Fortune
May 30, 2005
Pg. 104

Enhancing The Warriors

By Joel Garreau

Arguably the most aggressive pursuer of human enhancement is DARPA, the Pentagon's advanced research agency. In 2002 and 2003 it granted the author unusual access to many of its program managers and scientists. On these pages is a sampling of human-enhancement programs DARPA is sponsoring in labs and collaborations around the U.S.; media access to much of the work is now curtailed.

An Energizer Bunny in fatigues

GOAL: Soldiers who perform at unprecedented levels of physical intensity and maintain that intensity for extended periods.

HOW IT IS MEANT TO WORK: One project seeks to boost the power and efficiency of muscle cells (for details, see main story). Alternative approaches include controlling body temperature and tapping the energy stored in fat. Like athletes, soldiers get tired and slow down when they overheat; DARPA is testing gloves and booties that wick off excess heat from exercise, thereby stabilizing soldiers' core temperatures. To tap the energy in fat, DARPA is funding research on how to trigger a fat-burning mode that the body usually enters only when deprived of carbohydrates during starvation.

The sleep-free soldier

GOAL: Troops who can function effectively without sleep for a week.

HOW IT IS MEANT TO WORK: Today's techniques for keeping people awake usually involve the loss of cognitive ability. A DARPA-backed project at Wake Forest University centers on a novel class of medicines known as ampakines, which are thought to reverse chemical imbalances in the sleep-deprived brain. At Salk Institute, a project seeks to harness a natural antioxidant found in cocoa (Mars, the candy company, is a collaborator on that one). Scientists at the University of Wisconsin and other research centers are studying birds that migrate for days without sleep. Other groups are studying dolphins and whales, air-breathing mammals that would drown if they slept as we do and have evolved an ability to let one portion of the brain sleep at a time; DARPA hopes to enable troops to do the same. A related project at Columbia University is studying why some pathways in the human brain are much less susceptible to sleep deprivation than others; troops might be trained to use the resilient pathways to stay alert.

Control bleeding

GOAL: Soldiers who are able to stop bleeding at will.

HOW IT IS MEANT TO WORK: Several DARPA projects aim at severe wounds whose bleeding can't be stopped by direct pressure. Normally, blood clots in response to natural chemical cascades initiated by the nervous system; one proposed approach is to condition soldiers to consciously release the triggering chemicals--a soldier would be able to stop bleeding by concentrating on his wound. Another approach involves injecting vast numbers of nanotech magnets that would circulate harmlessly in the blood. In the event of injury, a special magnetic field passed over the wound would cause the magnets to align, forming a dam around which clotting would occur.

Pain control

GOAL: Soldiers who can simply block ongoing pain from an injury.

HOW IT IS MEANT TO WORK: The body has more than one neurological pathway for pain. The pain that causes you to jerk away your hand when you touch a hot stove involves a different pathway than the pain you'll feel later from swelling and inflammation. A "pain vaccine" under development by Rinat Neuroscience, a Genentech spinoff for which DARPA provided early funding, is designed to soak up secretions of a molecule called nerve growth factor that's necessary for the transmission of the second kind of pain. The vaccine is intended to remain effective for at least 30 days.

Limb regeneration

GOAL: Troops who, if wounded, can tap an innate mechanism to accelerate healing without scars and regrow lost limbs.

HOW IT IS MEANT TO WORK: A blastema--also called a regeneration bud--is a mass of undifferentiated cells that can develop into an organ or appendage. In salamanders and other lower vertebrates, blastemas regenerate severed limbs; young children sometimes regrow severed fingertips. DARPA wants to harness the genetic mechanism at work in blastemas to help injured troops. The research, once viewed as extremely speculative even by DARPA standards, lately gained renewed attention.

Damn

I worked with a SEAL that told me about the uppers that he took to stay awake for long periods of time while he was in Vietnam.   He said that they no longer prescribe these specific uppers because of the side effects.  It is azaming the toll these guys pay for their selected profession.

