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 Author Thread: Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
 Whereareallthefish

Joined: 11/16/2007
Msg: 1
Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 12:54:49 AM
I've thought of this for a while. Distributed computing is when allows scientists to use their computer when it's idle for the processing of information.

Anyways theres some projects like Rossetta that are scanning all the human proteins. Theres also Folding@thome as well.

They claim that if they can scan all the proteins they could better come up with cures for Aids, malaria, cancer, Alzheimers, parkinsons, Muscular distrophy and the like.

Now I got to thinking if sharing your computer for a few hours could help them browse an astronomical amount of information they normally couldn't.

Shouldn't we as a race be taking this more seriously. I find that no one wants to even learn about this. Yet I think it's the ultimate solution to quickening our way to find cures to problems. People sharing their computers has speeded up reasearch in unbeleivable amounts.

I just have to wonder if this was something culturally mainstream and if they streamlined computers to be more energy efficient and maybe have dual processors just for this purpose. Could you imagine the benefit on humanity as a whole. Reasearchers could be using every computer in the world to help them solve problems.

I have to go to bed soon but I think everyone here should look into distributed computing even if you don't want to participate.

It sounds to me like it has a power and benefit thats being overlooked.
 fortran

Joined: 2/21/2004
Msg: 2
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 6:51:27 AM
Distributed computing is not going to cure cancer, aging, disease, fix global warming or anything else. It may help. R.W. Hamming said, "The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.". If people can gain insight from running large, distributed models, we may solve some problems that either wouldn't be solved, or solve them more quickly.
 abc6587

Joined: 12/26/2006
Msg: 3
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 7:34:17 AM
At the rate electronics is progressing these days, a distributed computing model might only accelerate scientific progress a few years, at best; not change the life as we know it. I mean, how long before every kid's PC has the capabilities of today's most powerful distributed system?
 Whereareallthefish

Joined: 11/16/2007
Msg: 4
Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 8:37:05 AM
"Distributed computing is not going to cure cancer, aging, disease, fix global warming or anything else. It may help. R.W. Hamming said, "The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.". If people can gain insight from running large, distributed models, we may solve some problems that either wouldn't be solved, or solve them more quickly."

Thats sort of what I mean though. Wouldn't how quickly something is solved be based on how much insight one can get. Sure that insight has to then be worked on.
 fortran

Joined: 2/21/2004
Msg: 5
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 12:18:58 PM
Part of all numerical modeling is verification. There are always things in the real world, which are not included, ignored or approximated in a model. A good place to test models, is on boundary conditions. If a phase transition happens, that is a boundary (internal) as well.

A lot of the monitoring of the nuclear arsenal is done via modeling. But at some point a person has to pick up a screwdriver and go look at the device to see if what the model thinks has happened, really has.

The same sort of thing is needed with all of the modeling you suggested. Modeling augments physical testing, observation and measurement. It doesn't replace it.
 abc6587

Joined: 12/26/2006
Msg: 6
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 4:57:54 PM
I am ambivalent about whether said process NEEDS to be accelerated in the first place.

Here is my personal rant. My best job offer ever, as a software engineer, was for Monsanto the biotech giant. Great scientists, fascinating project, cutting edge technologies, nearly complete creative freedom, a geek's dream come true. I almost accepted, then I looked up what I would be doing. I'd be helping to engineer foods that are resistant to their brand of pesticide, so that even more pesticide could be used. That's evil in my book... to be expected from the company that's produced Agent Orange, the defoliating agent that's caused so many deaths and birth defects in Vietnam, and Aspartame/nutrasweet that they KNOW causes brain tumors and birth defects, as I've heard from their own employees. They seem to sincerely beileve they are going to cure hunger in the world, save lives... and they do have a point there... I turned them down and a part of me is still kicking myself in the butt for it. More knowledge to people like these, sooner? I am not going to be a part of it, even if a part of said knowledge is going to be put to good use.

As an analogy... peaceful atom is good, but splitting up the atom has nearly killed us all... now we are splitting up DNA, the nucleus of life... one could argue that this is a nesessary process, but I am not sure this process needs to be helped.
 scorpiomover

Joined: 4/19/2007
Msg: 7
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 5:21:24 PM
A long time ago, in a land far, far away, I had a discussion on solving problems with an physics grad. He said there were 2 types of problems: problems that could be solved in polynomial-based time frames, that would take longer for harder problems, and exponentially-based problems, that would get exponentially longer for harder problems. If a problem is just polynomial-based, then it's simply a matter of time until we find the appropriate solution, and more computing power will speed this up. If a problem is exponentially-based, more computing power will not be anywhere near enough, and as fortran pointed out, it would need a new insight into the problem to solve it, and that is something computers just cannot provide at the moment or even in the forseeable future.

