by Harry Marku
congratulations on being named a Nobel laureate!” the reporter from the Science News Network gushed. She pressed a foam covered microphone toward his face.
“Thank you,” Jankowiak replied graciously—although his face clearly suggested that he wanted to be anywhere else.
“Can you please describe your feelings when you heard your name announced?"
Jankowiak barely heard her through the befuddlement of the celebration. "This is too soon," he mumbled.
"Professor, what are your feelings at this moment?"
Jankowiak composed himself. “I am truly humbled," he answered. “Words are not adequate to express”—he drew in a long breath and composed himself—“of course, it is not my victory alone. Without my colleagues, Drs. Thomas and Rowland, we would not have synthesized the alpha blocker that performed so well in the clinical trials."
"And why is that, Professor?"
He looked at her as if she were a simpleton. "I am a computational scientist, not a chemist or biologist—as are my colleagues."
"Yes but your game predicted the molecular structure for the wonder drug that is proven to stop AIDS."
“The game was merely a light...”
“It was more than just a light.”
"Then I must also share my victory with the legions who played and contributed."
"Surely you cannot mean..."
"Of course I do. It was precisely because of the gamers that we even knew what to look for. Ten thousand minds of collective intelligence pieced together what one researcher, or many research groups, have not derived in a hundred careers."
“How do you propose to share your prize with ten thousand contributors?” The reporter's incredulity seemed contrived.
“I will include their names in my official acceptance press release. Ten thousand mentions of honor.” Jankowiak smiled at the possibility—and the consternation it would cause.
“Why?”
“They've earned a share in this victory,” he said simply.
“And your colleagues?”
“It is really no concern of yours, is it?”
"Where do you go from here?" The reporter backpedaled. Science news reporters were not expected to be provocative.
Jankowiak misunderstood. “Since you insist, they agree with me.”
“My apologies, Professor. Let me clarify. What's next on your research agenda?”
"Ah.” Jankowiak relaxed. “There are many more questions to answer, so many other diseases we might hunt. Or, we could go in a new direction. Identify and correct something degenerative in our DNA."
“You have something in mind?”
“Of course.”
"Can you share your idea?"
"Yes. One condition in particular has caught my attention. It is called Progeria—a genetic mutation of premature aging. It is very rare but very sad."
“Why something rare?” This time the reporter's criticism was real. “Why not something more common—like cancer or heart disease or even psoriasis?”
“There are many good minds already focused on those problems.”
“But isn't the obscure a disservice to the technology?”
“It's not obscure. It's an issue of universal importance.”
“I thought you said it was rare, this Pro... Pro... premature aging."
“It's not the symptom we seek, it is the cause. And the cause is the essential question, 'how long may one live?' ”
“How long may one live?” The reporter repeated verbatim.
“Yes. Children with Progeria seldom survive into their twenties. Their entire aging process is fast-tracked. When they are adolescent their skin wrinkles, they develop atherosclerosis or arthritis or worse—all the conditions we associate with advanced age—and then, sadly, they die early bearing all the hallmarks of old age.”
The reporter's face framed a question but Jankowiak was ready.
“It's genetic, not environmental.” He had anticipated the question. “Something in their DNA is shifted in a way we instinctively despise. It is hard to look at a child whose appearance is that of an elder and not feel dismayed or be repulsed. We all want to live long, full lives. Children with Progeria are denied that. To understand what reverses Progeria is to unlock a secret of biological aging and perhaps move a step closer to longer life.”
Jankowiak smiled and the reporter took the cue.
“Is this a quest for immortality, Dr. Jankowiak?” she asked.
“Not at all. This is a quest to unlock one's true potential. A human life is short and fragile. By the time one has mastered a craft he or she is ready to either retire or expire.” Jankowiak sighed. “What a waste!”
“How—?”
Jankowiak interrupted, “We don't seek immortality, we seek to further the reaping of one's rewards.” His face turned down with seriousness. “Immortality? For me, that would be arrogance. I leave that quest to others who are truly great.”
