that the United States government will be behind the effort are slim at this point._

i.e. non-NASA entities have a better chance than NASA

<comment><USER52> Doesn't follow.

Edit: I see he has other replies that clarify that this is exactly what he's thinking. "I'm fairly confident that I'll see humans on Mars before I die. I just don't believe NASA will be behind the effort." I still maintain that this is not indicated in the original comment, but that starts to become unimportant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> This is great but we should really colonize the moon first. It allows us to get all the necessary systems in place in a test environment. Earth is only 3 days away from the moon rather than 9 months to Mars.

It also makes sense to work on the moon first so we can use it to leap frog to mars rather than sending a shuttle through earths atmosphere.

<comment><USER72> > leap frog to mars rather than sending a shuttle through earths atmosphere.

But you still have to get the human through Earth's atmosphere and out of orbit anyways. Once you're out of Earth's orbit you might as well coast all the way to Mars because landing on the Moon doesn't gain you anything.

<comment><USER71> I suppose that is true, is it to early to talk space elevators? ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> I'll believe it when I see it. This must be about the 20th such announcement from NASA, and the other 19 have sunk into the bureaucratic morass without a trace. I see no reason to think this time is different, particularly in light of the mountain of unfunded liabilities that are going to keep budgets tight for decades.

</comment><comment><USER74> Yeah, I believed you guys when you told me that in early 70s. I stopped believing after the fourth or fifth time you gave up. Or maybe when it was when you stopped being able to even put people in LEO. Humans may one day go to Mars, but they won't be wearing NASA logos. Unless it's ironically.

</comment><comment><USER75> The intriguing point to me that I haven't seen addressed on any reporting of the announcement is this:

Is the plan to put humans on the surface and then bring them back home? How do they intend to land and get back off of the planet?

(Forgive me if they addressed this in the video; I haven't had time to watch it yet.)

</comment><comment><USER76> What is this, a positive side effect of Cold War II? I'm sort of joking, but not really.

</comment><comment><USER3> The essential issue for Mars, as well as for most other issues, is the Republican Party's refusal to fund government programs. Until they change or are voted out of office, all planning and discussion are hot air.

<comment><USER13> Neither party really cares. There has been one pro-space guy running for office in the past 15 years.

<comment><USER77> Unless you count goodspaceguy here in Seattle. [http://info.kingcounty.gov/kcelections/candidatesonballot/pa...](http://info.kingcounty.gov/kcelections/candidatesonballot/pamphlet/pamphlet.aspx?cid=45691&listtype=PRIMARY&eid=1256#c20293)

/s

<comment><USER31> Of course Mike Nelson wants to go to space. He misses his old spaceship, where he had to watch those bad movies with his robot pals.

(Oh yeah, I just remembered he dropped the "Mike Nelson" part of his name years ago. Too bad.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I love all the people saying that Space-X's main goal is to turn a profit, or that they have to turn a profit. They're a private company, not a public one. As long as they still have people willing to do work for them for what they pay them(if anything) then a private company can do whatever it likes(legally) without making a profit at all. It's private, the goals are up to the whims of the owners.

</comment><comment><USER79> 2030s? Why wait 5-15 years after SpaceX gets there? I'm guessing it will be a little awkward when they try to plant the flag on Elon's lawn.

side note, you can get SpaceX flags here: [http://shop.spacex.com/accessories-58/spacex-flag- bundle.htm...](http://shop.spacex.com/accessories-58/spacex-flag-bundle.html)

<comment><USER80> _> Why wait 5-15 years after SpaceX gets there?_

This isn't the 70s where there was political pressure to do what-ever it takes lest the damn Ruskies beat you to it and make you look weak. It is reassuring that they are planning for what they can achieve safely rather than doing what-ever is needed to get there first (assuming that is in fact what they are doing, of course). And maybe SpaceX won't get there as fast as they hope - their plans do seem rather ambitious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Maybe the whole NASA budget should be used for researching a better propulsion engine first, with the current technology going to mars is extremely expensive and inefficient, we are stuck with chemical propelled rockets since ww2, with a breakthrough in this area we could achieve so much more, we need to focus our resources better.