Ironically, the best solutions I have found, took basic practical common sense, just looking at a problem by using the tools anyone has, without even need of a computer. Just simple basic practical common sense.
 AndrewCD

Joined: 12/2/2005
Msg: 8
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 5:43:08 PM
I have participated in SETI@home since they started. I haven't been doing it the past year or so though. I like the idea of distributed computing, but not sure what project I should partake in? Perhaps something for the general good of humanity rather than SETI.
 Dill Pickel

Joined: 6/3/2006
Msg: 9
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 8:54:53 PM
Perhaps the answer is in selecting the group, if you feel you'd like to donate surplus cycles, to help Cancer research that's great. I also see the darkside of this, Monsanto for instance. Knowledge and Technology aren't inherently " Good or Evil " only their implementation.

As to whether or not a computer will cure Cancer, spontaneously generate the code or cure?

doubtful.
 slashdot

Joined: 3/7/2007
Msg: 10
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 9:08:52 PM
This is actually my research area. And we have already "solved" (cure in the medical sense?) some diseases.

As an example, DNA sequencing/pairing is done with these distributed processes, which has already lead to a few insight on cures. I'm just a computer guy tho, I know nothing about diseases, but those guys with MDs said our little machines helped to find a cure.

The main bottleneck is for the MDs and the computer guys to figure out how to express a "cure" into something a computer can understand. For example, in the case of designing drugs for a disease. You want a designer drug that block out all the "hooks" of a virus (so that they can't hook on to a healthy cell); from my perspective, the MDs tell us that certain molecules like X,Y, Z are able to do this. We computer guys then put all this information into computer code, then we search for the best combination of molecules that allow us to build the best designer drugs (with the least side effects, and some molecules cancel each other out, etc etc). Once we figure out the most promising combinations, they test'em out on animals and later humans. This is not easy, they spend years figuring out which molecules has a good chance, then we spend a few months to find the best combinations of molecules (NOT CHEAP!), then they spend years testing it on humans, then the FDA needs to approve it, etc, etc.

Anyhow, this field is hardly new, it's been around for at least a decade. As computers are faster now, there's less need for distributed computing, it's much easier to buy one supercomputer and to let that ONE machine do all the work (as opposed to letting thousands of weaker machines do the work).
 Dill Pickel

Joined: 6/3/2006
Msg: 11
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 9:36:58 PM
I remember reading about it several years ago, Apple released an X-grid beta, and a certain research group was appealing to testers for Donations. What though was neat was the ability to turn your home network in to a small simple sort of cluster, with relative ease.
 Dill Pickel

Joined: 6/3/2006
Msg: 12
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/3/2008 9:42:32 PM
Pardon my grammatical incongruence, Eating while typing is never a good idea.
 fortran

Joined: 2/21/2004
Msg: 13
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/4/2008 7:36:43 AM
To be a little picky, I doubt it is the MDs that are providing much information to incorporate into models. I suspect it is people working in various areas of medical science, biochemistry, pharmaceutical science, molecular biology, ....

I've been doing SETI for a while, and ClimatePrediction for not quite so long. The calculation units in SETI are quite small, some of the units for ClimatePrediction take weeks or months to run to completion.

I suppose it depends on your point of view as to whether agrichemicals companies are being evil in developing crops resistant to chemicals. From an efficiency point of view, if you are single cropping a piece of land you would rather not waste resources on other things growing there and using up nutrients are "stealing" light. I do think it would be more useful to come up with salt tolerant crops, since salt buildup in soils is a real problem which is taking productive land out of use. In terms of genetic manipulation, if what is happening is the same as would happen through many generations of selection in a conventional breeding program, all the genetic manipulation is going is speeding things up. Not every plant produced in a conventional breeding program is useful, and to produce all the possibilities at one time leaves more time to find which ones are truly better. There does seem to be some genetic manipulation which is producing things which wouldn't be expected to come out of a breeding program, it would need to be considered differently.
 Whereareallthefish

Joined: 11/16/2007
Msg: 14
Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/4/2008 5:43:17 PM
abc6587 I fully agree with you in that sense. The biggest problem is that most of these pesticides seem to not be useful and it seems more like their looking for excuses to use them. I have heard that nutritional value of foods has been decimated as well. Also i've heard of genetic manipulation being used for serfdome and some other frightning things that i'm not sure about.