I want super powers too!

I assume after all this alteration the side affects would be something like death by cancer at 25?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America#Origins

"By chance, an Army officer looking for test subjects for a top secret defense research project offered Rogers an alternate way to serve his country. The officer was looking for suitable test subjects for a top secret defense research project, Operation: Rebirth. This project consisted of developing a means to create physically superior soldiers and Rogers was deemed ideal.

Rogers agreed to volunteer for the research and after a rigorous physical and combat training and selection process, was chosen as the first human test subject. He received injections and oral ingestions of a chemical formula that was termed the Super Soldier Serum, which had been developed by the scientist Dr Emil Erskine (who was code-named Dr Reinstein). Rogers was then exposed to a controlled burst of "Vita-Rays" that activated and stabilized the chemicals in his system. Although the process was arduous physically, it successfully altered his physiognomy from its relative frail form to the maximum of human efficiency, including greatly enhanced musculature and reflexes"

Sounds to me like the Six-million dollar Bionic Nazi Ninja Terminator on steroids.

I know that the Nazis experimented with steroids in WWII for their troops (made them stronger and more aggressive), and I seem to remember some sort of Ninja discipline that could control pain and bleeding.

I have a better idea: train Babboons to shoot and to use knives, give them some sort of drug to make them go crazy, dress them in body armor, and drop them by the thousands over in (name any trouble spot). I wonder if that would be considered biological warfare.

FITTER

Quoted: GOAL: Soldiers who perform at unprecedented levels of physical intensity and maintain that intensity for extended periods. HOW IT IS MEANT TO WORK: One project seeks to boost the power and efficiency of muscle cells (for details, see main story). Alternative approaches include controlling body temperature and tapping the energy stored in fat. Like athletes, soldiers get tired and slow down when they overheat; DARPA is testing gloves and booties that wick off excess heat from exercise, thereby stabilizing soldiers' core temperatures. To tap the energy in fat, DARPA is funding research on how to trigger a fat-burning mode that the body usually enters only when deprived of carbohydrates during starvation.

That would pretty much take care of the pentagons budget right there.
They could be self sufficient if they figured that one out.

the sleep-aid Ambien was in use by B2 crews before it was made public....or so I've heard.

Quoted: Quoted: GOAL: Soldiers who perform at unprecedented levels of physical intensity and maintain that intensity for extended periods. HOW IT IS MEANT TO WORK: One project seeks to boost the power and efficiency of muscle cells (for details, see main story). Alternative approaches include controlling body temperature and tapping the energy stored in fat. Like athletes, soldiers get tired and slow down when they overheat; DARPA is testing gloves and booties that wick off excess heat from exercise, thereby stabilizing soldiers' core temperatures. To tap the energy in fat, DARPA is funding research on how to trigger a fat-burning mode that the body usually enters only when deprived of carbohydrates during starvation. That would pretty much take care of the pentagons budget right there. They could be self sufficient if they figured that one out.

Can you imagine the profits that the inventor of a true fat burning pill could make.  15 carriers and 780 F-22s would be just the beginning of the budget add ons

Quoted: I worked with a SEAL that told me about the uppers that he took to stay awake for long periods of time while he was in Vietnam.   He said that they no longer prescribe these specific uppers because of the side effects.

You cannot fool Mother Nature.............a star that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

kinda scary thinking about screwing with humans like that. but the again, who doesn't want to be superman

Quoted: Quoted: GOAL: Soldiers who perform at unprecedented levels of physical intensity and maintain that intensity for extended periods. HOW IT IS MEANT TO WORK: One project seeks to boost the power and efficiency of muscle cells (for details, see main story). Alternative approaches include controlling body temperature and tapping the energy stored in fat. Like athletes, soldiers get tired and slow down when they overheat; DARPA is testing gloves and booties that wick off excess heat from exercise, thereby stabilizing soldiers' core temperatures. To tap the energy in fat, DARPA is funding research on how to trigger a fat-burning mode that the body usually enters only when deprived of carbohydrates during starvation. That would pretty much take care of the pentagons budget right there. They could be self sufficient if they figured that one out.

