The Future Is Here Today...Robots, Genetics, AI, Longevity, Singularity

by Aaron Saenz on May 12th, 2009

To those unfamiliar with Japanese culture, certain trends may seem unusual: manga and anime, the love affair with robotics, tea ceremonies…computerized talking toilets. Yeah, Americans don’t often run into those. So get the jokes out of the way (we all get one, just one), shrug off the discomfort, and let’s sit down and talk toilet.

Toto's new Intelligence Toilet II monitors weight, blood sugar levels, and other vital signs, transferring data to your computer for analysis via WiFi.

Toto's new Intelligence Toilet II monitors weight, blood sugar levels, and other vital signs, transferring data to your computer for analysis via WiFi.

Toto’s newest smart john, the Intelligence Toilet II, is proving that it is more than an ordinary porcelain throne by recording and analyzing important data like weight, BMI, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels.

There’s a “sample catcher” in the bowl that can obtain urine samples. Even by Japanese standards that’s impressive. Yes it has the bidet, the air dryer, and heated seat, but it’s also recording pertinent information. This information is beamed to your computer via WiFi and can help you, with the guidance of a trained physician, monitor health and provide early detection for some medical conditions. Graphs on your desktop PC will show how your glucose levels have been fluctuating, along with urine temperatures. These trends can help diabetics time insulin shots as well as give insight into hormone levels for women concerned with their menstrual cycles. Trying to have a baby? Not sure when your most likely to conceive? Ask your toilet for help.

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Major news outlets are reporting that researchers have been able to grow heart blood vessels in mice by injecting the mice with progenitor cells. The researchers implanted “human endothelial and mesenchymal progenitor cells isolated from blood and bone marrow” into the mice and within a week an extensive network of new blood vessels had formed from the injected cells. Four weeks later the network of blood vessels was still functioning normally within the mice. The original research article can be found here:

http://circres.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/103/2/194

Eventually this work could lead to numerous human therapies, such as the revascularization (creation of new blood vessels) in damaged human hearts that have suffered heart attacks and other calamaties. In fact we are told that such a study was already been completed in Germany two years ago! From the report:

“Two years ago physicians at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany…reported a study with 75 people who had heart attacks. Some were
given injections of progenitor cells, derived either from bone marrow
or blood. Improved heart function was seen in those who got the
progenitor cells, the German researchers reported.”

I dug up the research report for the German study here:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/12/1210

Cool image of human capillary