I think really the biggest problem is that these things aren't properly regulated or thought out. I do think businesses are highly silly in how they do things. I understand the practicality of need for profit and all that.

It just seems like they play stupid games. Like releasing a chemical just because it works before actually really seeing if it's beneficial because they spent money on it.

I think that science shouldn't be left completly to for profit businesses. The big problem though is that anyone serious about this for the benefit of a whole. Is the factor of screwing up or that no one would understand the work or respect the time it takes to get results if theres no profit.

Personally I think that no matter what as a species we will end up manipulating this world. I think we will eventually end up manipulating ourselves too. I really have no idea whether it's moral or not. I do agree the approach to it is a big issue. It would be really horrible if a cure for something like cancer just justified creating more harsh pollutant chemicals. Mostly because of the whole people don't die anymore factor. Or get sick. Sadly it seems like people would probably give the weakest version of a cure to keep people on medication and cash in on it. We probably would affect everything outside of our civilization as well.

That said I do think these things seem eventual in our society anyways. Governments and businesses seem to both do wrong for what is the perceived need at the time. Whether for greed of the beleif that their doing something right. We are meant to make mistakes but the great thing about science is figuring out what the mistake is before doing it. Through experimentation, reasearch, and thought. That gets thrown out the window when those that are more money or result minded are in the forefront.

That said I do think self engineering will be our way of evolution. I don't know if the right rule system could be found or if we could do it without affecting the more primative species on our world. Were definately smart enough to change now. I don't think genetic manipulation is unethical in itself. I do think the approach to it is though.

Of course I think that the people with the more peaceful more deliberated on ideas should try to reach the forefront a lot more. I think that if they did a lot of things would change. Fast results don't always equal success. But finding faster results through ingenuity while still making out the best maxim on how to go about the problem is okay in my book. Though the approach would have to always be modified to make it safer.

Like in the case of that company it sounds to me like if people learned to think more intelligently we wouldn't need pesticides in the first place. Pesticides are far too convienient. I think we have to beat out the sense of convienience our race has. And start learning to do the more efficient more well thought out work. Even if it takes longer.

I do think though if someone could come up with ways to make computers that burnt less electricity, and were more efficient. Even someone that put toghether custom ones. They could probably help some of the distributed computing efforts go along quicker. While not wasting earth resources. I guess that would cost money though. In the end money has far too much of an effect on things.

Maybe the problem is that money is a convienient neccessity and it blocks our sense of ingenuity. We sometimes forget how to just make things these days out of anything.

Anyways it's good that you have that sense of morality. If you can stay focused it's people like you that think these things through that need to come up with effective models on how we can do things better while preventing the same mistakes or the results just for the sake of profit that tend to happen. Which I've learned is very hard. Though I have the highest respect for those who can. I've always thought about this but have had trouble applying it to my life. Many people around you seem impatient and sometimes they get you stuck in the damaging thigns your trying to avoid. I've had this happend because I didn't have the courage to stand up for what I thought was the right way to go about something and now im paying for it pretty bad. Don't feel bad about holding to your convictions. I also beleive with the right work and effort we can all achieve great things without having to do something we think is wrong. We just have to sacrifice through hard work to find the right answer and apply it instead of doing the wrong thing and paying through either our morals, health or otherwise.

Suppose this makes you right about not figuring these problems out quickly. They could get used the wrong way without the proper deliberation. Of course like I said above I do think the right approaches and ingenuity can make something come quicker. Just that it has to be the right kind of work and the heavy sacrifice has to go into that instead of the passage of time. I suppose thats something thats not easy. The time it takes to do something right is better in that regard.
 abc6587

Joined: 12/26/2006
Msg: 15
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/4/2008 11:50:22 PM

In terms of genetic manipulation, if what is happening is the same as would happen through many generations of selection in a conventional breeding program, all the genetic manipulation is going is speeding things up.


