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A nice new write-up on my governor run: https://humanityplus.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/this-transhuma…alifornia/ #transhumanism


It’s a good time to be a transhumanist politician. As faith in the political establishment declines, new technologies, from gene editing to artificial intelligence, are transforming our lives faster than ever. The transhumanist author and politician Zoltan Istvan agrees. He thinks the time is ripe for pro-science and technology governance, and for leaders who will embrace the technologies that could fundamentally transform our conceptions of what it means to be human.

Istvan is a maverick who appears to thrive in an ‘outsider’ role. He self-published a sci-fi novel, The Transhumanist Wager, in 2013, which became a surprise bestseller on Amazon. In 2016, he made an unlikely run for US president as the leader of the Transhumanist Party. Now, he’s making a bid for Governor of California in the 2018 election under a Libertarian Party ticket.

As a libertarian, Istvan believes in promoting “maximum freedom and personal accountability,” a sentiment that gels well with his championing of human enhancement technologies and robot and cyborg rights.

Fort Lauderdale, FL — Life Extension has partnered with Insilico Medicine to introduce Ageless Cell, the first supplement in its GEROPROTECT line to promote healthy aging by inhibiting cellular senescence.

Cellular senescence is a natural part of the aging process where cells no longer function optimally, affecting organ function, cellular metabolism, and inflammatory response. The accumulation of these senescent cells contributes to the process of aging. The Ageless Cell supplements inhibit the effects of cellular senescence by acting as geroprotectors, or interventions aimed to increase longevity and impede the onset of age-related diseases by targeting and inhibiting senescence-inducing pathways and inhibiting the development of senescent cells.

The partnership with Insilico Medicine allowed researchers to use deep learning algorithms to comb through hundreds of studies and thousands of data points — a process that could have taken decades — to identify four key anti-aging nutrients: N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC), myricetin, gamma-tocotrienol, and EGCG. These compounds target pathways that are known to contribute to or protect against the development of senescent cells.

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Over 2 million for one human treatment. Late 2017 trial on thumb sized primates.


This is perhaps the most significant medical breakthrough in human history. Dr. Bill Andrews explains the primate trial starting late 2017 and the first human treatments that are planned to fully lengthen human telomeres. While the treatment is expensive, the money will go towards finding a less expensive option so more people can afford the treatments. This is a segment cut from the full episode recorded March 22nd, 2017.

Hear the full episode on my YouTube channel or at www.sarahwestall.com

Elena Milova continues her coverage of the recent conference on aging in St-Peterberg.

During my recent journey to Saint-Petersburg to attend the in situ education program of the International Institute on Ageing of the United Nations, Malta (INIA), I asked one of the main speakers, former Head of the UN Programs on Ageing Dr. Alexandre Sidorenko, to find a few minutes to talk about his work.

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2017 begins on Monday in Vancouver, Canada, and will explore the theme “The Future You.” If the future you is anything like the future us, you are likely curled up in a big cushy chair right now, devouring the contents of a book that flips your thinking. Below, some reading suggestions from the speaker program. Read, enjoy and stay tuned to the TED Blog for beat-by-beat coverage of the conference.


TED2017 begins on Monday in Vancouver, Canada, and will explore the theme “The Future You.” If the future you is anything like the future us, you are likely curled up in a big cushy chair right now, devouring the contents of a book that flips your thinking. Below, some reading suggestions from the speaker program. Read, enjoy and stay tuned to the TED Blog for beat-by-beat coverage of the conference.

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil. The decisions that affect our lives are no longer made by humans — they’re made by algorithms. This might sound like a great way around bias and discrimination, but these things are often built right into our mathematical models. When it comes to college admissions, decisions on parole, applications to jobs and the affects of a bad credit score, O’Neil explores the unintended consequences of algorithms. (Read an excerpt.)

The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer by Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel. Molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that — like shoelace tips — keep our genetic information from fraying. Both telomeres and telomerase, an enzyme that restores worn-down telomeres, appear central to the aging process. This book looks at the research — then turns its attention to how our thoughts, bodies and social worlds affect us on the cellular level.

Some people fear rejuvenation therapies would be only for the privileged, and yet some others think they would be imposed on everyone. This article discusses the latter case.


Somebody once told me they fear that, if we created rejuvenation therapies, they might be forced on people who don’t want them, and in a way, we’d end up forcing people to live ‘forever’. Is this a good reason not to develop rejuvenation? No, of course not. I mean, imagine if we never came up with blood transfusions for fear that Jehovah’s witnesses might be forced to undergo them!

Besides, if rejuvenation therapies shouldn’t be invented because someone is afraid they’d be forced on people who want to grow old and die, let me ask: How about the people who do not want to grow old and die and yet would be forced to, because somebody else didn’t want rejuvenation therapies to be created? Dying despite the existence of rejuvenation therapies is certainly more easily attained than not dying despite the lack of rejuvenation therapies.

Rejuvenation is a set of medical interventions, and as such, a patient has the right to refuse all of them, if they want to. Indeed, the right to refuse or halt medical intervention already exists (see this WHO paper of 1994, page 11, article 3.2, which states this right for European Citizens, for example), so, if one really doesn’t want to undergo rejuvenation treatments, that is in their right already.

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Quercetin may be able to influence apoE and could be a potential therapeutic for Alzheimer’s disease.


The Apolipoprotein E connection

The most common type of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease and as the average life expectancy has risen in recent decades so has the occurrence of this and other neurodegenerative diseases. Aging is the primary risk factor for Alzheimer’s and researchers are searching for new ways to combat this devastating disease.

The pathology of Alzheimer’s is characterized by the formation of tau-tangles and the accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) which damage neurons and gradually destroy sections of the brain leading to death. The debate over which is primary, tau or amyloid is ongoing and it remains unclear which is the most important of the two, or if both are a consequence of another underlying process.

For two decades, the architect Stephen Valentine has been designing, planning and developing — though not yet building — a structure quite unlike anything built before. He calls the building Timeship and describes it as a repository for the technologies and people working to stretch the boundaries of being human, a Silicon Valley for life-extension research.


It’s the first take on an architecture of immortality, but is cryogenics hub Timeship a grand delusion or looming reality?

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