</comment><comment><USER82> If you got the politics out of NASA they could do just about anything. I've worked at a couple different places in NASA and the talent varies from place to place. It's the politics that ruin everything.

</comment><comment><USER83> Personally I would much, MUCH rather see this money spent on further exploration of other planets and their moons. Imagine having a rover on one of the moons of Jupiter. To me Mars is just not that interesting.

</comment><comment><USER50> Cool, space launch system (SLS) is a great start! [https://twitter.com/NASA/status/539814651404754944](https://twitter.com/NASA/status/539814651404754944)

<comment><USER84> It's a launch platform without clear future missions or funding. After the surplus RS-25 engines from the shuttle program are used (designed to be re- usable, they are heavy and expensive and will be destroyed by the launches) it's not clear what will power the launch vehicle. It's a very expensive big rocket with an unclear future in both engineering and political terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> I missed the live briefing ... is there a replay somewhere that I can watch?

<comment><USER57> Found it on YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBoj-1m-qLU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBoj-1m-qLU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Is there any more substantive statement than this Tweet?

</comment><comment><USER87> Wow! This is amazing, glad to be alive to see this!

</comment><comment><USER88> What an amazing time to be alive.

</comment><comment><USER89> Awaiting announcement of Commercial Crew to Mars program.

</comment><comment><USER90> Love the fact that it was first announced on Twitter :)

</comment><comment><USER91> Plutonium: The scary element that helps probe space's secrets.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29274491](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29274491)

</comment><comment><USER91> Will they come back?

</comment><comment><USER91> Can they come back?

</comment><comment><USER92> Bush senior said so in 1989. Bush junior said so in 2004. Obama now says so ten years later.

I'll wait for hillary to send us to mars in 2050, thanks, women have more balls.

<comment><USER93> and at the ripe age of 103 no less...

<comment><USER31> We're all going to be immortal heads in glass jars by that point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It about time!

</comment><comment><USER94> So uh, Mars is smaller than Earth now?

<comment><USER95> Relative sizes of planets and stars:

[http://davidjarvis.ca/dave/gallery/star- sizes/](http://davidjarvis.ca/dave/gallery/star-sizes/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> You don't have any radiation shielding.

Why not try surviving under the ocean first? Fail Squad NASA.

<comment><USER4> "If you recruited the Mars crew out of smokers and sent them to Mars without their tobacco you would be reducing their chance of getting cancer." \- Dr. Robert Zubrin

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Sure! Let's destroy another planet with our insatiable resource seeking. Anyone know of any sci-fi tomes where humans play the role of an unstoppable galactic virus? If so, whoever/whomever wrote it may be onto something :(

<comment><USER98> The "destruction of mars" for the purposes of resource exploitation is a major theme in KSR Mars books[0]. Although the actual evil of resource exploitation and terraforming on Mars is highly debated in the books, with many perspectives represented.

[0]: [http://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Trilogy-Stanley- Robinson/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Trilogy-Stanley- Robinson/dp/0553560735)

<comment><USER97> Interesting -thanks EthanH</comment></comment></comment>


As we age, cancer rates go up as immune system winds down - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/as-we-age-cancer-rates-go-up-as-immune-system-winds-down/#p3 <comment><USER2> I always think of these two monkeys[i] when I consider slowing down my age.

[i] [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/08/calorie_restriction_and_longevity_monkey_study_shows_hunger_doesn_t_increase_longevity_but_type_of_food_does_.html)

<comment><USER3> It's an interesting well-written article, but you realize that their main point was that it contradicts the earlier calorie-restriction study: _" The Nature authors found no increase in lifespan; the calorically restricted animals lived no longer, statistically, than their well-fed cousins."_

They try to reconcile the studies: maybe it's the natural-ingredient foods vs the refined foods, maybe it's the generous diet vs the more-than-generous free-feeding, or conceding that the monkey's don't live longer, but they live healthier.

IMO, the best paragraph from the article was this: _" Many of us simply roll our eyes and click away when yet another medical study contradicts the last study—so what else is new? Coffee's bad for you, until it's good for you—and so is red wine. Antioxidants are essential, or they're useless. And so on."_

Other than some very basic common sense things -- like don't eat rat poison -- I never find that these kinds of studies lead to _correct_ and _actionable_ information about how to slow down aging or how to lead your life. And it's extremely frustrating to even try.

