Fantasist's Scroll

Fun, Fiction and Strange Things from the Desk of the Fantasist.

3/4/2004

Starve for Immortality

Filed under: — Posted by the Fantasist during the Hour of the Hare which is in the early morning.
The moon is Waning Crescent

No, I’m serious.

My darling wife posted a link to the Calorie Restriction Society on her blog and I thought I’d share that with the regular reader of my own blog. (I know there’s at least one of you…) These folks are convinced that if a person restricts their caloric intake, they can radically extend their life. Now, I’ve seen this before and, my wife’s obession with caloric intake aside, there’s actually some research to back it up. Of course, my wide-load Girl Scout cookie loving butt is somewhat skeptical, but, then, who wouldn’t be?
On the other hand, I can see how this might be a really good theme or gimmick for a story. Shoot, it would even work for either a science-fiction story or a fantasy story. In fact, I seem to recall something like this in an Earl Dumarest novel from E.C. Tubb. Though, of course, I can’t remember which one. I just remember a nasty zealot who used food only as fuel for his body. He was, obviously, cadaverously thin. Funny thing was, he was searching for a formula that Dumarest had stolen that conveyed, you guessed it, immortality.

3/2/2004

Travelling without a Stomache

Filed under: — Posted by the Fantasist during the Hour of the Hare which is in the early morning.
The moon is Waning Crescent

Can it be done?

They used to say that an army travells on its stomache, meaning that supplies and supply lines, especially food, determine how and why an army moves. But, what can you do about that? Well, according to this article on Wired News, DARPA is trying to make a soldier that doesn’t need to eat for five days. The project is called “Metabolic Dominance” and it’s an attempt to use biochemical “cocktails” of various kinds to overcome or get around the body’s need to ingest food for long periods of time. It’s a fairly radical step in both biochemistry and military science. Imagine what might have happened to Moscow if Napolean’s troops hadn’t needed as many supplies. Awsome. This technology, if they can perfect it, combined with the other things DARPA has in the works, really could change the face of war so radically that it may just become science-fiction. Joe Haledman may have been far more prophetic than he imagined with The Forever War, not to mention the classic Starship Troopers by Heinlein.

I honestly believe that this happens all the time. If you live long enough, you’ll see yesterday’s science-fiction become today’s reality.


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