Yes, but our evolution has happened in parallel to the evolution of our food. You make those drastic changes to our food, what is it going to do to our bodies? To the ecosystem?
 Whereareallthefish

Joined: 11/16/2007
Msg: 16
Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/5/2008 2:17:56 AM
Yeah that is one of the biggest and most relavent issues. I also once heard that some of the antibiotic resistant bacterias that they put into foods. Those strands of dna don't seem to want to stay put. Theres a large risk of them leaving the foods and going into bacteria.

I wonder if this all goes accordingly with a law of sacrifice. I mean to me personally I think that having this power would be fine if people could live longer, etc, etc. Yet theres the capacity to tamper with the human soul itself. Which is what frightens me. Oh and to be clear by soul I mean mind. Since to me the material mind is the soul.

Yes we have tampered with this soul for years. Stimulants, alcohol, drugs, lobotomys. Heck the last one has done some bad things as well as good.

With how morally vacant or absent minded our species is to responsible ways of doing things and how easily tempted and our addictive dispositions. You have to wonder if we would abuse what makes us human for the worse.

Im not talking about indulging our emotions through creating different manufactured brain chemicals. So much as the fact that someone can clean themselves of emotions and therefore guilt. Thats like losing our empathy. Thats very dangerous. The ecosystem will always be an issue too.

Yet then theres the cincher that we'll be creating death machines no matter what. If were ever going to leave this world for example. Seems to me that alteration of our bodies to adapt to different worlds will become necessary. I only fear the abuse and misuse and the fact that many would not use a proper rule of law to go about it. One that could protect the other lifeforms of this world and not involve them in our evolution. Also that we wouldn't end up paying the wrong prices or wrong sacrifices for our tampering.

This is such a pandoras box in many ways. Yet I think many will push for it in the end. After deliberating much. I kind of realized I wouldn't wan't death. Yet life without death could be at the price of being human. It's very difficult. Were not at the morrally subjective point yet to ask that question.

Yet were reaching there. A lot of me wants them to solve things like the human protein sequences. Yet I do agree our species would probably misuse it. Yet since were a race of tool manipulators. I think this is a natural event in our evolution. We haven't evolved ourselves much but we always evolve our tools. Yet now our tools are going to surpass us. Unless theres war or disaster of a vast mutltitude I think we cannot escape this.

We will have to find a way to think morally and intellgently on this. Coporations do scare me in the fact that they would abuse powers like this for a greater profit. Yet a lot of this will one day become as normal as taking a chickens egg from your backyard. We don't really question our cars, our guns, our tanks. Well we do, but then we embrace them too and act like were not responsible to what these machines do.

We do have a level of innocence in this regard. Yet how much. We get involved in these machines proliferated existence. I think with the car. It's moral integrity is sacrificed by the fact that humanity has not fought hard enough to make it a tool that is more enviromentally freindly. In this sense were always sacrificing something that we might not want to by using them to further our personal lives.

Heck if we didn't tamper with things so much. There would be less of a need to worry over things like cancer, alzheimers and the like. Solving our problems will definately create more.

I personally think that it would be okay to sequence all the human proteins and other things if there was a proper set up made. Like a group that could work on the proper moral deliberations to use our tools more diplomatically with the world around us. Yet anything would have some form of corruption or price.

Guess theres a universal law of sacrifice we can't avoid.

I honestly have always hated the car. It's a tool that has great capacity but it comes with deadly prices. It seems to be a prized status symbol in our society. Yet it's a machine that seems capable of causing a lot of trouble. The sad thing is it's not really the car thats bad but the fact that a species of millions can't seem to get itself to push to make this "car" a more clean and convienient and safer vehicle. Funny how the world works. We buy things and then never pay attention to what the thing does so much as the convienience it provides us. Im not lambasting anybody. Since I am guilty of the sin of taking advantage of convienience. Yet I am pointing out that humanity is more powerful than it makes itself to be. Im sure many could lobby and refuse using cars as they are now and companies would be forced to make changes. Yet were lazy and enjoy convienience and we make rationalizations for convienience. Our species sucks. We could make all these great things but then were not fine tuned ourselves to use them carefully and responsibly.
 chrono1985

Joined: 11/20/2004
Msg: 17
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/5/2008 2:43:23 AM
I have my doubts about distributed computing doing much but simple stuff.

