Would it be absurd now to suppose that this improvement of the human species must be regarded as capable of unlimited progress, that must come a time when death would be only the effect, or extraordinary accidents, or destruction increasingly slow vital forces, and finally the duration the average interval between birth and destruction itself has no assignable? Marquis de Condorcet, 1795. --------------------------------------
Monthly Theme : A much longer life in a sustainable environment
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By far the most radical and most violent of the environment that has never been done by humans is the mastery of fire. That there are more than 400,000 years for the first time, the ancestors of Homo sapiens is are detached completely from the operation "natural" and other living species.
The second basic intervention on the world around us comes only 10,000 years ago. Human beings invented agriculture and progressively creates new species of plants and animals. The child who now knows that the shrink-wrapped steak in the country and discovers a cow eating hay, do not discover the nature. He discovered the effect of genetic slow generations that preceded us.
During the last centuries, interventions have succeeded more quickly and the influence of human transformations has become crucial to the entire planet.
Humans control their environment including its own body. Even among the fiercest advocates of a life more "natural", very few people who advocate the abandonment of cooking, clothes and the end of the fight against the countless artificial parasites who intimately shared our existence until here. Farewell (if possible) lice, fleas, tapeworms, cholera bacilli had yet followed faithfully humans for centuries and centuries.
However sometimes nostalgic farewell to the state "Natural", that is to say that the previous artificial state, accompanied by collateral damage is often difficult to assess.
In recent years, the most publicized change is, of course, global warming. In this regard, reading newspapers, we sometimes have the impression that the citizen is of great concern of the state of the planet in a century.
But in reality it is mainly damages the fastest are fought more effectively. Why? Because they are more easily detected. But also because, for long-term damage, previously, intuitively, many women and men felt that the risk and responsibility for processing returned first for future generations.
Many citizens say they are therefore, consciously or unconsciously, "After me, the flies." Fortunately, as and as life gets longer, this reasoning loses its meaning.
With a much longer life, we are all passengers of the same blue planet, the same ship and we are led to concern ourselves not only close to the steps, but also temporally distant horizons. We do not entrust the world to the generations that follow us, we take in hand.
How will we live this adventure? Might we not live in a world under-populated or otherwise overcrowded? This will be the theme next month.
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The good news of the month: skin cells transforming into neuronal cells
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Researchers at the School of Medicine, Stanford University (USA) succeeded in transforming skin cells from mouse neuronal cells and this by applying three genes. If this progress continues, and is applicable to humans, therapies based on stem cells could eventually greatly facilitated.
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• For more information: http://sens.org , http://imminst.org , http://heales. org and http://immortalite.org and information on research in mice: http://www.genethique.org/revues/revues/2010/Janvier / 20100128.1.asp .
• To respond or to receive the newsletter: info@heales.org
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