<comment><USER4> To even try? To try to exercise and not drink sodas is extremely frustrating? Living a healthy lifestyle is about simple choices like going to the gym or adding broccoli to your meal and avoiding junk food.

<comment><USER3> > To even try?

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant, to even try to keep up with the contradictory medical studies.

Yes, you should exercise; that's a common sense thing I'm referring to. But trying to decide if things like calorie restriction really work in the face of conflicting studies is frustrating.

<comment><USER5> nutritionfacts.org was created for this reason, to consolidate the evidence from nutritional studies so that you don't have to.

spoiler alert - the comprehensive review lead them to the conclusion to eat plants, unprocessed.

But anyway, it is a nice resource to get a round up of studies on a similar topic.

<comment><USER6> nutritionfacts.org is an extremely biased site that has been created by a vegan who built his whole career on speaking about health issues. While it has the word "facts" in its title nothing prevents them from cherry-picking studies to support their original views.

If you cherry-pick different studies you might actually find that consuming large amount of plants stresses our digestive system way more than a fatty steak with potatoes.

<comment><USER7> > If you cherry-pick different studies you might actually find that consuming > large amount of plants stresses our digestive system way more than a fatty > steak with potatoes.

You really, REALLY, believe with all information being out there nowadays that a diet of only "fatty steak with potatoes" will be healthier for humans that the "balanced WFPB diet" that is nutritionfacts.org claims is scientifically proven to be the healthiest?

I think you have nothing to back that up. Please cherry pick how you please and present your evidence.

Dr Greger, who started the non-profit nutritionfacts.org, is often attacked for being an ethical vegan. Since people reason that would impair his ability to present unbiased evidence. Though no-one has ever gotten beyond claiming he's cherry picking. I wish someone would describe a different diet that is as well supported by scientific evidence, as what nutritionfacts is doing for WFPB.

There is some scientific evidence building up in for the Keto diet. But that is --as far as I know-- not a diet for life.

On the other hand there is the raw diet movement (basically an uncooked WFPB diet), but that has little scientific and mostly anecdotal evidence.

<comment><USER8> The keto diet's main difficulties are the prevalence and preponderance of available sugary foods, the near inability to eat socially, and the extreme difficulty in adopting the diet in the first 3 weeks for people regularly consuming 200g+ of carbohydrates a day.

The raw diet is mostly a trendy thing people write about. The bioavailability of nutrients in many raw foods is just too meh.

We know what the best diet is. A plant and fish based diet with small amounts of other meat. Meat that doesn't subsist on a diet primarily of corn or other, less edible things. This diet is completely unsustainable on a global scale and would result in even more ecological havoc.

The discussion between plants or plants + meat is complicated, but for now I'm going to ignore it because there's more important considerations:

\- Companies are making our produce harder to digest as they try and make products with a longer shelf life.

\- Eating industrially produced meat (of any sort) is very unhealthy and in many ways unsafe.

\- This entire discussion removes dairy from the equation, which is a large part of the puzzle for most people.

\- The low-carb vegan and the low-carb omnivore are far better off than anyone consuming 200g+ of carbohydrates a day.

\- Hydroponically grown carrots taste gross.

<comment><USER7> > We know what the best diet is. A plant and fish based diet with small > amounts of other meat.

Nope. Fish (most fish) as a central part of diet, will contribute a lot to build up of heavy metals in humans. And what is "small amounts of other meat"? 3x per week? This is basically an omnivorous diet. Compared to the SAD is probably just the junk cut out.

This, SAD-processed, is a very unhealthy diet, compared to a balanced WFPB diet. There are lots of studies to back this up.

> \- Companies are making our produce harder to digest as they try and make > products with a longer shelf life.

Yups.

> \- Eating industrially produced meat (of any sort) is very unhealthy and in > many ways unsafe.

Not a problem for those eating WFPB.

> \- This entire discussion removes dairy from the equation, which is a large > part of the puzzle for most people.

