Last updated 3 August 2010
All articles, stories and presentations copyright 2008-2010 by Vincent E. Giuliano, all rights reserved
I set up this web site to share some of my writings and presentations with friends and colleagues. The site is a slowly evolving work in progress and now contains twenty-eight items. The main focus is on sharing current writings. I have been adding past writings as I get around to them. Over the years I have produced some 200-300 articles, books, stories and media presentations. I have picked historical items that have current value, that are available in digital format, and that are not redundant. Many more of my past writings are in print-only or now out-of-print. Diligent searching on the Internet will show traces of them. I expect to continue resuscitating some of the better works and publishing them on this site.
Update August 3, 2010: On May 26, 2010, I posted a draft of the slides for a new presentation that will be given at the American Aging Association's 39th annual meeting in early June: Towards a Systems Theory of Aging. Most of my research and writing efort over the last year have been focused on the blog and on my treatise ANTI-AGING FIREWALLS - THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF LONGEVITY. My Anti-Aging Firewalls blog has now grown to contain 303 posts, many of which are mini-treatises, and 539 comments. The entries cover a wide variety of health and longevity-related issues. I have typically been posting 3 long blog entries per week and updating the treatise every two weeks or so. In the last five months I have noted decided increases in the number of reader accesses to the blog and treatise site. On the average day more than 1,700 different people access the sites and view at least 2 web pages. And this usage appears to be increasing about 15%-20% per month. There is also a decided increase in the number of posted comments on the blog and a number of new users register every day. I infer that the blog postings are being used as reference sources since Google coverage of the blog entries has been excellent and new comments are often related to older blog postings. It is very pleasing to me to know that what I am writing is being read.
Update March 31, 2010: The LHC superconducting supercollider is running at near full power. Yesterday's news described experiments at the 7 tevavolt level. Will it bring an end to the world or an end to the universe as some have feared? Probably not. And if it does, nobody will notice since we will all be off in some undefined dimension. In any event, this is a good time to point again to my science fiction story SUPERCOLLIDER which was inspired by the LHC project and the popular worries it engenders. Most everything I say about the ULTIMA supercollider in this story is also true for the LHC, except that ULTIMA is envisioned to be on a somewhat grander scale. According to Google on November 23 2009, the world's press featured 2,490,000 news articles on the LHC. Many if not most of these stories mention fears about how the LHC is possibly going to end the world. My story is a science-based fantasy that outlines how a couple of possible end-of-world scenarios could come about.
I have moved older What's New items down to here:
I have ordered the list into categories:
Please feel free to contact me if you have any reactions or suggestions to share. You probably know my e-mail is vegiuliano@comcast.net
Science Fiction story. One night in April this year, just at bedtime I was possessed by the idea of a story. I had to make notes until 2AM before I could even think about going to bed. After that, I found I had to shove aside most other priorities in my life until I could get the story down and rounded out. Here is the current version. SUPERCOLLIDER is now in short story format, and at some point I might consider forging it into a screenplay. It is a long read but if you like sci-fi you might well find it worthwhile. I would love your reactions to it.
Anti-Aging Firewalls - The Science and Technology of Longevity
A major work describing my personal longevity program, updated biweekly or more frequently. Started May 15, 2008. Latest version August 3, 2010. This treatise is for the benefit of people interested in living very long healthy lives and who are willing to adapt emerging knowledge personally to do so. It is also for the health professionals who serve them. There are several major theories about the underlying causes of what we call aging and age-related causes of death, each with its own school of proponents. This paper outlines fourteen major theories of aging and in addition seven newer candidate theories. The treatise comments on how each theory relates to primary diseases of aging such as cancers, cardiovascular diseases and Alzheimer's disease. In-depth discussions and research updates related to these topics can be found in my blog. The treatise goes on to suggest a practical protective “firewall” against the biochemical processes underlying each major aging theory through dietary supplementation and lifestyle modifications. The idea is that each theory of aging points to certain underlying biological processes. Through slowing, preventing or even reversing these processes, it may be possible to slow, prevent or even partially reverse aging. The practical objective is not only living longer but also living free of age-related problems and diseases. I have been updating and expanding this treatise on a biweekly or more frequent basis since the first draft posted in May 2008. The process of aging research is like filling in a very large multidimensional jigsaw puzzle, one that is still perhaps only 20% complete. Most days I go on-line for hours scanning nooks and crannies of the research literature for new research-based insights relating to some special topic that interests me at that point, such as what causes adult stem cells to start generating brain progenitor cells? These insights go into a massive literature database I have created and become candidate pieces of the puzzle. When I find a number of pieces that seem to go together with existing parts of the puzzle, I fit them into this treatise. When if ever the puzzle is complete, it will be a complete map of what causes aging and what can be done about it, In the interim, my objective is that this treatise and the associated blog updates provides the best overall map available. Soon, I expect to generate a book based on what is here.
