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Reprint from my PD&D column, July 2009
Posted by Mike on December 10th, 2009 in Uncategorized
This recession has everyone, and I do mean everyone, looking for answers. I have been harping,
as have an increasing number of real pundits, about the role of innovation in facilitating
recovery. The president has been pushing a sustainable, innovative and green technology culture
to help fuel the future and beat back the recession, and I applaud these important efforts, but I
will once again stand on my soapbox to say that our future as leaders in innovation technology
must go beyond the ever popular “green” and “granola” projects.
Technological innovation has fueled this country for over a hundred years, and it distinguishes
this society from the rest of the developed world. It’s the very substance of our unique culture,
our mixing pot gene pool, and it’s the only thing that can save us from the inexorable
homogenization of globalization. For as globalization neutralizes one countries’ population,
natural resource or location advantages, it is the “cultural” make up of that society that will allow
it to thrive in the long term.
China, for example, has enormous population resources, is increasingly well educated, offers a
lower pay scale and standard of living, and has vast numbers able to work for less. The OPEC
states have huge energy reserves and capital that comes from that abundance. For today at least,
Singapore is a central, stable and predictable gateway from the Far East to the West. However,
all of these advantages are temporary. China’s standard of living will rise, as will the
expectation of its populace. Oil will run out, or its impact will be mitigated as we rush toward
global warming solutions, and the pivotal role of such hubs as Singapore or Malaysia will be
reduced as globalization increases the prosperity of South and Central America and, inevitably,
Africa. Once globalization has worked its stirring of the pot, only education, technological
sophistication, and culture will allow one country to win out over another in the “standard of
living” game.
Consider that the U.S. no longer has a population willing to work cheap, we don’t have easily
accessible natural resources, and we continue to fall behind in education, particularly in the very
technical areas that drive innovation. What’s left? It’s our risk taking, our belief in second, third
and forth chances. It’s our love of invention and inventors that can save us from this recession
and station us to stand against the homogenization of globalization.
There are so many pundits now declaring that this country’s economy can be resurrected by
innovation that even I am impressed. But many wonder whether we have lost the ability to
innovate, whether the fundamentals of our innovative culture are gone.
A recent article in Business Week by Michael Mandel, “The Failed Promise of Innovation in the
U.S.,” suggests that while we think of this as an innovative nation, we’ve really been deluding
ourselves. In reality, he says, our “innovation quotient” has been going down for many years.
An interesting observation that, I think, misses the point. We may have slipped in terms of the
“evidence” of innovation, i.e. new product launches, billionaires made by startups, or the
number of start ups, but these indicators don’t prove we’ve lost our innovative edge. What they
demonstrate is that the support systems for innovation, meaning the societal institutions
necessary to bring an innovation to market, have been seriously crippled. So, perhaps Mandel is
right, but for the wrong reasons.
First, let’s examine the workshop, the place and the people of innovation. We love to think of
Bill and Dave in their garage in Palo Alto cobbling together their first oscillator and building
Hewlett Packard into a billion dollar company, but most fundamental innovation is done in
government and corporate labs, at least the complex technologies of today. Garage inventors
can’t afford a $10K spectrum analyzer or mass spectrometer or diamond press. Sure, there are
amateur tinkerers out there, adding technologies into everyday objects, but most groundbreaking
work comes from deep pocket institutions like universities, national labs and a few visionary
corporations. Technology has become so complex that great innovations take more money and
time than the little guy can afford.
Another cause for the decline lies in the fact that our corporations have little stomach for the
tough work required to bring a revolutionary technology to market. Most American corporations
aren’t interested in serious new product development. Those that are seem to be controlled by the
gods of “process control,” like Six Sigma, and have no tolerance for skunk works projects not
directly aligned with proclaimed corporate goals. Serendipity is not allowed. Not on this year’s
product planning list? Sorry, no funding. Your product will take five years to develop? No thank
you. Companies would rather buy technology after it is established, and leave the risky
exploration to other. With no freedom to explore, there is very little invention.
