Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2226

Scientists in Australia are looking at some pretty creative ways to tackle the Zika virus, which continues to pose a risk to millions across Africa, Asia and parts of the Americas. Following a trial last year where researchers were able to decimate disease-spreading mosquitos in the country’s north, scientists have now demonstrated an engineering technique that renders the biggest transmitter of the virus largely immune to it, raising hopes of a new way to control the spread of Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases.

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Today, we conclude our ongoing series discussing the Hallmarks of Aging [1] by looking at the hallmark of altered intercellular communication, the change in signals between cells that can lead to some of the diseases and disabilities of aging.

As an integrative hallmark, altered intercellular communication is caused by other hallmarks of aging. As a result, there is some hope that therapies targeting these other hallmarks will be able to treat this one.

There are a wide range of complex intercellular communications associated with aging, but we will focus on the ones discussed in the Hallmarks of Aging paper.

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An MIT-led research team has developed a drug capsule that could be used to deliver oral doses of insulin, potentially replacing the injections that people with type 2 diabetes have to give themselves every day.

About the size of a blueberry, the capsule contains a small needle made of compressed insulin, which is injected after the capsule reaches the stomach. In tests in animals, the researchers showed that they could deliver enough insulin to lower blood sugar to levels comparable to those produced by injections given through skin. They also demonstrated that the device can be adapted to deliver other protein drugs.

“We are really hopeful that this new type of capsule could someday help diabetic patients and perhaps anyone who requires therapies that can now only be given by injection or infusion,” says Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor, a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and one of the senior authors of the study.

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“If you’re under 40 reading this article, you’re probably not going to die unless you get a nasty disease.”

Those are the words of esteemed futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson, who told The Sun he believes humans are very close to achieving “immortality” – the ability to never die.

Humans have been trying to find a way to dodge death for years.

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How competing software, hardware and political ideology could accelerate existing divisions in humanity into the future

It’s been great to get people’s thoughts and feedback on the last article on “The iPhone 20”. Some of your responses considered that given Apple’s business model is effectively a walled garden, this makes any integration with the human body very unlikely in the future.

That’s why in this article, rather than focusing on Apple, I’ll look to explore some of the ways tech companies and organisations (including government bodies) will compete on software, hardware and protocols that will shape humanity’s journey to 2029, which may accelerate our existing divisions that stifle collaboration and splinters our future societies.

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