Year 8
The Methuselah Project
“We seek to prolong life”—Professor Jankowiak began his invited talk—“but we're sufficiently humble to realize that Nature's answers lie beyond the thinking of one person or one group, no matter how intelligent any of us deludes ourselves to be.”
Most in the audience nodded their heads in affirmation. A few who were too arrogant declined.
“And if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery”—Jankowiak paused for effect and to allow the late arrivals to settle in place—“what we've done is curry favor with a process far more mature than ourselves.”
The room quieted. A few harried rustles and bumps emanated from the back of the small auditorium where the latecomers scurried into the few remaining seats. It was the best attended seminar of the year.
“Not by copying a product of nature, such as the whale's fin design for a windmill fan blade or replicating the gecko's foot pads to make Velcro®... rather, we seek to emulate Nature's process—for her processes are far more complex than any of our products.”
Jankowiak's eyes scanned over an audience in interpretive thought.
“Under stimuli, many birds, fishes and insects flock, school and swarm—an en masse response—where individuals no longer respond only to the danger, which they may no longer see, but also to the behavior of their closest companions. Responses rapidly coordinate into collective behaviors—and they are quite compelling and intelligent.”
“Isn't it just a survival mechanism?” an attendee asked.
“It is often a most effective survival mechanism.” Jankowiak smiled. “Fish swarm against immediate threats and bees swarm as a preventative measure but collective strategies”—he lifted a finger to emphasize his point—“are not limited to ensuring group survival alone. Sometimes they're designed to assist the individual member. For example, birds flock to conserve energy during migration and to protect themselves during storms.”
“Aren't these all higher species, Dr. Jankowiak?”
“Only the examples I've mentioned so far. Collective behavior is far more prevalent, and perhaps more necessary, among the lower creatures—especially those that lack what we might refer to as rational thinking processes.”
He looked at the audience, enjoying the tension of their disbelief.
“The pelagic Giant Siphonophore, Praya Dubya, grows to a hundred and fifty feet in length. It is one of the longest creatures on Earth. Surprisingly, it lacks a centralized brain and it is not a single organism. Instead, the Siphonophore is a colony of specialized individuals, each a separate living unit with one of several functions”—he scanned the crowd for comprehension—“to feed, to move, to reproduce or to control movement. That specialization is contributed to its adjacent members which in turn, is shared with the colony. The Siphonophore is a marvel of collective contribution.”
Confusion thawed as the intuitive comparison began to resolve.
“The analogy is here: Each segment communicates its bits to the others although it is incapable of seeing 'the whole pict
ure' and 'solving the problem alone.' From individual contributions there integrates a collective behavior which further results as a remarkable successful organism. Praya Dubya is an elegant and beautiful expression of stochastic design.”
“Is there a model for political behavior?” The question came out of left field but it was not unanticipated.
“Sure,” Jankowiak answered and the audience murmured, “it's in the exercise of voting, not the collectivism of Marxism. In the democratic process no single person has all the information, no single entity controls the group. Individual perspectives are contributed and the result of an election is a demonstration of human collective thinking.”
“But that often goes awry,” someone complained and apprehension rustled the room.
“That's the political discussion,” Jankowiak deftly deferred.
The audience laughed and the tension was defused.
“In construct, multi-threaded computational hardware is analogous.” Jankowiak restarted. “Just as the siphonophore is a functionally specialized invertebrate, with repeating units connected by neural pathways, a supercomputer has thousands of CPUs, each with a single task, connected by information pathways.”
Jankowiak assessed the audience's engagement. Some had leaned forward—a connection had forged.
“Even here, the siphonophore outclasses a supercomputer. Our supercomputer cannot truly multitask whereas the siphonophore can simultaneously receive and process information at each center.” He smiled deprecatingly. “The best we can do is make believe.”
“Parallel operations are brief. A central algorithm first parses input instructions into serial sets and then receives, also