Blog, initiated January 22, 2009. Latest update August 3, 2010. The blog is created a companion to the Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise for reporting ofemerging longevity-related research news and discussion of related topics. It now contains 303 posts and 539 comments. Many of the recent posts are mini-treatises dealing with important health and longevity issues. An original purpose of the blog was to help readers keep up with what is going on without having to first get a Ph.D. in molecular biology to understand what is being written. A second purpose was to identify new pieces of the longevity puzzle as they are being revealed in the research literature. A third purpose of the blog is to allow followers of this site to raise probing issues that they are concerned with. All are welcome to register themselves and participate. A fourth major purpose has emerged: to provide me with a continuiing education in the new frontiers of science that will allow extrordinary longevity, including molecular biology, genetics, genomics and numerous other "omics." The blog can be found here. For a complete description of my longevity program and the science behind it, read the longer Anti-Aging Firewalls paper.
Science of Aging and Practical anti-Aging Interventions
PowerPoint presentation, first posted June 20, 2009 this 39-slide PowerPoint presentation provides an overview of the content in my treatise ANTI-AGING FIREWALLS - THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF LONGEVITY. It is a good introduction to my anti-aging work and is recommended for readers who have not read the treatise. The presentation also contains hyperlinks to multiple topics covered in more detail in the treatise and to selected items in my Blog. On-line PowerPoint presentations use scripts. Because of this feature in PowerPoint, you may have to give your browser security permission to view the presentation. If a warning bar comes up on your browser, click on it. And then you might be asked "Install active X control" and/or "Allow blocked content." You will then get another security warning and if you click "Yes" the full presentation will come up. Unfortunately, you will probably have to do at least one of these steps every time you navigate away to a hyperlink and then return to the PowerPoint presentation. Like both the Blog and treatise, this presentation is a work in progress. As time goes on I expect to update its contents and I may add additional multimedia features.
List of supplements, revised March 2008. My friends, colleagues and people I meet often wonder at the some 135 dietary supplement pills I take each day. So, we often get into discussions of the benefits of taking them. More often than not, after such a discussion the other person says something like "I would like to take some of those supplements but I want to limit the number of pills I take. Can you suggest to me a prioritized list of some kind?" That is a tough proposition but I have prepared a list of my Top 10 Supplements which I have e-mailed to a number of people. The document also briefly summarizes the advantages of taking each supplement. The list is here. For a complete description of my longevity program, read the longer Anti-Aging Firewalls paper.
Essay. Back in mid-1998 I perceived that a new paradigm of social organization was emerging. I called it the emergence of EMPOWERMENT NETWORKS. Technology-powered, back then and even more today Empowerment Networks are supplementing and in some cases supplanting corporations, political cliques and even governments as way of organizing to get things done. This is my original paper. When I get around to it I will update the document from a 2008 perspective to reflect some remarkable new empowerment networks. I will focus more on the impact of technology in making empowerment networks possible and also how the concept extends to blogger groups and networks in the political sphere like MOVE ON.
This is a short treatise on the topic of religion and evil. It was first written in 1995, inspired by the multiple acts of terrorism and violence by religious fundamentalists that were in the news then. The piece was triggered particularly by the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in Israel by a deeply religious man who said he was instructed to do the killing by God. I suggest a rating system for religions similar to that applied to Hollywood films, where ratings range from Inclusive to Profoundly Evil. The article was accepted for publication in the Israeli liberal web site Ariga where it remains on-line until today. It is available in an updated version here.
