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Archive for the ‘life extension’ category: Page 461

Jul 10, 2018

Magnetic Microrobots Deliver Cells Into Living Animals

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, robotics/AI

Researchers used magnetically driven microrobots to carry cells to predetermined spots within living zebrafish and mice, they report in Science Robotics today (June 27). The authors propose using these hair-width gadgets as delivery vehicles in regenerative medicine and cell therapy.

The scientists used a computer model to work out the ideal dimensions for a microrobot; spiky, porous, spherical ones were deemed best for transporting living cells. They printed the devices using a 3D laser printer and coated the bots with nickel and titanium to make them magnetic and biocompatible, respectively. An external magnetic field applied to the animal then leads the microrobots.

To begin with, the research team tested the ability for the robots to transport cells through cell cultures, blood vessel–like microfluidic chips, and in vivo in zebrafish. Further, they used these microrobots to induce cancer at a specific location within mice by ferrying tumor cells to the spot. The team observed fluorescence at the target site as the labeled cancer cells proliferated.

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Jul 9, 2018

Memo to those seeking to live for ever: eternal life would be deathly dull

Posted by in categories: life extension, transhumanism

Take this seriously and you can see how the idea of living for ever is incoherent. If your body could be kept going for a thousand years, in what sense would the you that exists now still be around then? It would be more like a descendant than it would a continuation of you. I sometimes find it hard to identify with my teenage self, and that was less than 40 years ago. If I change, I eventually become someone else. If I don’t, life becomes stagnant and loses its direction.


It’s great that more of us are living to 100, but the transhumanist dream of immortality would betray what it means to be human says philosopher Julian Baggini.

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Jul 8, 2018

Click here to support 2018 Drive to Stay Alive organized

Posted by in category: life extension

Outreach for our communities.


We are raising advertising dollars to drive up awareness of the people, projects, and organizations working directly and indirectly toward the goal of indefinite life extension. Buckle in with us on this Movement for Indefinite Life Extension — 2018 drive to stay alive.

Facebook.com/movementforindefinitelifeextension

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Jul 8, 2018

New drug shows promise for preventing and even reversing damage from age-related dementia and stroke

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is one of the most commonly associated causes of age-related dementia and stroke. New research, led by the University of Edinburgh, may have finally uncovered the mechanism by which SVD causes brain cell damage, as well as a potential treatment to prevent the damage, and possibly even reverse it.

SVD is thought to be responsible for up to 45 percent of dementia cases, and the vast majority of senior citizens are suspected of displaying some sign of the condition. One study strikingly found up to 95 percent of subjects between the ages of 60 and 90 displayed some sign of SVD when examined through MRI scans.

The new research set out to examine early pathological features of SVD and found that dysfunction in endothelial cells are some of the first signs of the disease’s degenerative progression. These are cells that line small blood vessels in the brain and, in early stages of SVD, they secrete a protein that impairs production of myelin, a compound essential for the protection of brain cells.

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Jul 7, 2018

How hardy volcanic microbes helped track down an anti-aging “superhero” protein

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

A team of scientists, looking to figure out how hardy little creatures known as archaea thrive in boiling, volcanic pools of sulfuric acid like they were hot tubs, may have uncovered the key to an anti-aging drug. By manipulating a so-called “super hero” protein common to both archaea and humans, the researchers found a way to “trick” cells into acting younger by keeping the DNA repairing process running much longer than usual.

In previous studies, the researchers examined how archaea have managed to survive in such harsh conditions for billions of years. Eventually they determined that a protein called ssB1 was responsible by helping the organisms repair damage to their DNA. The team says the real eureka moment came when they discovered that we humans have our own versions of this protein, hSSB1.

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Jul 7, 2018

What if AI made actors immortal?

Posted by in categories: climatology, life extension, policy, robotics/AI

I’m not that interested in this on the movie end, because i think most movies already suck, and couldnt really get any worse.


AUDREY HEPBURN DIED in 1993, but in 2013 she nevertheless starred in an advertisement for Galaxy, a type of chocolate bar. She was shown riding a bus along the Amalfi coast before catching the eye of a passing hunk in a convertible. In 2016 Peter Cushing, who died in 1994, reprised his role as the villainous Grand Moff Tarkin in the Star Wars film “Rogue One”. Such resurrections are not new, but they are still uncommon enough to count as news. Yet advances in special effects—and, increasingly, in artificial intelligence (AI)—are making it ever easier to manufacture convincing forgeries of human beings.

In recent months this has led to concern that propagandists will use the technology to generate videos in which political figures appear to say compromising things. A video created by BuzzFeed, a news website, in April shows Barack Obama apparently saying “We’re entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time,” for example. In May a Belgian political party produced a fake video of Donald Trump saying implausible things about Belgium’s climate policy. In both cases the video looks slightly off, and the voice is provided by an impersonator. But the technology is improving fast, prompting a dozen AI researchers to place bets on whether a fake video will disrupt America’s midterm elections later this year. (Tim Hwang, a Harvard academic, is overseeing the wager.)

Continue reading “What if AI made actors immortal?” »

Jul 7, 2018

Bioquark Inc. — Funky Thinkers Podcast — Ira Pastor

Posted by in categories: aging, bioengineering, biological, biotech/medical, DNA, futurism, genetics, health, life extension, transhumanism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nufc8vTsbBY

Jul 6, 2018

Chandan Sen presenting at Undoing Aging 2018

Posted by in category: life extension

New video from Undoing Aging 2018: Chandan Sen, The Ohio State University, presenting his work on Tissue Nanotransfection: Reprogramming the Tissue Microenvironment in vivo.

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Jul 6, 2018

Longevity Film Competition

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

ANNOUNCING THE LONGEVITY FILM COMPETITION

Please join in the crusade of eliminating age-related disease by making a video, and not only potentially help save lots of lives, but also win the first prize of $10,000! Second prize is a trip to meet Dr. Aubrey de Grey! This international (short) film competition is presented by the SENS Research Foundation, the International Longevity Alliance and Heales. The winning film will be chosen by our remarkable jury. For more information on how to compete and to sign up please visit www.longevityfilmcompetition.com

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Jul 6, 2018

Menu: Whether or not you had a good life doesn’t make it any better if you die, of aging or other causes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

You’re probably familiar with the feeling of slight disappointment that you may have when a good thing—say, a nice trip—is over. Just as you say that it’s too bad that the experience is already finished, someone will probably say that you had a good time nonetheless; an innocent, fitting expression to cheer you up a little bit. This phrase can be harmlessly used in a variety of circumstances, but there’s one in which it really doesn’t fit at all, yet people keep using it: when somebody dies of aging.

Not quite the same thing

In the summer of 2011, my 99-year-old grandmother was dying. She was relatively fine one day, and then on the next day, for no apparent reason, she was in bed, barely conscious. Throughout the subsequent month, she never got out of bed; all her physical necessities were being taken care of by my aunt, who was assisting her day and night. She was drip-fed for the entire month until her death. The doctors couldn’t really do anything for her, and my aunt, stressed to her limit, was torn between the sight of the non-life her mother was going through and the thought that suspending the drip feed would possibly have been the more humane choice. The drip was never suspended, and eventually, my grandmother died.

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