Random Thought of the Day

Like my new laptop with a solid state drive, but geez hate adware they pitch at you. It will take me awhile to get it off.

Not sure when they introduced the feature where you can fold them completely and use them like a over-large Ipad. The touch screen option means it can be used in that style as well.

Prince appears to be morphing into Lenny Kravitz, or vice versa.

What if you could use the brain's judgment abilities to direct the immune system?

Quote: Nareed

What if you could use the brain's judgment abilities to direct the immune system?

Well, it's pretty well established that IF you can find an appropriate feedback loop for something the brain can manipulate the body systems more directly.

Slowing heart rate, making one hand warmer than another, or lowering blood pressure plus other things have been done.

But you'd need some way to know what the immune system is doing in real time.

The immune system is diverse and diffuse... otherwise pathogens would have a prime target.
The trigger for much of the immune system is uric acid...(yeah, gout sufferers have an advantage).
The immune system works best at night and often in a regional manner.

Unless there is some Red Light/Green Light measurement, there is no way to use biofeedback.

Quote: Fleastiff

Unless there is some Red Light/Green Light measurement, there is no way to use biofeedback.

If technology can eventually provide a window on the many physiological processes in the body, who knows what might be influenced to some positive effect.

Quote: rxwine

If technology can eventually provide a window on the many physiological processes in the body, who knows what might be influenced to some positive effect.

Something like that.

Overall the immune system does rather well (and contrary to popular belief, it works ALL the time). But sometimes it just doesn't cut it.

So, for example, suppose you could call instruct it to:

"Hey! That's just a peanut protein. Let it go."

"Hey! That's our tissue. We need it to live!"

"I know those heart cells look alien, but they live here now and are keeping us alive."

"Get off your ass and kill those cancerous cells. Yes, I know they look like they belong here, but they really don't."

The first three cases are food allergies, autoimmune disorders, and rejection.

The last one is more complicated. usually the immune system will destroy cancerous cells. But for some reason this doesn't always happen. Either it doesn't attack them, or not strongly enough. There are documented cases of spontaneous remission, where it seems the immune system suddenly kicked into gear and banished the cancer; sometimes this happens after a mild infection like a stomach bug.

When you think about it, most of your bodily processes are automated and require little to no conscious input from you. It's a bit like being attached to a biological machine.

Cookie monster is a star.

A while ago there was a video of him discussing a visit to the UK, where there are no cookies, with John Oliver.

Ian McKellan taught him the meaning of "resist"

Now there is a siri commercial. It's pretty funny.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CCbWyYr82BM

What you are describing is Personalized Translational Concierge medicine.
It ain't for Fleastiff.
Its for the rich.

Last night I decided to run a disk cleanup utility included in Win 7. Pretty sure it hadn't been run for years. This morning it took forever to turn on as it dealt with the result of all the files it dumped. It does seem to run a bit faster. As an i7 it was pretty fast anyway.