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Recently a promising chemical called resveratrol has been isolated. Resveratrol, found in red wine, helps to activate the sirtuin molecule, which has been shown to slow down the oxidation process, a principle component in aging, and therefore it may help protect the body from age-related molecular damage.
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Michio Kaku |
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When we force a smile, we activate facial muscles with our prefrontal cortex. But when we smile because we are in a good mood, our nerves are controlled by our limbic system, which activates a slightly different set of muscles. Our brains can tell the subtle difference between the two, which was beneficial for our evolution.)
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Michio Kaku |
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Another clue to the cause of aging might be telomerase, which helps to regulate our biological clock. Every time a cell divides, the tips of the chromosomes, called telomeres, get a bit shorter. Eventually, after approximately fifty to sixty divisions, the telomeres become so short that they disappear and the chromosome begins to fall apart, so the cell enters a state of senescence and no longer functions correctly. Thus there is a limit to..
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Michio Kaku |
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4708110
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Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn is more optimistic and says, "Every sign, including genetics, says there's some causality [between telomeres] and the nasty things that happen with aging." She notes that there is a direct link between the shortened telomeres and certain diseases. For example, if you have shortened telomeres- if your telomeres are in the bottom third of the population in terms of length-then your risk of cardiovascular dis..
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Michio Kaku |
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When bathed in telomerase, skin cells divide indefinitely, far beyond the Hayflick limit. ..... But it should be pointed out that telomerase has to be regulated very carefully, because cancer cells are also immortal and they use telomerase to attain that immortality.
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Michio Kaku |
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964b272
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But perhaps the newest and most exciting instrument in the neurologist's tool kit is optogenetics, which was once considered science fiction. Like a magic wand, it allows you to activate certain pathways controlling behavior by shining a light beam on the brain. Incredibly, a light-sensitive gene that causes a cell to fire can be inserted, with surgical precision, directly into a neuron. Then, by turning on a light beam, the neuron is activ..
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Michio Kaku |
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452c922
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Imagine fish swimming in a shallow pond. they might never suspect the presence of a third dimension, because their eyes point to the side, and they can only swim forward and backward, left and right. A third dimension to them might appear impossible. But then imagine it rains on the pond. Although they cannot see the third dimension, they can clearly see the shadows of the ripples on the surface of the pond. In the same way, Kaluza's theory..
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Michio Kaku |
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Rotating in four-dimensional space unifies the concept of space and time, turning one into the other as the velocity is increased. This beautiful, elegant concept, that symmetry unifies seemingly dissimilar entities into a pleasing, harmonious whole, guided Einstein for the next fifty years.
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Michio Kaku |
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A careful analysis of the DNA within the mitochondria indicates that errors are indeed concentrated here. The hope is that one day scientists might use the cells' own repair mechanisms to reverse the buildup of errors in the mitochondriaand therefore prolong the cells' useful life.
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Michio Kaku |
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Kaluza also gave an answer as to where the fifth dimension was. Since we see no evidence of a fifth dimension, it must have "curled up" so small that it cannot be observed. (Imagine taking a two-dimensional sheet of paper and rolling it up tightly into a cylinder. From a distance, the cylinder looks like a one-dimensional line. In this way, a two-dimensional object has been turned into a one-dimensional object by curling it up.) Kaluza's pa..
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Michio Kaku |
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bf6c91f
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Feynman once wrote, quantum mechanics "describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it fully agrees with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as She is-absurd."
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Michio Kaku |
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Einstein wrote, "Quantum mechanics calls for a great deal of respect. But some inner voice tells me that this is not the true Jacob. The theory offers a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the Old Man's secret. For my part, at least, I am convinced that He doesn't throw dice.")"
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Michio Kaku |
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36ff695
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To impress my Ph.D. students with just how bizarre the quantum theory is, I sometimes ask them to calculate the probability that their atoms will suddenly dissolve and reappear on the other side of a brick wall. Such a teleportation event is impossible under Newtonian physics but is actually allowed under quantum mechanics. The answer, however, is that one would have to wait longer than the lifetime of the universe for this to occur. (If yo..
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Michio Kaku |
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If our brains were simple enough to be understood, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand them. --ANONYMOUS
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Michio Kaku |
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Because these two electrons are "entangled," that is, their wave functions beat in unison, their wave functions are connected by an invisible "thread" or umbilical cord. Whatever happens to one automatically has an effect on the other. (This means, in some sense, that what happens to us automatically affects things instantaneously in distant corners of the universe, since our wave functions were probably entangled at the beginning of time. ..
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Michio Kaku |
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bb252fa
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The geometry of a universe is very like the grammatical structure of a sentence. Just as a sentence has no structure and no existence apart from the relationships between the words, space has no existence apart from the relationships that hold between the things in the universe. If you change a sentence by taking some words out, or changing their order, its grammatical structure changes. Similarly, the geometry of space changes when the thi..
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Michio Kaku |
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2386e5b
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Theories have four stages of acceptance: i. this is worthless nonsense; ii. this is interesting, but perverse; iii. this is true, but quite unimportant; iv. I always said so. --J. B. S. HALDANE, 1963
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Michio Kaku |
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fcda362
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More recently, these electrodes have targeted a new area of the brain (called Brodmann's area number 25) that is often overactive in depressed patients who do not respond to psychotherapy or drugs. Deep brain stimulation has given almost miraculous relief after decades of torment and agony for these long-suffering patients.
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Michio Kaku |
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If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day. --JOHN WHEELER
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Michio Kaku |
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In general, the internal structures implanted inside the metamaterial must be smaller than the wavelength of the radiation. For example, microwaves can have a wavelength of about 3 centimeters, so for a metamaterial to bend the path of microwaves, it must have tiny implants embedded inside it that are smaller than 3 centimeters. But to make an object invisible to green light, with a wavelength of 500 nanometers (nm), the metamaterial must h..
