Deideldorfer linked me this article on reversing tooth decay with changes in diet. It's an excellent article, and I think my long stint with the Neanderthin diet (book's out of print now, sadly) is part of why my teeth aren't a lot worse than they are. On the other hand, for about 20 years now, we've had what amounts to a vaccine for caries (cavities). The process works by replacing the streptococcus mutans in your mouth (everyone has their own indigenous strain) with a genetically modified strain that excretes alcohol as a byproduct rather than acid. Before you get too excited, it's not enough to get you drunk, or even enough to taste, but it is enough to keep your teeth clean pretty much all the time.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Every month or so, I take a quick look around the netiverse to see if any new (to me, anyhow) content or sites about human enhancement have popped up. Once again, I was disappointed to see that nothing new had appeared, at least to my casual surfing. Further, I'm once again furious to see that the face of the transhumanist movement continues to be a bunch of Obama-worshipping, Anthropogenic Global Warming-believing, rabid atheists. It's enough to make a Classic Liberal (i.e. modern conservative/libertarian) that knows Al Gore is a hoaxster and Obama is a sure disaster feel positively unwelcome in the transhumanist tent, let alone cool stuff like Lifeboat.

I'm not saying all transhumanists are like this, but the face of the movement continues to be. There are a few bright spots, however. Al Fin, reason, and Brian Wang all touch on human enhancement and strong, freedom-based improvements to the human condition, and all three manage to do so without alienating readers (well, maybe not Al, but I'm biased, he only tries to alienate idiots, global warmenists, and O-tards, but I repeat myself). Brian is fantastic on keeping up with a whole spectrum of tech advances, but pays admirable attention to things like strength enhancement, tissue regeneration, and enhancement drugs. Reason is the first, best source for all things longevity science, and while he never writes politically, it's obvious that he favors a capitalist approach to enhancement and life extension.

Anyhow, part of the reason I started this blog to track what I called "upgrades", human enhancements. There's not a lot of that in the explicit dextrosphere, and I think it's a real shame. Freedom to enhance oneself follows logically from the core principles of conservativism: my body (and just my body, no burgeoning offspring), my property, my freedom. There's also a real danger that the early adopters of enhancement technologies may become yet another trend that the conservatives just plain miss out on (real libertarians won't, I expect).

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 08:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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