Dairy is a killer. Prolly more so than meat.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3c_D0s391Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3c_D0s391Q)

> \- The low-carb vegan and the low-carb omnivore are far better off than > anyone consuming 200g+ of carbohydrates a day.

Any study on this?

There is a lot of studies (long running, with large size populations) claiming the opposite. Here some arguments: [http://www.masteringdiabetes.org/ketosis- ketogenic-diets-mis...](http://www.masteringdiabetes.org/ketosis-ketogenic- diets-misleading/)

> \- Hydroponically grown carrots taste gross.

Personal taste. It prolly has less phytonutrients. Not sure how this is an important consideration.

<comment><USER8> The site you linked is thick which propaganda which makes me doubt your bias and arguments. Choosing your sources is important for making a compelling argument.

<comment><USER7> One man's truth is another's propaganda, what are your sources? (I've shown mine, and I must say it's pretty convincing and lines up with what I already knew about the human body)

I'm not at all saying there's no use for keto, I just think it should never be a mainstream diet (but something applied in specific cases, under medical supervision). As far as sci evidence goes, WFPB seems to be the "best" diet for the human species as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One immediate problem with the hypothesis that cancer is caused by the loss of T cells with age is the fact that HIV also destroys T cells, and it is associated with increased risk of some types of cancer. But the cancers associated with HIV are _different_ from those associated with aging. In particular, Kaposi sarcoma occurs 500 times more in HIV patients than the general population. So there must be something else going on besides just the loss of T cells.

<comment><USER10> Kaposi sarcoma is associated with Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus even in the HIV cases though. It might be that losing the amount of T cells you lose with HIV or immunosuppression has a different effect than just losing some fraction of them with age with respect to that virus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The link between cancer and the immune system (the latter's role in defending against the former) is not all that clear.

Here is a cancer.com (American Cancer Society) article on the relationship between AIDS and cancer.

Source: [https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/infectious- agent...](https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/infectious-agents/hiv- infection-aids/hiv-aids-and-cancer.html)

Firstly, they say that _" In fact, some types of cancer occur so often in people with AIDS that they are considered AIDS-defining conditions"_.

But that's only certain specific cancers. Then there are some other cancers that occur often with AIDS but are not "AIDS-defining".

And then there is the kicker: _" Of course, as people with HIV are now living longer, they are also developing other cancers that are not clearly linked to HIV but are more common in older people, such as breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer."_.

So, these cancers go up in AIDS survivors due to age, even though those people have immune systems that were already shot years before.

So much for a tidy hypothesis about aging -> lower immune system -> cancer, I suppose.

As for why those afflicted with AIDS get certain cancers, one explanation (also given in above page) is that some cancers are caused by viral infections. Weakened defense against viral infections, increased cancer of that type.

</comment><comment><USER12> How do you account for the observation that incidence of cancer in young, immunosupressed individuals (e.g. solid organ transplant recipients), whilst increased, is no way comparable to that seen in elderly individuals?

<comment><USER13> Other age-related cell and tissue damage that raises the risk of cells becoming cancerous, or reduces the effectiveness of internal-to-the-cell controls that can shut down and destroy cancerous cells, would be the other variable, I'd imagine.

<comment><USER12> I think far more likely that the predominant variable is the expansion of mutant clones over time to occupy large fractions of the stem cell reservoir.

<comment><USER13> Possibly so, which is a phenomenon that might explain how stochastic nuclear mutation at its given rates can possibly cause widespread enough harm to be significant. There is an interesting recent paper on that subject:

[https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007108](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007108)

"Recent single-cell studies point to the possibility that essentially all cells have unshared mutations in their genomes. In view of this extensive genetic diversity, it is perhaps not surprising that mutations that confer a proliferative advantage are readily detected as clonal populations of increasing abundance and size in the elderly. These clonal populations might lead to loss of organismal health through the functional decline of tissue and/or the promotion of disease processes, such as cancer. In this review, we summarize recent research that supports the notion that aberrant clonal expansion (ACE) resulting from cancer-associated mutations are common in noncancerous tissue and accumulate with age. We propose ACE to be a previously underappreciated aging phenotype that is universal in most organisms, affects multiple tissues, and likely helps explain why aging is the biggest risk factor for cancer."

