Lifeboat Foundation

When the first smartphones arrived, few people understood how they would change our reality. Today, our internet-connected mobile device maps our travel, manages our finances, delivers our dinner, and connects us to every corner of human knowledge. In less than a generation, it has become almost an extension of our central nervous system — so indispensable that we can’t imagine leaving home without it to guide us.

We are about to embark on another journey even more important to every individual and to human society. We are entering the age of genomics, an amazing future that will dramatically improve the health outcomes of people across the planet. Soon, we won’t be able to imagine a time when we left home without knowledge of our genome to guide us.

Continue reading “How we Benefit from Getting our Genomes Sequenced” »

But the very features of AI that have allowed it to be so successful in other arenas also make it dangerous when applied to the financial world. These threats mirror the problems that created the last financial crisis — when complex derivatives and poorly understood subprime mortgages sent the world into a deep depression — and must be taken seriously.

As AI gains a foothold on Wall Street it could fundamentally change the way our financial system works. It could also cause financial chaos.

Been saying this for years… https://www.wired.com/story/whats-blockchain-good-for-not-mu…zGrONWWHQ#

Not long ago, blockchain technology was touted as a way to track tuna, bypass banks, and preserve property records. Reality has proved a much tougher challenge.

Immortality has gone secular. Unhooked from the realm of gods and angels, it’s now the subject of serious investment – both intellectual and financial – by philosophers, scientists and the Silicon Valley set. Several hundred people have already chosen to be ‘cryopreserved’ in preference to simply dying, as they wait for science to catch up and give them a second shot at life. But if we treat death as a problem, what are the ethical implications of the highly speculative ‘solutions’ being mooted?

Of course, we don’t currently have the means of achieving human immortality, nor is it clear that we ever will. But two hypothetical options have so far attracted the most interest and attention: rejuvenation technology, and mind uploading.

Like a futuristic fountain of youth, rejuvenation promises to remove and reverse the damage of ageing at the cellular level. Gerontologists such as Aubrey de Grey argue that growing old is a disease that we can circumvent by having our cells replaced or repaired at regular intervals. Practically speaking, this might mean that every few years, you would visit a rejuvenation clinic. Doctors would not only remove infected, cancerous or otherwise unhealthy cells, but also induce healthy ones to regenerate more effectively and remove accumulated waste products. This deep makeover would ‘turn back the clock’ on your body, leaving you physiologically younger than your actual age. You would, however, remain just as vulnerable to death from acute trauma – that is, from injury and poisoning, whether accidental or not – as you were before.

Nearly half the U.S. population is projected to have one or more chronic conditions by 2030 and the need to better manage both care delivery and costs has never been greater.

At the same time, Baby Boomers are entering their “Golden Years” and seeking out preventative and lifestyle medicine to ensure that they live longer and with more personal freedom. And they want to do all of this while “aging in place” and not being relegated to the decrepit and outdated nursing homes of their own parents’ generation. After all, we live in a new era of instant song selection, streaming movies, and Amazon home delivery.

We face complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty about the future consequences of cryptocurrency use. There are doubts about the positive and negative impacts of the use of cryptocurrencies in the financial systems. In order to address better and deeper the contradictions and the consequences of the use of cryptocurrencies and also informing the key stakeholders about known and unknown emerging issues in new payment systems, we apply two helpful futures studies tools known as the “Future Wheel”, to identify the key factors, and “System Dynamics Conceptual Mapping”, to understand the relationships among such factors. Two key scenarios will be addressed. In on them, systemic feedback loops might be identified such as a) terrorism, the Achilles’ heel of the cryptocurrencies, b) hackers, the barrier against development, and c) information technology security professionals, a gap in the future job market. Also, in the other scenario, systemic feedback loops might be identified such as a) acceleration of technological entrepreneurship enabled by new payment systems, b) decentralization of financial ecosystem with some friction against it, c) blockchain and shift of banking business model, d) easy international payments triggering structural reforms, and e) the decline of the US and the end of dollar dominance in the global economy. In addition to the feedback loops, we can also identify chained links of consequences that impact productivity and economic growth on the one hand, and shift of energy sources and consumption on the other hand.

Watch the full length presentation at Victor V. Motti YouTube Channel

We’re continuing to release talks from Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019, our highly successful two-day conference that featured talks from leading researchers and investors, bringing them together to discuss the future of aging and rejuvenation biotechnology.

James Peyer of Kronos BioVentures gave a talk about the investment aspects of rejuvenation biotechnology, first explaining the effects of the population pyramid, showing the audience why cures for age-related diseases are such a necessity, and comparing population projections. He explained the startup ecosystem in biotechnology, drug approval, and IPO prices for nascent biotechnology companies. Finally, he explained the financial issues facing startup biotechnology companies and his company’s role in helping these companies achieve their goals.

Scientists have managed to send a record-breaking amount of data in quantum form, using a strange unit of quantum information called a qutrit.

The news: Quantum tech promises to allow data to be sent securely over long distances. Scientists have already shown it’s possible to transmit information both on land and via satellites using quantum bits, or qubits. Now physicists at the University of Science and Technology of China and the University of Vienna in Austria have found a way to ship even more data using something called quantum trits, or qutrits.

Qutrits? Oh, come on, you’ve just made that up: Nope, they’re real. Conventional bits used to encode everything from financial records to YouTube videos are streams of electrical or photonic pulses than can represent either a 1 or a 0. Qubits, which are typically electrons or photons, can carry more information because they can be polarized in two directions at once, so they can represent both a 1 and a 0 at the same time. Qutrits, which can be polarized in three different dimensions simultaneously, can carry even more information. In theory, this can then be transmitted using quantum teleportation.

Hackers equipped with black market software are targeting cash machines with dated software and substandard security and walking away with millions over the course of a series of attacks, according to a collaborative investigation by Motherboard and German newsroom Bayerischer Rundfunk. Though law enforcement agencies are tightlipped about the trend, it’s a sign that banks may be surprisingly vulnerable to cybercrime.

Other sources, granted anonymity by Motherboard, described the same trend: “There are attacks happening, but a lot of the time it’s not publicized,” said one.

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Continue reading “This Malware Makes ATMs Spit Out All Their Money” »