Finally, I am fundamentally convinced that the way we think of money has changed in the last
few decades, and this has a significant impact on how we look at investing in innovations. We’ve
become driven by short term profits. When stock values rise and fall on projected quarterly
profits and the opinions of a 25 year old junior analyst in Boston or New York, you can’t expect
big investments in interesting artifacts. Long term investment in innovation is antithetical to
short term profit.
Another interesting financial development of the past 30 years is the ability to compare various
investment types by a common measure; the discounted cash flow model. This Procrustean bed
of financial measurement allows investors to choose investments based on the discounted cash
flow at its present value - or what an investment is worth today. If the projected profit from an
invention in years two thru five are not adequate, investors choose real estate, IT, or stock swap
debentures, not innovation. Never mind that a patent will last for 17 or so years; the projected
cash from years seven through 17 is considered irrelevant and “discounted” and has virtually no
impact on present value.
So, where does this leave us and how do we get back on track? Clearly, our nation’s risk quotient
is a bit off, but we haven’t lost the cultural DNA to invent, and while other countries can buy
equipment, buildings and technical expertise, they can’t buy our culture. This is our strength and
we need an environment in which to preserve and exercise it. If there was ever a need for federal
and state government support, it is in this arena. We must create an environment in which
innovators can actually innovate.
The federal government has the STTR/SBIR programs, which while broken by cronyism, at least
serves as a starting point. Some states have technology funds, like the well run Emerging
Technology Fund here in Texas, but most are small, inadequate and run by bureaucrats rather
than entrepreneurs. We need to develop more programs like these - programs that support
innovators and idea people, not road builders, not administrators.
To date, we have allocated nearly a trillion dollars to bailing out banks and financial institutions
and stimulating big business. Imagine what might happen if we put that kind of funding, and our
faith, into the hands of inventive engineers and forward thinking small companies? With that
kind of commitment and support, we might help this nation hang on to its leadership in
innovation technology, and even create some jobs while we’re at it.
EDITORS NOTE: BUSINESS WEEK ARTICLE
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_24/b4135000953288.htm?
chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_dialogue+with+readers
No Comments
An open letter to my congressman on Memorial Day, 2009
Posted by Mike on May 25th, 2009 in Uncategorized
Dear Congressman Henserling.
I am writing to you on Memorial Day, 2009 after spending time at the grave side of Army Spc.
Heath Pickard of Palestine, a fatherless young man who went to Frankston High School with
three of my sons and spent much of his young life living at our home, eating dinner with us,
having his birthdays with us, and being very much a son to my wife Donna and I. With me this
day to honor Heath were my sons Airman Robert Rainone of the 34th Combat Communication
Squadron at Tinker AFB and Pvt. Raymond Rainone of 3rd Battalion, 144 Infantry, Texas Army
National Guard, Palestine unit. Missing from this group were sons SSgt. Christopher B. Rainone
of the 136th Airlift Wing, Texas Air National Guard, at Carswell JRB and Sgt. Gabriel Rainone
now of 3rd Battalion, 144th Infantry, Texas Army National Guard. Previously, Gabriel earned the
Combat Infantry Badge, which is awarded only to infantrymen who have seen significant action,
as a M-240 gunner in the Army’s 3rd ID, and spent all of 2005 stationed in Kamalaya, Iraq. I
mention my military family not because I want your admiration or thanks, they deserve the
thanks, not I, rather I want you to understand that when a father sends his sons into combat, to be
responsible for the protection of this country, he expects that his government will fully reflect
that responsibility back to them, to there fellows and to their families.