I work with code in all different coding languages every day, and I can honestly say I have never ever solved a single problem just by running different permutations of the same basic algorithms over and over again, and believe me I have tried. Usually what solves a problem of trying to get the right results is by reworking the algorithm until it fits the need, to do that I first take a big step back, write down what I need (the need changes as the results do), write down what I've tried to produce part of that result and it worked, then study the parts that did work as to why they worked, how they can be optimized to work better (efficiency often yields better and more results).

I've even hooked a debugger into a few of those distributed computing programs and it was horrible. I don't know where half of those projects get their programmers from, but they have some really wacky ideas on what a computer can and can't do at a reasonable amount of instructions. I did find a few that were pumping out some wickedly efficient results though.

Mainly what the problem with those programs is, that most of them use the same library to do their math. Libraries in code are kinda like libraries in real life, except they contain functions instead of books, a function takes in data, does something to it and spits out data, the data passed in can be totally different than what is returned from a function. If a programmer uses a bad library, no matter how good their code is, it'll still run at a very slow pace. Not many programmers are up to the task of writing their own libraries when there is already one out there that does what they need anymore.
 abc6587

Joined: 12/26/2006
Msg: 18
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/5/2008 6:12:33 AM
Chrono, Google I've heard is doing pretty amazing stuff with its distributed computing model, and that's just the beginning.
 Whereareallthefish

Joined: 11/16/2007
Msg: 19
Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/5/2008 11:31:18 AM
So it's true that Aspartame causes brain tumors then? Thats been so hotly debated and treated like a conspiracy or irrational paranoia by some. Me personally if someone told me something causes a disease I would wisely stay away from it until better knowledge was presented. Even flouride is said to be dangerous in high amounts.

I sometimes wonder if these companies just pull strings to sell a chemical they produced. Or overproduced and now still try to profit it.

Sad thing is how people will accept things out of convienience. I still think humanitys biggest sin is it's desire for convienience. If we didn't have a strong want for convienience we would have fought against a lot of things by now.
 fortran

Joined: 2/21/2004
Msg: 20
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/5/2008 7:13:26 PM
Some seem to be implying I am immoral. I am just playing Devil's
Advocate to a bunch of unsubstantiated claims for the most part.
The important thing, is that people need to think about things.
Consider the good and the bad.

What is necessary to make a pesticide useful? That it kills the pest.
It would be nice if the pesticide didn't cause death, cancers,
mutations and a host of other things, to organisms which are not the
pest. But most pesticides are only concerned with that first requirement.

The pesticide companies are not releasing pesticides before they know
that the chemical kills the pest. The do know that. What they are
doing is releasing the chemicals before the data to determine other
effects is gathered, analysed and justified.

Business has been tending to operate for next quarter profits for a
long time. Some places (like Japan) have a tendency to consider long term
more than other places (like USA, Canada and EU). There is a big tendency
for politicians to play the polls. Nobody wants to be a leader, they just
want to go where the polls suggest they should go.

What the heck is self-engineering?

Biological systems are complex. Killing a system is probably easy. Figuring
out how to make it less competitive is a much harder problem.

People are working on how to make computers use less electricity. It
has been happening all along. But, if you make something X% more
efficient (energy usage is now (1-X/100)), and up springs Y% more
users (so usage of the program is now (1+Y/100)), it is easy to find
that although the energy is being used more efficiently, there is still
more energy being used.

Money is a counter, a currency. A way to keep score, if you will. In
of itself, money is not evil. That people will do evil in the pursuit
of money is something that is wrong. Some people chase money for its own
sake. Some people try to make things better (or worse), and make money
on the side.

The length of time it takes to solve a problem has no bearing on how
good the solution is. A shorter time to solve a problem has the possibility
of reducing pain and suffering.
 Whereareallthefish

Joined: 11/16/2007
Msg: 21
Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 5/5/2008 11:25:34 PM
"The pesticide companies are not releasing pesticides before they know
that the chemical kills the pest. The do know that. What they are
doing is releasing the chemicals before the data to determine other
effects is gathered, analysed and justified."

Yes, but arguably they can be concientious enough to factor those things in. Theres also chance that they know the dangerous facts and sweep them under the rug. Until their exposed. Not saying it's always like this but it is possible. Either way companies do like to protect their mistake. I guess we can't say their all evil who would want to lose money after realizing you made a mistake. Not many I guess. Still theres a lot of companies that would break the rules when they can. This is what I was getting at.

