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posted by Fnord666 on Friday March 16 2018, @05:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the meanwhile-at-NXNE dept.

Pharmaceutical giants are holding sessions about topics such as childhood cancer and anti-aging drugs at South by Southwest (SXSW). But it is the lightly regulated "biohacks" that seem to get all of the attention:

"I'm here to make the argument that you have a moral imperative, if you're an employer, to hack your employees," said Dave Asprey, founder of Bulletproof 360, during a session called "Would You Let Your Boss Biohack You?"

Asprey's company sells products with names like Brain Octane Oil, containing supplements Silicon Valley calls nootropics, which are purported to enhance cognitive function. He is also a biohacker. That means he takes nootropics to improve his performance in life, refuses to ingest a long list of chemicals that includes fluoride, and averages six hours and six minutes of sleep every night. During his talk, Asprey was wearing sienna-toned sunglasses, which, he explained, were hacking the light.

At Bulletproof, every employee has access to nootropics and is encouraged to expand his or her mind accordingly. Asprey is particularly fond of modafinil, which he calls "the Limitless drug" in reference to a 2011 movie in which Bradley Cooper finds a pill that makes him a genius. Sold under the brand name Provigil, modafinil got Asprey through the Wharton School, he said, and it has "the safety profile of ibuprofen," a statement with which the Drug Enforcement Administration would disagree.

And the biohackers are around too. This one seems to have gotten hold of a MinION:

Heshan Illangkoon is a self-diagnosed polymath who divides his time as an entrepreneur in residence at the University of Florida between astrobiology and synthetic biology. He goes by Dr. Grasshopper. Among his scores of business ideas is one derived from surprisingly hairy mice. He and his fellow Ph.D. scientists dosed lab mice with a bunch of insulin and noticed that they began sprouting hair. When they took a look at the follicles, they realized it was the result of a hormone called IG1, which reared up in response to the insulin. Now they've got plans to whip up a hormone-laced gel they believe could safely replicate that phenomenon on the bald pates of humans. "That's a billion-dollar product right there," Illangkoon said.

And what about the years-long process of getting FDA approval? Illangkoon responded with a not-fit-for-print suggestion for what could be done with the FDA. He then retrieved from the pocket of his pastel pink pants a handheld genome sequencer to demonstrate how new technology has democratized what had once been monopolized by the gatekeepers of Big Science.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @09:37AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @09:37AM (#653469)

    That might be the best thing Steve Jobs did: inspire a bunch of Silicon Valley misfits to do hallucinogens, as that place continues to worship him as a God and pore over every bit of wisdom He had to offer. Ride the blood unicorn, fellas.

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  • (Score: 2, Offtopic) by VLM on Friday March 16 2018, @12:39PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 16 2018, @12:39PM (#653540)

    Mostly its homeopathy. There's an aspect of the left wing religion that worships communal life above all else especially individualism. All innovation comes from teams and processes and similar non-reality based proclamations, no individual ever invented or did anything all that matters is the commune. Now in the face of that, all innovation fundamentally actually does come from individuals, but for religious reasons it can't be admitted or commented on because that is a heresy, no one wants to be an excommunicated sinner, etc. But if you use LSD homeopathy or similar snake oils as a fake crutch to introduce new ideas, well, then the evil individual didn't innovate, the drug did. Kind of like how gun crimes are caused solely by good people holding bad evil guns. In more civilized parts of the country, if you have a great idea, you simply say "hey I got an idea how about..." whereas in CA the way it has to be for religious belief reasons is "hey I sniffed the air over a LSD blotter and the burning bush told me ^h^h^h chemical told me we should try ...".

    Note that homeopathy means no longer taking supplement pills mostly stuffed with grass clippings as per recent DNA analysis stories, instead you can cheaply and medically safely print fake blotter acid pages on the ole laser printer. Eating a tiny postage stamp of paper is much healthier than random grass clippings masquerading as supplements.

    I've kinda followed the nootropic people for a long time; its kinda like workout performance boosters where anything that works is medical-ized into a very expensive therapy drug, leaving not terribly much, mostly stuff too difficult to productify. So you, caffeine, various amino acids like creatine, some minerals where the USRDA is very low for weird historical reasons or sometimes no reason at all, that's about it, frankly for both weight lifting and nootropics. And the classic "drink more water" because most people are some low level of dehydrated most of their lives.

    The biggest "chemical based" weight lifting gains I ever got were from ink on plant based cellulose fiber; write up a detailed lifting plan for each set while reviewing the last couple days results, then follow the plan, recording how many 100% successful correct reps I made at the planned weight. Its ridiculously easy to get stuck in a rut accidentally if you don't write everything down. Oddly enough ink on paper is also the best way I know of to study academically. You'd get more gainz by scrapping both supplement industries and replacing them both by handing out spiral notebooks and ink pens.