<comment><USER12> I have shown that in elderly individuals essentially the entire epidermis stem cell compartment, whilst having normal morphology, is occupied by clonally expanded mutant stem cells:-

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00993-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00993-8)

<comment><USER14> That sounds very interesting, but after glancing at your figures, I don't see where you make this obvious.

Also, in the intro you say "the risk of skin cancer increases exponentially with age and is associated with accumulation of somatic mutations8". Your source groups ages into only 3 categories... If you look closer at the data you will see that developing most cancers becomes less common in old age (peaks at 60 - 90 years old). For cancers involving tissue like bone or reproductive organs this peaks much earlier, probably due to when the majority of cell divisions are occurring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I worked for a cancer research startup a few years ago - I was just doing IT stuff, but I worked with a lot of oncologist/cancer research types. One of the things that they often said was that every living organism will develop cancer eventually, but most things die of other causes before that happens.

<comment><USER16> it seems plausible or maybe even likely that everyone develops cancer many times, or at least the beginnings of it, but the immune system kills it over and over.

Until it doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If the immune system has finite resources, would reducing the lifetime drain on those resources by infectious diseases delay the age at which we can expect get cancer? For example, curing the common cold and/or developing a universal flu vaccine.

<comment><USER18> "If the immune system has finite resources, would reducing the lifetime drain on those resources by infectious diseases delay the age at which we can expect get cancer?"

I would wager the opposite is true. Body systems maintain themselves and their fitness and function through _use_.

The obvious examples are bone and muscle tissue that become stronger through stress but are you aware that breast cancer incidence is strongly, negatively correlated to frequency and duration of breastfeeding ?

The immune system is also a bodily system and I would be surprised if it did not, also, strengthen itself and maintain its function through stresses and use.

"For example, curing the common cold and/or developing a universal flu vaccine."

Be careful what you wish for ...

We "cured" hard physical labor and traditional life patterns with lots of walking and standing. How's that working out for us ?

<comment><USER19> > We "cured" hard physical labor and traditional life patterns with lots of > walking and standing. How's that working out for us ?

I'll bite -- terribly. Many of the millennial generation and younger are actively starting to revolt against these sedentary lifestyles. It's why fitness and fitness culture is so marketable these days, much more than I remember. I think the studies that came out showing the millennial were the first generation since the industrial revolution to have a _decreased_ life expectancy versus the prior generation was a real wakeup call.

<comment><USER17> Yes, not having to do physical labour is better than being _forced_ to do physical labour as a worker or peasant. The new problem for most people is how to eat less and get a little exercise. But this is a better problem.

I like rsync's main point though about the immune system maybe requiring usage and callibration (gojomo mentions the _hygiene hypothesis_ ). Perhaps one day we'll determine the precise amount of these required (if any) for us to be healthy without being bothered by too much sickness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Cue the senescence guys who aim to fix accumulated damages there.

<comment><USER21> Ultimately, I think it comes down to metabolism. As you age, your metabolism slows. Coenzymes like NAD+[0] are depleted.

[0] [https://www.nature.com/articles/nrneph.2017.5](https://www.nature.com/articles/nrneph.2017.5)

<comment><USER22> Right, so just back up a step and stop the metabolism from slowing

<comment><USER23> Or cut the knot. Upload mind to digital facsimile.

Die, per nature's capricious designs.

Robo-you lives _smugly_ without any of this nonsense and can be resurrected if the power cuts out and sent across the stars at light speed with no need for fuel or supplies-- _breathes_

... to somewhere without air.

<comment><USER20> I don't get why people go after these virtual things

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Isn't this a bit of an oversimplification? It's not like if you knock out p53 and something else you instantly get a metastatic tumor. Granted if you remove key tumor suppressor genes your probability of mutations persisting skyrockets, but that in itself doesn't create a dangerous tumor. You need many more mutations than 2 to be able to acquire the functionality to grow, persist, escape the local environment, and establish a foot hold in a new environment.

Here is the classic review paper on tumor formation: [http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(11)00127-9](http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674\(11\)00127-9)

</comment><comment><USER25> I was told once (by who I don't remember):

Live long enough and you will eventually get cancer.

