[extropy-chat] Computing Power: Moore's Law keeps going and going and going

[ben]

Robert Bradbury wrote:
> If all you want to do is burn fat then its simple -- drugs or gene
> therapies that activate the mitochondrial uncoupling proteins.  This
> is a normal biochemical mechanism that decouples the proton gradient
> in the mitochondria allowing the energy derived from glucose or fat
> metabolism to be "thrown away".  The mitochondria will work harder to
> maintain the proton gradient producing heat while consuming energy
> resources.  Now of course the rest of the biochemical system to
> mobilize the fat from the fat cells has to be intact.  Alternatively,
> targeted uncoupling within the fat cells would work but I suspect
> this is trickier since they are generally setup to store energy
> reserves not burn them.

When we're babies, we all have something called brown adipose tissue, or
BAT - sometimes called 'brown fat', that does exactly this. It seems
it's purpose is to burn fat to produce heat, to help infants survive
until their homoeostatic mechanisms are mature and robust enough.

Some people keep this BAT into youth and even adulthood, i think we all
have a bit of it. It can probably explain the skinny teenagers who eat
and eat and eat (i used to be one).

It seems likely that this BAT could be prodded into action in adults, or
maybe a 'BAT transplant' would be feasible.

Over to the real biologists.

ben (fake biologist)