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Michio Kaku |
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White lies, in fact, are like a grease that makes society run smoothly.
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Michio Kaku |
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Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. --M. C. ESCHER
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Michio Kaku |
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Consciousness turns out to consist of a maelstrom of events distributed across the brain. These events compete for attention, and as one process outshouts the others, the brain rationalizes the outcome after the fact and concocts the impression that a single self was in charge all along.
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Michio Kaku |
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If at first an idea does not sound absurd, then there is no hope for it. - ALBERT EINSTEIN
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Michio Kaku |
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For decades physicists have wondered why the four forces of nature appear to be so fragmented-why the "cheetah" looks so pitiful and broken in his cage. The fundamental reason why these four forces seem so dissimilar, notes Freund, is that we have been observing the "caged cheetah." Our three-dimensional laboratories are sterile zoo cages for the laws of physics. But when we formulate the laws in higher-dimensional space-time, their natural..
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Michio Kaku |
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The popularity of perpetual motion machines is widespread. On an episode of The Simpsons, entitled "The PTA Disbands," Lisa builds her own perpetual motion machine during a teachers' strike. This prompts Homer to declare sternly, "Lisa, get in here...in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!" --
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Michio Kaku |
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Like the invention of the telescope, the introduction of MRI machines and a variety of advanced brain scans
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Michio Kaku |
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To create silicon chips, UV light is passed through a template that contains the blueprint for all the circuits on a chip. The UV light and a series of chemical reactions creates a pattern that is etched onto a silicon wafer, creating transistors on the chip.
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Michio Kaku |
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In 2009, Markram said optimistically, "It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in ten years. If we build it correctly, it should speak and have an intelligence and behave very much as a human does." He cautions, however, that it would take a supercomputer 20,000 times more powerful than present supercomputers, with a memory storage 500 times the entire size of the current Internet, to achieve this."
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Michio Kaku |
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When Einstein later complained that "God does not play dice with the world," Bohr reportedly fired back, "Stop telling God what to do."
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Michio Kaku |
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Future Of Humanity - Planetary Civilization In mythology, the gods lived in the divine splendor of heaven, far above the insignificant affairs of mere mortals. The Greek gods frolicked in the heavenly domain of Mount Olympus, while the Norse gods who fought for honor and eternal glory would feast in the hallowed halls of Valhalla with the spirits of fallen warriors. But if our destiny is to attain the power of the gods by the end of the cen..
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Michio Kaku |
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It is estimated that, if the ice caps of Mars were completely melted, there would be enough liquid water to fill a planetary ocean fifteen to thirty feet deep.
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Michio Kaku |
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In fact, there is one theory that states that dark matter, an invisible form of matter that surrounds the galaxy, might be ordinary matter floating in a parallel universe. As in H.G. Wells's novel The Invisible Man, a person would become invisible if he floated just above us in the fourth dimension. Imagine two parallel sheets of paper, with someone floating on one sheet, just above the other. In the same way there is speculation that dark ..
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Michio Kaku |
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In our society, wisdom is hard to come by. As Isaac Asimov once said, "The saddest aspect of society right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." Unlike information, it cannot be dispensed via blogs and Internet chatter. Since we are drowning in an ocean of information, the most precious commodity in modern society is wisdom. Without wisdom and insight, we are left to drift aimlessly and without purpose, ..
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Michio Kaku |
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In other words, our destiny is to become the gods that we once feared and worshipped. Science will give us the means by which we can shape the universe in our image. The question is whether we will have the wisdom of Solomon to accompany this vast celestial power.
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Michio Kaku |
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If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds. --CARL SAGAN
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Michio Kaku |
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Men imagine gods to be born, and to have clothes and voices and shapes like theirs....Yea, the gods of the Ethiopians are black and flat-nosed, and the gods of the Thracians are red-haired and blue-eyed.
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Michio Kaku |
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To resolve the discrepancy between waves of probability and our commonsense notion of existence, Bohr and Heisenberg assumed that after a measurement is made by an outside observer, the wave function magically "collapses," and the electron falls into a definite state--that is, after looking at the tree, we see that it is truly standing. In other words, the process of observation determines the final state of the electron. Observation is vit..
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observation
reality
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Michio Kaku |
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There are many advantages to space solar energy. It is clean and without waste products. It can generate power twenty-four hours a day, rather than just during daylight hours. (These satellites are almost never in the shadow of the Earth, since their path takes them considerably away from the Earth's orbit.) The solar panels have no moving parts, which vastly reduces breakdowns and repair costs. And best of all, space solar power taps into ..
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Michio Kaku |
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If we now take a Kaluza-Klein theory defined in 4+N dimensions and then curl up N dimensions, we will find that the equations split into two pieces. The first piece is Einstein's usual equations, which we retrieve as expected. But the second piece will not be the theory of Maxwell. We find that the remainder is precisely the Yang-Mills theory, which forms the basis of all subatomic physics! This is the key to turning the symmetries of wood ..
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Michio Kaku |
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You can always spot the scientist at a strip club, because he is the only one examining the audience.
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Michio Kaku |
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Max Planck once remarked, "Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature. And it is because in the last analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve."
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Michio Kaku |
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Stephen Hawking has proven a general theorem stating that all solutions of Einstein's equations that allow faster-than-light travel must involve negative matter or energy.
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Michio Kaku |
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Bertrand Russell once lamented "that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling, can preserve a life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system; and the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins..."
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Michio Kaku |