• macerated_baby_presidents [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    The underlying tech of stimulating brain regions via ultrasound looks cool. Didn’t know that was possible at all, looks quite recent. “Transcranial ultrasound stimulation”, allows you to do stuff that previously required electrode implants.

    god, imagine a world where what little productive research we actually do fund wasn’t constantly being derailed into the stupidest shit imaginable

    • Wheaties [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      oh shit, i thought this was an EEG machine dressed up to defraud investors. If they’re using ultrasound, this is considerably more concerning. This won’t achieve its goal, which is some pie-in-the-sky nonsense. What it will do is poison the well for research into what could be one of the biggest medical breakthroughs of this century…

      …cus, as best I understand it, the ultrasound stimulation actually does affect cognition.

      Quick rewind; For the longest time, nobody knew how anesthetics worked. They just did. And they work on everything – mammals, reptiles, fish, plants, single celled organisms. At a safe dose, it’s a temporary universal off switch for living organisms. It’s only recently that a reach team of anesthesiologists found out just what anesthetics affect. Inside every cell are these structures called microtubules. They are constantly forming from smaller proteins (called tubulin), falling appart, then forming again. It’s like an all-in-one muscular and skeletal system. It gives cells their shape. It’s how cells move. It’s crucial to cell division. And as long as anesthetics are present, microtubuals don’t form.

      The idea behind ultrasound treatment is to do the opposite of anesthetics. To use sound frequencies to stimulate and encourage microtubules to form more. They’re hoping it may be a a treatment for Alzheimers and dementia. And this dumbass startup is trying to monetize it before it’s even gone through preliminary studies.

    • Mardoniush [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      For all the stupid Bazinga shit techbros talk about, a lot of the whole transhumanist utopia is possible…(eventually) Just not under capitalism. Even the very rich can’t make it happen for them because they can’t co-ordinate enough resources to achieve social rather than individual results.

      Something like a suite of treatments for robust life extention, for instance, requires not just a miracle treatment but a complete overhaul of research, policy, treatment, care and monitoring methodologies. Even if you’re rich enough to just buy and fund a full time research hospital devoted to you and you alone, it won’t be enough to achieve the goal.

      Even a cabal of the rich wont be able to co ordinate it, because at some point it’ll get in the way of financial stability and their lanyard wearing handlers will do to them what the Bavarian government did to King Ludwig when his art projects got in the way of his personal finances (he never spent state funds contrary to popular belief, he was just rich enough to fuck the economy.)

      And this is before we get to the fact that billionaires have lying grifters hanging from them like flies on shit.

      If you want the cool tech shit, for you or your grandkids, communism is the only option.