I am writing to you as a very disturbed taxpayer. I am not disturbed by the spending of President
Obama, nor am I in the least bit critical of anything he has done so far. He has been a breath of
fresh air, and I believe that he has restored dignity to the office and to this country. No, I am
disturbed by the our unwillingness to fully face up to the damage that we have caused the men
and women of our armed services, those who have served with valor, been wounded,
permanently disabled and/or disfigured. I acknowledge that they are given a degree of care, but it
is obvious that they are abandoned in their rehabilitation and recovery. Sunday Morning, the
CBS New Program on Sunday morning did a segment on a soldier whose face was destroyed in a
IED attack in Iraq. The segment was about the group, not a governmental group but a group of
volunteers who work to find funding for the continuing plastic surgery that is required to bring
some semblance of “humanness” to their features. It was stated that they have to do this because
our government will provide only ONE THIRD of the cost for these surgeries. During the
Memorial Day broadcast last night on PBS, the most important figure was an Army Sergeant
who lost half of his brain in a grenade attack in Iraq. In this case it wasn’t the lack of care that
was inadequate, it was the lack of support for his mother and sister. These two gave up
everything to provide the loving care that the government could not provide. They gave up their
home, their lives; they went hungry, and had to depend on donations for food, bare subsistence
living so that they could give care for his survival, because the government would provide
nothing for the care giving family, the family doing the job that somehow did not figure into the
cost of this war.
Frankly, I am appalled. This has obviously made me angry enough to write this letter, and it will
be just the first in my effort to find out how a nation who asked so much could begrudge those
young men and women and their families so little. I know that you personally bear the weight of
waging these wars with great empathy and carefully weighed the vote to allow the President to
send our children into combat, but perhaps it is because, unlike so many of us out here, many in
congress have not sent a child into combat or even served in the military, that they did not and do
not fully understand the REAL cost of the war. I would like to believe that you all will
eventually realize that the cost of sending the children of others into harm’s way goes beyond,
gun, bullets, tanks and planes- the mechanism by which we bring the war to our enemy, we must
also pay the price for those that come back from the war whatever their condition. I am not sure
that in the rush to engage in this war, anyone really understood the pain-mental, physical and
fiscal that it was really going to cost. Perhaps this denial of full restitution is some way of cost
reduction, but it is certainly not facing our duties. I don’t know, but as the father of sons who
have been and are again going into harm’s way, I insist the we as a people own up to our
responsibilities to all who have been wounded, disfigured and disabled in the service of this
country, regardless of the time it takes, regardless of the cost.
Sincerely,
Michael D. Rainone
No Comments
I have been out to lunch for several months now!
Posted by Mike on October 13th, 2008 in Uncategorized
Hello, folks, For the past few months I have been really slammed working at PCDworks
(http://pcdworks.com/) and writing my column for Product Design and Development magazine
(http://www.pddnet.com/scripts/ShowPR~RID~23460.asp). I have neglected my TechnologyWonk
blog seriously. I plan to remedy this in the very near future. If there is an area of interest that you
would like me to talk about, please contact me at mrain1@pcdworks. com and I will attemp to dig
into it. Thanks, Mike
No Comments
New application of carbon nanotubes may be answer to fresh
water crisis.
Posted by Mike on June 12th, 2008 in material
https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2008/NR-08-06-03.htm l

Every once in a while a piece of research sneaks in that gives a glimmer of hope to an impending
crisis, and by the way the above website has a GREAT animation of how this thing works. While we
are all mostly worried about the price of fueling up our Hummers, probably the greatest, most
immediate threat to life as we know it is the fresh water shortage. That doesn’t mean that I think that
many in this country will suffer greatly in the short term, unless by suffering you mean that some will
be deprived of our plush yards. What I do mean is that the vast numbers of “others” of our species in
the Far East, Africa, even the Middle East will suffer starvation, disease and a precarious existence in
the future because of this expanding shortage.
Enter the folks from Laurence Livermore Labs with their revelation on the use of carbon nanotubes
for the filtration of water. They found that these tubes have the ability to flow water molecules
through them in a surprisingly rapid way. Mind you that these tubes are 100 times smaller than a
human hair, so the fact that water flows relatively unimpeded through them is pretty weird, but it is
the potential for filtration that is what has everyone so excited.
