Tag Archives: microbiome

UK Ministry of Defence on Human Augmentation

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This report on human augmentation from the UK Ministry of Defence does not represent the “official policy or strategy” of the UK Ministry of Defense. They also consulted with the Germans. So you heard it here first – the English and Germans are working together to breed drug-fueled, Ironman-suited super soldiers.

I’ve taken a screen shot of a key image below. Hopefully the authors would approve of my sharing it, since they made the report public. They rated each technology by familiarity of policy considerations (how risky or ethically fraught is the technology?), transformative potential, and technological maturity.

UK Ministry of Defense

We have drugs and computers right now, and I assume we are using them. They don’t seem all that excited about the Ironman exoskeletons. “Non-invasive brain interfaces” are maybe a little farther along than I would have thought. Monkeying with genetics and brains is the science fiction stuff. It is a little surprising that they think monkeying with the microbiome would be fairly transformative.

genetic sequencing: what’s it good for?

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Do you find genetic sequencing interesting, but you’ve been struggling to find a practical application? Look no further:

According to Hutchinson, Sweet Peach will provide women with kits allowing them to swab their vaginas at home, then mail the swab into a lab which will sequence the genomes of their vaginal bacteria. Sweet Peach will then create a personalized probiotic — targeting UTIs and yeast infections — based on each woman’s swab. Women will be able to purchase a monthly regimen or a longer “subscription” based on their needs. More information will be available when the company launches their crowdfunding campaign this coming week.

“It’s nothing about scent,” Hutchinson told The Huffington Post in a phone interview. “A vagina should smell like a vagina, and anyone who doesn’t think that doesn’t deserve to be near one.”

Okay, touche, nothing about scent… but I can think of plenty of applications above the waist that do involve scent. Bad breath and armpit odor are caused mainly by sulfate reducing bacteria, I think, so introduce another harmless organism that can out-compete them, and problem solved – in fact, showering too often might tend to disrupt your perfectly balanced armpit ecosystem. How about some genetically customized pro-biotic mouthwash and deodorant? You could come back from your next camping trip smelling better than when you left! Or on a more serious note, how about healthy teeth and gums without brushing?