Google Baseline wants to map perfect human health

[Transcendence]

Google Maps have been one of the most formidable resources in the mobile experience that any user could ever have, so much so that Apple’s created its own maps program to lure users away from Google’s grasp.

When Google’s not mapping territories, it’s mapping life underwater, allowing users to explore the seas from their couch and television. Lately, though, Google’s been concerned with health. Google Glass, despite a cold welcome from certain bar establishments and apps that can block Glass when it’s on an establishment’s Wi-Fi network, has become something of a hit among American doctors and medical researchers who appreciate the hands-free experience it provides when they’re participating in a surgical procedure with a patient.

Earlier this summer, Google created Android Wear, its own wearables platform that now provides smartwatches that can record your heart rate. The company seems to have taken its cues from Samsung with building a heart rate monitor into Android Wear’s software experience.

Now, Google’s on to a different experiment altogether: to map the perfect human body. Google wants to examine biomarkers of excellent health and predict disease afar off – before it strikes. This is the mindset behind the new Google Baseline project that seeks to map human health. According to a Google press release, Google’s said that “We want to understand what it means to be healthy, down to the molecular and cellular level,†repeating the phrase “what it means to be healthy†a certain number of times.

This question is an interesting one on Google’s mind, but it begs the question: can anyone answer it? Is there a certain answer to what it means to be healthy? Even if there’re certain biomarkers of excellent health, does a 75-year-old appear as healthy as a 25-year-old on a cellular and molecular level? Could it be the case that certain genetic markers are broad and available to all, while some markers differ based on age? If so, then a 75-year-old woman may be perfectly healthy – though she doesn’t have the same molecular and cellular appearance under the microscope as her 25-year-old granddaughter, for example.

Not only is the question a complex one to solve, but assuming that molecular and cellular levels and genetic biomarkers can fully answer the question of the perfectly healthy human is a little naïve in and of itself. “Genes are about 15 to 40 percent, behavioral patterns 30 to 40, socioeconomic factors 20 to 30, etc. So even a wonderful genetic model isn’t a total picture of health,†said Institute of Health Care Improvement VP Kedar Mate.