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Ray Kurzweil — The Singularity IS NEAR — part 2! We’ll Reach IMMORTALITY by 2030
Get ready for an exciting journey into the future with Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity IS NEAR — Part 2! Join us as we explore the awe-inspiring possibilities of what could be achieved before 2030, including the potential for humans to reach immortality. We’ll dive into the incredible technology that could help us reach this singularity and uncover what the implications of achieving immortality could be. Don’t miss out on this fascinating insight into the future of mankind!
In his book “The Singularity Is Near”, futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil argues that we are rapidly approaching a point in time known as the singularity. This refers to the moment when artificial intelligence and other technologies will become so advanced that they surpass human intelligence and change the course of human evolution forever.

Kurzweil predicts that by 2030, we will reach a crucial milestone in our technological progress: immortality. He bases this prediction on his observation of exponential growth in various fields such as genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics, which he believes will culminate in the creation of what he calls “nanobots”.

These tiny robots, according to Kurzweil, will be capable of repairing and enhancing our bodies at the cellular level, effectively making us immune to disease, aging, and death. Additionally, he believes that advances in brain-computer interfaces will allow us to upload our consciousness into digital form, effectively achieving immortality.

Kurzweil’s ideas have been met with both excitement and skepticism. Some people see the singularity as a moment of great potential, a time when we can overcome our biological limitations and create a better future for humanity. Others fear the singularity, believing that it could lead to the end of humanity as we know it.

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In the latest advance in nano-and micro-architected materials, engineers at Caltech have developed a new material made from numerous interconnected microscale knots.

The make the material far tougher than identically structured but unknotted materials: they absorb more energy and are able to deform more while still being able to return to their original shape undamaged. These new knotted materials may find applications in biomedicine as well as in aerospace applications due to their durability, possible biocompatibility, and extreme deformability.

“The capability to overcome the general trade-off between material deformability and tensile toughness [the ability to be stretched without breaking] offers new ways to design devices that are extremely flexible, durable, and can operate in ,” says former Caltech graduate student Widianto P. Moestopo, now at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Moestopo is the lead author of a paper on the nanoscale knots that was published on March 8 in Science Advances.

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Retro Biosciences’ mysterious backer has finally been revealed!

In 2021 the longevity industry received one of its largest investments to date, with a $180m investment being made into the pharmaceutical start known as Retro Biosciences, or Retro Bio for short. Not only was this investment cause for celebration within the field of regenerative medicine, but it also came with a tantalising mystery, as the backer, or indeed backer, did not make themselves publicly known. It was assumed that due to the secrecy involved, it was likely that this investment had come from a small number of individuals, potentially just a single backer. This mystery backer, combined with the notable capital investment, led to much media attention at the time, and has since garnered a significant amount of interest in Retro Bio from both the general public and future potential financial backers. That was until last week, when the mystery backer finally decided that now was the right time to reveal their identity to the general public.

In an interview with MIT Technology review, American entrepreneur Sam Altman revealed that he was the sole backer for the pharmaceutical start-up, who single handily provided the entire $180m investment. Sam Altman, who primarily made his fortune in the tech industry (specifically through social media companies such as Loopt) has become somewhat of an angel investor for a slew of world changing, innovative companies which are involved in everything from artificial intelligence to nuclear energy. It is hoped that this significant single investment marks the beginning of a longevity tech boom, similar to what was seen during the dot-com boom (but hopefully without the disastrous ending).

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The thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck. It’s responsible for the hormones that control your heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and metabolism.

When thyroid cells grow abnormally, they can cause thyroid cancer. But because symptoms are vague and may mimic other less-serious conditions, it’s possible you could have thyroid cancer for months or even years without knowing it.

Thyroid cancer surgeon Nancy Perrier, M.D., explains how thyroid cancer can go unnoticed – and what you can do to catch it early when it’s easiest to treat.

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The potential for supply constraints also concerns industry analysts. For example, McKinsey analysts have warned that limited AAV vector capacity could delay the commercialization of new gene therapies, particularly those intended for larger patient populations.

Last March, a McKinsey article stated, “The majority of early viral-vector-based therapeutics were developed within the context of rare diseases. [Only small] quantities of viral vectors were required, particularly as most therapies were still in the clinical stage of development. Now, with the shift beyond ultrarare indications, viral vector manufacturing requires rapid expansion to be able to address these diseases in the commercial space.”

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The sense of touch may soon be added to the virtual gaming experience, thanks to an ultrathin wireless patch that sticks to the palm of the hand. The patch simulates tactile sensations by delivering electronic stimuli to different parts of the hand in a way that is individualized to each person’s skin.

Developed by researchers at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) with collaborators and described in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence (“Encoding of tactile information in hand via skin-integrated wireless haptic interface”), the patch has implications beyond virtual gaming, as it could also be used for robotics surgery and in prosthetic sensing and control.

‘Haptic’ gloves, that simulate the sense of touch, already exist but are bulky and wired, hindering the immersive experience in virtual and augmented reality settings. To improve the experience, researchers led by CityU biomedical engineer Yu Xinge developed an advanced, wireless, haptic interface system called ‘WeTac’.

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A group led by Professor Ralf Rabus, a microbiologist at the University of Oldenburg, and his Ph.D. student Patrick Becker has made significant advancements in comprehending the cellular processes of a widespread environmental bacterium. The team conducted an extensive analysis of the entire metabolic network of the bacterial strain Aromatoleum aromaticum EbN1T and utilized the findings to construct a metabolic model that allows them to forecast the growth of these microbes in various environmental conditions.

According to their report in the journal mSystems, the researchers uncovered surprising mechanisms that enable the bacteria to adjust to fluctuating environmental conditions. These results are crucial for the study of ecosystems, where the Aromatoleum strain, as a representative of a significant group of environmental bacteria, can act as a model organism. The findings could also have implications for the cleanup of contaminated sites and biotechnological applications.

The studied bacterial strain specializes in the utilization of organic substances that are difficult to break down and is generally found in soil and in aquatic sediments. The microbes thrive in a variety of conditions including oxygen, low-oxygen, and oxygen-free layers, and are also extremely versatile in terms of nutrient intake. They metabolize more than 40 different organic compounds including highly stable, naturally occurring substances such as components of lignin, the main structural material found in wood, and long-lived pollutants and components of petroleum.

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