To me it's a no-brainer. You get old, cells break down, immune system isn't what it use to be, increasing the risk of that rouge new cell becoming cancerous.

</comment><comment><USER26> Obligatory link to yesterdays topic

[https://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/your- body-...](https://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/your-body-wasnt- built-to-last-a-lesson-from-human-mortality-rates/)

</comment><comment><USER27> What are white blood cell counts in someone who is sixty vs one who is eighteen?

Is this where the blood transfusion concept is strong?

What is the oxygen-carrying-capacity of hemoglobin in old blood vs young blood?

</comment><comment><USER13> Paper: [https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1714478115](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1714478115)

Which is a suggestive model, by the way, not direct evidence. The best direct evidence would be to restore the pace of immune cell creation - such as via regeneration of the thymus (via FOXN1, or BMP4, or tissue engineering), cell therapy to replace or increase the pool of hematopoietic stem cells, etc. - and then see what happens. This sort of thing is five years out; there are people working on it, though more of those and more funding would certainly be a good thing. It would certainly be possible to push forward a startup today based on thymic regeneration or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; the science is more or less ready for it.

\</comment><comment>--

T cells develop from hematopoietic stem cells as part of the lymphoid lineage and have the ability to detect foreign antigens and neoantigens arising from cancer cells. In the thymus, lymphoid progenitors commit to a specific T cell receptor and undergo selection events that screen against self-reactivity. Cells that pass these selection gates then leave the thymus, clonally expanding to form the patrolling naive T cell pool.

The vast majority of vertebrates experience thymic involution (or atrophy) in which thymic epithelial tissue is replaced with adipose tissue, resulting in decreasing T cell export from the thymus. In humans, this is thought to begin as early as 1 year of age. The rate of thymic T cell production is estimated to decline exponentially over time with a half-life of ∼15.7 years. Declining production of new naive T cells is thought to be a significant component of immunosenescence, the age-related decline in immune system function. With the recent successes of T cell-based immunotherapies, it is timely to assess how thymic involution may affect cancer and infectious disease incidence.

It is clear from epidemiological data that incidence of infectious disease and cancer increases dramatically with age, and, specifically, that many cancer incidence curves follow an apparent power law. The simplest model to account for this assumes that cancer initiation is the result of a gradual accumulation of rare "driver" mutations in one single cell. Furthermore, the fitting of this power law model (PLM) can be used to estimate the number of such mutations. Exponential curves have also been used to fit cancer incidence data, resulting in worse fits than the PLM overall. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that exponential rates close to the declining curve for thymic T cell production can be seen to emerge from the incidence data, indicating the relevance of the thymic involution timescale. While the PLM fits well, it does not account for changes in the immune system with age. To better determine the processes underlying carcinogenesis, we asked whether an alternative model, based only on age-related changes in immune system function, might partly or entirely explain cancer incidence.

Our model outperforms the power law model with the same number of fitting parameters in describing cancer incidence data across a wide spectrum of different cancers, and provides excellent fits to infectious disease data. Our hypothesis and results add to the understanding of infectious disease and cancer incidence, suggesting in the latter case that immunosenescence, rather than gradual accumulation of mutations, serves as the predominant reason for an increase in cancer incidence with age for many cancers. For future therapies, including preventative therapies, strengthening the functionality of the aging immune system appears to be more feasible than limiting genetic mutations, which raises hope for effective new treatments.

\</comment><comment>-

</comment><comment><USER28> Really? I figured as we age our cancer rates will plummet while our immune systems only strengthen, which is why the leading cause of the death in the elderly is extreme sports.

<comment><USER29> I'm with you, upvoted for voicing the absurdity of the title. The article, which I refuse to read completely, seems like mediocre pop health science and this website has devolved into giving it, at this point at least 16 hours of frontpage time.

I'll summarize it: "We don't understand cancer but we'll keep throwing shit at the wall until something sticks, and we're going to write up a bunch of shit and you shits read it so we can pay for throwing more shit."</comment></comment>


Ancient Texts That May Hold Helpful Cures - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/the-crumbling-ancient-texts-that-may-hold-life_saving-cures <comment><USER2> I love to see people discovering that despite their lack of modern technology, many ancient peoples were far from primitive.</comment>