The researchers found that for some reason, and they think that it is because of the atomic
characteristics of the end of the tubes, salt water or specifically the ion of NaCl that is attached to the
water molecule is rejected by the tube, the ion split off and the newly freed fresh water passes
through.
This, of course, suggests a great, low energy desalinization membrane. Next steps include
investigating methods of getting the tubes to stack up neatly to create a full membrane.
Here is the concern. For the last 50 years or so, for every crisis we humans have faced, we have
trusted our technological genius to bail us out. Super strains of rice to feed more people, more potent
fertilizer, betting that virologist will develop an anti-bird flu vaccine before the big outbreak, now
super filters to provide fresh water: All of human ills fixed in the last minute of the game, bailing our
butts out, thus saving us from our excesses, our inability to control ourselves, our inability to
recognize and acknowledge an impending crisis, BEFORE it becomes a crisis.
One of these days, technology will not save us; people in large numbers will die. Maybe we are at the
beginning of the die off, maybe Malthus was right after all.
No Comments
If it sounds like trouble, it probably is…
Posted by Mike on April 11th, 2008 in material, power generation, vibrations, wind
http://www.rdmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=014&ACCT=1400000100&ISSUE=080
4&RELTYPE=MIC&PRODCODE=0000000&PRODLETT=EI&CommonCount=0

A Zenit-3SL rocket explodes on its floating launch platform—an incident initally described as an
“anomaly”—on January 30th. (credit: Sea Launch)
I came across this interesting piece of research about sound and vibrations induced by sounds and
while some folks would just blow by it without notice, I could not help but read this and start
thinking about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Almost everyone has seen videos of the galloping bridge that destroyed itself in a wind induced,
harmonic frenzy. Again, “wind induced” because only the wind was at play in its demise, and
“harmonic” because vibrations, then oscillations, then destruction happen because those vibrations
added together to produce bigger vibrations, which are amplified into larger and larger oscillation to
the point of the bridge tearing itself apart.
What is interesting is that this is just an example of how adding a little bit of energy to a system at
just the right point can cause huge consequence. It is like pushing someone on a swing. All you have
to do is push with just enough energy to overcome the friction -mechanical and air- in the system and
then just a bit more on every push and pretty soon the swing and rider will go over the top. (Do this
with someone you don’t like, not your kids, by the way.)
To the point of this: These folks at Georgia Tech found a way to simulate the sonic vibrations (an
energy source) as they propagate through the system (of the rocket) accumulate and reinforce
themselves to the point of destruction of the system. They were able to isolate the sonic induced,
harmonic vibrations, visualize the accumulation and flow patterns and understand how they could
cause mechanical failure.
This simulation, in and of itself, is fascinating - at least to me- and really reinforces the interplay
between energy and matter; how it is generated and most importantly how it is transmitted,
reinforced and absorbed. Think about how energy is transmitted, reinforced and absorbed in and
through a solid - like the steel in a bridge, or a fluid, like rocket fuel or air, and you will begin to
understand something beautiful, elegant and amazing, the interplay of matter and energy. Look for
another article on phonons (right, go Google this) to help tie this vibration thing together. I owe this
to you.
No Comments
Coffee and Donuts as the basic food group… I knew it!
Posted by Mike on April 4th, 2008 in anti aging, biology

How did they know?

http://www.physorg.com/news126417255.html
Research for the cop in all of us! Now it is finally scientifically verified that the cops had it right all
along. Coffee and donuts are good for us all, or at least the coffee is good for you if you eat too many
donuts.
If you have been reading my blog for more than a few weeks, you would know that inflammation is
near and dear to my heart, and brain and well, whatever. Now from the University of North Dakota
comes evidence that if you drink coffee with your donuts, the caffeine in the coffee bolsters the blood
brain barrier (BBB) to protect your brains from the inflammatory effects of high cholesterol.