Market it as the DARPA diet and put Atkins and South Beach out of business!

Quoted: kinda scary thinking about screwing with humans like that. but the again, who doesn't want to be superman

There aint no such thing as Superman- Gil Scott Herron.

This super soldier you write about....


I meet him at every gun show in Nashville, and maaaaan is he badass

Children can sometimes regrow fingers?

WTF?

We will be cloning our fighters soon.

Probably after another country does so first....have to keep up,right?

By clicking on this thread, you have activated the transponder located in your neck near the spinal column.  The warming sensation you are about to feel is normal.

Remain calm.  That is all.

Quoted: Quoted: I worked with a SEAL that told me about the uppers that he took to stay awake for long periods of time while he was in Vietnam.   He said that they no longer prescribe these specific uppers because of the side effects.   You cannot fool Mother Nature.............a star that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

Yeah...   we all know that if you sit around on the couch on your ass all day that you'll live forever.



"....a star that burns 25% as bright lives 75% longer..."

Quoted: There aint no such thing as Superman- Gil Scott Herron.

... I bought Christopher Reeve's wheelchair on eBay

DARPA's into some cool stuff. I've been working with them over the past 4 years on various programs...

My favorite is: "Exoskeleton"

The zombie infection in Dawn of the Dead 2004 looks to only affect humans.

Let's see:

1). Keeps on ticking even when heart and live tissue cells are dead. Brain is kept alive
2). BLood loss will not stop the zombie from attacking on basic instinct
3). Limb loss does not slow down the zombie

Obviously it must have been some experiment gone wrong and spread out by a monkey or something...

Quoted: I want super powers too! I assume after all this alteration the side affects would be something like death by cancer at 25?

Or your heart just liquifies and your testicles spontaneously combust.

Quoted: Quoted: I want super powers too! I assume after all this alteration the side affects would be something like death by cancer at 25? Or your heart just liquifies and your testicles spontaneously combust.

Or it could be perfectly safe.

I copied this from another page, since you would have to register to view it if I linked to it

