Lifeboat Foundation

Transhumanists aim to do just that: to transcend the limits of the human body through the use of technology. Swiss photographer Matthieu Gafsou’s new book, H+ (Kehrer Verlag), documents Transhumanism through portraiture, still lifes and documentary photographs of Tranhumanist people, facilities, tools and technology. In photographing surgical procedures, laboratories, conferences and the like, Gafsou employed a hard flash to add a “clinical aspect” to his pictures. “This was important to me because I think [Transhumanism] is quite cold and [it] is about, not necessarily killing death but working on living longer,” he tells PDN. “But we are forgetting the body, we are forgetting the flesh, we are forgetting desire.”

In “H+,” Gafsou uses the visual language of science and technology to explore Transhumanism, the belief that the human body needs to be enhanced, perhaps even overcome.

For millennia, our planet has sustained a robust ecosystem; healing each deforestation, algae bloom, pollution or imbalance caused by natural events. Before the arrival of an industrialized, destructive and dominant global species, it could pretty much deal with anything short of a major meteor impact. In the big picture, even these cataclysmic events haven’t destroyed the environment—they just changed the course of evolution and rearranged the alpha animal.

But with industrialization, the race for personal wealth, nations fighting nations, and modern comforts, we have recognized that our planet is not invincible. This is why Lifeboat Foundation exists. We are all about recognizing the limits to growth and protecting our fragile environment.

Check out this April news article on the US president’s forthcoming appointment of Jim Bridenstine, a vocal climate denier, as head of NASA. NASA is one of the biggest agencies on earth. Despite a lack of training or experience—without literacy in science, technology or astrophysics—he was handed an enormous responsibility, a staff of 17,000 and a budget of $19 billion.

In 2013, Bridenstine criticized former president Obama for wasting taxpayer money on climate research, and claimed that global temperatures stopped rising 15 years ago.

Continue reading “NASA director reverses on climate change, after 1 month” »

Today we have a report from Open Longevity School: Summer Camp 2018, an initiative in Russia focused on developing a personal health and longevity strategy, Elena Milova went to investigate.

When we ask researchers when, in their opinion, the cures for aging will be ready, we often hear an optimistic answer: 20–25 years. As a well-informed optimist, I add another 10 years to this number, because wherever the therapies appear, it will take time for them to be distributed to other countries and become affordable. I will be happy if it takes less time, but what if it doesn’t? I am nearly 40, and when I add 35 years to my current age, I vividly imagine how my reflection in the mirror will show a 75-year-old lady. Honestly, I don’t want to see my body change, and it can explain why I aspire to get first-hand information about any means to slow down aging as soon as possible. Evidence-based information, of course.

Before I tell you my story of discovering how to control my aging, I must provide a disclaimer. This article does not contain any medical recommendations. The websites of the projects I will tell you about, once again, do not contain medical recommendations and cannot be independently used to make health decisions. The experience I will share, and the activities of the projects I will tell you about, are aimed at teaching you about the existing scientific knowledge about aging and interventions that have the potential to change the way we age. Whatever you decide to implement in your everyday life, please talk to your medical advisor first.

Continue reading “Open Longevity School: Summer Camp 2018” »

Dont really care about the competition, but this horse race means AI hitting the 100 IQ level at or before 2029 should probably happen.

The race to become the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) has officially begun. In the past fifteen months, Canada, Japan, Singapore, China, the UAE, Finland, Denmark, France, the UK, the EU Commission, South Korea, and India have all released strategies to promote the use and development of AI. No two strategies are alike, with each focusing on different aspects of AI policy: scientific research, talent development, skills and education, public and private sector adoption, ethics and inclusion, standards and regulations, and data and digital infrastructure.

This article summarizes the key policies and goals of each national strategy. It also highlights relevant policies and initiatives that the countries have announced since the release of their initial strategies.