This is a Powerpoint Presentation of the slides that will be presented at the American Aging Society 39th annual meeting in Portland Oregon in early June 2010. The abstract of the presentation is: A comprehensive systems theory of aging must embrace the validated teachings of multiple existing special theories of aging, theories that range from oxidative damage to loss of mitochondrial function to neurological degeneration to telomere shortening and cell senescence to decline in hormone levels. The author has characterized 14 such major theories and an additional 6 candidate ones. While each such theory is correct in its own framework of reference, on the surface most seem to be largely i ndependent of the others. However, on the levels of molecular biology and genomics a rich network of links exists among these theories. The author suggests two overarching frameworks for integrating and clarifying existing understandings from the diverse theories of aging. One framework is lifelong programmed changes in global gene expression due to DNA methylation, histone acetylation and other epigenomic modifications. For example, aging-related decline of efficacy of DNA repair machinery might possibly result from promoter methylation of the Mms22 gene, resulting in increasing susceptibility to oxidative damage with age. Promoter methylation of the P21 and P53 apoptosis genes can result in increased susceptibility to cancers. The second framework sees aging as decline in functioning of the stem cell supply chain, the chain where adult stem and progenitor cells progressively differentiate as-needed into other cells of increased specificity and decreased pluripotency, resulting in lifelong renewal of somatic cell types. As the supplies of multipotent mesenchymal and haemopoietic stem cells available in their niches for differentiation decline because of their replicative senescence, for example, fewer progenitor and somatic cells are available to replace ones that have died or become senescent.
CyberCommunity and PhysicalCommunity
Article. Back in 1997 I hosted a series of forums in the New York Times On-line concerning the relationships between cyber communities and physical communities. I wrote this piece as an introduction to kick off the forum discussions. Many developments in the ensuing years like the emergence of MySpace, Facebook and the blogosphere further validate the points made.
Giuliano Four Laws of the Universe
Humor, but serious. This is a very short irreverent piece on what science knows, what I know and how knowledge is expanded. For a serious in-depth view of my relationship to the Universe, click here instead.
Beyond Rich, Famous and Lots of Pussy - On My Moral Code
Short serious essay. This document is about my moral code, a few simple principles that have guided me for almost 40 years and allowed me to live a rich, deeply satisfying life. Adapted from a short guest sermon at the Bear Island church.
Serious treatise.Back in the 1970s Judy and I were friends with Meriam Siegler, a powerful woman who was very much into Jungian Psychology and Jungian Personality Typology in particular. She taught me Jungian Personality Typology from her own scholarly viewpoint. I found the ideas profound and quickly saw how the typology could help me relate better to members of my family and colleagues. I embedded this framework in my behavioral responses. As the years passed I expanded the framework and applied it in surprising ways. For example, as part of a consulting contract I used it to provide a framework for curriculum program development in the IBM Worldwide Training Center. I wrote the first version of a paper explaining the typology 1987 and further expanded it in 1996 and 2003. Here is the 2003 version called A MODERN LOOK AT JUNGIAN PERSONALITY ANALYSIS. Nowadays, the best-known and most widely-used descendent of Jung's personality typology is Myers-Briggs which is basically equivalent to the one expounded here but unfortunately uses different names for some of the distinctions. The typology as expanded in my paper has a number of explanatory features not found in Myers-Briggs. And I have found several ways to apply this typology outside the realm of personality - such as to education and understanding the distinctions of classical and quantum physics. This is a longish paper but is worthwhile reading for someone who wants a good practical grasp of this area.
Fantasy story. Going through my computer files today, February 24, 2008. I came across this long-forgotten story which I apparently had drafted in 1990. Reading the story as if it were for the first time, I realize that it provides a window of insight into an important aspect of my character as of that time and perhaps still now. It was written as an allegorical fairy tale and deals with a topic that bewildered me for most of my adult life: What is there about complete surrender to ecstasy in the act of sex that is transformative and has frequently left me with a profound feeling of peace and that “now I am ready to die.” Here is the story, an easy and fairly short read..
