Gabriel Licina

Gabriel Licina

Feb 20, 2014

Group 6 Copy 335
2

It's finally time!

After months of roadblocks and waiting, the Soylent has finally arrived! We now have ~500lbs of base nutrient material being prepped into packages to be sent to the test subjects. As you remember, we have decided to use Soylent as our science chow due to the ability to order custom blends which completely remove a specific vitamin (in our case, the A1). The various materials are currently being tested for A1 by a second party and then will packaged and sent out.

Everyone relaxed for a while, and shipping ~85 lbs of materials around the country is no joke, so we are taking two weeks to make sure that all the materials are delivered and that everyone has regained their low body fat so that we can get the best data possible.

After that, we being the vitamin A1 deficient diet. Expect more updates as we approach March, including base line ERG readings and body composition data.

Again, thank you to everyone for their support and thank you for sticking with us while these hold-ups were being ironed out. We can't express how very excited we are to get moving with this project :)

2 comments

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  • Unobtainium
    Unobtainium
    Can't wait, I wonder what's next if the results turns out as hoped for!
    Feb 27, 2014
  • Hello World
    Hello World
    Great news!
    Feb 20, 2014

About This Project

We have developed a protocol to augment human sight to see into the near infrared range through human formation of porphyropsin, the protein complex which grants infrared vision to freshwater fish.

Retinal, or Vitamin A (A1), which is found bound to opsin proteins is a keystone of the visual pathway. The cone cells are granted sharp color vision by the complex photopsin. The rod cells which provide us with night vision and recognition of movement do so utilizing rhodopsin. Both of the complexes consist of a type of protein bound to retinal. Porphyropsin differs from this in that it doesn't use retinal, but rather a derivation called 3,4-dehydroretinol, or Vitamin A2 (A2).

The human body is fully capable of metabolizing and using A2; unfortunately the proteins which allow for transport through cell membranes have nearly 4 times the affinity for A1 compared to A2. We theorize that this can be overcome through a stringent Vitamin A1 restricted diet, supplemented with Vitamin A2.

Blast off!

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