Somehow, high cholesterol attacks the BBB and renders it “leaky” which makes it more susceptible
to blood borne attackers like whatever causes Alzheimer’s, and caffeine fixes the leaks!
Now no one really knows what is the bad actor in Alzheimer’s really is except they think it include
prions. Prions are proteins which are really not alive, they are just weirdly folded protein bits which
induce some of our brain’s proteins to coagulate into plaques which kills your brain, eventually.
Obviously, if caffeine can keep your BBB from becoming leaky, then the prions can’t get to your
brain. At least that the theory. On the other hand, I don’t think that anyone really knows where prions
come from, or for that matter what really causes Alzheimer’s EXCEPT that there seems to be a
cholesterol connection.
Now, I am not going to tell you to avoid the high cholesterol thing, which would be the most sensible
think to do if you were worried about your blood brain barrier, but I will tell you that if you must
indulge in high cholesterol, at least drink your coffee with it. And by the way, tell a cop, make their
day!
No Comments
Photosynthesis the key to the hydrogen future?
Posted by Mike on March 25th, 2008 in power generation, power storage, vehicle

http://www.physorg.com/news125666441.html
Well, if we are going to have a hydrogen future, it’s either going to be based on fossil fuel in the
form of a fuel cell reformer - the part of fuel cell that takes what ever you feed it and strips out the
hydrogen- or it going to be based on some other way of generating hydrogen. The oil companies are
of course hoping for a fossil fuel based system, but the plant folk are make great progress on figure
out how to split water into its two components via artificial photosynthesis.
The German researchers from Research Centre Jülich working with researchers from Emory
University have managed to create an inorganic, Ruthenium - a rare earth, transition metal- catalyst
which is the first piece needed for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen without being destroyed
in the process. (Organic “catalysts” work, but are destroyed in the process- some catalyst, huh - they
are renewed by being regrown)
Now, they haven’t exactly used sunlight to make the system work yet, claims the “very important
paper’, but they have synthesized the inorganic catalyst part.
There are two take aways from this announcement. First, since this catalyst is inorganic, it doesn’t
need to be renewed as it would if it were organic. I suppose if your H2 generator were “alive”, you
would probably have to maintain a sludge tank on top of your fuel cell car of the future, to contain
the renewable photosynthetic system. On the other hand, once they can couple this inorganic catalyst
to the sun, all you need is the sun, of course, and the powered catalytic body to peel off the H2 from
plain old water.
The second take away is - my what a beautiful horse race this will turn out to be. Big oil vs. big plant.
If the plant guys, or for that matter anyone who has a competing system to split water up wins, big oil
could be screwed! I know of some other catalytic systems that are in the works as well, so stay tuned.
This could turn out to be great grist for the conspiracy mill!

Imagine the headlines “Big Oil gulps the solution to cheap hydrogen!” or “Cargil vs. Exxon - Who
passed the big Gas!?” It’s just like the 100 MPG carburetor; you know, the one that works on water!
The National Inquirer will have a field day.
No Comments
A side note on technology , feasibility and the New Product
Development process.
Posted by Mike on March 20th, 2008 in New Product Development
As a trained brain innovator for now over 50 product innovation brainstorming sessions in the past
15 years, I am amazed at the fumbling that goes on AFTER the session is over. Most innovation
sessions end up with hundreds of potentially great product ideas, which are then filtered down to
maybe a dozen really good, viable new product concepts. The best of course, are based on the
application of new technological solutions to the problems at hand.
Immediately after an innovation session is over, most marketing groups run out to test the viability of
the concept in the “marketplace” via VoC (Voice Of the Customer) research or focus groups before
they even know if the product is technically feasible: They try to get a feel for whether the market
will buy it and under what conditions. I have seen way too many products come back from focus
groups “good to go”, beloved by the customer, all featured up, before they have been thought through
from a technical and engineering standpoint. The marketing group comes back to engineering with a
big smile on their face and a big “thumbs up” saying “OK, the customers love it, now go build it.”