This essay deals with three mighty but semi-invisible streams of technological and social development that are conditioning who we are. I use UNIVAC, KEROUAC, and PROZAC as icons to name these streams representing electronic and information technology, powerful social trends that are liberating our minds and spirits, and drug and life-science developments that are altering our relationships to our bodies. I drafted this piece just about ten years ago, in 1988. Lost under the pressure of other priorities, the draft sat on my hard drives untouched for ten years. Reviewing it a few days ago (February 2008), I thought the thesis of the article has survived well in time. So I updated and expanded the original and am publishing it here.
PROTECTION AGAINST RADIATION - THE SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE
This 2008 review article and position paper deals with a second-line of protection against body damage and harm due to unwanted exposure to medical X-rays. This line of defense is minimization of radiation damage by interfering with the biological mechanism of radiation damage, that is, interfering with the propagation in tissues of free radicals created by X-rays. This kind of protection can be achieved through using commonly-available antioxidant supplements. This form of radioprotection is potentially of great importance to both patients and radiation professionals, though not yet established in clinical practice. Numerous references to relevant research studies are included in this yet-unpublished paper.
Reminiscences of a Retired Priest
Monolog. This item is another curiosity I found on my hard drive. It is the text of a monolog performance I created as a graduation project for an acting class. My grandmother badly wanted me to become a Catholic priest. It is about the kind of priest I would probably have become if my grandmother had gotten her way.
Humorous essay. Shoehorning is when you are already doing something important and slot in doing something else on the way - and then slot in doing something else yet, etc. It is a way of behaving that may sometimes be efficient but other times may be maddening. It can cause you to lose track of what you were trying to do in the first place. The two authors of this paper, Vince Giuliano and Hal Lyon, are habitual shoehorners and shoehorned in writing it while pursuing much more important projects.
Serious treatise. Back in the early 1980s when I was with the Arthur D. Little consulting company I was responsible for two large studies that looked at the policies a government had to adopt to function and thrive in the then-coming Information Age. One such study was for the National Science Foundation and was concerned with the US and US policies. The other was for a Dutch publishers association and looked at the same issues from the viewpoint of the Netherlands. When I was invited to participate in a conference on The Information Society in 1981 in Rotterdam, I submitted this paper. The article is what I thought KKarlMarx (writing as an economist, not a revolutionary) would say were he present at that time. The version here includes some comments from today's (March 2008) perspective. See also the Into The Information Age item listed below.
Serious treatise with embedded dialog. This is a summary of my personal philosophy and beliefs regarding the universe and its origins, creation, science, my purpose in life, and the game of life. I put forth a model for the creation of realities that goes beyond planning and acting. I relate this macroscopic reality-creation model to models for creation at the quantum scale and argue that the models are virtually identical. In this latest version I show how the model conforms to at least two major approaches to interpreting quantum phenomena. I suggest how an individual can practically generate creations using this model and describe a number of examples from my life. The latest version is here but I will probably never finish tuning or adding to this treatise. It contains an interesting embedded dialog with Jim Seltzer,
Conversation with Jeff on Being and Creation
E-mail dialog between Jeff Holcomb and Vince Giuliano (current) This document is a compendium of e-mail exchanges dealing with a number of scientific, philosophical and personal topics. The discussion was initiated by Jeff reading Vince’s essay On Being and Creation. It is included here for the insights it contains as well as revelations of what we do not know.
Conversation With Hal On Authenticity, Creation and Love
Internet dialog between Hal Lyon and Vince Giuliano (current) This document is a two-stage conversation that started with a posting by Hal on my blog. I have interspersed my comments with his. It is a discussion that wrestles with questions of authenticity and pretending as they relate to creation as described in my essay On Being and Creation. It is included here for the insights it contains relating love to creation and the possible role of pretending.