Continue reading “An Overview of National AI Strategies” »

In terms of moral, social, and philosophical uprightness, isn’t it striking to have the technology to provide a free education to all the world’s people (i.e. the Internet and cheap computers) and not do it? Isn’t it classist and backward to have the ability to teach the world yet still deny millions of people that opportunity due to location and finances? Isn’t that immoral? Isn’t it patently unjust? Should it not be a universal human goal to enable everyone to learn whatever they want, as much as they want, whenever they want, entirely for free if our technology permits it? These questions become particularly deep if we consider teaching, learning, and education to be sacred enterprises.

When we as a global community confront the truly difficult question of considering what is really worth devoting our limited time and resources to in an era marked by global catastrophe, I always find my mind returning to what the Internet hasn’t really been used for yet — and what was rumored from its inception that it should ultimately provide — an utterly and entirely free education for all the world’s people.

In regard to such a concept, Bill Gates said in 2010:

Continue reading “A Free Education for All the World’s People Will Save our Species” »

Today, we have part one of a two-part interview with Dr. Michael Fossel, the driving force behind Telocyte, a new company focused on telomerase therapy for various diseases, and a strong advocate of telomerase therapy to treat human disease over the past three decades.

I interviewed Dr. Fossel as an individual thought leader in this field and not in his role representing Telocyte, so the opinions stated here are purely his own.

Born in 1950, Michael Fossel grew up in New York and lived in London, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Portland, and Denver. He graduated cum laude from Phillips Exeter Academy, received a joint B.A. and M.A. in psychology in four years from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and, after completing a Ph.D. in neurobiology at Stanford University in 1978, went on to finish his M.D. at Stanford Medical School in two and a half years. He was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship and taught at Stanford University, where he began studying aging with an emphasis on premature aging syndromes. Dr. Fossel was a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Michigan State University for almost three decades and taught the Biology of Aging at Grand Valley State University.

Good update on the science around popular mindfulness apps — “It is vital that we understand the potential benefits of engaging with such apps, and how these compare to programs that are taught in-person…”

Let me ask again…want to feel more Calm, get some Head­space, and prac­tice Mind­ful­ness Daily?

There are apps for that—hundreds of them, besides the three I just mentioned.

Continue reading “Want to feel more Calm, get some Headspace, and practice Mindfulness Daily?” »

The famous psychologist Timothy Leary once referred to himself as a “surfer,” envisioning a future where, “[t]o study biology, you can press a button and make yourself part of the human body. You can become a white blood cell and learn about the circulatory system by traveling through an artery. You can call up the Prado Museum in Madrid and study Goya’s paintings.”

When I think about the future, I envision mass technological disruptions across the entire landscape. Artificial intelligence (AI) being embedded into the very fabric of our architecture and institutions, 3D printing transforming our socio-economic system from scarcity to abundance, and virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) unleashing infinite potential in shaping our perceptions of reality.

Continue reading “How Virtual Reality Will Help Shape Our Psychedelic Future” »

An interview with Dr. Vadim Gladyshev, Harvard University.

We have recently had occasion to have a chat with Dr. Vadim Gladyshev, Professor of Medicine and Director of Redox Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in Boston, Massachusetts. He is an expert in aging and redox biology and is known for his characterization of the human selenoproteome. His research laboratory focuses on comparative genomics, selenoproteins, redox biology, and, naturally, aging and lifespan control.

Dr. Gladyshev graduated from Moscow State University, in Moscow, Russia; his postdoctoral studies in the 1990s took place at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the National Cancer Institute, in Bethesda, Maryland. Even when he was young, he was very much interested in chemistry and experimental science: he twice won the regional Olympiad in chemistry and graduated from high school with a gold medal. He also graduated with the highest honors from Moscow State University. This enviable track record is even more impressive considering that Dr. Gladyshev completed music school and high school at the same time and became a chess player equivalent to national master during his college years.

Continue reading “Dr. Vadim Gladyshev – Harvard University” »