Sports Enhancement's Biggest Fan Andy Miah promotes genetic modification of athletes not only to improve competition, but also to improve humanity   by Simon Smith | 04.04.2005 @01:36 PM Baseball's drug scandal is so 20th century. While former slugger Mark McGwire pleads the fifth over steroids, today's athletes plead with researchers for genetic tweaks. It's widely assumed they'll have them by the 2008 Olympics—if not sooner. Anti-doping agencies have reacted predictably, with the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) banning "gene doping" in 2003. But the advent of genetic enhancement has also provided a crowbar for prying open debate over enhancement-prohibition, genetic and otherwise. At the forefront of this debate is ethicist Andy Miah, author of the book Genetically Modified Athletes. Against the backdrop of baseball's steroid brouhaha, Miah recently landed in Toronto where he made the case to a cramped room in the University of Toronto's Athletic Centre. To Miah, there's far more than medals at stake. How we handle genetic enhancement in sports, he argues, will affect how we handle genetic enhancements in general. "The gene doping debate is about what kinds of humans count," he says. "Sports offer a way for enhancements to become embedded in society." Athletic hypocrisy At just over five feet with spiky black hair and goatee, the baby-faced Miah could easily be mistaken for a student at the Starbuck's where we met a day before his talk. (Confession: at about the same height and baby-facedness, the same could be said of me—and I can't even grow a goatee.) As a professor at the University of Paisley in Scotland, however, Miah teaches such courses as "Becoming Posthuman" and writes regularly on cyberculture, bioethics, sports and genetic enhancement. His writing has gained urgency and notoriety as genetic enhancement moves from science fiction to fact. Scientific journals now regularly report genetic advances for which it takes little imagination to see athletic application. Perhaps most famously, geneticist Lee Sweeney at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that injecting the gene for a growth factor called IGF-1 doubles muscle strength in rats. Since the discovery, Sweeney says he's been swamped by requests from athletes seeking to participate in human trials. And why shouldn't they? asks Miah. The idea of the "natural athlete," he says, is a hypocrisy, as sport—from the latest greatest running shoes to stamina-boosting altitude chambers—is inherently technological. Furthermore, he says, anti-doping actions only provide an illusion of fairness "Those athletes we pin gold medals on are the ones who avoid the drug tests," he says. "We can't test for everything." With genetic enhancement, testing will be even more difficult, as athletes will have their DNA altered to improve performance rather than use detectable drugs. Encouraging public acceptance This—the practical impossibility of enforcing gene doping bans—is just one strike against prohibition. Miah raises many more issues. For example: Would people born with genetic modifications be allowed to play sports? Should gene therapy be used to equalize genetic constitutions so that competition is based more on skill and training than the genetic lottery? Would gene therapies that help athletes hasten healing also be banned under blanket prohibition? Such questioning puts Miah is in good company. U of T Faculty of Physical Education and Health Dean Bruce Kidd, for example, agrees with Miah that the ethical foundation of anti-doping is in need of review. Miah says this hasn't happened in about 40 years. "I would say ever," says Kidd, although he supports anti-doping initiatives. Moreover, Kidd supports equality in sports. The question for people on both sides of the anti-doping debate is how best to achieve this. Miah argues that genetic enhancement is one way. He believes that genetic enhancement could generally make people more capable, and he worries that sporting bodies will exert too strong an influence over its future. Ultimately, he hopes that athletics can make genetic enhancement more acceptable to the public, while baseball's current predicament shows this hasn't happened with drugs. "Drug-using athletes are represented as monsters, mutants," says Miah. "To me this is about enhancing humanity." Copyright © 2005 Simon Smith (Views: 84) [Comments: 1]

You have to remember, we share a common ancestor with Neanderthal Man, and at a further distance back in time with the apes, both groups have greater speed, strength, and endurance than even the Olympic and professional atheletes amongst modern men.  Our evolutionary path selected social and technical skills over physical power.  And what happens with organs that are not used?  They atrophy.  Or specifically in this case more intelligent and dexterous humans had more children (or more children that survived) than brawny ones.

But the DNA to allow for greater physical strength, speed, and endurance should still be there

Frankly what they are looking for is not revolutionary change but RECOVERY of what once was.  It would not surprise me in the least if we find out that even those members of our own species that lived in Europe alongside the Neaderthals for thousands of years 25-50, thousand years ago were far more physically gifted than people living today.  What is needed is to unlock that.

Quoted: Children can sometimes regrow fingers? WTF?

Yep.  Your liver is also capable of regrowing itself to an extent. And it it's in the genetic code in one place or time, it may be possible to make it work elsewhere, somehow.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_%28biology%29


Be cool if they could get it to work. Regrowing your arm would be way better than a plastic one.

Quoted: DARPA's into some cool stuff. I've been working with them over the past 4 years on various programs... My favorite is: "Exoskeleton"

I've seen that before and looks badass!  Those springs/hydrolics or whatever at the feet are suppose to make a solider able to jump 15 feet in the air, not to mention make a 80lb combat load feel like 5lbs.  

I love what DARPA does!  I'd love to work there!

Quoted: a star that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

Quoted: www.briandonovan.info/self-assembly-images/200501/20050120/blade_runner/dr_eldon_tyrell_200x150h.jpg www.kinopolis.de/filminfo/b/img/bladerunner01.jpg Quoted: a star that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

Thats what they tried to tell the replicants

But remember, replicants had be rigged for self destruction.  Because they were, in fact, superior to humans.

So why doesn't DARPA work on something *REALLY* important, like figuring out how to make a soldier's johnson 4 inches longer?  

coooool

There used to be some really neat articles on www.betterhumans.com's news archive about performance enhancement through "gene doping" and about tissue regeneration.  Unfortunately they just redid their website and the archive is no more