If engineers know anything, it is that almost anything can be built, but at what price and what misery.
So the marketers and builders of “business cases” ignore at least four of the six significant areas of
feasibility in this rush to Market Feasibility testing: They miss Technical (Engineering) Feasibility,
obviously; Manufacturing Feasibility -if you don’t know the technology and the engineering, how the
heck do you know if and how you can build it; Pricing (part of the Financial Feasibility), like duh,
how much can I charge for it or more appropriately, how much will the customer pay for it; and
Patent Feasibility - if you don’t know the technology how can you know if you can protect it or,
more importantly, are you infringing on someone else patent. (That only leaves Distribution
Feasibility- which means do you have channels in which to get this thing to market untouched.)
The most logical approach, an approach that is from my standpoint cheaper, both in time to market
and sunk cost, in the long run, is to look into the technological feasibility of the product, BEFORE
you start showing wild ass NPD concepts to the market. If you try to build something to test its
technological feasibility, to prove that from an engineering standpoint you can build it, you will by
default come up with: 1) A notion of how and if you can manufacture it . 2) You will also get a guess
at what it might cost along with what the feature set will cost; 3) You will no doubt go to the patent
archives to look for ways of solving the problem, since one of the best ways to solve a problem is to
find out how people have solved it in the past. So by going straight to the technological feasibility
exercise, you will reduce uncertainty (which is what this feasibility thing is all about) much quicker
than if you simply go to the market research first.
A lesson in point: after a brainstorming session a customer brought a focus group “annoited” product
to us and said “OK, now they want this thing and we want to use this motor on it, the thing is
absolutely feasible with this motor at this cost!” We looked at it for a while and snickered back: “It’s
really good that you could do this with this motor, but what about the transmission of the power into
the device?” They had based their belief about the feasibility of the product on cost of the motor,
without looking at how they were going to get the power into the device”. If they had gone down a
path to see if the thing could be engineered and prototyped, to look at its true technical feasibility,
they would have more seriously understood where the uncertainty, the risk, was really.
Sometimes, we base our belief about the feasibility of a product on the LEAST important part. If
companies would do a little technical feasibility homework BEFORE they take it out for a drive at
the church of consumer evaluation, they would save themselves big heartache latter. So remember,
GET PHYSICAL FAST!
No Comments
Past Volcanic action, long run out earth slides and
incompressible beds on my mind, …
Posted by Mike on March 17th, 2008 in earth science, mechanics
Settle down in your bunker and get ready for yet another way for civilization as we know it to be
wiped out! Tsunamis are most often the result of tectonic activities which produce earthquakes. But
when you start looking around for the really bad actors, Wiki the term “Sturzstrom” which are long
run out earth slides. These are not your average run of the mill earth slides, the tumble to the bottom
of the hill and stop kind. No, these monster can “run” 20 times the height of the top of the “land”
mass from which they spring or fall or whatever …
The interesting thing about the Struzstrom is that water is not needed for the flow. The mass, be it on
dry land or down the side of the sea mount under water, flows on an incompressible layer of fines
which acts as a lubricious bearing surface and just keeps the mass moving happily along. While I
can’t find a reference for it, I think the term “Sturzstrom” comes from the Swiss, the German part of
the Swiss of course, who lost a village in the Alps, from just such a slide.
What is also interesting is when the USGS (Geological Survey) did a mapping study of the sea floor
around the Hawaiian island chain they found that when they found a “sliding face” the run out ratio
was 20 to 1; i.e. a face who’s face was a mile high, there was evidence of a 20 mile run out of
previously fallen face, under water. These “slud” (blame that word on Dizzy Dean) faces are call
debris aprons after they slide. And they are EVERYWHERE around the Hawaiian islands. Imagine
how much energy was displaced into the water by those slides.