"What the heck is self-engineering?"

I meant how it seems like humans will eventually be in charge of their own evolution. Their already talking about how we will be able to repair human mitochondria, repair genetic damage, grow new organs. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to see engineering modified parts coming from that.

Esentially meaning that we will probably self engineer our own evolution instead of natural selection. It seems hokey at the moment but it probably will happen eventually. In the next 50 to 100 years or something.

I agree about money. The problem is not money but how it's used. Or how people work for it.

It's like a gun, it's not guns that kill people it's the man that pulls the trigger.

A better anology though would be comparing money to a hammer. Money can be used for good or destructive purposes.
 ThisIsAmy

Joined: 6/19/2007
Msg: 22
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 6/13/2008 8:49:12 AM
abc6587
"what is it going to do to our bodies if we change our food?"
I can answer this personally.
Check out the book The Autoimmune Epidemic...it gives you what is happening to our bodies because we have changed and gentically engineered our food ( changed our environemtns in which we live). Now you won't hear that from Monsanto..but why is it that 23.5 million people on the planet now have AUTOIMMUNE diseases ( like R. Arthritis, Asthma, Diabetes, Hashimoto's, M.S. and Lupus, just to name a few of the more than 280 Autoimmune Disease out there, that's more than Cancer and Heart Disease combined, yet 95% of people can't name even ONE autoimmune disease.))...why do we have kids getting diseases they shouldn't even know about until they are in their 70's??)

Things are changing...the industrialized revolution is running havok (sp?) on our immune systems...too many chemicals in our food and air, our bodies can't keep up. There's another thread on this site about The Autoimmune Epidemic. Get the book and learn how you can shield yourself from getting one ( Autoimmune Disease), if you already have one, get the book and see what you need to change to heal your body back to health. Join the web discussion group and weigh in on what your ideas and thoughts are about what's happening not only in America but world wide.

Companies like Monsanton are killing us, very real, very serious, but how do we mount a change big enough to save people's lives??

I just happened onto this thread..and as I am 150% NEW to this idea of Distributed Computing, just from what I've learned here, it seems it can help in the mass picture...BUT one other thing needs to be addressed...we need more PROFESSIONALS with clout to stand up and say enough is enough, let's get back to basics and forget about making millions. IS that going to happen? not anytime soon but the underground forces are at work, and each person who realizes what is ACTUALLY happening to our food/environments, is one more awakened indivudal who can then add to the whole of the energy and move in a directions that is actually GOOD for us all.

I am personally thankful you have a conscious and that you didn't take the job with Monsanto BUT...on the other side, had you taken the job, would it have given you enough money to donate to people who are trying to move in another direction towards wellness and back to basics on the planet? Money is just money..yes there is a moral issue at stake it seems for you with the Monsanto job...gotta follow your heart and your intuition...I wish you well.

Great discussion!
~Amy~
in Missouri
 ThisIsAmy

Joined: 6/19/2007
Msg: 23
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 6/13/2008 8:55:58 AM
Whereareallthe fishes
Convinece is what has caused the problem.
You are correct.
Convience, in the industrialized revolution has brought us plastics, chemicals, lawn herbacides, pesticides, genetically manufactured foods.etc the list could go on for miles....and yet the price we are paying for said convience is our health on a very large scale.

We are NATURAL bodies, what are we suppose to do with all the chemicals in our environments and foods? AUTOIMMUNE diseases are sky rocketing...and those are the ones we can name...there are many people with symptoms that don't match any set criteria, they are labled in most Emergency rooms as "crazy" and sent home with some kind of pill. This actually happens every day in America...

~Amy~
 yna6

Joined: 1/21/2007
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 6/13/2008 7:32:04 PM
As a race we have a huge mound of information already...and adding daily to it. We need more "librarians" to stock it all and catagorialize it all. We may already have answers and be unaware of it because of the loss of information because of the huge jumble of it we already have. Also, maybe we only need to put together a few facts to find more answers...we have the facts...but they are all in separate areas...so we have to cover ground we've already discovered to link up these facts.
We'll figure it out when we really need it.
 Vancer

Joined: 10/29/2006
Msg: 25
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Can distributed computing cure cancer, aging and other diseases?
Posted: 6/13/2008 8:12:12 PM
SkyNet will be born from the Grid.
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