The Future of On-line and Print
Magazine interview (historic) This is a historic item from the early days of the web - 1996. Questions were put to me in Spanish by the Editor of Bitniks Magazine, a publication in Spain similar in "look and feel" to Wired magazine in the United States. I responded in English. I made a number of predictions then that were rather far out for back then. But they are surely maturing today. An example: "I am convinced that not too long from now -- in perhaps 7 to 15 years -- printed newspapers will go the same way (out of existence)." This statements did not endear me with my newspaper clients at the time but now the big-city daily newspapers have shrunk and are indeed dying. Also "-- electronic products appealing to all our sensations will arrive eventually. But they will not be "books"; they will be more like interactive soap operas. -- There will be cyberspace meeting rooms, great hallways, cathedrals, small intimate bars and bistros. People will meet by cyber-beaches, on top of mountains, in caves underground, in Japanese gardens." This exists in the Second Life 3D Virtual World today, a world of some 3-million "residents." The article in easy-to-read format on my site is here; the original article in Bitnics is still on-line here.
Newspapers, Transform Yourselves Or Die
Article published on-line (historic) Starting in 1993 I started a personal crusade to convince the owners of large newspapers and newspaper chains that their businesses had a limited life span unless they systematically set about to transform their organizations. The transformation required fully embracing Internet and adopting many changes in goals, style, management and operating philosophy. What was at stake was a transition from a newspaper being primarily an industrial-era manufacturing-centered organization to being a swiftly-evolving knowledge and technology-centered information-era one. Many of my writings and presentations in the following decade focused on this theme. This paper written in 2000 summed the situation up quite succinctly. When I started this crusade I felt newspapers were ideally positioned to become the great information instutions of the coming decades. Yahoo!, Google, eBay and the other great Internet services of today did not exist then. I thought that newspapers could combine their existing resources with innovation to become them. My visionary hope was not met. Most big city newspapers could not or would not meet the challenge. Some have already died and many others are very sick and in the process of slowly dieing.
Internet and Economic Competitiveness
Short article (historical) In this 1998 article I list typical characteristics of traditional industrial companies and contrast these with the typical characteristics of new highly-competitive knowledge-based organizations. I then go on to describe transformative opportunities offered by Internet for companies to become more knowledge-based and competitive.
Link to historical book Thirty years ago was long before the Internet. Computers occupied large air-conditioned rooms and could be found only in giant corporations and government agencies. Cell phones, e-mail, the web and HDTV were to come only far in the future. Services like Google, My Space, ebay or FaceBook were unthinkable. General Motors was king and Ford Motors Queen. We were primarily a manufacturing economy. Yet something was happening related to the emerging world of computers and communications, not only technical but perhaps even the emergence of a new social order. The National Science Foundation commissioned the Arthur D. Little Inc. consulting company to study the situation and lay out a perspective for federal policies and actions that would help the US be competitive in the environment that would emerge. I ran the study and wrote the report Into The Informtion Age - A perspective for federal action in information. The report was later published by the American Library Association. The report recommended policy, legislative and administrative actions the US federal government could take. It was one of the important early documents heralding the coming of the Information Age. I do not have a machine-readable copy of the report to put on this website but copies are available on ebay. You can get one by clicking here. See also the Information Manifesto item listed above,
What's Next, The New Media Landscape
This is a PowerPoint presentation in HTML format of basic trends likely to have profound affects on our lives over the coming 10 years - and key implications of these trends for newspaper companies. A presentation by Vince Giuliano to 65 international newspaper company owners and major executives from 28 countries, made at the WHAT'S NEXT: THE NEW MEDIA LANDSCAPE conference. This conference, sponsored by the Innovation International Media Consulting Group, was held in Cambridge Massachusetts October 16-17, 2005.