Finally, not only are we still in danger from the Hawaiian islands, the entire Eastern seaboard of the
US is threatened by the Canary Islands, who’s volcanic face is aimed roughly at North Carolina. The
possibility of a “megatsunami” or iminami is much greater than you think from such an event. It has
happened in the past and it will happen in the future. Imagine a 150 ft. wall hitting Myrtle Beach, just
about the time for the Master’s, which is coming up in April. I think that Tiger’s jacket will be more
than the funny shade of green. Wiki “megatsunami” for more info on this…
1755, 2007 European earthquakes compared from PhysOrg.com
An Italian-led team of seismologists has conducted a study comparing a 2007 earthquake off
southwestern Portugal with a similar 1755 earthquake.
[…]
Tsunami that devastated the ancient world could return from PhysOrg.com
“The sea was driven back, and its waters flowed away to such an extent that the deep sea bed was
laid bare and many kinds of sea creatures could be seen,” wrote Roman historian Ammianus
Marcellus, awed at a tsunami that struck the then-thriving port of Alexandria in 365 AD.
[…]
No Comments
More on the incredible, edible… ah, frog skin?
Posted by Mike on March 14th, 2008 in Uncategorized
Last time in this forum I was wondering about the relationship between inflammation, O (singlet
oxygen), aging and death and promised to “’splain it to you” as best I can. Here goes.
Singlet oxygen has an unpaired electron. It’s like N instead of N2. O instead of O2. These atoms
don’t like living alone. The want to hook that unpaired electron up with something, and almost
anything will do.
As you might guess, singlet oxygen is produced in huge quantities in lots of biological processes.
Our body uses radicals in many way, including killing bugs. Macrophages, for instance attack bugs
by injecting them with radicals. This has a tendency to ruin their day by blowing them up. The
problem is that they, the radicals, attach to our cellular membranes, including plasma and
mitochondrial membrane through a process called lipid peroxydation which attacks unsaturated fatty
acids present in membrane phospholipids as well as other membrane proteins. In other words, it
wrecks our cellular membranes, makes them rigid, weak and ready for the trash heap.
I guess you are, being quick witted folks, getting where I am going now: The health of the
membranes, the packages that all living cells must maintain, is directly related to the process of
aging. When your skin gets saggy, loses its elasticity, when the muscles don’t work as well, to what
do owe this to? Cellular aging. I suggest that Imre Zs.-Nagy in his (her?) book the “Membrane
Hypothesis of Aging” may be on to something. Human death and aging is cellular death, cellular
death is caused by membrane death.
Where does inflammation lie in all of this. Inflammation is the result of a huge biochemical cascade
response which gets rid of pathogens and “other bad actor” in the body, real or imagined. The
biochemical agents are designed among other things to produce a huge multiplication of the cascade
of the “compliment system” of the immune response, which includes a complex of chemicals called,
interestingly, the Membrane Attack System. The MAS’s job it is to, well, attack membranes,
especially cell membranes. It would be nice if the membranes it attacked were bad guy membranes,
but alas, it ain’t always the case.
When I said that the bad actors could be real or imagined, I was not being facetious. Auto immune
disorders, which include 35 or so really nasty things from Type I diabetes to Myasthenia Gravis (Lou
Gehrig’s disease), MS, Crohn’s disease, Lupus, Celiac disease and Rheumatoid arthritis just name a
few, hurt and kill people because the immune system imagines a problem that is not real. The
immune system kills cells by inflamming and attacking membranes membranes.
Why is it not possible that this is the very mechanism responsible for our aging? Just in the act of
protecting ourselves from the bad actors that try to kill us, we kill ourselves. Slowly but surely, day
by day we kill ourselves.
Maybe in the act of eating Kermit we save ourselves. I have a whole pond full of the critters. Or are
they toads? In any case, take your Ibuprofen and maybe save yourself, inflammation free.
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