X-Message-Number: 6248 Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 13:35:59 +0200 (MET DST) From: Eugene Leitl <> Subject: heavy heavy Grave Solutions, by Daedalus (Nature's chief madcap scientist and leading Dreadco employee. Hint: apply ;) where due. Nature, Vol 381, 9 May 1996). Mad cow disease is still headline news. A molecule of the cow's brain protein gets wrongly folded into a 'prion'. This somehow persuades other protein molecules to fold the wrong way too. Prionic protein spreads relentlessly through the creature's brain. Brains seem strangely vulnerable to malfolding proteins. Even Alzheimer's disease seems to develop by the spreading of amyloid plaques of knotted protein. What we need, says Daedalus, is some sort of 'molecular penetrating oil' that will insinuate itself into protein molecules and force them to unwind. The oil he proposes is heavy water. Most proteins are copiously hydrated. Each folded molecule is stitched together by hydrogen bonds, into a shape defined by subtle and delicate balance of bond energies. Replace hydrogen by deuterium, and all these will change. The deuterium bonds will be slightly longer and weaker. The protein iwll be more open, and less rigidly folded. Sadly, you can't cure a mad cow or Alzheimer's victim with heavy water. The stuff is poisonous in large doses, as if it altered protein folding too strongly. But Daedalus reckons that heavy water is only toxic by conflict with light water. A partly deuterated organism, he says, is racked by deadly inconsistencies and imbalances. He plans to take the body in one stride from full hydrogenation to full deuteration, without lingering in the dangerous mixed region between. His first idea was to freeze-dry the patient to a desiccated shell, and then to rehydrate him with heavy water. But he now favours a less extreme procedure. The patient will be made desperately thirsty, and then anaesthetized (possibly with heavy alcohol). He will be placed in a cold bad of heavy water, to chill his metabolism almost to a halt while soaking into his skin. Simultaneously, a massive transfusion will replace his blood with previously prepared heavy blood. On being warmed up again, he will wake up a fully deuterated 'heavy man', little damaged by the swift exchange. His prion diseases, not to mention facial wrinkles, hardened arteries, arthritic joints, long sight and other consequences of ancient, gnarled protein molecules, should soon unwind. When they have, he could be lightened again. Daedalus will perfect the technique by animal trials: first with jellyfish (which should deuterize easily), then mice, monkeys and human volunteers. The final process, though expensive, could transform our health, mental vigour and lonevity. Once the human population had been treated, it could then be tried on all those mad cows. (Needless to say, this is a piece of dire rubbish. But clever, enjoyable rubbish ;) It is interesting to note that scientists, sometimes only half jokingly, put forward the most wild schemes if given protection by motley and fool's cap camouflage. It would be interesting to know how much hard scientists had been infected by the >H and cryonics memes, without publicly admitting it to their unforgiving colleagues and/or general public. See Drexler & Co). Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6248