Power of the Internet in Creating Communities and in Re-enforcing Existing Communities
PowerPoint presentation in HTML format. This presentation
was made in 1998 in Bilbao Spain by invitation of the Fourteenth Congress of Basque Studies (XIV Congreso de Estudios Vascos). It offered my concept of how Internet could assist the Basque community in its development. At the time I was leading a consulting study for a major Basque newspaper to assist it in developing a strong on-line presence.Update October 9, 2009: I recently completed a major update of my Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise. Specifically I have proposed an original and comprehensive new theory of aging: the Stem Cell Supply Chain Breakdown theory. This has involved a major intellectual effort on my part integrating new material scattered through many blog entries and developing a new perspective of what constitute aging. Recently, I have been writing blog posts which are mini-treatises dealing with important longevity and health topics. On June 20, I added a 39-slide PowerPoint presentation THE SCIENCE OF AGING AND PRACTICAL ANTI-AGING INTERVENTIONS. This presentation provides an overview of and introduction to the content in my treatise ANTI-AGING FIREWALLS - THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF LONGEVITY. I updated the treatise on July 27, continuing a major update process I started three weeks previously. I also made a major revision about six weeks before with minor updates in-between and continuing. The treatise is now more than a year old and is significantly expanded and filled-in compared to the original version. I am continuing to update the Anti-Aging Firewalls Blog on a nearly-daily basis. The blog was started as a companion to the main Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise in late January 2009. The blog is intended to serve two purposes: first to facilitate open informal discussion with others interested in this subject, and second to provide a place for thoughtful discussion of new developments related to the science of aging as they come up. The blog also serves to drive me to continue educating myself on the sciences underlying longevity at a merciless rate. I am continuing to update and expand the main Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise roughly weekly to reflect my deepening understanding of how fast-moving developments in molecular biology and genetics are making it practically possible to live an extremely long and healthy life. On March 11 I added a new section describing the various kinds of research on which I base my work. On Feb 25 I added a note on protein folding in this treatise, an important topic related to understanding gene activation. On Feb 10, I created a new Section in the treatise, combining the life style recommendations for all of the firewalls and adding a few additional tips. The idea is that if you want to live to 200 or 300 years you have to live to 100 first, and that now requires applying lots of conventional wisdom related to life style as well as taking advantage of emerging discoveries. I also added internal hyperlinks within this treatise to facilitate navigation as it grows ever-longer and more complicated. My intent is to continue building this treatise as a definitie database on what is known by science about aging, and what can pratically be done to retard, stop or reverse aging. About to turn 80 this coming November, I find this work fascinating for both its professional and personal ramifications.
Update September 4,2008: Last Sunday I gave a short sermon as part of a laity service at St. Johns on the Lake Church August 30, 2008. This is a tiny rustic "church in the wildwood" on Bear Island on lake Winnipausakee where my summer island home is located. The subject was my personal moral code. The congregation seemed to like the talk, so I decided to write it up and put the code into a personal historical perspective. The document is here. Update September 15,2008: My Antiaging Firewalls paper is a major publication, certainly the most important one in this era of my life. It summarizes my accumulated knowledge relating to aging and interventions that I personally use to significantly extend my life and keep in a state of optimum health. This document is based on fourteen years of study on how to accomplish these ends, but it is far from static. Every spare moment I can grab, I find myself probing deeper into the recent research on the biology, biochemistry and genetics of aging, and striving to integrate a torrent of new discoveries into my framework of understanding. The result is that I can't leave this paper alone. There is always something to tweak or add. So, I have been updating this document weekly or more frequently. It is already quite evolved from the initial version released in May of 2008. Update April 20, 2008: I have found myself in back-and-forth
e-mail dialogs with several colleagues centered around issues raised in my On
Being and Creation essay. These have been intelligent conversations worthy
sharing with others. I have included two such documents, Conversations
with Jeff on Being and Creation, and On
Authenticity, Creation and Love on this site. To facilitate further exchanges
relating to this writing and any other, I have created a blog for this purpose,
the On Being, Creation and Reality Blog.
Please feel free to chime in. Other Vince Giuliano Webs I have a number of other webs besides this one. I started an art movement called ARTKOUKUO and its web can be found by clicking here. My personal art web site, Giuliano Art, is here. My consulting organization, the Electronic Publishing Group has its web here. A new web, displaying albums of my personal photographs, is here.
Family Webs
Joe Goldberg Giuliano's attorney reference site, and Law practice site